The Man Booker Prize 2016 Artsnight


The Man Booker Prize 2016

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The Guildhall, Central London.

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For one night every year, this chamber is packed with

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the great and the good of the literary world.

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And they come here for the announcement of an award.

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And the winner of the Man Booker Prize For Fiction...

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Is Marlon James.

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Julian Barnes.

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Hilary Mantel.

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In just a few days' time, we will know who has won

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the 2016 Man Booker Prize when it is announced here on this very stage.

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The big names haven't really made the cut this year.

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Instead, it's a kind of a genre-bending, intriguing mix of

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thrillers, short stories, historical novels,

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true crime and even a bit of comedy.

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In this episode of Artsnight,

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six novels and six authors will be brought to you by six

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reviewers introducing their pick of the shortlist.

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Sara Pascoe will be unwrapping a sick and twisted Christmas thriller.

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George the Poet interrogates race in modern America.

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I'll be pondering nine stories of modern masculinity.

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Mariella Frostrup analyses a toxic mother-daughter relationship.

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Pianist Steven Osborne examines Chinese history filtered

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through the music of Bach.

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And Val McDermid will be investigating a triple

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murder in the Scottish Highlands.

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It may be the most wide-open race for years and frankly,

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I wouldn't like to place a bet but hopefully, by the end of this

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half hour, you'll have made your own mind up.

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Welcome to the 2016 Man Booker Prize shortlist.

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Our first novel is the only debut to make the cut.

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A deliciously warped festive thriller,

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Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh.

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We searched long and hard to find someone sick enough to root

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for this novel.

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Step forward comedian Sara Pascoe.

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It was the week of Christmas 1964.

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The Christmas tree was twinkling.

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The presents were wrapped and ready.

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Happiness and joy were all around.

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That is, of course, unless you're Eileen Dunlop.

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She's the central character in Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel.

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And, Eileen, herself, will tell you that she's not the most

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pleasant person.

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She shoplifts, she's morbid, she's sexually obsessed,

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she takes loads of laxatives and she touches herself a lot

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and smells her hands afterwards.

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I like her.

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She lives in a place in New England,

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a suburban town she refers to as X-Ville, and she doesn't like

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a lot about her life but everything is about to change.

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The snow is falling. The sense of doom is decidedly unfestive.

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As Eileen herself tells us, "I liked books about awful things.

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"Murder, illness, death."

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Eileen is creepy, perverse and unsettling.

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It's a psychological page-turner ramping up to the sickest

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Christmas Eve party in literary history.

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Merry Christmas.

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I think it's about time we meet

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the warped mind responsible, Ottessa Moshfegh.

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Hello. We have created an Eileen Christmas here.

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Yeah, I was wondering why you had the Christmas tree behind you

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in October.

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So there is a huge market at the moment for

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psychological thrillers, unreliable narrators

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and especially, kind of, antihero female characters.

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But your novel seems to also turn that genre on its head

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and take it to a new place.

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Was that intentional?

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I don't think I could have written a straight genre novel.

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-I wouldn't have had that in me.

-Yeah.

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-It would never be convincing.

-Yeah.

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My intention was to tell this weird story, unveiling

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a couple of things that don't usually get unveiled in commercial

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fiction and I used the psychological thriller noir style

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because I thought that that would attract the readers,

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and I like that world, I like operating in that world.

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I hated almost everything.

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I was very unhappy and angry all the time.

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I tried to control myself and that only made me more awkward,

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unhappier and angrier.

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There's no better way to say it.

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I was not myself back then.

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I was someone else. I was Eileen.

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Some people have described the character of Eileen as kind of

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very crude or repulsive which I didn't personally find.

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To me, she just seemed like a woman. But what do you think about that?

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Eileen, as a character, is certainly not unusual in everyday life.

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Maybe she's unusual in literature.

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We don't get to see a self-loathing female character as intimately

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as we do Eileen in many places.

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With the laxatives, my movements were torrential. Oceanic.

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As though all of my insides had melted and were now gushing out,

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a sludge that stank distinctly of chemicals.

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In those cases, I stood up to flush, dizzy and sweaty and cold.

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Then laid down as the world seemed to revolve around me.

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Those were good times.

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Was it always set at Christmas?

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Was there something about Christmas that really attracted you?

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Well, Christmas is sort of the epitome of family trauma

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-dressed up as idyllic, cosy fun time.

-OK.

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And Eileen is so much a story of how...what things look like on

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-the outside can betray what they are on the inside.

-Yeah.

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That was the kind of mysterious landscape I wanted for the book.

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Thank you. Fantastic.

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Congratulations on being on the shortlist. Happy Christmas.

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The next novel on the shortlist is a meditation

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on music's universal power.

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Madeleine Thien's Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

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An epic story of 20th century China and how music allowed

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generations of two families to find their voice.

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And it resonated deeply with acclaimed pianist Steven Osborne.

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Why do we make music?

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What can music communicate that words cannot?

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Madeleine Thien's compelling novel takes these questions

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and threads through the brutal history of modern China.

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This is a big novel with big themes and ideas.

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It's a gripping saga which tells the story of two parallel

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families across three generations.

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The novel follows these families through the huge

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historical events of the Great Leap Forward,

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Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square protests.

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And running through their intertwined stories,

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we hear the repeated refrain of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

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Why did you choose music as a way into this topic?

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One of the things I wanted to dwell on were the limitations

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of language, where things suddenly became inexpressible in language

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and music seemed the perfect art form to express those ideas.

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In the Bach Goldberg Variations, why this piece particularly?

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It spoke to me.

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The narrator in the novel, Marie, talks about a word in

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Chinese that brings together joy and sorrow simultaneously and I

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felt that often with the Goldberg Variations.

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It's... At once feels so extraordinarily simple some of it

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but it never loses this complexity of feeling.

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Bach's Goldberg Variation number 21 gave way to a joyous,

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bold and imperious number 22.

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Kai played as if he were juggling a dozen silver knives and all

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the edges flickered and shone.

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"Kai," she thought, "you are as lost as I am.

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"You have no idea where this beauty comes from and you know better

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"than to think that such clarity could come from your own heart."

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You're taking in a very broad sweep of China's history.

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Why did you want to write such a, you could say, such an epic?

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When I first started writing, I thought I was writing about

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something I remembered very vividly as a teenager

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which are the six weeks of protest in 1989 in Tiananmen Square.

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I just remember watching and just kind of being amazed at the courage.

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All these Beijing citizens of every age, from high school students

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to the elderly, came into the streets to stop the tanks and I

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began thinking about the people who were 40, 50, 60 years old.

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And so the centre of gravity has shifted to 1966

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and the Cultural Revolution, and how, on the surface,

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there's some interesting echoes.

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Both generations quoted the revolutionary ideology.

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Everyone involved really wanted to make a better, stronger China.

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It's just that the means of doing it led to another China.

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I no longer wish to live with restraints, Teacher.

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I wish to cast off the ordinary.

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The professor has come to fear the Revolution. I do not.

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I wish the awakening of our times to awaken me as well.

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We shouldn't be afraid of our own voices.

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The time has come to speak what's really in our minds.

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How much would you say that it's a hopeful book?

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On the one hand, it mourns the cyclical nature of history.

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They keep returning to the same catastrophe of wanting

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the better world

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and undermining ourselves.

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On the other hand, the ideas never die.

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And I think that's where the hope is and I think that's where

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Sparrow's music finds its hope...

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Is it never lets go of the desire to create.

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Now we come to the third book nominated from rising literary

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star David Szalay.

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And it's about something I feel vaguely qualified to talk about.

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Being a man.

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Although it doesn't paint the prettiest picture of my gender.

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"We're born alone,

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"we live alone,

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"we die alone,"

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so goes the Orson Welles quote

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and it pretty much sums up David Szalay's All That Man Is.

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The book is a meditation on modern masculinity told through

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nine men who hop around Europe with such frequency that one wonders if

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it could be written in the future after we have crashed into our

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oncoming hard Brexit.

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I say "book" rather than "novel" because there's a controversial

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question hanging around this nominee which is, can these nine different

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stories of seemingly unrelated men actually be called a novel?

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It begins with a young backpacker in Berlin and with each chapter,

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we're introduced to progressively older men,

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ending with the retired civil servant in Italy.

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The connections are in the men who span the ages of man

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but not the emotions.

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They are all faithless, disappointed, yearning,

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lost, travelling and alone.

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That's not to say that these characters aren't drawn

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with affection and humour.

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But it's a pretty bleak prognosis for masculinity,

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and I'm intrigued to meet the author responsible.

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-Can we begin by talking about the form of this book?

-Yeah.

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Because I think it's a very interesting

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and possibly out-on-its-own form.

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Somewhere in between a short story connection and a novel.

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Is that something that you thought about,

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or is it something that just evolved as you were writing it?

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It was from the beginning conceived as a collection of stories,

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but a collection of stories that would form a single unit.

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I mean, I feel very strongly that the book isn't just

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a collection of stories, that it is a singular work.

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You are correct, it doesn't but it's... It is, I think,

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unusual to some extent, and this is a compliment.

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It seems to be the same story told again and again

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about the same man in different stages of his life.

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Would you agree with that?

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I would. In fact, I'm very happy to hear you say that

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because I really wanted there to be a sense that these,

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as you say, varied characters

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would create a sort of single composite protagonist.

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I mean, I hope it gives that some kind of universality.

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The kid smokes pot.

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That's not even a secret any more.

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His smokes it in his room at home.

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He still lives with his parents.

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He shows no sign of wanting to leave.

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His meals are made for him. His washing is done.

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And how old is he now?

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-21?

-22?

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Unmanly is the word.

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He once tried to have a talk with him.

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He sat him down in a bar with a beer and said,

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"You got to grow up."

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And the boy just stared at him and said,

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"What do you mean?"

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And in so many words Clovis said,

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"You're a loser, mate."

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Their internal kernel of manliness is very similar.

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-They're all travelling.

-Yeah.

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They're all hoping for something better in their travels and

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they're all, I would say, disappointed.

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I mean, sometimes they do achieve what they want to achieve.

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But then it turns out to be not quite what they actually want.

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That never leaves them entirely satisfied.

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There's always something else.

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I don't know you but there's a sense of which you get the sense of you

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throughout this book as this particular type of

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slightly depressive man.

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I hope you don't mind me saying.

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Well... I mean... Yeah.

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I'm not actually a depressive person,

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-and it's my books always come out a bit more depressive...

-Right.

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..than I feel that I really am.

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I mean, obviously, writing a book about

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the unattainability of satisfaction is going to have it's bleak aspects.

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He started lately, in the last year or two,

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to have the depressing feeling

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that he's able to see all the way to the end of his life.

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That he already knows everything that is going to happen.

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That it is all now entirely predictable.

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How many more opportunities after this one

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will there be to escape that?

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Not many.

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Maybe none.

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We live at a time where Europe has suddenly become this burning issue.

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Is that something that you wanted to write about,

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because of that, or is it just part of the book?

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I wanted to write about travel in Europe and the fluidity of

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Europe and people moving around Europe because that is

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happening on an unprecedented scale.

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Now, I finished the book a year before the Brexit referendum

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so since I've finished the book,

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there have been these major developments

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which suggest significant political pushback

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against freedom of movement within Europe.

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So the book may turn out to reflect a kind of high watermark of that.

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I hope it doesn't.

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Our next book is also set in mainland Europe

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but tells a very different story.

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Deborah Levy's second Man Booker nominated novel, Hot Milk,

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revolves around a mother and daughter

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visiting the jellyfish-infested waters of southern Spain.

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Mariella Frostrup took the plunge into Levy's world.

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Like the recurring image of the medusa jellyfish at the heart

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of Hot Milk, Levy's writing is a thing of beauty,

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but an undercurrent of menace also runs deep in the narrative

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and delivers an undoubted sting.

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Hot Milk centres around 25-year-old Sophia

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and her wheelchair-bound mother Rose.

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The two have decamped to Almeria in southern Spain

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to attend a clinic in the hope of finding a cure

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for Rose's mysterious and potentially psychosomatic illness.

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The surreal sensory atmosphere and air of imminent threat are haunting.

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Yet, in this sun scorched and economically disadvantaged seascape,

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Sophia seemed to start finding her feet.

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In this follow-up to Levy's previously

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Man Booker-nominated novel Swimming Home

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she returns to familiar themes of water and exile

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as well as psychology, feminism

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and a particularly complex mother-daughter relationship.

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Deborah, it's no surprise that we're here on the waterfront.

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What is it about that particular element

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that makes you feel so at home?

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-Well, I'd rather be in this water...

-I don't think so.

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..than sitting at the side.

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I feel happiest in water.

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I think it's the nearest I have to kind of meditating.

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Well, I can see it as a therapeutic element for you,

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but what about for your heroines and anti-heroines?

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Because here we have Sophia in Hot Milk

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who spends her time in the ocean

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despite the epidemic of medusa jellyfish.

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I wanted to have a female character who is 25,

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who feels lost in her life.

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She feels small, she doesn't know where she's heading.

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When she goes into the sea and she gets stung by the jellyfish,

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it's as if those stings are helping her become less passive.

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So they're a good thing.

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The water became clearer and cleaner the further I swum out.

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I am far away from shore but not lost enough.

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I must return home, but I have nowhere to go that is my own.

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No work, no money, no lover to welcome me back.

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When I flipped over, I saw them in the water.

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The medusas.

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Slow and calm, delicate and dangerous.

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The toxic relationship between Sophia and her mother Rose

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is really at the heart of this book.

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Why did you want to tackle the very thorny relationship

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between mothers and daughters?

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I wanted to initially look at hypochondria.

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How Rose uses her illness, her apparent illness

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to control and manipulate and to gather love and attention to her.

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Then Sophia has an interest in her mother's symptoms

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and, in a way, that's her downfall.

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"What's wrong with mum? What is her body trying to say?"

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My own investigation has been in progress

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for about 20 of my 25 years.

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Perhaps longer.

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When I was four, I asked her what a headache meant.

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She told me it was like a door slamming in her head.

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I have become a good mind-reader

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which means her head is my head.

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There are plenty of doors slamming all the time.

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And I and the main witness.

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It's a strange relationship, isn't it?

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-Because it is also extremely loving.

-Loving, yes, absolutely.

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So it's never one thing or the other.

0:20:040:20:06

My point, in Hot Milk, in this relationship,

0:20:060:20:10

is love is difficult and that's what makes it interesting

0:20:100:20:12

and that's why...that's always the best position to write from.

0:20:120:20:17

The next shortlisted novel comes from

0:20:280:20:30

African-American writer Paul Beatty.

0:20:300:20:32

This tale of modern slavery is a shockingly funny slice of satire.

0:20:320:20:37

Or so the cover tells us.

0:20:370:20:39

But long-time fan of the author, George the Poet,

0:20:400:20:43

wonders whether readers should laugh...or cry.

0:20:430:20:46

When I was 12, I read a book called The White Boy Shuffle.

0:20:490:20:52

I had no context other than the blurb.

0:20:520:20:55

The story followed a protagonist move into the ghetto

0:20:550:20:58

as a black kid coming from the 'burbs.

0:20:580:21:00

He reminded me of so many people I knew.

0:21:000:21:03

So much so I couldn't even tell them apart.

0:21:030:21:06

And I was intrigued.

0:21:060:21:07

How could I find so much of my life in American art?

0:21:070:21:11

The answer is the author's unflinching gaze,

0:21:130:21:15

I'm convinced the lynching days were just a phase.

0:21:150:21:19

Refusing to accept the illusion of progress,

0:21:190:21:21

searching for the truth no matter how confusing the process.

0:21:210:21:25

See, Britain, like America, often struggles with its difficult past.

0:21:270:21:33

Leaving millions of kids like me to deal

0:21:330:21:35

with each racist political charge.

0:21:350:21:38

Humour is Paul Beatty's weapon of choice.

0:21:400:21:42

It's his way of cutting through the deafening noise of race wars

0:21:420:21:45

and class wars and race wars disguised as class wars

0:21:450:21:49

establishing a definite voice.

0:21:490:21:51

The Sellout is a powerful novel.

0:21:530:21:55

It's story about a modern-day slave

0:21:550:21:57

has seen it hailed as a great work of satire.

0:21:570:21:59

But, to me, this account of contemporary black America

0:22:010:22:03

felt more literal

0:22:030:22:04

and I'm intrigued to find out what Beatty's intentions were.

0:22:040:22:08

I took this quite literally

0:22:080:22:10

but I found that a lot of commentary around your new book

0:22:100:22:13

is describing it as a satire.

0:22:130:22:15

-Yeah.

-Is this an accurate term?

0:22:150:22:18

One of the first readings I did for the book...

0:22:180:22:21

A friend of a friend came up and said,

0:22:210:22:22

"This isn't satire. This is reportage."

0:22:220:22:25

I don't think of it as satire.

0:22:250:22:26

I just think of it... It's just what I wrote, you know.

0:22:260:22:29

And somebody the other day asked me about...

0:22:290:22:31

if I thought the book was funny

0:22:310:22:33

and I was, like, "Yes, some days I do, some days I don't."

0:22:330:22:36

But I don't think that makes the book any less evocative, hopefully.

0:22:360:22:39

That's the bitch of it, to be on trial for my life

0:22:430:22:45

and for the first time ever not feel guilty.

0:22:450:22:48

That omnipresent guilt that's as black as fast food apple pie

0:22:480:22:52

and prison basketball has finally gone.

0:22:520:22:54

I'm no longer party to that collective guilt that keeps

0:22:540:22:57

the administrative secretary, the stock clerk,

0:22:570:23:00

the "not really all that attractive but she's black" beauty pageant

0:23:000:23:03

winner from showing up for work Monday morning

0:23:030:23:05

-and shooting every white

-BLEEP

-in the place.

0:23:050:23:08

What do you find real in the book? I'm just really curious.

0:23:090:23:12

You talk about not being allowed to experience blackness

0:23:120:23:17

outside of the prescribed norm.

0:23:170:23:20

That's something that really resonated with me.

0:23:200:23:22

It's interesting to hear you talk about what feels real to you

0:23:220:23:25

about the book.

0:23:250:23:26

You know, cos I think the perceptions in there are very real.

0:23:260:23:30

I mean, the book is a discussion about have things changed

0:23:300:23:33

or how haven't they changed.

0:23:330:23:34

I don't have an answer to that, you know.

0:23:340:23:36

And, I think, for him, he's, like,

0:23:360:23:40

"Yeah, shit's changed but shit's exactly the same..."

0:23:400:23:43

You know, "..for so many people."

0:23:430:23:45

-Hands up.

-CROWD:

-Don't shoot.

0:23:450:23:47

I don't feel responsible any more.

0:23:470:23:49

I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty

0:23:490:23:52

is when we've actually done something wrong.

0:23:520:23:55

Because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance

0:23:550:23:57

of being black and innocent.

0:23:570:23:59

And, in a way, the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.

0:23:590:24:02

In the way that voting Republican is a relief,

0:24:020:24:05

marrying white is a relief, albeit a temporary one.

0:24:050:24:08

Are you conscience of the kind of conversations

0:24:100:24:12

that might start over here?

0:24:120:24:13

-I have no idea. To be honest, you know.

-Interesting.

0:24:130:24:16

I hope it starts something. I don't know what necessarily.

0:24:160:24:19

Something positive, hopefully.

0:24:190:24:21

Well, I look forward to the conversations that's going to start.

0:24:210:24:24

-George, thank you, man.

-Pleasure was all mine, Paul.

0:24:240:24:26

Thank you very much for your time.

0:24:260:24:28

Our final book this evening is His Bloody Project

0:24:320:24:35

by Graeme Macrae Burnet.

0:24:350:24:37

A historical crime novel investigating

0:24:370:24:40

gruesome murders in the Highlands.

0:24:400:24:42

And it caught the attention of Queen of Scottish crime writing,

0:24:430:24:46

Val McDermid.

0:24:460:24:47

My name is Roderick John Macrae.

0:24:510:24:54

I was born in 1852 and have lived all my days

0:24:540:24:58

in the village of Culduie in Ross-shire.

0:24:580:25:00

It's 1869 and a triple murder has been committed.

0:25:030:25:06

A man, a 15-year-old girl

0:25:080:25:10

and a three-year-old child have been brutally slaughtered in their home.

0:25:100:25:14

The close-knit rural crofting community are in shock.

0:25:140:25:18

But the biggest mystery is why a previously mild-mannered

0:25:180:25:21

Roderick Macrae would commit such a bloodthirsty atrocity.

0:25:210:25:25

There was a wee bit of a buzz in Scottish crime writing circles

0:25:250:25:28

about His Bloody Project when it first came out,

0:25:280:25:30

and so I'd read it before it got onto the Booker longlist

0:25:300:25:32

and I was delighted as well as surprised

0:25:320:25:35

to find it on the shortlist.

0:25:350:25:36

It has been described as a crime novel and I think that's a lazy

0:25:360:25:40

categorisation but I understand why people have gone down that road.

0:25:400:25:43

Yes, this book has a murder in it but it's also a literary novel.

0:25:430:25:46

It intentionally and playfully blurs the line between fact and fiction,

0:25:460:25:50

between meticulous research and fantasy

0:25:500:25:52

and it's up to you, as the reader, to decide where you stand.

0:25:520:25:56

This is only Graeme Macrae Burnet's second novel and it's been

0:25:590:26:01

published by small Scottish independent publisher Sarabande.

0:26:010:26:05

I'm meeting him in Glasgow's Mitchell library

0:26:050:26:07

where Graeme spent 2015 researching and writing the novel

0:26:070:26:11

that could turn him from a virtually unknown author

0:26:110:26:13

to winner of the world's biggest literary awards.

0:26:130:26:17

One of the things that's been making the headlines about this book

0:26:170:26:20

making the shortlist is that it's been sort of immediately

0:26:200:26:22

-slotted by the lazy critics as, "It's a crime novel."

-Yes.

0:26:220:26:25

Did you think of it as a crime novel when you were writing it?

0:26:250:26:28

I think these categorisations aren't important when you're writing.

0:26:280:26:31

You're just set out to write the book you're writing and

0:26:310:26:34

people say, "Oh, it's a crime novel" or "Oh, it's not a crime novel."

0:26:340:26:37

I call it a novel about a crime and my objective is I want

0:26:370:26:40

the reader to be engaged with the characters.

0:26:400:26:42

I want them, no matter what dark things Roddy Macrae does...

0:26:420:26:46

I want them to root for Roddy.

0:26:460:26:48

You know, and I want them to feel the pain of what he goes through.

0:26:480:26:52

I shall begin by saying that I carried out these acts

0:26:520:26:55

with the sole purpose of delivering my father from

0:26:550:26:58

the tribulations he has lately suffered.

0:26:580:27:01

Because of these tribulations was our neighbour Lachlan McKenzie

0:27:010:27:04

and it was for the betterment of my family's lot

0:27:040:27:07

that I've removed him from this world.

0:27:070:27:09

I did various parts of the research here in the Mitchell.

0:27:110:27:14

We've got these lovely maps here in the library

0:27:140:27:16

and these go back through various 19th-century manifestations

0:27:160:27:19

so you can actually pinpoint the cottages and stuff

0:27:190:27:22

in each individual village.

0:27:220:27:23

-You can literary follow Roddy's footsteps.

-Yeah, absolutely.

0:27:230:27:27

-And that really grounds it in that sense of reality.

-Absolutely.

0:27:270:27:31

And we've also got these amazing photographs from the period.

0:27:310:27:34

You see these old houses with no windows.

0:27:340:27:37

There's nothing romantic about this croft house. It's slum housing.

0:27:370:27:40

And it debunks that kind of sentimental history

0:27:400:27:43

we have absorbed, I think, here in Scotland.

0:27:430:27:46

It was a Victorian invention.

0:27:460:27:48

The idyll of the Highlands as a sort of peaceful wilderness

0:27:480:27:53

but we know that the history of the Highlands

0:27:530:27:55

is very dark and quite bloody at times.

0:27:550:27:59

My objective was not merely

0:27:590:28:00

to remove Lachlan Broad from this world.

0:28:000:28:03

Rather at the moment of his death it was necessary that

0:28:030:28:07

he was cognisant of the fact that it was I, Roderick Macrae,

0:28:070:28:11

that was ending his life.

0:28:110:28:13

One of the interesting things about your book is that you have

0:28:150:28:18

not been published by a big mainstream publisher.

0:28:180:28:21

How has that been for you now that

0:28:210:28:23

you've hit the headlines with the shortlist?

0:28:230:28:25

Before I was somewhere around 300,000 in Amazon.

0:28:250:28:29

By the end of the day, when we were longlisted, we had hit number nine

0:28:290:28:33

in the Amazon general chart so, I mean, it's a complete transformation

0:28:330:28:36

for my fortunes and the fortunes of the book.

0:28:360:28:39

And that brings us to the end of our round-up of this year's nominees.

0:28:420:28:47

Six novels all vying to take their place in Man Booker history,

0:28:470:28:50

and I genuinely cannot call it this year.

0:28:500:28:53

But I would advise you to dip into at least two or three of these books

0:28:530:28:56

because they are all authors who are experimenting with the form,

0:28:560:28:59

who are pushing the boundaries of what a novel can be

0:28:590:29:02

which is what this prize should always be rewarding.

0:29:020:29:05

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