A vexed and interesting enterprise

August 1, 2024 12:28 AM

A finished novel stands as a kind of monument to the author’s pristine intentions, plans, themes. The actual making of the text (at least in my case) is actually vagrant and random. I can’t quite remember how I stumbled into writing a book with quite a bit of football in it, but part of the decision must have been that I had to make use of the countless hours, probably adding up to years, that I’d spent playing, watching, and having feelings about this sport, most of them devoted to Manchester United, the team I’ve followed since I was seven years old. I wasn’t proceeding like a complete zombie, however. I had a basic drama in mind—the search for an African soccer prospect who tantalizingly appears in a video—and of course I was aware that in recent years football has become a global industry of incalculable financial value, not to mention an industry of travels, transactions, human adventures—the fun stuff. from Joseph O’Neill on Writing a Socially Relevant Soccer Novel [LitHub]

He’s Obsessed With Sports and Politics. His Novels Are, Too. [NY Times; ungated]
Godwin by Joseph O’Neill review – unmissable edge-of-your-seat drama [Grauniad]
Joseph O’Neill’s Godwin and the Crisis of the Realist Novel [Vulture; ungated]

posted by chavenet (2 comments total)

Through a long set-piece involving Lefebvre, you conduct an absorbing and technically difficult narration-within-a-narration experiment
really, really wanted this to be about Henri Lefebvre [goodreads]
posted by HearHere at 4:14 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]

There's a saying that you never learn how to write novels, you just learn how to write this novel.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:02 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]