Here’s a first look at my new novel, The Edge of the Object, which is being published by the Half Pint Press on 1st December in a three-volume limited edition with a handmade case. While the middle part is traditionally typeset, parts one and three form sequences of shaped text, or calligrams.
A dedicated website for the book is now live at www.theedgeoftheobject.com, including info on how to order a copy. And I’m delighted to say that we’re having a physical launch event at the Prince Arthur pub near Old Street station in London on 1st December. If you’re in London or within striking distance of the City, it would be great to see you. Full details on the new website.
By Daniel Williams Published by the Half Pint Press, autumn 2021 (publication date to be confirmed) Three-volume limited edition with letterpress-printed wraparound slipcase
For more information or to be added to my mailing list, please contact me.
A visually arresting triptych, Daniel Williams’ first novel is a playful exploration of words and space, and of presence and absence, both on the page and in the mind of the narrator: a young photographer who has swapped a London high-rise and the city’s music scene and for a storm-damaged cottage in Normandy.
Escaping his solitary confinement, the Leica-less photographer heads off on a tour with two up-and-coming indie bands, Solar Plexus and the Faceless Saints. In Bordeaux he is introduced to Sophie, a meeting that shapes the rest of his stay…
Set in the 1990s, and written predominantly in striking second person prose, The Edge of the Object is a study of love, music, alienation, and of France through the lens of a Francophile, captured in a sequence of stunning calligrams.
My father lent the Super 8 movie camera to his eldest brother, and in the late 1960s, they took it on holiday to Menton, in the south of France. Accompanying them were my paternal grandparents, and my aunt and uncle’s adopted son, Michael.
Michael was a year or two older than me, but he is no longer with us. I don’t know enough of the path his life took nor of his interior to presume to tell the story of his early death, but even now, I miss his life-and-soul presence at family dos. In boyhood he was the cousin to whom I was closest, and alongside our respective younger brothers, we spent long hours playing at soldiers in our respective gardens. In early teenage years I remember him having copies of a couple of seven inch records that I coveted – ‘Absolute beginners’ and ‘Love will tear us apart’ – but after that we met too infrequently to know anything substantial about each other’s life, times or indeed struggles. Having brought three children of his own into the world, his death was a shock. Shocking in its abruptness, and shocking in its finality. How much more so for those who knew him so much better than me.
Here he is simply a happy, two year old boy playing on a French beach, loved by parents and grandparents alike. He has made the acquaintance of a German boy of the same age, and he is absorbed in back and forth bucket and spade activity. In another scene, his father lies on a lilo with Michael atop his chest, while in what looks to be one of the more staged shots, against a backdrop of photogenic bougainvillea, he walks between his mother and grandmother, holding their hands as the elder of the two women admires the flowers. Much less staged is the camera catching his bottom being wiped.
The holiday looks to have been as beautiful as any in the south of France should. The coastline – the way the houses are set into the hillside – has the look of Italy about it (and indeed, Menton was once part of the Republic of Genoa). My uncle adds to the stylish feel by sporting the same kind of Fred Perry cotton pique short-sleeve shirt that I took to wearing when I was roughly the same age as he is in this footage. Top button done up, as fashion dictated.
At home after the holiday, they find an English summer nearly as hot as the one they left behind. While the poodle eats treats standing on the selfsame lilo, Michael runs the length of his grandparents’ garden. That life-and-soul joy of later years is already writ large on his little face.
A wild slim alien 