John Saul

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Biographical note:  John Saul was born in Liverpool, England. Now living in Suffolk, he spent may years in France, Germany, Canada and Ecuador, where he began writing fiction. His short stories have appeared extensively in the UK and elsewhere, most notably in Australia and Canada. He is the author of two novels, Heron and Quin and Finistère.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844714483
ISBN:  9781844714483
Author:  John Saul
Title:  The Most Serene Republic
Series:  Salt Modern Fiction
Product class:  BB
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  FNB
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  18-Apr-08
Extent:  144pp
Height:  198 mm
Width:  129 mm
Thickness:  15 mm
Weight:  216 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 12.99
Price:  USD 18.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  Two people find love through a chance meeting in the streets of Antwerp. An English sea captain is unfaithful in the Guayaquil of 1910. In the south of France a famous Frenchman looks after his soldier-brother’s violin; in Germany a group struggles to save a Jewish cemetery from developers. High above the Thames, a secretary and a clerk share dreams of exotic places. One morning at breakfast a couple express their jealousies through arguing the merits of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In the title story holidaymakers in Venice experience how differently love may be made.

In the atmosphere of the cities themselves — cities as far apart as Nice, Milton Keynes and Lima — a dozen stories of people pursuing their obsessions and desires unfold. In one love is flourishing in Hamburg, in another dying in London, in a third simply glimpsed on a day of public unrest in Paris. The Most Serene Republic: Love Stories from Cities tells movingly of love in its many guises.

John Saul's short fiction has been published not only in the UK but in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Ireland; in the prestigious New Writing series and several anthologies brought out by Serpent’s Tail. His previous collection Call It Tender was described by The Times as ‘witty and playful’, proof that ‘the short story is not only alive but being reinvigorated in excitingly diverse ways’.

Table of contents:
Cargoes
Love Me Do
here comes the pianist
Find Me a Golden Street
The Most Serene Republic
Mardi Gras
Douglas and Marina
Waiting for Marie
Loving
Tribu Sí
Interior with Violin
Small Changes in Germany
Acknowledgements

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Excerpt from book:  

CARGOES

Walling off the end of a street called Calle Calicuchima, sitting high in the water, the freighter Alexander docked almost in the middle of town. A great black hull studded with rivets, a floating giant to the local people, its daytime shadow dwarfed the new P&O office and cut a slant across the pillars of the customs building. Under the stars its mooring ropes creaked back and forth, while its great wall added darkness to the night.

This was 1910, when my grandfather sailed and strode the earth.

When art told tales.

When Picasso worked with Georges Braque, making brown pictures, snipping up newspapers, painting with combs and sand and glue.

The Alexander had just come up the west coast from Valparaiso, at that moment with next to nothing on board. Its crew of course were on board. My grandfather, the captain. His white uniform. His broad white cap, which he brushed at the peak and put on at the mirror. Off with his cap; it was all well and good for photographs, ceremonies, strong sunlight, but otherwise it fit best under his arm. He combed his dark hair and stepped down the walkway to the Malecón, the waterfront, to be greeted by the Honorary Consul. Captain Jones, welcome to Guayaquil. Thank you, said my grandfather, though I have been here before.

But not to Quito, high atop the Andes. Quito via the new mountain railway, a marvel of gleaming brass and carmine, a proud flame in the fire of British financial enterprise. In Quito he was to negotiate next year’s cargoes: cacao, coffee and bananas. This much is recorded in his logbook, a document which has come to rest in my possession.

1910, when these artists stuck tin and cardboard onto canvas.

When my mother was conceived.

Captain Jones first quartered nearby, at the Hotel Bolivar, and waited for the season’s loading to begin. He was given a room overlooking the flat brown expanse of the river Guayas, with its slow tides and islands of green grass. Unusually for him, he rested, having looked out the once from the balcony; just long enough to clutch at the empty air, for the rail was lower than the bridge of the Alexander. He then hung up his white cap, trousers and captain’s jacket, and slept. On waking he was offered pancakes with fried banana, platanos, and tea with lemon.

When Picasso suddenly threw a banana at Braque, the story goes, he deftly caught it. Although Georges immediately returned this toss Picasso was already locked back in his work and had forgotten the banana. He was even oblivious as it slumped down his chest, and it remained dumbly in his lap all afternoon.

Yet mostly he and Georges made a finely-tuned pair of jugglers, moving closely hand in hand. They used the same materials, the same signs, performed the same intellectual somersaults. When Pablo experimented with an oval frame for his cubist works Georges did too. When Georges decided to print on words and letters Pablo likewise ventured forth with the names of drinks, newspapers, composers.

The banana-throwing took place in Picasso’s studio on the boulevard de Clichy.

As it was an awkward distance from there to the nearest post office, Picasso would frequently ask Braque to post letters for him on his way home.

Merci, Georges.

Review quote:  I loved these stories.

Kate Pullinger

Review quote:  Excellent

William Palmer
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