The Digested Twenty-first Century

by John Crace

  He found her two miles along the deserted shingle.

  ‘You are disgusting,’ she said.

  ‘You are frigid,’ he replied icily.

  They both knew there was something they should say to make matters better but neither could find the words.

  ‘Maybe we could remain in a sexless marriage,’ she mouthed in a gesture of conciliation, ‘and you could occasionally get your needs met by other women.’

  ‘It’s over,’ he gasped.

  ‘Don’t you think we’re being rather melodramatic and that even in 1962 a couple might get over a crap shag on their wedding night?’ she cried.

  ‘Of course, but if we don’t split up, the whole book’s pointless.’

  She ran off down the beach and into a waiting taxi.

  Edward returned the wedding presents and moved on to a life of inconsequential journalism, punctuated by inconsequential affairs. Yet he never loved any woman as much as Florence again. She gave herself to her music and wondered if Edward would ever know that if he had but called her back that day, she would have melted into his arms forever.

  Digested read, digested: One messy outburst and it’s all over.

  Engleby by Sebastian Faulks (2007)

  My name is Mike Engleby and I’m in my second year at an ancient university. I’m not going to name it, but you can safely assume it’s Cambridge. There’s someone I’ve met called Jennifer Arkland. She’s standing for election to a Society committee. I think I’ll join Jen Soc.

  I won a prize to come to my college, but I have no memory of it. My memory’s odd like that. I’m big on detail, but there are holes in the fabric. You know what that means? Of course you do. It’s only page two and already I’m signalling that I’m using one of the laziest and most devalued devices of modern literature: the unreliable narrator.

  From now on you won’t really care about a single word I write, but as I don’t either I may as well carry on. I drink quite heavily, smoke a lot of dope, take loads of downers and don’t really have many friends. I expect I will have even fewer by the end of the book. Especially among the readers.

  Anyway, let me tell you some more about myself. As it’s the mid-70s, I like to listen to Procol Harum and Focus and have many dull opinions about pop music. You’re supposed to take this as yet another intriguing sign of the personality disorder there’s meant to be some doubt about whether I have, but I suspect you’ll probably reckon it’s just what Seb thought back then.

  I’m quite clever, really. I can play with time and narrative in the way that all great writers can. One moment I can be talking about how well I am getting on with Jen on a film shoot in Ireland – even though I’m obviously not – and then I can flit around between my childhood beatings from my father and how I was bullied by Baynes at my boarding school.

  Sometimes I get quite angry. Not that I’m necessarily aware I’m angry because my memory isn’t that good. But when I do – supposing I do – I take some Valium and waste more time on trivia. I’ve often felt that the best artists frequently produce complete rubbish towards the end of their careers. Just look at Monet. And this book proves the same thing applies to writers.

  Jen has gone missing. I wonder if something bad may have happened. By the way, did I mention that I was once admitted to a mental hospital? No, thought not. But you probably guessed that anyway and were just as bored by the thought as I was. The police think Jen is dead. Despite searching my room for three days they didn’t find my stash of dope up the chimney, or Jennifer’s diary that I’d hidden in the cistern.

  But never mind. I like reading Jen’s diary. It’s very dull and uninformative – she refers to me as Mike (!) – but I’ve memorised it anyway and can waste pages repeating it, just to show that I can adapt to the style and tone of a 21-year-old woman.

  There was a suggestion I might become a spy after leaving university but I became a journalist instead. How I enjoyed the irony of a compulsive liar becoming a hack. Imagine if I was to interview Jeffrey Archer. Oh, I just did.

  At times I have flashbacks to a woman I might have killed after a Graham Parker gig and I sometimes also think I might have murdered Baynes. But as I have created a new genre in which no one gives a stuff whether any of this really happened or not, I won’t lose too much sleep over it.

  Oh dear, it’s all coming to an end. Jennifer’s body has been found and I do seem to have killed her after all. The psychiatric reports say I’m mentally ill, though the critics insist I’m no American Psycho. Perhaps I’m just a bit of a loser instead.

  Here I am then, still in a secure hospital 30 years later. Sometimes I can rewrite Jen’s diaries so we are together. Sweet. Don’t feel sorry for me. It’s I who should feel sorry for you.

  Digested read, digested: Mike doesn’t care much one way or the other and neither will you.

  Michael Tolliver Lives

  by Armistead Maupin (2007)

  ‘Hey,’ a man called out as I was walking down Castro Street, ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

  Who was this guy?

  ‘You are Michael Tolliver?’ he continued hesitantly. And then I remembered. Not his name, but his dick. How its less-than-average length was made irrelevant by its girth.

  That’s the problem these days. Thirty years after writing about gay sex and Aids, no one is really interested any more. Everyone is writing about sex and, thanks to the drug cocktails, a lot of us didn’t die. So what’s the story?

  Well there isn’t one really, but my publisher thought you might like a follow-up and I could kind of use the money, so here we go.

  We might as well start with Ben. I met him via the internet – CLEANCUTLAD4U – and he’s 21 years younger than me. But we fell in love and got married. Perhaps I shouldn’t have started with Ben, after all. Because what’s there to say, other than we’re blissful? So maybe I mention the phone call I got from my brother, Irwin. Neither he, nor his nutty religious wife, Lenore, have ever been able to stand gays, so a phone call was unusual.

  ‘Mum’s dying,’ he said. ‘You may want to come out to Florida to say goodbye.’ It’s weird, this. I always expected to die first. So now I find myself having to prepare for other people’s deaths and worrying about dying of something other than Aids. This might be an interesting subject, so I’d better trivialise it.

  I’m lying on my front, pushing my ass up towards Ben. ‘You will be careful about how you stick it in, won’t you?’ I said teasingly.

  Ooh, what a dirty mind you’ve got! Ben was only giving me my weekly testosterone injection. Sweet. A man needs all the help he can get at my age.

  I suppose you also want to hear about all the old characters who used to hang out at Barbary Lane. My LOGICAL family, rather than my BIOLOGICAL family. Geddit? Well, Brian’s still around and he’s bought a Winnebago. Ben thinks he’s hot, but Brian’s always been dead straight, so no chance there.

  Anyway, ever since Mary Ann left, Brian’s been worried about bringing up their daughter, Shawna. But he shouldn’t be. He’s done a great job. She’s working in a strip club – a mastaburtorium she calls it – and she’s about to move to New York to publish her sex memoirs. She’s worried how her dad will feel about her leaving San Fran, but I told her he’ll get over it. Hmm, maybe that’s not so fascinating.

  Well then, there’s dear old Anna Madrigal. At 85 – having spent half her life as a man and the other half as a woman – she’s still our mummy. But she’s taken to talking enigmatically so she’ll probably die at some point.

  What else? There’s a friend of mine called Jake who’s a transsexual. ‘I haven’t had the addadictomy,’ he purred. ‘I said, I haven’t had the addadictomy’

  ‘I heard you the first time,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it’s my only gag and I didn’t want you to miss it.’

  So we fly to Florida to see Mum, and it’s all kind of bittersweet. She doesn’t like gays that much, but she loves me and Ben and gives us power of attorney to stop Irwin and Lenore prolonging
her life.

  We also get to hear some great gossip on how Mum twice nearly left Dad, and how Dad once got it on with Lenore. Imagine! I couldn’t, but people are supposed to reveal family secrets on their deathbed and this was all I could come up with.

  Mum is taking her time to die, so we fly back to San Fran to do a bit more gardening and the bathhouses, when my arthritis allows, and then Irwin calls again to say she really is on her way out. But then I hear that Anna is dying so I stay with my LOGICALs and even Mary Ann turns up from New York to say goodbye. And that’s all there is to it, really.

  Digested read, digested: Michael lives and Tales of the City die.

  Bright Shiny Morning

  by James Frey (2008)

  Two teens. Two teens stuck in an eastern town. Two teens stuck in sentences of arbitrary punctuation and repetition arbitrary punctuation and repetition that is meant to suggest something hip, something beat but just feels a bit tired and mannered. ‘I can feel the glow of the west,’ Dylan says. ‘I’m gonna jack me a car, drive us west to California.’ They reach the ocean they carry on driving. The car starts sinking. ‘I think we’ve gone too far,’ says Maddie. They swim back to shore and this is where they stay. Los Angeles.

  Her parents call her Esperanza they can’t speak English but they live in LA and they got hope. She’s pretty but she’s ashamed of her thighs she flunks school because of her thighs she takes a job cleaning for Mrs Campbell she pretends not to speak English as it’s the only way she can get a job with her thighs.

  There are lots of facts about Los Angeles in Wikipedia, facts that if you jot them down one at a time might somehow seem quite deep. All the Los Angeles banks were robbed at least once in 1895. See what I mean?

  Old Man Joe’s hair turned white when he was 29 he aged 40 years in one night. He’s now 274, drinks chablis out of toilet cisterns on Venice Beach that’s about as interesting as he gets. You’re gonna age 40 years reading about him.

  Amberton Parker. Amberton Parker the most unconvincing Hollywood film star you’ll ever meet. He kisses his wife Casey in bed with her lesbian lover leaves the kids with the nanny leaves the house. He meets Kevin a black ex-footballer at his agency knows he’s got to have him sends him cars private jets knows that Kevin can’t say no or Amberton will leave the agency. He fucks Kevin he’s in love.

  James has a dream. He’s gonna be a somebody. He smokes a bit of weed nicks candy bars from the 7-Eleven writes this book about how he’s one nasty smackhead goes on Oprah becomes a celebrity. Then everyone finds out it’s just a million little lies and he’s a nobody.

  Los Angeles gets a lot bigger in the 20th century.

  Dylan gets a job in Tiny’s Hell’s Angel motorcycle repair shop keeps his head down buys donuts for Maddie. They are in love. They have a dream. Some tattooed guys beat up Tiny over a drug deal. Dylan says nothing knows he shouldn’t do nothing but takes $20,000 and walks out. What a berk.

  Mrs Campbell treats Esperanza like shit but Esperanza takes it ‘cause she needs the money one day Mrs Campbell goes to Palm Beach and leaves Esperanza alone in the house with her son Doug. ‘I’m a neek,’ he says, ‘but I’ve fallen in love with your fat thighs.’ ‘You ain’t nuthin but a pervert,’ Mrs Campbell yells on her return. ‘You’re sacked.’ She gets another job he finds her there’s a happy ending.

  He wants to help her this girl Beatrice. He wants to redeem her redeem himself. He tries to get her away from the men but they kill his mate. Old Man Joe cries into his chablis. He’s fucked up again.

  Los Angeles is home of Hollywood, home of the porn business, home of the rich, home of the poor, home of homeys. No kidding.

  ‘Kevin is suing you for $20m,’ says Amberton’s agent. ‘Give him the money I’m heartbroken and sign me up for another $100m movie,’ Amberton sobs. Casey smiles in appreciation as she goes down on her girl.

  Dylan gets a job as a caddy on the golf course they’re making something of their lives they have friends they get married they are gonna have a baby. Then Tiny’s mates come along and kill him he never saw that coming but you did.

  James still has a dream he’s gonna be a somebody. He starts writing a novel about all these characters in LA makes it random makes it beat thinks the critics have gotta take him seriously this time. He starts writing he doesn’t care much what he can’t stop writing. He knows it’s all a bit contrived a bit obvious but he can’t stop. He’s written 500 pages and he can’t stop. James has a dream a dream. It’s a nightmare.

  Digested read, digested: James gets lost in La La Land.

  The Little Stranger

  by Sarah Waters (2009)

  I first saw Hundreds Hall after the war when I was 10 years old, on the occasion of the Empire fete. The Ayres were big people in the village but after that summer they lived more privately: their daughter Susan died of diphtheria and their later children, Roderick and Caroline, kept themselves to themselves. So when I saw the Georgian mansion again 30 years later, I was appalled by the decay. A telephone call from Roderick renewed my acquaintance. I had bettered myself considerably in the intervening years and had returned to Warwickshire to pursue my career as a doctor. ‘You’d better come over, Dr Faraday,’ he said. ‘Betty has a stomach ache and you can’t let a servant die these days.’

  I replied that I understood how difficult it was to cope now Britain was entering a new social order, for I myself was quite concerned that the new National Health Service would reduce my earnings.

  Betty was an utterly unmemorable member of the lower orders. ‘Do you think you might be a lesbian?’ I asked. ‘Nay, sir,’ she replied. ‘Well that’s unusual for a Sarah Waters book,’ I said.

  It turned out that Betty was terrified by a ghostly presence within the Hall, and I passed on her concerns to Caroline, a plain, natural spinster with thickish legs. ‘There’s nothing queer going on here,’ she said tartly. I resolved to keep a close eye on the family by offering to treat Roderick’s war wounds that still distressed him greatly.

  A few months later, Mrs Ayres decided to have a party and the octagonal chinoiserie room was opened for the occasion. I was talking to the Baker-Hughes when Caroline whispered to me that Roddie was refusing to come down. I found him in a complete funk and concluded he was already inebriated, so I returned to the party to discover that the Ayres’s dog, Gyp, had bitten off the cheek of a young girl.

  ‘What makes it so bad is that the girl is upper-class,’ Caroline said. ‘A prole could cope with disfigurement so much better.’ We obliquely debated the decline of the old social values for several pages, before I persuaded her to let me put Gyp down.

  Roddie continued to be delusional, claiming the house was possessed by a poltergeist, and Caroline did alert me to several scorch marks and strange happenings, yet I rather closed off any curiosity about the supernatural that the reader might have had with my dogged rationalism. ‘He is haunted by his wartime experiences and his inability to cope with a Labour government,’ I ventured, as his room erupted in a mysterious fire. ‘I shall send him to a posh mental asylum.’

  I began to notice that Caroline was not altogether plain and entertained hopes that she might favour me. We went to a ball one night and on the way home, I pressed my hand against her breast. ‘Not now,’ she cried, kicking me in the chest.

  ‘Perhaps, then, you will agree to be my wife?’ ‘OK.’

  ‘I had hoped Caroline would do rather better than you, you ghastly little arriviste,’ Mrs Ayres said, ‘but we all have to compromise these days. In truth, I have never really got over my darling Susan’s death. Her name keeps appearing on the walls as if by magic.’

  Two weeks later, Mrs Ayres hanged herself in her room. ‘The poltergeist has won again,’ Caroline said. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I replied. ‘She was haunted by her inability ... blah, blah. And look, now the old bat’s dead, why don’t we get married in six weeks’ time?’ ‘OK,’ she nodded absently.

  The wedding preparations were proceeding, with me doing e
verything, including buying the dress, and Caroline doing absolutely nothing. ‘I can’t go through with it,’ she declared one night. ‘I do not love you.’ My embarrassment was excruciating but luckily the poltergeist pushed her over the banisters and killed her.

  ‘The ghost has won,’ Betty gasped. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘She was just haunted by her inability to ... blah, blah.’ Though I couldn’t also help wondering if she hadn’t been a lesbian all along.

  Digested read, digested: Everyone gives up the ghost.

  The Original of Laura: A Novel in Fragments

  by Vladimir Nabokov (2009)

  One: Fat men beat their wives, it is said, and he certainly looked fierce when he caught her riffling though his papers. Actually she was searching for a silly business letter – and not trying to decipher his mysterious manuscript. Oh no, it was not a work of fiction, it was a mad neurologist’s testament, but the thing was, of course, an absolute secret. If she mentioned it at all, she added, it was because she was drunk. And because the Nabokov estate was too greedy not to pass off the barely intelligible marginalia of a dying writer, long past his best, as an unpublished masterpiece.

  Unsure of to which particular he the opening referred, Flora demanded to lie down, as this enabled her to surrender to one of her many lovers and for her nymphean form – her cup-sized breasts and pale squinty nipples seemed a dozen years younger than this impatient beauty’s – to be described with erotic longing, while Paul de G ogled some boys. ‘Have you finished?’ she inquired. He nodded in flaccidity. ‘Not even a quickie? Tant pis! Then I must go home to my morbidly obese husband and our mulatto charwoman.’