News & Blog by Andrew Humphreys
Read the latest news and bulletins, essays, features, opinions from our bestselling authors. Find out what's being said, debated, and discussed in the world of books and ideas.
I’ve always had a soft spot for cults. Not the kind of cult that hurts people or anticipates the end of the world. Those guys are plain crazy. But the kind that stumbles along baking quality biodynamic muffins and producing nothing more deadly than a double-sided photocopied pamphlet. FOLATE, the semi-secret, chicken-loving organisation Martin encounters in Martin Westley Takes a Walk, may or...
On page 145 of Martin Westley Takes a Walk, Martin Westley lies on a bed surrounded by photographs he doesn’t remember. All he remembers is a single lyric from a song: People take pictures of each other, just to prove that they really existed. Martin doesn’t know it, but the song, “People Take Pictures of Each Other”, is the last song of the Kinks’ excellent 1968 album, The Kinks Are...
I’m one of those writers who prefer to keep the mysterious nature of the writing process mysterious. It’s not something I much like talking about, partly out of the superstitious dread that by breaking it down and naming it, I’ll destroy it, but also partly because I’m just not that interested in making it more complicated than it ought to be. For me, writing has always been about time. You can...
The epigraph for Martin Westley Takes a Walk comes from the Jimmie Rodgers song “Blue Yodel No. 8 (Muleskinner Blues)”, a song he recorded in July of 1930. That’s Jimmie Rodgers pictured above, taken from the picture archives at www.jimmierodgers.com. Rodgers, often known as “The Singing Brakeman”, was the first country music (back then they called it hillbilly music) superstar, with film,...
I stole the dedication of Martin Westley Takes a Walk from the American author William H. Gass, who probably stole it from somebody else. I used my own family’s names, not Gass’s, although the thought did cross my mind. I also considered dedicating the book “To all the girls I’ve loved before”, but there haven’t been enough girls (there can never be enough) and I was afraid I’d come across more...
