Send us a textEmma Warren has been documenting grassroots culture for decades. Her most recent book, Dance Your Way Home (a Guardian book of the year) was a celebration of 80s club nights, Irish dance halls and sweaty youth centres. This September, she returns with another piece of expertly researched and lovingly told social history. Once more taking the reader onto familiar ground, Up The Youth Club is a searching look at the rise and fall of a national treasure, highlighting both the seismic impact they've had on UK culture and why we need to ensure their existence and re-emergence for future generations. So, for anyone who ever forgot their tuck shop money or who came close in a table tennis tournament, here is Emma on a place redolent with collective memory. ‘As a critical and emotive analysis of the Youth Club’s history Warren’s book is seminal. An inspired trip down memory lane …’Courttia Newland 'Warren shows why youth spaces matter - not just for young people, but for all of us.' Darren McGarvey'Community, resilience, kindness . . . A story of people at their best.' Richard KingPre-order your copy here:https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571389216-up-the-youth-club/?srsltid=AfmBOoqDMBjdFl4qkX2RbEZyeBIhyDD0wDjaHwCGDx5nMvFGTgDTAgIZMusic used on this episode: Daniel Avery, Hazel and Gold@fieldzine www.fieldzine.comwww.patreon.com/fieldzine
--------
25:47
--------
25:47
Field Ramble with Hannah Patterson
Send us a textOn this episode we hear from playwright Hannah Patterson about her debut novel Ungone. It’s another gem from the mighty Rough Trade Books, the story of a single decision and the strange new world that grows from it. Hannah’s central character Eve is recently returned from an Antarctic research trip to grapple with the decline of her ageing mother. Unable to visit her at the care home in which she lives, she employs Erin, a total stranger, to go instead, pretending to be her. The act has profound consequences for all three women as the fixed positions of family slip, old ties are loosened and new bonds are formed. The transience of contemporary life is woven throughout Ungone. The characters navigating a precarious, collapsing world, the unyielding edifices of family seeming ever stranger for it. A curious tension, captured in the prominent prefix of the title that frees the word from its meaning. “So astute, so shrewd… The theme—can we be someone else?—is beautifully laid out.”—DAVID HARE“Ungone is as original as it is thrilling and as beautiful as it is haunting. A whip-smart examination of the complexities of end-of-life care and our sense of duty to the ones we love. It is a poignant and fascinating novel, masterfully written.” —HARRY MACQUEEN (writer/director of Supernova)PREORDER: UNGONE https://roughtradebooks.com/collections/books/products/ungone-hannah-pattersonUP NEXT: The wonderful Emma Warren with her latest book ‘Up The Youth Club.’ Until then, big love x If you enjoyed the pod, subscribe and leave us a review x@fieldzine www.fieldzine.comwww.patreon.com/fieldzine
--------
22:01
--------
22:01
Field Ramble with Sarah Hall
Send us a textSarah Hall needs little introduction. Twice nominated for the Man-Booker Prize and the first and only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice, she has written ten highly acclaimed novels and short story collections. This August she returns with her latest novel Helm, the multi-millennial tale of the strange and seductive wind which haunts the Eden Valley of her native Cumbria. The story is one that she has been unable to walk away from; a twenty year project spanning much of her career as a novelist. It is also the first to carry a maker’s mark, a guarantee of its provenance from both author and publisher (Faber) that Helm is entirely human written. In our wide-ranging interview we discuss the dangers presented by AI to the arts, the struggles faced in capturing such an elusive presence on the page and the enduring pull of this particular story for her.‘Sarah Hall’s new novel Helm is incandescently good. It is sexy and funny and erudite and strange, and the prose is dizzyingly good. Up there with her best.’ Sarah Perry‘I’m awed … I wouldn’t think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one’s sense of what fiction can do.’ Sarah Moss‘Sarah Hall’s writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes.’ Daisy JohnsonMusic: Ian Hawgood - A Delicate Connection Not Lightly Broken Search Field Ramble in Spotify and iTunes Please subscribe & leave us a review while you’re there. x @fieldzine www.fieldzine.comwww.patreon.com/fieldzine
--------
33:49
--------
33:49
Field Ramble with Jo Mcmillan
Send us a textShortlisted for this years Orwell Fiction Prize, The Accidental Immigrants is a work of political fable for our times. Dedicated to ‘all the people who lose their lives trying to reach a safer shore,’ Jo Mcmillan’s latest novel centres on a desperate British couple who are displaced from their home on a fictional Mediterranean island by a rising totalitarian regime.Born from a disgust at the decade-long surge of European far right politics and the ineffective centrism that paves its way, The Accidental Immigrants is a novel that urges us to reflect on our own complacency and sense of exceptionalism. In Jo’s own words it is a mini revolution between two covers, a record of her resistance and an exercising of her freedom to imagine.https://bluemoosebooks.com/books/accidental-immigrants@fieldzine www.fieldzine.comwww.patreon.com/fieldzine
--------
21:38
--------
21:38
Field Ramble with Lally Macbeth
Send us a textOn this episode we hear from Lally Macbeth about her incredible compendium ‘The Lost Folk.’ The distillation of a lifetime’s passion, it is an inclusive and comprehensive take on the meaning of folk, that asks us to rediscover, to cherish and to share the particular and the weird from which all our communities are made. From pub signs to tea towels, bonfires to storytellers, this is a book that holds the elusive, the unownable and the collective dear. The Lost Folk’s epigraph is the motto of the Federation of the Old Cornwall Societies - ‘Gather ye the fragments that are left, that nothing be lost.’ And that is unquestionably what Lally Macbeth has done here. Packed from cover to cover with stories and anecdotes, it mixes her own experiences with a treasure trove of customs, curios and finds. ‘An exceptionally thoughtful and beautifully written celebration of the creative power that lives and breathes within our communities.’ Maxine Peake‘Erudite, questing and endlessly fascinating.’ Katherine May‘A splendid museum full of strange and wonderful things.’Peter Ross@fieldzine www.fieldzine.comwww.patreon.com/fieldzine
A pod for those who love the latest in fiction, non fiction and poetry. Field is a platform for new and exciting work from across the UK and beyond. If you like what you hear find out more about Field at www.fieldzine.com. You can subscribe and support Field's work via patreon at www.patreon.com/fieldzine for just £3 per month.
Ireland