Edinburgh Book Festival: Sean Michaels & Anna Smaill
As Jura Unbound has continued to rise to prominence, its talent for blending literature and music has become a trademark of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Possibly no two names on this year's programme embody this better than Sean Michaels and Anna Smaill: she a classically trained violinist, he an acclaimed music journalist. Both have just released début novels which share a fascination with the power of music. The other thing they have in common is the rapturous critical reception they've enjoyed, with Michaels' Us Conductors earning him Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize, while Smaill's The Chimes has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
What makes the night's discussion so energising is the way they come at their shared passion from such completely different angles, two totally different instruments playing to the same tune. The holder of two Masters degrees and a PhD, Smaill's approach is precise and penetrating, drawing out complex ideas in carefully constructed explanations, taking full advantage of a sprawling academic vocabulary and happy to reach her point via way of Plato's Republic.
Michaels gives more of an impression of feeling his way towards what he means, laughing affably throughout as he exudes the same infectious enthusiasm that lights up his journalism – he's the guy who goes to every gig in every obscure location purely for the love of the thing itself. 'Big-hearted' is the way his novel is described at several points in the evening, and if he is the heart then Smaill is the perfect head to sit above it; the harmonizing of the two producing a vibrant, poignant discussion that surges confidently from the role of music in life and love, onto its link to memory, technology and culture.
The Q&A afterwards allows them to home in on some specific nuances in their texts and leads to another series of erudite and impassioned explanations from the authors about the part music has played in their lives, all of which are dwarfed completely by the one audience member with the balls to ask the truly vital question: “Do you dance?”
Sean Michaels and Anna Smaill were speaking at Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August.