I went to dinner at the McCluskeys’ and the Brookmans were there, as usual — and the Vignoles as well …
An exclusive for the website this. Listen to Will Self reading The Minor Character, an unpublished short story, which will be part of his collection of short stories, The Undivided Self, to be published by Bloomsbury USA in October. Self recorded The Minor Character while he was narrating an unabridged audio version of Liver, which will be published by Whole Story Audio Books in September.
“Exile, Joyce famously noted, is a necessary precondition for art. If so, Self must feel himself abundantly exiled. He’s half American, but writes as sublimely and mercilessly about London as anyone in his generation. He’s half Jewish but has a keen eye for the hypocrisies of organized Christian religion. He’s a merciless skeptic about the sacred cows of liberal humanism, who occasionally writes with considerable tenderness, and who is also loyal to his friends and family in ways few tender people are. You are about to reap the rewards of this abundance of Selfish exile … there will be work here that alarms you, dazzles you, makes you laugh out loud.”
From the introduction to The Undivided Self by Rick Moody, NYC 2010.
