I Wouldn't Call My Work Modernist. I

Stella Duffy Is A Writer Who Never Lets You Down.

What Shop Did This Book Come From? She Asked. Her Father Was Looking Worried At The Cooker. He Always Got Rice Wrong. I Don't Know, Brooksie, He Said, I Don't Remember. That Was Unimaginable, Not Remembering Where A Book Has Come From! And Where It Was Bought From! That Was Part Of The Whole History, The Whole Point, Of Any Book That You Owned! And When You Picked It Up Later In The House At Home, You Knew, You Just Knew By Looking And Having It In Your Hand, Where It Came From And Where You Got It And When And Why You'd Decided To Buy It.

I'm Blessed In My Good Friends, And Some Of Them Happen To Be Writers, Though That's Almost Never What Our Friendships Are About. And Every Writer I've Ever Read, Living Or Dead, Has In One Way Or Another Helped And Inspired. I Have A Feeling It's Important Not To Mix The Two Up.

But Everything Written Has Style. The List Of Ingredients On The Side Of A Cornflakes Box Has Style. And Everything Literary Has Literary Style. And Style Is Integral To A Work. How Something Is Told Correlates With - More - Makes What's Being Told. A Story Is Its Style.

Do You Come To Art To Be Comforted, Or Do You Come To Art To Be Re-skinned?