Robert O’Connor revisits the Minneapolis label, home to 60s psych-trash novelty hits ‘Surfin’ Bird’ and ‘Liar, Liar’ “Everybody’s heard about the bird,” the song begins. Peter from Family Guy heard the song and it became his new favorite thing in the world. He annoys everyone by singing and dancing along with the song until Stewie […]
An Interview With Jeanette Hewitt
Jeanette Hewitt Is the author of Freedom First Peace Later, a novel about life in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, against the backdrop of Republican activity. The book was first published in December by BlueWood. and has been submitted for The Orwell Prize 2011. In 2008, Jeanette Hewitt won the silver award for the Author v Author […]
Voices of Nigeria: An Interview with E.C. Osondu
Nigerian writer E.C Osondu won the 2009 Caine Prize, otherwise known as the African Booker, for his short story Waiting. An anthology of his stories, Voice of America, has been published to widespread critical acclaim. Here, he speaks to Mary-Claire Wilson from his home in Rhode Island, where he is assistant professor of English at […]
United You Stand: National Anthem in Indian Movie Theatres
Sourav Roy from Mumbai argues whether standing up to the national anthem in Indian movie theatres stands to reason The old man stood in attention. But instead of looking straight ahead, he kept stealing glances at the girl seated next to him. The stolen glances soon became stares and the stare turned into glare. Soon […]
Write for Spike!
Would you like to contribute to Spike Magazine? We are currently looking for five writers, one for each of the following areas: Art, Books, Film, Ideas, and Music. We would expect a six-month commitment with three submissions per month: an interview, feature, review, and/or blog post, planned with the editor, according to schedule, two-three months […]
Cutting The Drugs: UK Drug and Rehab Services Under Threat From Government Cutbacks
What impact will recent UK government cutbacks have on drug and alcohol counselling? Carl Stanley asked the opinion of a variety of rehab professionals, including a magistrate, drugs counseller, and pharmacist, plus several musicians who have been through the process The UK’s drink/drug counseling and rehabilitation services are facing cuts in spending and rapid changes […]
Everything That Follows Is Based On Recent, Real-Life Experience That Has Been Proven To Work – James Shepherd-Baron
“Everything that follows is based on recent, real-life experience that has been proven to work” — James Shepherd-Baron First off — the title. Shepherd-Baron was clearly aiming for the hard-bitten no nonsense “Dettol-does-what-it-says-on—the-tin” approach when naming this comprehensive world survival guide, but has ended up producing the clumsiest and most ungainly titled book of the […]
Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism
The only game in town, and a rigged one at that. In what is swiftly becoming ‘living memory’, capitalism is now the only economic, social and political system deemed possible, the logic of its late incarnation invading every aspect of life, culture, even inner thought. So absolute is its mental grip that when international finance […]
Wyndham Lewis’ Blast: An Explosive Journal
Ben Granger First published in 1914, Wyndham Lewis’ Blast has just been republished by Thames And Hudson. For centuries, when the Great British reading public scanned the covers of their journals, from Blackwoods through to the Edinburgh Review , the only words they saw were in Roman typeface, crowded and tiny. Imagine their thoughts on […]
Jessica Anthony – The Convalescent
Dan Coxon You have to give Jessica Anthony credit: in this current climate of MFA-educated clones it’s unusual to come across a truly unique narrator. We’ve all read plenty of Holden Caulfield rip-offs, or various takes on the Kerouac drifter-philosopher, the William Burroughs educated-junky, or the Paul Bowles traveller-adventurer. There haven’t been too many Hungarian […]
Michael Foot: The Uncollected Michael Foot – Essays Old and New
Ben Granger Mention the name Michael Foot and listen out for the automatic sneer. A rolling of eyes at a “disastrous leader”, accompanied no doubt with devilishly cutting asides about donkey jackets, walking sticks or Worzel Gummidge, delete as appropriate. Gerald Kaufman’s deathless Wildeanism chiding Foot’s 1983 Labour Manifesto as “the longest suicide note in […]
Patrick McGrath – Trauma
Dan Coxon There’s something to be said for the contemporary novelist having a background in psychology. While the mass-market thrillers and romance novels that pack the supermarket shelves are happy to remain plot-driven page-turners, the modern literary novel prides itself on its ability to unravel the thoughts and emotions of its characters rather than relying […]
Sergio Ramirez – A Thousand Deaths Plus One
Pedro Blas Gonzalez Reminiscent of Borges in its maze-like complexity of shadowy figures and surreal situations, A Thousand Deaths Plus One is as unpredictable a work as it is intricate in construction. Sergio Ramirez’s novel is essentially a work of intrigue. In 1987 the author found himself in Warsaw on a state visit. Ramirez was […]
Daniel Wallace – Mr. Sebastian And The Negro Magician
…Given his subject matter it’s natural that Daniel Wallace should attempt some authorly tricks, and his multiple points of view allow him to play with the concepts of truth and illusion. By the end you’ll be uncertain whether Mr. Sebastian was the devil, whether he was actually several different people – or even if he existed at all…
John Milton – Paradise Lost (illustrated by Gustave Doré)
…While Doré is known as being a gifted illustrator and artist, he can also be said to share in Milton’s perspicuity in realizing and communicating the breath and scope of the poet’s vision…
On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan
…It’s hard to imagine any debut writer having a story this short published as a stand-alone novel, yet because McEwan is one of the literary world’s big earners the public are expected to pay more than twice as much for his work…
Steve Dupont – Therein Lies The Problem
“… the plot sounds like a collaboration between George Orwell and Roald Dahl, but the large cast of curious characters gives the novel a tone that’s more in keeping with Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K Dick. They sometimes tread a fine line between caricature and outright fantasy, but once you buy into the slightly strange world that Dupont has crafted he takes you on a rollercoaster ride quite unlike anything else in modern fiction… “
Andrei Tarkovsky – The Sacrifice
“…The great cinematic martyr, he put life before film to the extent that it is believed he died from cancer having shot an entire film in an area contaminated by radiation (the film had needed a post-fallout look, you see). Tarkovsky didn’t give a damn about himself or money; it wasn’t important to him whether his film was a commercial success, only that he made what he intended…. “
Austin Grossman: Soon I Will Be Invincible
“… While there are surface similarities between Soon I Will Be Invincible and that TV show, however, the tone of the novel quickly shifts towards the more fantastical end of the spectrum. Grossman makes no attempt to explain the world that he describes – a world where superheroes, and supervillians, exist as a widely accepted everyday reality – but instead he takes this death-defying, spandex-wearing ball and runs with it… “
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
“…Relating the relatively humdrum tale of two ‘associates’ in a Staples stationary superstore, it often sounds like a soap opera rather than the latest offering from one of contemporary literature’s most intriguing voices. The Gum Thief’s relatively mundane surface hides an intriguing study of the epistolary form – and a commentary on the nature of the novel itself. “