I’m in America at the moment/still, and one of the things I started reading while out here was Iain Sinclair’s latest, AMERICAN SMOKE. Sinclair doesn’t get the free pass from me that he used to, but he seems to have taken stock of the time in his last book where a security guy basically called him an whinging unemployable-looking old scrote who should go and find a temp gig digging ditches. I may be paraphrasing there. Anyway, at some point he got a good look at his own ennui, and fucked off to America for a while. So far, it’s done his writing the power of good, and I’m finding AMERICAN SMOKE mesmerising in the way I used to find his work. And different, too. There’s a human aspect and a way with imagery that summons Sebald in the way much of Sinclair really doesn’t, and the sojourn is accessing new memories for him that lead to very diverting anecdotes. (US) (UK)

 

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