Greatest compliment of my literary career...Tom, thank you ! Feel like i did all my early 00s yearning to late 90s Placebo though (what album could ever compete on that score with Without You I'm Nothing)
A description of all Mancunian life at a certain age, maybe all British life. A song came on the radio just now, from the first cassette I bought at Piccadilly Records in 1990. And your heart fills with nostalgic blood.
Easily the best Mill piece by some distance, I've never rushed to buy books that quickly ever. Thank you.
Beautiful Sophie. The yearning ,yes. I was struggling to remember the pull back to my girlhood and then you prompted it for me at the end. Jay Gatsby did it for me.
Thanks Anne, and for taking the time to leave a comment. Yes, writing this has made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby again (but might leave it a few months — feels like it hits hardest in summer).
I think this might be just the season for early Gwendoline Riley reading, what with Valentine’s just gone, and a bit of Lenten introspection in the air. I’m struck (reading Sophie) by how different this Netherworld, of dole-bought drinks and Affleck’s chic is to anything I’m seeing now. Being a man in Gwen’s Orrery is not a comfortable place to be. Frankly, I’d be wiser looking away now, as my gaze always leads me into trouble.
The first two novels wear the pre-loved garments of a creative writing course, and a carefully assembled wardrobe of classics; Carson McCullers and Jean Rhys are her forever Mary Jane’s. Men are not good. Good men are especially not good.
The ‘hospitality sector’ as we must learn to call the bars and drippy pits soon to be post mortem, is no longer a haven for income and expenditure for twenty somethings. Intimacy, it seems, is de trop. Gwendoline Riley caught the time, and earned her advance. [She was followed, into some of the same bars and scuzzy clubs, by Emma Jane Unsworth, who managed to extract a few more laughs.]. Thanks for sending me back to my book shelves Sophie. And thanks for the photo.
First Love and My Phantoms are novels decked in garments purely her own. I believe that good writers only get better, and Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms is her best yet. It’s a hard read in many respects, and even a streaky bit cruel. I’m guessing she found it (even) harder to write than her earlier house-share chronicles. There’s a reversed chronology to Gwendoline Riley’s work. What she writes in Sick Notes, Cold Water and Joshua Spassky is decoded in My Phantoms, and as her title suggests, it is quite chilling.
Hey Phil, thanks for this thoughtful comment. Lots to enjoy here! Illuminating to suggest that the first three books are just decoded in her last one. This said, think I'd push back on "Men are not good. Good men are especially not good" as something distinctive to her early novels — that's basically the theme tune running through all of them up to My Phantoms, when we get the first celebration of a good man (the protagonist's partner).
Really enjoyed this and am definitely going to pick up some early Riley. I graduated in 2002 and had a few years working in part time jobs before starting my PhD and that sounds remarkably evocative of my early twenties, us all in and out of each other's flats and house shares, and just so much time to just be. It was a great time to be in Manchester, to be honest.
Lovely article. I was around the same places as Ms Riley, there were a lot of good men who were not good, that's my lasting stone cold take. Great writer, getting greater.
A piece so evocative of being a teenager in the early 00s that I’m in grave danger of lying in bed listening to Interpol all morning.
Greatest compliment of my literary career...Tom, thank you ! Feel like i did all my early 00s yearning to late 90s Placebo though (what album could ever compete on that score with Without You I'm Nothing)
A description of all Mancunian life at a certain age, maybe all British life. A song came on the radio just now, from the first cassette I bought at Piccadilly Records in 1990. And your heart fills with nostalgic blood.
Easily the best Mill piece by some distance, I've never rushed to buy books that quickly ever. Thank you.
Thanks Mike, this is really really kind. I hope you like the books!
Thank you. Nothing better than a new writer discovered. It's like finding out that cake exists. 😊
Beautiful Sophie. The yearning ,yes. I was struggling to remember the pull back to my girlhood and then you prompted it for me at the end. Jay Gatsby did it for me.
Thanks Anne, and for taking the time to leave a comment. Yes, writing this has made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby again (but might leave it a few months — feels like it hits hardest in summer).
A really good piece about two exceptional novels. I hope it will bring them new fans.
Hey Michael, that means a lot. Thanks for reading it.
I think this might be just the season for early Gwendoline Riley reading, what with Valentine’s just gone, and a bit of Lenten introspection in the air. I’m struck (reading Sophie) by how different this Netherworld, of dole-bought drinks and Affleck’s chic is to anything I’m seeing now. Being a man in Gwen’s Orrery is not a comfortable place to be. Frankly, I’d be wiser looking away now, as my gaze always leads me into trouble.
The first two novels wear the pre-loved garments of a creative writing course, and a carefully assembled wardrobe of classics; Carson McCullers and Jean Rhys are her forever Mary Jane’s. Men are not good. Good men are especially not good.
The ‘hospitality sector’ as we must learn to call the bars and drippy pits soon to be post mortem, is no longer a haven for income and expenditure for twenty somethings. Intimacy, it seems, is de trop. Gwendoline Riley caught the time, and earned her advance. [She was followed, into some of the same bars and scuzzy clubs, by Emma Jane Unsworth, who managed to extract a few more laughs.]. Thanks for sending me back to my book shelves Sophie. And thanks for the photo.
First Love and My Phantoms are novels decked in garments purely her own. I believe that good writers only get better, and Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms is her best yet. It’s a hard read in many respects, and even a streaky bit cruel. I’m guessing she found it (even) harder to write than her earlier house-share chronicles. There’s a reversed chronology to Gwendoline Riley’s work. What she writes in Sick Notes, Cold Water and Joshua Spassky is decoded in My Phantoms, and as her title suggests, it is quite chilling.
Hey Phil, thanks for this thoughtful comment. Lots to enjoy here! Illuminating to suggest that the first three books are just decoded in her last one. This said, think I'd push back on "Men are not good. Good men are especially not good" as something distinctive to her early novels — that's basically the theme tune running through all of them up to My Phantoms, when we get the first celebration of a good man (the protagonist's partner).
Really enjoyed this and am definitely going to pick up some early Riley. I graduated in 2002 and had a few years working in part time jobs before starting my PhD and that sounds remarkably evocative of my early twenties, us all in and out of each other's flats and house shares, and just so much time to just be. It was a great time to be in Manchester, to be honest.
Hey Cath, this sounds like a wonderful time to be a fully-fledged adult (as a teenager, didn't feel quite there). Hope you enjoy the early Riley!
A lovely bit of writing about a lovely bit of writing.
Thank you for reading it!
Lovely article. I was around the same places as Ms Riley, there were a lot of good men who were not good, that's my lasting stone cold take. Great writer, getting greater.