Edinburgh International Book Festival: John Burnside
John Burnside's appearance at The Edinburgh International Book Festival was instantly noteworthy for the fact that he was not here to discuss new or past work, but instead a novel he is still writing. As his interviewer noted, this is an unusual practice. Most writers are terrified of revealing too much of what they are working on should their ideas be stolen or the contents of their work offered to the public before they are ready. Burnside on the other hand was refreshingly candid about what his forthcoming book consists of and contextualised it by giving us a marginalised history from the period in which his characters find themselves.
The working title is Good, and refers to the question of just how much of it we can achieve in our own lives. Burnside's contention is that the political movements of the 60s failed, not as some have asserted, due to an extremism permeating the ranks of largely non-interventionist protest. Rather, they failed because they were not prepared to go far enough and persist through the hard times. This is also the author's admission: that he became disillusioned and gave up, whilst those who maintained were forced to do so in smaller numbers and paid a far higher price.
He spoke specifically about David Gilbert, who was given a life sentence following an unjust conviction for second-degree murder as part of a failed robbery. Burnside regularly corresponds with Gilbert, contacting him originally to ask follow-up questions he had as a result of reading the latter's books on the true nature of the Weather Underground organisation. As Burnside himself suggested, this is a far more overtly political and historical novel than he has previously written. He had been frustrated with the idea that people could read a previous novel like Glister and completely miss the environmental content.
The extent of Burnside's passion for the true political history of the past and how we should be implementing its lessons currently was clear to see. He was far more keen for the audience to buy Gilbert's books than his own and gave over some of his bookshop allocation to the imprisoned man's work. Fans of Burnside's most recent multi-award winning poetry collection Black Cat's Bone, or indeed his previous two novels may have been surprised by the nature of the discussion and the content of his upcoming work. However, as Burnside said, he is not interested in repeating himself and feels it necessary to evolve with each work. We can look forward to another original and enthralling novel from one of our nation's best as a result. [Ryan Rushton]