Levy & Gunn return
Posted by the Bookshop
Deborah Levy and Kirsty Gunn are no strangers to the London Review Bookshop. They joined us towards the end of 2015 for a fascinating event exploring their respective collected short stories, the process of writing short fiction and the influence of modernism on their writing (and you can listen to the podcast on our website). This year, they’re with us once again to discuss Levy’s new book Hot Milk.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for her previous novel Swimming Home, Deborah Levy has been widely critically acclaimed – including praise from Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books. Turner's review described the strong aesthetic of the novel:
The structure is classical, the unities of time and place rigorously maintained. No prop, no object, makes the cut unless it is simple, sculptural, dynamic.
Gunn and Levy are powerful voices in the contemporary literary world, and their engagement with each other's work goes back a long way. Following Turner’s article, Kirsty Gunn wrote to the LRB hailing Swimming Home as a “stunningly original writer’s literary project”:
Instead, go back to all those items in Swimming Home that Turner lists for us, the sugar mice and cherry print bikini – those words. That is where the action of this book is, the author creating stuff on the page for readers to bump up against and try and figure out.
Read the full review and Gunn's letter on the LRB website.
Book tickets now to see Deborah Levy and Kirsty Gunn in conversation on Friday 8 April, from 7 pm.
