Sarah Perry

Friday

Sarah Perry

Slipshod – by Sarah Perry

From our UK edition

35 min listen

For this special Spectator Out Loud, Sarah Perry reads her short story Slipshod, from the Spectator's Christmas issue. The story follows an academic tasked with reconstructing a disturbing incident involving two long-standing colleagues whose close friendship unravels under the weight of envy, illness – and something harder to explain. What emerges from the investigation is a chilling reflection on rivalry, resentment and how buried histories can resurface with devastating consequences. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Saturday

Sarah Perry

Slipshod: a short story by Sarah Perry

It was months before the difficulty with Marnie and Addison was talked about, or even alluded to. The sight of their names in emails circulated around the department was enough to cause a pall to settle on everything, like ash from fires only just put out. Besides, the nature of the difficulty (that was the word we all used) was both so opaque and so distressing we’d have had trouble talking about it, even if we’d wanted to. It fell to me to piece things together. My brief from Helen was simply to satisfy the university that nobody in the department was to blame. It fell to me because I am, she tells me, part of the furniture: unremarkable, functional, predictable.

Thursday

Sarah Perry

Worlds within worlds

From our UK edition

The Heavens is Sandra Newman’s eighth book. It follows novels featuring, variously, sex addiction, Buddhism and a post-apocalyptic teen dystopia; a memoir; a handbook on how not to write a novel; and two irreverently erudite guides to the canon. The variety of these accomplishments indicates Newman’s roving and playful intelligence, together with a kind of wilful unpredictability and a deep engagement with literary forms and traditions. These qualities have attained a sublime height in The Heavens, a work of remarkable skill and invention, linguistic brio and righteous political intent, and one which gleefully defies categorisation. ‘Ben met Kate at a rich girl’s party,’ the novel begins.

Saturday

Sarah Perry

A little unexpected

From our UK edition

The winning article in the 2004 Shiva Naipaul Memorial prize. There were more than 60 entries from a total of eight countries. The runners-up were Horatio Clare, Simon Matthew Kingston, Joanna Kavenna, Bertie Cairns and Barnabas William Erskine Campbell. In the Jollibee burger bar, Kuya Virgo held out his hands. Cradled in each palm was a duck’s egg, still warm from its boiling water. He looked at us expectantly; we looked back. My husband reached out first. ‘Thank you, po,’ he said smilingly. I followed swiftly, attempting a little bravado: other British visitors had apparently responded to the ultimate Filipino culinary challenge with enthusiastic fits of vomiting. Under Virgo’s instruction, we tapped the eggs at the tapered point on the Formica tabletop.