Granta 66

This issue of Granta has several interesting articles and stories. The first is one about a child survivor of the Holocaust who may not be a survivor at all. The man wrote a book which is regarded as a powerful account of the Holocaust but proof of his presence is lacking. There is evidence that he was merely an adopted child in Switzerland who was given up for adoption by an unwed mother. Which story is correct? Bad Nature is a funny account of a Spanish language coach for Elvis during the filming of Fun in Acapulco involves bringing in someone from Spain, Elvis didn't want to speak Spanish like a Mexican. My favorite is the photo essay on South Africa's Truth Commission. The format is done by describing the incident or crime and allowing both victims and persecuters to give their accounts. Another African story provides a story of a man so enraged by the theft of a TV from a friend dying of AIDS, that he kills the theif.

The stories begin discussing the Titanic and go on to other distress zones, such as Serbia, Zambia and other places where women and children have endured hardship.

This is the first Granta book I've read but I'm definitely interested in more after this one. A collection of essays, stories, memoirs and photographs all based around the theme of London, it contains works by such well-known authors as Anthony Bailey, Ian Buruma, Amit Chaudri, Hanif Kureishi, John Lanchester, Dale Peck, Will Self and Graham Swift plus articles by two writers for the Observer. Sandwiched in between all of these works are ten 'London Views', where various authors ruminate on their favorite or most memorable views in and about the city.Many of the essays are accounts of the author's memories of their time spent in London, as in the childhood memories of Ferdinand Dennis and Ruth Gershon or the more recent recollections by Ian Hamilton and Lucretia Stewart. My favorite part, however, was the short fiction, especially Philip Hensher's mysterious tale of real estate in the late '80s and Lanchester's quirky story about an accountant's experience of a bank robbery. I also enjoyed Helen Simpson's 'With a Bang,' an account of life in Kew in the age of Nostradamus, an appropriate addition to a volume published in 1999.The stories taken collectively give a really in-depth view of London at the turn of the century. Yet even if you're not interested in London per se, the writing here is good enough to warrant buying this anyway.

As I read this issue travelling from LA to New York and back, I saw there was a secret thread that held most of the pieces in it together: Ghosts of one sort or another. Henk van Woerden's excellent "The Assassin" is about a man who had no sense of identity, and whose attempt to find one led to the assassination of South African premier Hendrik Verwoerd in September 1966. His Demetrios Tsafendas is a man without a country, without a religion, and without the human affiliations that seem to make life worth living. Other pieces in this thread are Hanif Kureishi's arresting "Goodbye, Mother" about a son's inability to deal with his aging mother; Graham Swift's "Our Nicky's Heart," about a boy's death in a motorcycle accident and its strange aftermath; and especially Richard Williams's haunting "Gifted," about his search for jazz trumpeter Dupree Bolton, one of the best written pieces I have ever read on the subject of jazz. Also, I must add Kent Klich's sad "Born in Romania," about HIV-positive Romanian children whom he photographed, many of whom died before the article went to press. I enjoyed Diana Athill's "Editing Vidia," a contribution in the emerging subgenre of why V.S. Naipaul is not likeable (adding to Paul Theroux's article last year in the NEW YORKER). The question I ask is, what does that have to do with Naipaul's work? Niceness is not a trait common to all great artists, so why belabor the point? There are also short pieces by Paul Theroux and Keith Ridgway that struck me more as fillers for an otherwise excellent issue of this indispensable publication.

There are two Australias: there's the sanitized Australia of myth encompassing Crocodile Dundee, koalas and kangaroos, Nicholas Roeg's WALKABOUT, Peter Weir's early films, and Bruce Chatwin's THE SONGLINES. Then there's the gritty, no-hope, hardscrabble world of the stories in this GRANTA anthology. Good writing is alive and well Down Under. Some of the pieces were haunting, especially Ben Rice's "Pobby and Dingan," about a child's invisible friends who take on a whole new reality; Paul Toohey's "The Road to Ginger Riley," about the last days of a drunken journalist who wants to "find" Australia before he dies; and Thomas Keneally's "My Father's Australia," about life in a small town before World War I. The Aborigines are a ghostly presence in this anthology, except for Robyn Davidson's eerie "Marrying Eddie" and Polly Borland's haunting photos and interviews of Aborigine men and women spiralling down into oblivion. There's no COOPER'S CREEK heroism here: You have to find your own way, Mate! However dark the vision of most of these selections, this volume is a worthy addition to GRANTA's growing library of stories and essays. When you pack your bags to go on vacation, you could do worse than take ANY volume of GRANTA with you. Each one is a window into a different world -- maybe not a pleasant one, but always a fascinating one.