Backlisted - A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

Episode Date: November 30, 2015

in the first episode of a new podcast about books, John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by novelist Lissa Evans and Unbound's Mathew Clayton discuss JL Carr's 'A Month in the Country'. Timings: (may differ due to adverts) 1'58 - Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman 19'03 - A Cotswold Village by J Arthur Gibbs 29'30 - A Month in the Country by J L Carr * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm * If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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There are also balance balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and TRX equipment. But, like, no pressure. Get started for $1 enrollment and then only $15 a month. Hurry this $1 enrollment sale of Planet Fitness ends July 18th. $49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, a brand new podcast that gives old books a second chance. I'm John Mitchinson and he's Andy Miller. We're readers, writers and editors of books. We are the levis and butthead of the book world but which is which

only you can decide we're coming to you from the kitchen table of unbound the website where readers and writers meet to create great books we're joined today by lissa evans the acclaimed novelist and producer of father ted and matthew clayton the rather less acclaimed writer and producer of tenuous literary links, as you'll discover later. Andy, what have you been reading? This week? Or generally? Andy, what have you been reading this week? I've read several books this week. The first book that I finished this week was the 900 pages of Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, a novel I've been meaning to read for 20 years, ever since you, John Mitchinson, gave me a copy.

It's a bulging, rippling Russian masterpiece, isn't it? It takes you high, it takes you low, it takes you from all angles. It's an entirely inappropriate subject for light-heartedness john if you don't mind me saying it's true it is it is an amazing uh it's amazing novel though isn't it proper it's one absolutely wonderful book it is a quite consciously i think modeled on war and peace and attempts to tell you the story of stalingrad uh the siege of Stalingrad in the Second World War, but also by the extension, the rise of Stalin prior to the Second World War, through the Second World War and out the other side, by giving you a massive cast of characters, all of whom have

ludicrously long Russian names, throwing down about 50 of them in the first 30 pages, and then begging you to keep up. But if you stick with it, as is often the case with these long books, it really, really delivers. I have to say about the 500-page mark, I found it incredibly moving. This is your thesis, though. This is your, you know, you're reading dangerously, read-yourself-fitter thesis, that these big books, if you can only just stick at it, you'll actually end up not only having a great experience, but become a better person. Yes, in a nutshell, yes.

I don't think all books are there to entertain you all the way through. And I tend to think that a book will give you back what you put into it, a lot of the time, not all the time. But certainly I found with Life and Fate that once you've done the groundwork a book will give you back what you put into it a lot of the time not all the time but certainly i found with life and fate that once you've done the groundwork and once you were prepared to let the author do some work on your behalf the payback was was totally worth it brilliant book excellent well i was reading that what were you reading uh well i was reading this this, Hate Mail by Mr. Bingo. And it's brilliant because it's really quick to read because it's basically just a book of postcards.

Oh, that's nice. And the premise of the postcards is that he asked people to pay him to send them rude, abusive postcards. And it is, I have to say, one of the funniest things I've ever read. And better than that, as you can see, Dear Matt, you are a loser and have a fat back. Loveless. Or the one I particularly love is there's a circle with Ronald McDonald in one side and another circle with Hitler's face in another.

And where they intersect, like a Venn diagram, it just says, you. It's just really... He's a brilliant illustrator. You were a effing ugly baby, dear Lily. And then a really, really ugly baby face. I must say to the listeners, it is a beautifully designed book

with a grey cover, the format of which reminds me strongly of Martin Parr's brilliant Boring Postcards. It has got that. Dear Jude, you have a tiny brain and there's a great picture anyway the point is do you want to just read out the whole book you want i'll read out life and fate you can read that out yeah well it is a it is a fat book like right from it is it is but i think and beautifully produced um but it is obviously meant for the smallest room in the

house but the reason i i really love it it was Mr. Bingo put a Kickstarter campaign out for this book and raised a massive amount, about £140,000, I think. And I was just amused. I thought you would be amused too by the things that you could pay for. I mean, it's basically you paid £50 to get an abusive postcard. I liked it. He said that the book, the beautiful book that we see in front of us, would be equally at home next to your toilet

or on display in a twatty, chin-stroking art gallery, which I think has a ring of truth about it. But he said there are other things you could do. You could be told to F off on the internet for £18, or you could get the opportunity to get shit-faced on a train with Mr Bingo for £150. He says, I really like drinking on twat trains. I'll be splitting them into groups of five at a time. So if I end up filling all 20 places, I'll lay them all out and organize them into groups that I think might work with each

other. A bit like that bit on The X Factor when the judges put ultimate boy and girl bands together for drifting entrance. The top end, you can enjoy a pint with mr bingo in five years time for 200 pounds anyway i like his final purpose it's reinforced the notion that people really like paying good money to be told to fuck off it also restores my faith in humanity he says people are funnier and sillier than i thought mr bingo hate mail how much did he have to raise to make the book happen he only had to raise about 30 000 so he raised more than 100 000 more that's an amazing thing 100 000 pounds extra because people love being told to go and stick their heads up their backs my tenuous fact on this is that what i think is amazing about it is firstly the fuck octopus which is on the cover

um which you can't see but i urge you to go to the internet and look at it it's it about it is firstly the fuck octopus which is on the cover which you can't see but I urge you to go onto the internet and look at it. It's an octopus flicking the V's eight times. And it's beautifully

embossed on this beautiful grey. It's a lovely book, isn't it? So that's kind of fact one. Fact two is that he raised this

incredible amount of money from a relatively small amount of people so it's from three and a half thousand people. If he'd sold three and a half thousand copies in the shops he would have maybe made three and a half grand by doing it by kickstarter he's made like 80 grand i think that's really interesting

and how does he feel i have friends who've kickstarted books and they slightly they delight themselves by thinking of unlikely um targets or challenges that people then pay for that he then has to go through with. How does he feel about drinking on trains? I think he said he loves drinking on trains. So he's something he does anyway. So I think he's only doing what he would do normally. And he loves telling people to fuck off as well. He's monetised one dream after another, hasn't he?

Superb. He has. I particularly like this, dear Rob, no Instagram filters will save your face. Love, Mr Bingo. I particularly like this, dear Rob, no Instagram filters will save your face. Love, Mr. Bingo. But enough of this, Andy. What else have you got in your pile of masterpieces? I've also been reading, I've been reading simultaneously both Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. And what I've been trying to do... I was going to say, almost identical, so it must be a difficult distinguishing. It's all becoming one book, The Exploits of Lord Mugwump. But I was wondering whether you read two books on the go. Always. Can't possibly read one. And I alternate all the time. I read different books at different times of day. I mean, I think, you know, there's a morning book,

usually something a little bit about nature just gets me into the day. But if I'm reading serious fiction, that has to be kind of, you know, I need a coffee, I need to be, it needs to be the middle of the day. Or what I find is the last thing at night, where I like to read things that keep me awake. See, I much prefer not to. I much prefer to stick to one book.

And really, it was just the... My favourite time to read in the day is 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the morning, before the world has woken up and wants stuff from me. And I can just concentrate. But I was finding the experience of reading naked lunch at five o'clock in the morning a bit of a downer so i decided to tag team with nancy mitford i was trying to think who would be more appalled by that by that coupling mitford or burrows oh i think mitford was pretty unshockable i think burrows would have been

horrified it's quite it have you. He'd be horrified, yeah. It's quite... Have you read both those books? I have not read both of them. You've read either of them? I've not read either of them. Congratulations. No, you know, there are huge gaps in my reading.

That's the whole point about what we're trying to do with this podcast. One is a comedy of society manners, and the other is the nancy mitford what i think we're trying to do is to promote generally the fact that where a reading is good for you but b don't tell lies about what you haven't read so i think that's that's the that is the absolute we will never come in here and talk knowledgeably about books that we've never read. So that's the backlisted promise. The seal.

Do you want to hear about my next book that I've been reading? Yes. This is completely different. This is called A Cotswold Village. And it was published in the 1900s. It's by J. Arthur Gibbs it's a rather sad story because he it's a really lovely book but he died

at the age of 31, literally just before the book was published so it was published posthumously and it's rather sweet, he's got his wife in here who I think it's his wife or his sister just saying you know what a lovely man he was and what did he say she said something really nice about him, which I now can't find.

Yes, he had a deep love for things that are lovely, pure, and of good report. But the best thing about it, the best thing about it, is there's a guy in it who is complete the hero of the book, who is a gamekeeper called Tom Peregrine, who translates all his talk in the way they write dialogue. She's rather like the book we're coming on to talk to in a minute, dialogue is quite difficult to put into prose. But he does it brilliantly.

And by the end of it, Tom Peregrine's become this hero. And not only is he a hero, there's a very funny story where he goes in, he's told to get some oxtail soup in town. And he comes back with some oxalic soap. And his wife insists on making it into a soup and when he says it tastes ah this don't taste right my love my lover uh she makes him eat it all because a she said you know anything that's that's a soup has got to be good for you and b they'd already spent the

money on it but um does he die he doesn't die that doesn't look like he's near the end of the book, actually. The end of the book is this great thing. Tom Peregrine. Here we go. Tom Peregrine suddenly appears out of a hedge where he'd been watching the antics of the cubs at the mouth of the fox earth. He's grown very serious of late and tells you repeatedly

that there's going to be another big European war shortly. And he said, let us hope his gloomy forebodings are doomed to disappointment surely surely at the end of this marvelous 19th century when there are so many men in the world who've learned the difficult lessons of life in a way that they've never learned before nations are no longer obliged to behave like children or worse still with their petty jealousies and bickerings and growlings, like dogs that delight to bark and bite. Oh, that's a bit... Gibbs, dead, 1900, 14 years later, all went into... It was the middle of the Boer War when he died.

But Tom Peregrine, his finger was on some weird pulse. It's called A Cotswold Village by J. Arthur Gibbs. I haven't read that, before you ask. No. How did you come to that? Well, this is my morning routine. I like to read books about country pursuits and nature and things that make me feel kind of warm and cuddly.

Like you, early in the morning. I love to get up and read early in the morning. And these are the kind of things I... I find them in second-hand bookshops, Andy. It's an exclusive club of people who wrote books and then died before they were published. One I can think of is Giuseppe de Lampedusa's The Leopard.

Yes, one of the great books. It's so unfair. He didn't get any of that glory, did he? Oh, Emily Dickinson, just putting them all in a drawer. She never even sought publication. A great favourite of mine, have you ever heard of this? The Journal of a Disappointed Man?

Oh yes. By W.N.P. Barbellion. That's a wonderful book. I haven't. It's basically a man feeling very sorry for himself in the early 20th century. Basically what happens to him is he goes to the doctor to try and get out

of being conscripted, the army doctor. And his GP gives him a letter and says, oh, give this to the army doctor when you get there. So he trots along to the army doctor, hands the letter over. The army doctor reads the letter, doesn't tell him what's in it and says oh well that's okay mr barbellion you can you can go home no no no need to fight in the first world war for you so on the omnibus on the way home he opens up the letter to see what's in it and it says um mr barbellion is suffering from the early stages of multiple sclerosis so the second half of the book is about him coping with an actual thing he has to feel

sorry for and it is the most wonderful funny brave humbling thing to read someone who has the kind of self-pity that presumably a lot of us have a hundred years ago suddenly being given something to cope with and rising to the challenge and um i think i'm right in saying it was published i don't think it was published after his death but it was published when he was very near the end so it's like seasons in the sun like seasons in the sun we had joy we had fun yeah i can hear i can hear WMP Barbellion spinning in his grave. You know what, though? The king of the crap link.

We had joy. We had fun. We had seasons in the sun. Doesn't that remind you of J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country? It does. Not quite perfect, but that is the book that we are here to kind of talk about today on this podcast mostly. Okay, it's time now for an advert. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws.

Like Fresh Promise. Produce is carefully selected and checked for freshness. And if it's not fresh, it's free. Yes, you heard that right. From the crispest lettuce to the juiciest apples, Loblaws is committed to fresh, so you get the best fruits and veggies. Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. I, about a year ago, I had finished one of these long Russian novels, which is my delight and duty to read. And I asked a few people on Twitter, I've just finished this book.

I'd really like to read, so recommend me something short, something that, you know, that I can just connect with quickly and enjoy and several people said a month in the country by jl carr since which time i've noticed it's a book that on twitter people talk about a lot it's the equivalent of twitter word of mouth and word of mouth as we know is always the thing that actually sells books so it's like a sort of literary cat gif, is that what you say? Just comes up again and again. Yes, a poignant cat gif. And it's worked because it's been republished, presumably. The tailors wag the dog on this occasion.

And the reason why we ask this is to come in and share this experience of talking about Month in the Country with us is partly because she, I believe, is one of the people who responded to me and said, have you ever read A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr? I think you'd love it. But also Lissa, author of four novels for adults, two novels for children. Your last couple of adults novels, Their Finest Hour and a Half and Crooked

Heart, are both they're funny, they're very touching. They evoke a time and a specific place, which is one of the things that A Month in the Country does. What are the challenges for somebody who wants to bring a time and a place to life in a novel? For me, it's being comfortable in the era. So you're not an observer, you're an inhabitant of it.

You don't want to be wandering around noting bakelite radios and spotting things which people living in the era wouldn't have bothered to spot because they were part of the era. You need to be totally comfortable in it. You need to be comfortable with the vocabulary, with what you would see, with the way people's conversations ran. And that, for me, is how it works. It's doing so much research that you don't need to bother to do anymore because you understand how people thought then. So any plot you think of works because it's how things were.

It's like an actor learning their lines to the point where they can forget their lines and just inhabit the part. Yes, I think that's true. That's for me, anyway. And is that one of the things that you think works about A Month in the Country? Yes, but then everything works about A Month in the Country. It starts off, the first page is a man of 20

called Tom Burke in 1920 getting off a train in a Yorkshire village called Oxgodby. Actually, he's not 20, he's 23, isn't he? A Yorkshire village called Oxgodby in the pouring rain. And it ends with him leaving the village of Oxgodby around about two months later. It's never very clear. He gets there in July.

He leaves probably in September. Slightly misleading title, isn't it? Yes, it's not a month in the country at all. But then the month in the middle of it is the perfect month. Birkin is a veteran of the First World War, and he's there to do a job. A local benefactress has left money to the church, but the church will only get the money if a wall painting she suspects is there. In fact, she knows it's there because she's scraped off part of the um the line wash if a wall painting is exposed and if the grave of her

ancestor who died in the 15th century and was weirdly excommunicated if the grave the ancestor is searched for so two experts have been brought into the village there is Birkin who is um a graduate of an art school, now specialising in exposing war paintings. And there is Moon, another World War I veteran, who is an archaeologist, and he's there to look for the grave. And over the course of the weeks they're there, a beautiful, beautiful summer in a beautiful part of Yorkshire, Birkin, who arrives there with a twitch that he acquired at Passchendaele, who is really unhappy.

His wife has left him for another man, but will probably bounce back. He's in a very difficult relationship. He's very twitchy, literally twitchy. And over the course of six weeks, he finds his joy in life he he finds a serenity a pride in his workmanship he acquires a group of friends and he falls in love and then he leaves it all and gets on with his life again yes and the thing is this is a tiny book before we started

this podcast i said does anybody know how long it is? And we all speculated, 40,000, 30,000. It's 20,000 words long, and it's got everything, dammit. Our production director actually did the math. Yes. Thank you, Lauren. That's right. It's not only got wonderful characterization.

I've read longer proposals. It's not only got wonderful characterization, the writing is beautiful, the nature writing is beautiful. It's also got something which isn't written about very often. It's the work of experts. It's a craftsman doing something quite brilliantly and enjoying what he's doing. In fact, they're true craftsmen because Moon is exactly the same. It's got a slight mystery, a little bit of tension.

It's solved at the end. It's a bit sexy. sexy it's a bit sexy it's very funny in parts it's it shows the social structure brilliantly in the 20s work on the painting is like the rhythm of the work on the painting is marvelous and in fact i was going to read a little bit because what he's uncovering is he's uncovering a judge he thinks it's going to be a judgment anyway, because it's a painting that's on the arch of the church of the chancel. So it's a big triangular section of wall near the altar, above the altar. And he thinks that that's generally a judgment. And he's right. He gets up in the scaffolding.

He starts lifting the paint. And he says, as the first tinges of garment appeared, that Prince of Blues ultramarine ground from lapis lazuli began to show that really confirmed his class he must have fiddled it from a monastic job no village church could ever have run to such expense but it was the head the face which set a seal on his quality for my money the italian masters could learn a thing or two from that head this was no catalogue christ insufferably ethereal. This was a wintry hardliner. Justice, yes, there would be justice, but not mercy. That was writ large on each feature, for when by the week's end I reached

his raised right hand it had not been made perfect. It was still pierced. This was the Oscar beef Christ, uncompromising, no more threatening. This is my hand. This is what you did to me. And for this, many shall suffer the torment, for thus it was with me. Moon saw this at once. Hmm, he murmured. Wouldn't fancy being in the dock if he was the beak. And that's what his writing is like. He pops in the lines, doesn't he? I love this book, when I read it.

Such a great recommendation from you and from other people. John, you hadn't read it before, had you? No, I mean, I'd pretended to. I'd read it, obviously. We all do. But I hadn't actually grappled with it. There's that great line I always like to use of Column to Beans, which is, have you read it?

Yes, but not personally. So I had read it, but not personally. But now I've read it personally. I'm kind of evangelical about it because it was, you know, there are those chicken soup books. You always think I want to get ill so I can read P.G. Woodhouse and not have anybody bother me. Well, this is kind of if you wanted to give someone a book that made them, that sort of restored their faith in storytelling, in nature, in human, beautifully observed. I mean, the book is, all the relationships are beautifully observed.

But it's also, it's got a kind of a warmth and a kindness in it, which is quite rare in fiction. I keep having to pinch myself. It was written in 1980. It's not like written in 1920. Well, that's what I mean. He's there. He's writing it as somebody looking back.

I mean, he's there. He's writing as somebody looking back. But the stuff set in 1920 feels contemporary. I think one of the... I agree with you, Lyssa. One of the reasons for that is that, although, as John says, it's very warm, it's not sentimental. This is one of the great things about Carr as a writer, I think. But one of the reasons why i think a month in the country works and people tell one another about it is because

it doesn't it never feels soppy no it's quite steely especially the last couple of pages which we won't read out or talk about no no we don't want to give the end away but you know that's a that's not merely a brave thing i think we can say there are no car chases and nobody dies so it's not just a brave thing for the character to do it's incredibly brave thing for jl carr the the author to do to leave the story where it is he uses a lovely phrase in the in the intro saying feeling a tug at the heart and that's why it's just i feel all the way through that he he's such a clever writer he manages to do that does he does he use that phrase in the book yeah oh my god i think i've used it in one of my now really i came straight from there oh my god but also it's worth

saying that a month in the country was written towards the end of his he was nearly 70 when he wrote this book and his wife had been diagnosed with cancer in 1968, I think I'm right in saying, and they had lived with her cancer for 12 or 13 years. And I think she had either died or they knew she was very near the end when he wrote this book, which he wrote over the course of a few months. this book, which he wrote over the course of a few months. And looking at it again this week, with that knowledge, there is something very moving about the sense that someone who is trying to come to terms with a long period of suffering and saying goodbye to it in a way which will give him peace. That seems, I mean, I make the autobiographical comparison

because actually it's generally accepted that J.L. Carr's work is extremely autobiographical, even if you can't quite pin specific characters on him. Yeah, he was always moving stuff around. He said that novel writing can be a cold-blooded business. So he sort of, you know, he used pretty much all the things that happened in his life in his fiction, but he moved them around into different books.

But I love it. He said something I think is one of the most modest and brilliant things I've ever read a novelist say, but really all I've tried to do is tell a few people a story in the most appropriate way. And it is appropriate, even in terms of length. And thank God god his publisher actually was was it self-published wow ah we'll get on to that but thank god a publisher didn't

say to him yes it's awfully good but it's very short can you can you sort of extend it a bit because because it's short but it's perfect and frankly makes the rest of us hold up our hands in despair because if you can do all that in 20,000 why have the rest of us bothered to write 80,000? It's the old line about you know I'm sorry I wrote you a long letter I didn't have time to write you a short one. There's also the thing with this book which

is really fascinating which I hadn't appreciated was that Carr had been given the wardenship of a medieval church near Kettering in the mid-1960s, which he fought to stop being bulldozed by the local ecclesiastical authorities for 10 years. And you can read this book as a way of trying to say, you know, ultimately he didn't quite succeed, but in fiction he's able to keep the building standing forever yes you know that's one of the other beauties of it i think

and he's very good within the book he talks a couple of times about the medieval mind of course he's uncovering a medieval wall painting and he's wonderful about reaching back even further the past and saying these people weren't like us they lived in a different way they thought in a different way their rhythms of life were different and it's wonderful yeah god he's so good yeah it's very great i'm just thinking of little funny bits the vicar is the very few bad characters in the book you know but the vicar is a bit of a a he had a cold cooped up look and it's in fact the vicar's wife mrs kitch who he falls in love with and it's very it's all very tense particularly towards the end but the vicar he says the vicar describes him looking at him when he first meet him and he's remember he's completely soaked to the skin

and he's standing in a cold church and the vicar's very very cross about the whole thing of the wall painting anyway he says indeed i looked to him like an unsuitable person likely to indulge in unnatural activities who against his advice had been unnecessarily hired to uncover a wall painting he didn't want to see. And the sooner I got it done and buzzed off back to sin-stricken London, the better. But, you know, what he does do, though, which is something that George Eliot does, is introduce an unlikable character and then tilt the prism so you see him in a different way. an unlikable character and then tilt the prism so you see him in a different way and at the end the vicar reveals that he knows that that moon and birkin have thought he was a fool and and and birkin feels very uncomfortable and he says because people one doesn't care for even dislike

make most of us feel uneasy when they appeal against their sentence and that uncomfortable feeling when you condemn someone or have a laugh at their expense it's so it's so tender and so true and he does a lovely okay very now and then a great little bit of philosophy says our jobs are private fantasies or our private fantasies our disguises the cloak we can creep inside to hide which is pretty cool so i would like to say a bit about jl carr because i was really i asked several of the people who recommended this book to me on twitter including a couple of writers i said well i love this book what other books by jl carr would you recommend and almost without exception i said oh i don't know i haven't i haven't read any other books by jl carr So this week I read his last novel, which is called Harpole

and Foxborough, General Publisher. He published it in 1992. He self-published it at the age of 80. I bought a copy from him directly, because he came into the shop in which I was working at that time,

said, hello. What was it, like a sack of books? Yeah. Said, hello, I'm J.L. Carr. He was in? Yes. Hello, I'm J.L. Carr. I said, yes, I've just seen your book reviewed in the Sunday paper. He said, yes, I'm just down in London for the day.

I'm taking a few copies round to Branches of Waterstones. So I bought a copy from J.L. Carr himself, which is signed, here it is, signed by J.L. Carr. himself which is signed here it is signed by jl car and um it sat on my shelf for 23 years until this monday when i read it and the thing which surprised me about it greatly was it is incredibly funny yeah i i was tweeting a few little bits of it this week page to page incredibly funny and so i read a couple of other pieces by car also very funny none of them quite like one another and it's rather changed how i feel about a month in the country i think a month in the country we're tempted to look at and think as you suggest it's a perfect book it has a beginning middle and end it's slightly sealed off. And yet, the more I read about Carr and by Carr,

the more that you can see it's another bulletin from the place that he occupies and the place that he works in. You know, I think a lot of novelists do that thing, which is absolutely fine, where they will tell eight stories in the same way. Yes, that's very strange. J.L. Carr tells one story in eight different ways in eight different novels. That's exactly right. And the more of him I read, the deeper my appreciation for A Month in the Country gets,

because I realise he's choosing to write in that way. You know, he has all these different registers available to him that you see in his other books, and he chooses not to use any of them but just this one for this book. That's real writing. Yes, yes. You know, that's real strength of purpose. I also looked at, I read his House Deep Hall,

Cinderby Wanderers. I did read that, yeah. Won the FA Cup. It's not really in the same league. It's light, isn't it? But it's quite good fun. Yeah. It's about a non-le wanderers won the FA Cup. It's not really in the same league. It's light, isn't it? It's quite good fun. It's about a non-league team winning the FA Cup. And he writes, obviously, he played non-league football.

But I also discovered this hinterland of his. With my QI hat on, he did all these amazing maps with incredible drawings and facts and strange bits and pieces of history and a whole series of reference books car's dictionaries car's dictionaries of extraordinary english cricketers his dictionary of english queens king's wives paramours celebrated handfast spouses and royal changelings so a handfast spouse was actually a prostitute really i think or certainly a quarters a concubine but when somebody said why did you not call them concubines you might have sold a few more copies and he said I cherish my father's memory his father was a stern Methodist as and that which comes out he's very good on Methodist

there's a there's a brilliant line and there's a fantastic biography of Carr called The Last Englishman by Byron Rogers and the the last line of the book is fantastic. I thought it tells you everything you need to know about J.L. Carr. It's, Jim Carr died on the 26th of February 1994, and the last day of his life was the only one in which he had not been fully conscious. Oh, that's very good, isn't it? That's brilliant. Oh, that's very good, isn't it? who, as John suggests, publish little books and draw maps. And then as a result of being a publisher, that's the thing that drove him into writing his own books.

So his first novel is published when he's 50. Fantastic. He's 50 and he starts writing a series of novels, each of which is different to the previous one. It's amazing. And he actually kind of made it work. I think he and his wife had a chunk of money that they very nearly exhausted, but then the business did start to sort of work.

But I love this little thing he says about books, which I think is from Harpole and Foxborough. But he says, Books concern printers, publishers, sales reps, booksellers, proofreaders, professors, illustrators, indexers, critics, text editors, literary editors, librarians, book reviewers, book binders, bookrators, indexers, critics, text editors, literary editors, librarians, book reviewers, book binders, bookkeepers, translators, typographers, Oxfam fundraisers, whole university departments of soothsayers, manufacturers of thread and glue, auctioneers,

lumberjacks, starving mice, wolves howling at the doors of authors of first novels, the post office's book-bashing machine-minder, religious bonfire fuel suppliers and libel lawyers, and that this army is billeted upon one man or one woman knowing a pen is neither here nor there. That's just brilliant. He also has these in his own editions of his books published by his publisher, the Quincy Press. He has this legend at the beginning, which is brilliant.

This is a printing office crossroads of civilization refuge of all the arts against the ravages of time from this place words may fly abroad not to perish as waves of sound but fixed in time not corrupted by the hurrying hand but verified in proof friend you are on safe ground this is a printing office i looked at from a slightly different perspective i was looking at to begin with when you said this is a tenuous link time so i um i i was looking from a different perspective it was i looked at you know we're going to do this book this week and i looked at his other books and the first thing I noticed

was that originally they were all published by different publishers. Now, what does that tell you about a man? Yeah, well... In my experience, it tells me he perhaps was a bit of a handful. Yeah, I think it does. I mean, that's normally the case, isn't it? So I thought, well, if I'm going to do a tenuous link, maybe I'll try and make this one actually a little less tenuous maybe i could find the person that commissioned um or that was the editor for a month in the country um and because of the wonders of

the internet i was able to do that the thing that really kicked this off was discovering that the first edition of a month in the country was published by a company called the harvester press yes the harvest press and i knew about the harvester Press because I grew up in a very, very boring village in Sussex that bizarrely was actually the home of The Harvester Press. It has two literary claims to fame. The Harvester Press were based there, and Patrick Hamilton lived there for four days. He did? Yes.

What is the name of this extraordinary literary shrine? It's a literary shrine called Haseks. Excellent. And Haseks, which means... A nila, right? Yeah, a nila that actually... There was mention of the word Haseks in most of the country. At least twice.

At least twice, exactly. That's a tenuous connection. Anyway, so I got in touch with a guy that ran Harvester Press, and I spoke to him on the phone this afternoon. I said, how did you come about to end up with these books it's a it's a strange book for them because they were academic publisher and he said well I had a we had a little fiction list and I read a piece in the bookseller that Carr had written which was complaining about publishers saying they were all crooks and saying

they never paid any money and if he worked out the amount of time that he'd spent writing over the last few years, his hourly rate would have been, you know, less than a shilling. So John Spears wrote to him after seeing this piece in the bookstore and said, oh, I thought that was really interesting. We're not crooks. Have you got anything we can publish? And a couple of days later, through the post came a jiffy bag

with the manuscript for Months in the Country. That's an amazing story. There was no letter in there. I think that's the only one as well. I get very twitchy about manuscripts in the past. I think it might have been because John Spears puts it on his pile of manuscripts to read at some point, doesn't kind of get round to it, and a week later there's

a postcard from Carr and it says, you've had the manuscript a week, can you send it back now? So he rang him up. Sounds brilliant. He rang him up and said, I'm really sorry I haven't read it yet, but I'll read it in the next couple of days, and then I'll let you know and I'll send it back.

And Carr said, no, you need to get back to me tomorrow. So luckily it was only 20,000 words. We read it overnight, loved it, and made him an offer, at which point Carr said, oh, since, loved it, and made him an offer. At which point, Carl said, oh, since we last spoke, I've got an agent.

You can't deal with me anymore. You need to deal with my agent at AP Watt. Now, luckily, Spears knew the agent at AP Watt, so he rang her up and did a deal with her. He did a deal with her, played a thousand pounds,

I think, for it. And then, he gets another phone call from Carl, who says, whatever you do, don't give any money to that bastard at AP1

so Spears says okay I'm sorry but I've already done the contract we've got to do the book with her and their relationship

kind of carried on in that way it was apparently very irascible was the word that John Spears described to him well I was I was fascinated too the Mons in the way was apparently very irascible was the word that john spears described him well i was

i was fascinated too a month in the country was put into paperback by penguin and carl's editor at penguin was the now retired tony lacey who was the editor of my first book tilting at Windmills. Available from all good books. Actually, no. No, it isn't. I've gone through eight books. But given that A Month in the Country won the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker.

Shortlisted for the Booker. It must be the shortest ever shortlist. Tony didn't take up the option for the following book, which is called The Battle of Pollock's Crossing. And I am... He must have been really difficult. I don't have confirmation of this,

but yeah, I think the reason why he's published by even a publisher who would wish to hang on to it. And it's worth saying The Battle of Pollock's Crossing also shortlisted for the Booker Prize yeah Spears Spears the guy from from harvester press he said that it was one man who championed the book and it was this person championing the book that really got the ball rolling and started it selling copies can you guess who it was give us a clue is it what

he was one of the booker judges and he wrote also about rural life and about villages. Was it Jack Hargreaves? It was not Jack Hargreaves. Ronald Blythe? It was. You're right. It was Ronald Blythe, who was the first big champion for the book and really set it on its way.

The Harpole Report was championed by Frank Muir. Was it really? It really was. You know, Frank, it was his book of the year. It was Frank Muir's book of the year it was jail because big break and also apparently so it was peter mayer at penguin who who picked the book up um and he was trying to get the paperback rights for everything on the booker shortlist that year um and he picked them all up except for the one that won which was what i think it was william

golding yeah william golding oh it was a um darkness visible it was William... It was William Golding. Oh, it was Darkness Visible, wasn't it? Yeah, I think. Cool. Can I read one just last little bit? Yeah, yeah. I was trying to think of something that sums up it. Because Birkin has been working on this painting for a couple of months, and he's leaving.

So I turned and climbed the ladder for a last look, and standing before the great spread of colour, I felt the old tingling excitement and a sureness that the time would come when some stranger would stand there too and understand. I just love that. It's just that he's done his work. You were saying, Lisa, about craftsmanship.

He's done his work. Yes. He looks, his work. Yes. He looks, gives it a last look and thinks, somebody is going to be like me and will come and understand what's happened here. I know that just seems to be sort of what all artists do, all writers do in a way, leave stuff for other people to discover.

And I think the work of J.L. Carr, we've had a fun week exploring it, is everybody should dig in. There is literally something for everyone, I think, with J JL Carr, we've had a fun week exploring it. Everybody should dig in. There is literally something for everyone, I think, with JL Carr. Okay. I think that's it for this week. Thank you all very much for listening. Thank you.

We'll be back in a fortnight's time to be discussing something else along the lines of what, Andy? Books? Bookshops? More books? Discussing something else along the lines of what, Andy? Books, bookshops, more books, authors. Life and fate. We're discussing life and fate. Large, thick Russian novels. Small books with not very many words in, like J.L. Carr.

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