Grealy understood the power of celebrity on an intimate, almost cellular level. Just as she refused to dismiss the desire for beauty, she refused to scoff at a desire for fame; she saw why it might seem to offer access to the sublime. This moment of reverie in her essay is soon undercut by an encounter with a stalker. The tantalizing prospect of being seen is never without peril, and even as she testifies firsthand to its allure Grealy is clear-eyed about its risks. Her work explored the gap between a private self and a public appearance—a gap that, in her case, was dramatic, and represented by the mediating fact of her face. But in the time since “Autobiography of a Face” was published, technology (phone cameras, the social Internet) has made it easier for anyone to hone self-consciousness into a torture device. The rigor and empathy Grealy brings to her subject would have made her an uncommon critic today.
Despite writing a novel about ghosts, I do not profess to be a ghost expert. But I do know that every April, my family gathers at multiple cemeteries across New York and New Jersey to pay their respects to our grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunties that have passed. We burn gold-flecked paper and “hell notes” (afterlife currency) to line the pockets of our dearly departed. We talk to the gravestones while pouring tea and rice wine along the grass, and our ancestors drink from the earth.
To call these ancestral spirits “ghosts” is weirdly diminishing, but it is the Western catch-all definition for all non-corporeal matter who visit us in the living plane. Which is to say that whatever understanding of ghostly life or unlife we know will always be an inexact translation. Which is to also say that somewhere within that imprecision, the afterlife is closer to us than we think.
It’s weird to think of our consuming oysters as a means to father-son bonding. The more I reflect, especially since becoming a father and moving away from Charleston in 2007, the more I appreciate those moments. The divinity, the magic, the coincidences, they all connect over a bushel of oysters in November and December. The tradition continues, as my son has been brought into the fold. Even still, my dad holds his position firm as the head of the family and I often find myself changing my own disposition, reverting to my younger self. It’s a godlike process reminding me to stay humble.
A village "on the western edge of a wet nowhere" populated by men who drink too much and women who smile too little. Throw in cows, an addled priest, an abandoned baby and a thick cloud cover of shame and you have the elements for a quintessential Irish story.
So quintessential, in fact, I've held off reading Niall Williams for a long time, despite hearing raves about his work. My skepticism, it turns out, was misplaced. I've just emerged from a Niall Williams binge with a belated appreciation for his writing, which invests specificity and life in characters and places easily reduced to clichés.
Think of The Position of Spoons, by two-time Man Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy, as a crash course in the best female authors and artists of the past century. Featuring themes of gender, consumerism, mortality and language, this collection of short stories, letters, poems and essays creates a captivating portrait, and provides deep insights into the life and mind of one of the most admired writers in the UK today.