I had the good fortune to catch up with novelist Kate Pullinger at the New Writing Worlds Symposium this summer. We managed to find time to sit down and talk about her most recent novel, A Little Stranger. 

The novel is a fascinating, complex, and textured exploration of what happens when one women wonders if she made a mistake by giving birth. Maybe she's not cut out to be a mother after all. She acts on this notion, leaves her young son and husband, and escapes to Las Vegas where she meets another women struggling with her own doubts. Her journey takes her back to her childhood and her mother's past in an attempt to understand her actions.

Kate and I discuss how she came to write about this often taboo subject, and about the dialogue, and subsequent backlash, generated by the discussion in the media about 'the perils of parenthood.' 

Also check out Kate's cool award-winning digital literature project Inanimate Alice. Enjoy. 

After a gorgeous, yet nail-biting, drive along the rugged coastline between San Francisco and Point Reyes on the way to a friend's wedding reception, we needed the pit stop afforded by Stinson Beach Books (3455 Shoreline Hwy. Stinson Beach, Ca 415-868-0700-no website.) Fortunately, it offered so much more. 

Billed as "the only bookstore located directly on the San Andreas Fault," it's a real gem of an old-style village bookshop.  The knowledgeable and spirited owner interrupted our chat to call the restaurant across the street and tell them to tone down the live music so she could talk to her customers without shouting. The music softened immediately. 

We could have spent all afternoon there, but we had to get back on the snake of a road.  I picked up a copy of Patricia Unterman's wonderful San Francisco Food Lover's Guide and walked across the street for a latte from the Espresso cart before climbing back in the car.

Another surprise in Georgia: Indie Coffee and Books in Decatur, right outside Atlanta.  The selection is not huge, but that's the charm.  All titles are handpicked by the owners and range from classics to contemporary fiction and nonfiction.  There's a wall of BookSense bestsellers, and a display of recommended titles.

It's the kind of place where you can browse, find something you've been meaning to read for years, or stumble across something completely new.  It has that personal vibe and genuine enthusiasm for books so sorely missing from most mega-chains. Odds are the person at the register can chat with you about your purchase and suggest other books of interest.  (Can't tell you the last time that happened to me at one of the biggies.)  Then you can order a coffee, take a seat and read for a while.  I bought a copy of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire (a brilliant read) and did just that.

What are the boundaries between the stories we tell--to ourselves and each other--and truth? Are facts, and reality for that matter,  just too unimaginative for us to cope with, so we rely on stories to survive?  James Scudamore takes on these ideas in his compelling debut novel, The Amnesia Clinic, which was recently (after our conversation) longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Anti is English, quiet, asthmatic; risk averse. He lives the typical expat life with his parents. Fabian is Ecuadorian, charismatic, always up for an adventure and reckless. Orphaned by a car accident that killed his father and his mother (although her body was never recovered,) he lives with his equally flamboyant Uncle, who entertains the boys with outrageous stories of shrunken heads and adventures in the countryside.  

The boys acquire his passion for outlandish tales and soon begin conducting their relationship entirely through the medium of storytelling.  The stories grow more imaginative, and although they think they know the boundaries between reality and fantasy, those lines begin to blur, especially as Fabian's buried pain over his mother's assumed death rises to the surface. The boys decide that she is in fact alive and at an amnesia hospital on the coast, for those who have lost their memory. That's why she hasn't returned. They set out to find her. On the journey the boys meet many fascinating characters, including an innkeeper who rents rooms in exchange for a good story.  As they become further enthralled in their imaginative world, dangerous consequences await them.

James and I discuss the ideas in the novel, how the story came to him, and the role Ecuador itself plays in the book.

We met on one of the hottest days this summer in London, near London Bridge. Because of the heat, we had to keep the doors open and the fans running, so the strange noises you hear are trucks rumbling past on the street below. Last time it was planes. I'll see what I can do to get train noises in the next one.  Enjoy.