I’m in the middle of Jenny Davidson’s YA novel, The Explosionist. It’s a lot of fun– even more so if you notice the way her eighteenth-century expertise informs the world she’s built for the book, noticings that the younger parts of her intended audience won’t mind if they don’t pick up (and will feel pretty special if they do). It is, in a way, set during the Scottish Enlightenment… and yet, really, it’s set in an alternate-history Scotland where Napoleon, 200 years ago, won the Napoleonic Wars.
I’m in Harvey Hix’s new anthology, intended to introduce US poets to Northern Ireland! It ends with William Meredith’s fine sonnet “The Illiterate,” but most of the people in it are my age, or not much older, or a bit younger. So far I like it. Best discovery: a poet about Bikini Atoll by Quan Barry.
I’m also in a recent, though no longer the current, LRB, writing about Frank Bidart. People should read him.
