I don’t believe that writing can be taught. Like painting (pictures you fool, not doorframes), writing is an art. It cannot be measured or accounted or explained, except by philistine dullards. You know who they are. They’re everywhere, trying to take over the world, and succeeding. These dummies, who think advertising is an art, but who mumble and stumble and then flee when faced with…a book! Elitist? You bet. There’s too little elitism these days.

OK, clarification. When I assert that writing cannot be taught, what I actually mean is that it can be taught (no, I haven’t gone mad) – the rudiments, anyway. What I mean is that many people can be taught to write, but most of these taughtees end up producing derivative, mechanical and uninspiring prose. ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing’, as that old queen Capote said (most unfairly) of Kerouac.

To cut to the chase. Steven Sherrill has an MFA (in poetry, to be fair). So, when I picked up this book, I expected a load of Capotean Keroucrap. Actually, I was not inconsiderably unsurprised, as that witless nonentity John Major might whine. It’s boring to recount that this book isn’t startlingly original (it isn’t – interestingly drawn character finds videotapes of girl who appears to have killed herself. He gets to know her, which allows us to get to know him) but it is pretty well written. In fact, my only problem is that it’s overly long – a typical symptom of the writing by numbers brigade. In reality (that’s to say, outside of my head), this overlongness is not a problem, either for me, or the masses – just note the bovine hoards staggering around Waterstones with bloated novels. Most people seem happy to plough through overlong dross. The difference with this book is that although overlong, it’s not dross. Anything but. Sherrill’s descriptive prose is of the “I’ve been there” style – just take in his telling of the protagonist’s climb up a very tall tower. When you read it, you’re there.

So, I haven’t changed my mind about the literary nature versus nurture debate, but a scintilla of my nervous system is mildly humbled.

The elusive Dan McNeil is a contributing reviewer for Ink magazine. His short sharp fiction has appeared in Redsine, Fantastic Metropolis, Antipodean SF and Whispers Of Wickedness, and has been translated to German. He's currently writing his first novel and compiling a collection of short fiction. You'll occasionally find him here or you can read two of his stories on the Showcase section of this site here

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