AL Kennedy Launches Granta Podcast: "The magnificent argument of his blood"

The literary magazine Granta's inaugural podcast features A.L. Kennedy reading an excerpt from her novel-in-progress (Granta iTunes link here). Kennedy begins with that "terrible word"--love--and conducts a sardonic analysis that commingles mouth mechanics and lexicality. She hurtles from there into a syncopated riff on the physical and emotional arc of love affairs and table lamps. Recorded at the British Library in July 2010, the 10-minute podcast includes the atmospheric audio of manuscript pages turning. It stands alone as a prose amuse-bouche: good company for a quick dead-head of late summer roses, or a stroll to the trolley stop.

I'm going to subscribe to the Granta podcast with some interest, as Elizabeth McCracken will be their next reader, and because I like their format: a brief but satisfying chunk of text, read by its author, and recorded with a minimum of fuss.

To read my longer effort to describe the uniquely animate quality of Kennedy's prose, please see my review of her recent story collection, What Becomes, at IdentityTheory.com.

If you'd like to listen to a much longer Kennedy podcast, one that includes writing advice, humor, and some dirtyish prose, go to this Litagogo review of A.L. Kennedy's appearance at the Writers at Warwick program  (the Warwick University podcast is dormant, but the links from my post still seem to work). Finally, if you want to listen to her en vivo, and if you can get to Philly on September 30th, 2010, here's a link to the Free Library of Philadelphia's event with A.L. Kennedy and Gary Shteyngart.

FTC Disclosure: I received a free galley copy of What Becomes when I reviewed it. I purchased my other A.L. Kennedy books with my own dosh. Podcasts are free.