Steven Tafka newsletter March 2023
Like a tiny boat in an ocean of books, Tobi’s Smile has been launched. There was a small gathering at the dockside to wish it well and wave goodbye as it slipped into the water. There were a few little tears in my eyes, the mixed emotions of excitement, relief and fear. Waiting for that first review to drop from the sky and hoping it’s not going to completely sink requires nails to bite, which I don’t have. I have stuck my neck out with this book. I’m attempting to do something that is technically very complex and make it appear simple – the narrator is not a writer and knows that he isn’t. He is not even trying to be a writer. His motivation is his need to make sense of what has happened. He is not writing for an audience and so doesn’t care if it will make sense to anyone else. Think about a tumultuous period in your life, possibly one that you are still replaying – our own life narratives, the stories we tell ourselves, are never quite fixed, always open to reinterpretation. This is how the book begins: Heads-Up Dear Tobi, This is the story of how you got your smile. I’m sitting in a bath in Tangiers and the sun’s going down over the call to prayer at the mosque over the road. Fudge is laid out on the bed, he’s nothing but a ghost, stripped naked in the heat, he hates it here, says he feels like he’s my prisoner even though he keeps disappearing for days on end. I’m squeezing this in as a kind of heads-up as to what follows, even though I feel there’s no more sense in the truth of it as there is in the lies we tell ourselves. Anyway, there’s no more space, no need for anymore words. I’ll get Fudge to post this to you. Cry Books www.crybooks.com I have a new publisher. Mirror Books, who published The Art of Crime, don’t do fiction, so when pitching around such a ‘commercially challenging’ book as Tobi’s Smile, I knew that I needed to find something niche. Cry Books are new and very different to trad publishing houses. We are mutual in taking a punt on each other. Their next book, Wilfred Owen and The Lucky Poo Saloon by Anna Wildblood, I think should have been the one they launched with – but hey, what do I know? I’ve read a draft manuscript and it’s good! Best wishes, Steven Tafka NB. As a launch promo, Cry Books are giving away some free eBook versions of Tobi’s Smile.
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I've signed to a brand new publisher called Cry Books. I met Charles Faye a gerzillion years ago when I took part in an art happening in Dublin. Even back then, he was talking about setting up as a publisher and has now taken the leap. We struck up a conversation about Art of Crime and I happened to mention Tobi's Smile that I was passing round to various agents. He asked to read it. He liked it - "If you can make these edits, I'd like to take a punt and publish it," was his comeback. And now I find that I am the first author to be represented by Cry Books!
Meanwhile, I'm tidying up the prequel to Art of Crime. I haven't quite decided on the title, but am leaning towards The House of Tafka. CHARGED – HOW THE POLICE TRY TO SUPPRESS PROTEST
By Matt Foot and Morag Livingstone Published by Verso 2022 A stroll through the sensory garden? It is so strange how memories can be triggered, moments in time relived, sounds, smells, a visual mash-up of the melee. Is melee the right word? I’d better check the definition: A melee (/ˈmeɪleɪ/ or /ˈmɛleɪ/, French: mêlée [mɛle]) or pell-mell is disorganized hand-to-hand combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts. That just about describes scenes at Orgreave, Wapping, Poll Tax, BLM, NUS, Sarah Everard, and Environmental protests, and I like the bit about central control. Reading “Charged” was indeed like walking through my past and going – I was there – I saw that – and then discovering that my take on what was really going on, was not so far off the mark. What am I talking about? Isn’t it time I put my cards on the table and show my hand? Here goes, a list of my sins: I went to art school I am a bit of a lefty I don’t like bullies I don’t like social injustice I like democracy I like freedom of expression I am Libran but do not believe in it. I have anxiety and depression I suffer from doubt I try to live in uncertainty I like change I am atheist The next sin on my list is – I sometimes go on demonstrations. I do it because it makes me feel better. And it makes me feel better because at least I have tried do something about a particular social injustice. And it makes me feel better because I think that I’m not completely mad if there are hundreds or even thousands who also feel like me. And it makes me feel better to be part of a democracy. What Matt Foot and Morag Livingstone have done is make me feel better by confirming my worst suspicions. Their exhaustive research into government sanctioned policing tactics explains why certain things happened. I was next to BBC reporter Kate Adie, facing a line of uniformed police officers outside News International’s new operation at Wapping. I asked her why one of her crew was carrying a ladder – “To climb over the fence when the shit hits the fan,” she quipped. We were hemmed in with hundreds of protesters behind us. There was good humoured banter between the print workers, NUJ members and the police. The man next to me was pouring himself hot tea from his flask. It seemed improbable that mounted police officers would career into the crowd and start hitting us with their batons – but they did. Livingstone and Foot have certainly done their homework, “Charged” recounts this and many other incidents that I witnessed at demonstrations from the 1980’s up to the present day. Police using trained paramilitary manoeuvres, snatch squads, kettling, undercover spy cops, mounted police charges – all of this comes from the secret Public Order Manual of Tactical Options and Related Matters concocted by the Home Office and police top brass in the early 1980’s. I have seen these tactics used proactively and whilst in that melee, I’ve seen out of control police, senior officers waving their arms about and ranting, and plenty of random brutal assaults – these things probably aren’t in the handbook, but it’s what happens when the front line are given orders to take actions against peaceful protestors – it’s all very confusing. Do we have political policing in the UK? Do our elected Members of Parliament have oversight of the police? Are the police and government accountable for their actions? I’m afraid it’s a, Yes / No / No, situation. Is it legal to protest in the UK? Should the police enable your right to protest? Is it safe to protest in this country? It’s a, Yes / Yes / No. If these and many other questions concern you, I recommend reading “Charged.” Let me tell you a story. We know how it will end. It is an old story already told, in which men are nasty, women are their victims, and alternative truths are enough to get you killed. As we shudder in the aftershock of Trump and his neo-Salem era of the hysterical mob told to chant “Ditch the bitch,” poor Hilary Clinton was just one letter away from being decried a “Witch.” One hundred years before the Salem Witch Trials, England had it’s very own Witches of Warboys sensation in 1593. Alice Samuels and her family are accused of witchcraft, found guilty and hung. Execution is so definitive, there can be no going back, and so even the doubters, the victims, the innocent, and the guilty, must convince themselves that all is true – the story has been told. In her latest novel “The Bewitching,” Jill Dawson, re-tells this story, taking on the historical ghosts, superstitions, and miasma of the Fens to make something solid – a beautifully crafted crystal ball that we can hold in our hands and marvel at the jewel like prose.
I first attempted to read the book whilst self-isolating with a bad dose of Covid; the gorgeous book jacket design became covered with a domino row of white plastic tests; all positive. Fever and brain fog were not best suited to dealing with misogyny, sorcery and the devil’s work. On holiday, far from little olde England, the harsh sun of the Ardeche forced me to read in the shade, safe from Fenland vipers, the whims of Landed Gentry, children having fits and folklore cures. Dawson brilliantly evokes the tiny, cut-off world in which the characters exist and the drama unfolds – it is all so understandable. And drawing a heavy breath from the here and now, it is so horribly inevitable – Me Too – Me Too, I hear the carved angels in the churchyard calling. I forgot this was an historical novel until I closed it and watched my son take a Covid test. |
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