Читать книгу Huddleston Road - John Toomey - Страница 6

Acknowledgements

The beginnings of Huddleston Road go a long way back, but once the decision to impose a novel upon the idea was made, a number of writers and sources became influential in its realization. I was struggling to find a coherent narrative when I came across Victoria Gill’s excellent article, Suicide Surfers, in the Sunday Times Magazine in May 2007. The article alerted me to the internet suicide phenomena, A.S.H., which I would go on to adapt for my own purposes in the form of DUST. I borrowed liberally from the A.S.H. site, now frozen for posterity, embellishing and adapting it to suit the narrative of Huddleston Road.

I would also like to thank John Waters, writer and journalist with The Irish Times, for his kind appraisal of my first novel, Sleepwalker, and his subsequent help with the recommended reading for Huddleston Road. The book certainly could not have been written without Al Alvarez’s deeply personal insight into suicide and its place in literature through the ages, in his superb book, The Savage God. Mr Alvarez imposed humanity on the cultural history of suicide, made accessible the ideas and theories without ever losing sight of their labyrinthine complexity.

On the advice of John Waters, I also dipped in and out of Emile Durkheim’s sociological tome, Suicide, which was invaluable, and Primo Levi’s, The Drowned and the Saved, which must be one of the bravest pieces of writing I’ve encountered.

I should mention, too, that the internet and its sprawling tentacles has also been valuable, for chasing up any number of small details, ranging from London postcodes to cranio-facial duplication.

Lastly, I would like to thank John O’Brien of The Dalkey Archive Press and Andrew Russell of the Somerville Press: John, for his clear-thinking editorial commitment to Huddleston Road – he salvaged this short novel from the arms of a sprawling narrative mess while managing not to make me feel as though I was an idiot; and Andrew for introducing me and my work to the Dalkey Archive Press, and for generally looking after my interests.

JOHN TOOMEY, FEBRUARY 2012