{"id":114310,"date":"2023-11-26T18:42:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T18:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=114310"},"modified":"2023-12-20T16:29:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T16:29:32","slug":"at-a-book-launch-in-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/at-a-book-launch-in-manchester\/","title":{"rendered":"At a Book Launch in Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charlie Hill.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Charlie Hill by Dave McGowan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On my way to the bookshop, I got lost and met Dean. It was dusk and drizzling. I\u2019d walked from the station and, having missed my turn, had arrived at some five-a-side pitches and a distinctly un-campus-like vibe. At a bus stop promising services to Moss Side I turned round and headed back the way I\u2019d come, when a small slight fella came scuttling across the road.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nearly got hit there,\u2019 he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah I saw that,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

We walked together for a few yards then he turned off to the right, back onto the campus and I followed, only vaguely aware of my bearings. \u2018Where do you want to go?\u2019 he said and I said \u2018Blackwells\u2019 and he said \u2018where?\u2019 and I said \u2018it\u2019s near a BrewDog\u2019 and he said \u2018oh I know where that is. I\u2019m going that way. I\u2019m going to try to make some money. I\u2019ll take you there.\u2019<\/p>\n

We walked together for about five minutes, chatting away. He told me his name was Dean. I wondered if I should tell him that I knew what it was like to be NFA, but every time I said something, he changed the subject. He touched on the implications of a cashless society, how few people gave him money these days, how difficult it was to keep a good spot. He said something about being a \u2018dependent\u2019 which I didn\u2019t quite catch. As we turned another corner, he said \u2018could you get me something for showing you where it is?\u2019 and I agreed.<\/p>\n

He wanted a big bottle of Stella. I was late for the reading and I checked we wouldn\u2019t be going too far. \u2018There\u2019s a Tesco just up here,\u2019 said Dean. We walked past Blackwells to a Co-op I\u2019d noticed earlier. As we approached, he indicated a woman sitting on the low wall outside. She looked in a bad way. \u2018Be careful,\u2019 he said \u2018don\u2019t let her see you. She\u2019s violent. She\u2019ll have it off me\u2019 and then, as we left, \u2018did you see her? Her eyes are all over the place.\u2019<\/p>\n

The bookshop was shut. I stood outside, trying to catch the attention of the people inside by force of will, while Dean banged repeatedly on the door. This made me uneasy. I hadn\u2019t been to Manchester for 10 years, and had wondered about the wisdom of coming so far for an event. Would people remember me? How \u2014 if at all \u2014 would I be received? Either way, I wanted to make a good impression. Eventually we were spotted and I was let in. \u2018Thanks a lot,\u2019 said Dean, and he walked off in the direction of the Co-op.<\/p>\n

I sat at the back of the room. The readings had already started. Two of the collections \u2014 David Frankel\u2019s Forgetting is How We Survive<\/em> and David Gaffney\u2019s Concrete Fields<\/em> \u2014 were about the contrast between living in the city and living in the countryside, and the effects of these environments on their inhabitants\u2019 behaviours. One was dark, edgy, the other occasionally surreal. The third book \u2014 Clare Fisher\u2019s The Moon is Trending<\/em> \u2014 touched on another contemporary literary preoccupation, the reconciliation of identity with external expectations.<\/p>\n

The host was cheery, the mood jocular. There was a good crowd who asked enthusiastic questions, before power-milling. To my relief, I was greeted with pleasant surprise by the writers and editors of my acquaintance. After the audience Q&A, we went to a bar next door, drank craft lager, snacked and gossiped about publications and rejections and forthcoming projects. I enjoyed basking in this validation, and left myself short of time to get back the station. When I left, I had to go past the Co-op. By now it was dark. Dean was there, sitting cross-legged on the wall, nursing his bottle. \u2018Thanks mate\u2019 he said as I approached, and I said \u2018any time.\u2019 Then he held out his hand for what I thought was a handshake, but turned out to be a fist bump. I was walking so fast I didn\u2019t have time to adjust and ended up grasping his thin wrist firmly, which felt wrong and wasn\u2019t, I hoped, interpreted as some sort of power play.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Charlie Hill by Peter Clark.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nCharlie Hill<\/a> is a writer from Birmingham and the author of two novels, a novella and a handful of poems. His latest book is a memoir, I Don’t Want to go to the Taj Mahal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We walked together for about five minutes, chatting away. He told me his name was Dean. I wondered if I should tell him that I knew what it was like to be NFA, but every time I said something, he changed the subject. He touched on the implications of a cashless society, how few people gave him money these days, how difficult it was to keep a good spot. He said something about being a \u2018dependent\u2019 which I didn\u2019t quite catch. As we turned another corner, he said \u2018could you get me something for showing you where it is?\u2019 and I agreed.<\/p>\n

He wanted a big bottle of Stella…<\/p>\n

By Charlie Hill<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114314,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114310\/revisions\/114314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}