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Aaron Peck
Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Articles Available Online


The Abyss Echoes Back: Judith Schalansky’s ‘An Inventory of Losses’

Book Review

January 2021

Aaron Peck

Book Review

January 2021

Early in Judith Schalansky’s An Inventory of Losses, the narrator describes the way an ancient form of writing survived oblivion. The soft clay tablets...

Book Review

May 2018

Harry Mathews’s ‘The Solitary Twin’

Aaron Peck

Book Review

May 2018

Imagine a small fishing village on the edge of the world. Its inhabitants are progressive and content. The surroundings...

The last fella was baby-faced with tufty brown hair and it was Majella’s turn to sit in front He’d been crapping on about what Dublin girls liked to get up to, and when she didn’t answer, he told her to cheer up outta that and let a smile out of her He took his hand off the gear stick and, before it landed on her knee, she stabbed him in the cheek with the brassy end of her lighter, yelling at him to stop the car From the back seat, Roisin bashed him on the head with her fist and the car skidded sideways onto the grass verge While they scrabbled to get out, he kept shouting, ‘What the fuck?’ Majella slammed the door and, as he screeched away, Roisin whacked her haversack off the boot They stood in the middle of the road yelling ‘wanker’ till he was out of sight    ‘That’ll learn you,’ Roisin shouted ‘Fucken prick’ Then they were both laughing, and yelling, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?’ in his country-boy accent and mimicking his wide frightened eyes    When they’d calmed down, Roisin lit two fags and handed one to Majella They were on a strip of road with no houses, just rough, tussocky grass and hawthorn Majella sniffed the air From somewhere behind them, the smell of the sea drifted across the fields, mingled with the slight coolness of evening    ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said ‘Middle of nowhere’   ‘It’ll be grand,’ Roisin said They stood smoking and looking around Roisin took a last drag, dropped her butt onto the road and screwed it into the tarmac with a pointed foot She picked up her haversack, her hair swinging, sleek and shiny, around her face, then walked backwards along the grass verge getting ready to stick her thumb out    ‘My turn to sit up front,’ she said ‘For me sins’   Eventually an auld lad in a filthy Ford pulled up and dropped them outside Jack Whites   Dekko was waiting for them in the car park He strolled over, looped his arms around Roisin’s neck and gave her a long,

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Gloria

fiction

May 2017

Aaron Peck

fiction

May 2017

Bernard, whenever he thought of Geoffrey, would remember his gait on the afternoon of their first meeting. Geoffrey walked with the confidence of a...

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Interview

Issue No. 4

Interview with Ahdaf Soueif

Jacques Testard

Interview

Issue No. 4

In 1999, Ahdaf Soueif’s second novel, The Map of Love, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, eventually losing out...

fiction

April 2013

The Taxidermist

Olivia Heal

fiction

April 2013

I did not want to walk. The day was dull. But imperative or impulsion pushed me out, onto the...

Interview

Issue No. 8

Interview with Deborah Levy

Jacques Testard

Interview

Issue No. 8

‘TO BECOME A WRITER, I had to learn to interrupt, to speak up, to speak a little louder, and...

 

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