First Novel

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I AM SITTING, alone, in my shared office at the university. On the walls are flyers for readings and a large poster advertising a local literature festival. The bookcase behind me is filled with books — books that I have brought in from home and others that I have acquired from the second-hand bookstalls across the road and the Paramount Book Centre in Shude Hill. In addition to these are bound volumes of literary magazines — Antaeus, Transatlantic Review — and books that I have claimed out of unwanted stock from the university library. My eye runs along a shelf two-thirds of the way down the bookcase. Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace, Robinson by Christopher Petit, Berg by Ann Quin, Gwendoline Riley’s Cold Water. I skip along. Friction by Joe Stretch; Dreams of Green Base, Terry Wilson. First novels.

I take down a book from the shelf above: James Lasdun’s The Horned Man. I hold it to my nose and flick through the pages using the soft pad of my thumb. It has a woody smell. Trampled grass, funfairs. A hint of caramel? I put it back on the shelf.

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