Writing Liverpool Essays and Interviews

by Rees-Jones, Deryn; Murphy, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781846310737
• ISBN10: 1846310733
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-01
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

Roger McGough, Levi Tafari, Willy Russell, Terence Davies, James Hanley, George Garrett, J.G. Farrell, Brian Patten, Adrian Henri, Beryl Bainbridge, Jimmy McGovern, Alan Bleasdale, Helen Forrester, Lyn Andrews, Margaret Murphy, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell... no matter what the genre Liverpool seems to have generated some of the most provocative and interesting writers of the last seventy-five years. Intended to mark and celebrate Liverpool's 800th birthday in 2007 and its status as European City of Culture in 2008, this collection of essays and interviews addresses the wide range of writing that has emerged from Liverpool from the 1930s to the present day. It asks if there is a distinctive Liverpool voice, and if so, how it might be identified. Featuring interviews with Liverpool-born film director and novelist, Terence Davies, (Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Long Day Closes and The House of Mirth), Roger McGough, Willy Russell and Levi Tafari along with contributions from leading cultural critics such as former NME journalist and Mojo magazine founder Paul Du Noyer and award-winning poet George Szirtes, Liverpool Writing will be of interest to readers fascinated by the influences on and of the city dubbed ‘the Centre of the Creative Universe'.

Author Biography

Deryn Rees Jones and Michael Murphy are both award-winning poets.  Jones is senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Liverpool and Murphy is senior lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
List of Contributors	p. viii
Introduction: Sounding Liverpool	p. 1
George Garrett, Merseyside Labour and the Influence of the United States	p. 29
'No Struggle but the Home': James Hanley's The Furys	p. 43
Paradise Street Blues: Malcolm Lowry's Liverpool	p. 55
'Unhomely Moments': The Fictions of Beryl Bainbridge	p. 72
A Man from Elsewhere: The Liminal Presence of Liverpool in the Fiction of J. G. Farrell	p. 88
The Figure in the Carpet: An Interview with Terence Davies	p. 105
'Every Time a Thing Is Possessed, It Vanishes': The Poetry of Brian Patten	p. 117
Finding a Rhyme for Alphabet Soup: An Interview with Roger McGough	p. 138
Rewriting the Narrative: Liverpool Women Writers	p. 145
Jumping Off: An Interview with Linda Grant	p. 160
Ramsey Campbell's Haunted Liverpool	p. 166
'We Are a City That Just Likes to Talk': An Interview with Alan Bleasdale	p. 184
'Culture Is Ordinary': The Legacy of the Scottie Road and Liverpool 8 Writers	p. 194
'I've Got a Theory about Scousers': Jimmy McGovern and Lynda La Plante	p. 210
Manners, Mores and Musicality: An Interview with Willy Russell	p. 228
Subversive Dreamers: Liverpool Songwriting from the Beatles to the Zutons	p. 239
Putting Down Roots: An Interview with Levi Tafari	p. 252
'Out of Transformations': Liverpool Poetry in the Twenty-first Century	p. 265
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