Brass

[Tommy Martyn]

Hey Mc,

I've never called a prostitute a brass. I've never heard anyone else do it either. I checked with two really good friends (one of whom lives about a mile and half away from where the book is set, the other completed two degrees and a Phd at liverpool university and is now a research fellow there. ie he spends/has spent a lot of time slap bang in the middle of where the book is set. (Buy his book "Marketing Modernism" by Peter Richmond) )who have clocked up over eighty years in liverpool between them and they don't know the term as a name for a hooker.

You can't really think that a fellow who named his son "Henry James" would get turned on by this drivel. There is something fake about this novelist with the tanned boobs. Her bio didn't add up if you ask me.

I read the sample work. As I might have said once upon a time, "Bag of fucking shite. Fuck off back to fucking Warrrington."

Martino and Mc I'm finally into, the captain and the enemy.

[mccutcheon]

I thought Pixie would be turned on by it and you would like the location.

[martino]

i am with tommy on this one. she sounds like a fake. i found the story that nerve.com published

http://www.nerve.com/fiction/walsh/brass/

entertaining, but somehow fishy. and not in the sense that nerve.com stinks per se (although it does). no, it sounds like a male voice and she looks like a straw man.

[TragicPixie]

sorry I haven't made it over to check it out yet MC - I will though and I'll let you know.
You know how I was bitching about being in pain, well I had this stupid toothache - well it turned out that one of my nerves was abcessing sooo yeah I had a root canal yesterday.

fun-fun ... sooo yeah, now I'm depressed because I'm like, an old person and will have to get an ugly crown on my tooth. Ugh. Dammnit. So much for that whole young, pretty, and healthy thing.

and next week is final exams - so, I'll probably be checking it out either then for escaping or after my exam on the 14th.

[Tommy Martyn]

You see, the problem I have with this stuff, (no plot, minimal character, little sense of place beyond listing street names but lots of alternative lifestyle and even more shagging) beyond the fact that the genre has just about worked it's way through the DSM, is that a large part of it's validity hangs around the credibility or authenticity of the author. I ploughed through the reviews and interviews and it was obvious that the author, (too young and too good looking for a writer) and not the work, was the real star. For contrast, think about the last interview you read with a master like Updike.

The rough bio on Helen staes that she took E before her first period and hit the drug and party circuit during her mid teens until she ran away from her Warrington home to swing a job procuring clients for the hookers in Barcelona. Then she popped back home to Liverpool and began a sociology degree at liverpool University scoring the highest mark there in eight years.

Getting into Liverpool University dept of sociology is something I know all about. I was accepted unconditionly a number of years ago but had the luxury of turning them down. I was an untypical student in the fact that I was 26. At this point the usual rules of metriculation do not apply. Our helen was 19 when she got there, seeing as you have to apply a year before you get in I assume she was 18. (Bear with me while I explain the examination process) To get in you need a minimum 5 gcse's and 3 A'levels. The first of these exams are taken at age sixteen. The A'levels at age 18. Now if she was wacked out on drugs from 13 onwards she wouldn't be performing too well at school to get the gcse's. Then if she was in Barcelona and such she couldn't be studying for the A'levels. Also you need an academic reference. If she never turned up for the class how would she get a decent reference. Something doesn't add up.

I congratulate her on being top of her class at university. As it happens I was at college with a guy who was top of undergraduate history at Liverpool. To get there, he mentioned that he had to study like a bastard. Now I know that some folk can do well at exams without putting in too much effort (ahem) but you don't get to be the toppity top. So that is why her bio didn't add up to me.

[TragicPixie]

in that case I'm glad I went to American highschool. Where I showed up to class wasted, aced exams, entrance exams, and more often than not, got by with not doing a helluva lot.

Actually - Not much has changed. But then - I'm highly disappointed in my current university as I'm sure that shouldn't be the case. I should have to actually open a book every now and then - sober.

[sara]

I think it reads like an essay, not like what I would call fiction -- which may be new fiction -- is it? Anybody know?

The author has a very specific and objective vocabulary -- I think that's part of why it reads like an essay, the language lacks color to me.

There's no grit -- it's really strange and hard to explain, but it's a very scientific approach to story telling -- anatomy -- which is nice with the title, so maybe thumbs up


Here's a poem that explains why I don't subjectively like the piece, but objectively appreciate it.

Not Becoming a Scientist

In a room with five hundred other students,
I first heard the term alluvial,
relating to a deposit of alluvium.
I would be tested on it later.
I wrote in the margin of my notes:
A single tear drop glides down her cheek.
My professor would have summed that up:
Lacrimatory.
Scientists are succinct.
I wrote more lines to my poem --
A picture of the mascara,
it had been carried down her cheek
by the tear and now rested
in the corner of her mouth.
Alluvium.
I did not become a scientist.