Oddbody, the debut collection from Waterford author Rose Keating is a collection of ten bold, surreal and unsettling short stories that confront themes of desire, fear and shame, each one asking how far the bounds of the human form can be pushed, stretched – and subverted. Think The Substance meets Angela Carter, and you'll get the idea. Rose talks to RTÉ Arena below...
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We asked Rose for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
Earlier this year I watched the achingly sensitive and horrifyingly sad I Saw the TV Glow and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Taken at face value, it’s a beautifully shot horror movie about a young man and his attempts at escapism through his favorite TV show. On another level, it’s about the unspeakable terror of denying yourself, denying a call to action, of being paralyzed. There is a deep, unspeakable ugliness of being stuck in a life you did not want, did not choose, but somehow ended up with, and this film does a gorgeous and heartbreaking job of exploring that feeling. It’s also a movie that didn’t get the flowers it deserved, which seems like a crime to me.
MUSIC
I’ve been listening to a lot of Adrienne Lenker this year, and particularly listening to her 2014 ‘a-sides’ album a lot. When my Sportify Unwrapped comes out I think I’m going to have to censor the amount of times I’ve listened to the song Jonathan, as it’s going to be an embarrassingly high number. On sunny days, I listened to that song on repeat while on my balcony after work and getting nicely sunburned.
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BOOK
I’ve spent the last year telling everyone I know to read Soft Fruit in the Sun by Oliver Zarandi and I will continue on that mission in this article. It’s a fantastic collection of weird, surreal, exceptionally crafted short stories featuring much body horror and hilarious writing. I have a personal love for anything gory yet tender, so I might have some bias, but it’s the one of the best and most exciting collections I’ve read in awhile and encourage anyone with a taste for lit fic horror to grab a copy.
THEATRE
I don’t get to attend the theatre as much as I like anymore, and I’m not always the biggest fan of reading scripts of plays. When I do think of some of my last memorable theater experiences, I think of Waterford playwright Martina Collender, who’s work as a writer and as someone involved in the arts in Waterford has been really admirable. I’m very excited to see what she writes next and hope I get to see some of her work when I’m back home.
TV
Everyone in the world should watch Hannibal, which might have been a dumb procedural crime show/a terrible remake of a good book, but is somehow one of the strangest pieces of television that could be allowed on TV. The extreme gore, densely lyrical dialogue and bordering-on-camp artistic slow motion snail shots simply should not be in this genre of show, and it is exactly why it’s so audaciously, delightfully good. It’s been cancelled for years but I’m still in denial.
GIG
I’ve been in Thailand for the last while, and mostly go to local gigs from smaller bands with friends. I would love to recommend these as they’re always great, but my Thai is very bad and I don’t know how to write the names of these bands. If you go to Suratthani, you should check out Chom bar, where some of these excellent bands play. Before that, the last major gig I attended was small unknown indie artist Stevie Nicks, at her concert in Dublin.
ART
I was visiting Sri Lanka a few months back and got to see the fantastic Total Landscaping rotation 3 in the Museum of Modern and Contempory Art in Colombo. It was a great exhibition in general, but I particularly enjoyed the Travel Sketches 1-10 of Muhanned Cader. These sketches show partial depiction of landscapes, with the artist purposefully cutting off large sections of the drawings. Cader never allows the viewer to see the full image, saying of the work ‘This for me is true politics, where one never sees the real or whole picture.’ I love the idea of taking something away in art, holding something back and obscuring it – negative space has its own strange kind of power and meaning, and these drawings gave me goosebumps.
PODCAST
I mostly listen to podcasts to help me fall asleep. They’re typically silly, funny comedy shows where I don’t have to pay attention and can nod off without worrying. One show that I do actually listen to while awake is Print Run, a podcast run by literary agents Erik Hane and Laura Zats. I usually avoid publishing podcasts like the plague, as hearing too much about unique selling points or the benefits of having a blog gives me a headache, but the conversations in this podcast tend be based a little more in the craft and art of writing and books, rather than just the business sides of these things. Listening to this helped a lot when I was first trying to figure out my own feelings about literature and publishing and they often have very refreshing thoughts about the world of books. They’re also very funny, but don’t make me sleepy.
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TECH
I’ve recently downloaded the New York Times games app and I’m a big fan. Our office has an ongoing Wordle monthly championship and I am very happy to report that I came second place in our last one and can only hope to strengthen my abilities with time and dedication.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Short story collections. Please.
Oddbody is published by Canongate
