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Laura HirdLaura Hird
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Critical perspective
BiographyLaura Hird was born in 1966. She studied Contemporary Writing at Middlesex Polytechnic. In 1997 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary to allow her to write full-time. She is the author of Nail and Other Stories (1997) and Born Free (1999), a novel set in Edinburgh, where she lives. Hope and Other Urban Tales (2006), is a collection of short stories, again set in Edinburgh.
Dear Laura: Letters from a Mother to Her Daughter (2007) was written with June Hird.
Laura Hird's website includes a showcase of international new writing.
Genres (in alphabetical order)Fiction, Short stories
BibliographyChildren of Albion Rovers (contributor) Canongate, 1997 Nail and Other Stories Canongate, 1997 Rovers Return (contributor) Canongate, 1998 Born Free Canongate, 1999 Hope and Other Urban Tales Canongate, 2006 Dear Laura: Lettrs from a Mother to Her Daughter (with June Hird) Canongate, 2007
Prizes and awards1997 Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary 1998 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award (shortlist) Nail and Other Stories 1999 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) Born Free 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award (shortlist) Born Free
Critical PerspectiveKevin Williamson is one of the most significant figures in the modern literary scene. The man behind Rebel Inc, an Edinburgh magazine that was designed to promote and publish underground literature, was instrumental in introducing the world to a generation of Scottish writers who refused to be subservient to the cultural dominance of London. Instead they took their lead from authors such as William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski and Alexander Trocchi. The very first edition of the magazine featured Irvine Welsh’s Grieving and Mourning in Port Sunshine, part of what would later become Trainspotting, one of the most influential novels of the last 20 years. It was the extraordinary success of Welsh’s debut which saw for Rebel Inc’s underground status. Since 1996 it has, as an imprint of Canongate Books, published in book form. Williamson did not turn his back on the original ethos of 'f*** the mainstream,' however. Children of Albion Rovers, published in 1997 and featuring a collection of stories from the likes of Welsh and Alan Warner, was a typically visceral Rebel Inc-like stream of surreal and fast- paced provocation. Williamson’s book provided a showcase for Laura Hird, whose novella, The Dilating Pupil, was one of its highlights. The tale of how a teacher is lured into the home of one of his 16-year-old students is impressive in its ability to surprise. You may think you know where the story is heading, but you soon find yourself with more questions than answers. Is this to be a simple tale of seduction? Who is in control? Who is fooling whom? Gripping, many layered and with a ring of truth that is the hallmark of all of Hird’s work, The Dilating Pupil met with critical acclaim and launched her writing career.
Nail and Other Stories (1997), was Hird’s first collection of short stories. These disquieting and disturbing tales of revenge and cruelty, of boredom and loss, were well-received and deservedly so. There is an original voice here, which is confident, sure of its step, aware of how to pull a reader into a world which, whilst recognisable, seems to be in the process of being made anew before your eyes. Hird strips away the veneer of polite interaction, and peers beneath the surface. More often than not, what she finds there is distressing and unsettling. In the title story, a woman who believes herself to be socially superior to her sister, and for whom image is all, the very core of her identity, is horrified to discover one day, 'a little ink line on the index finger nail of [her] right hand.' It begins to grow. At first there is surprise, then disgust and confusion. We are never told what it is, nor do we discover the origin of the growth that later appears in her nose. We are left to wonder whether there is anything there at all. 'Nail' is one of the strongest stories in the collection. The woman is magnificently haughty, arrogant and vain; defiantly unappealing but completely engaging. Hird has said that she bases her writing around characters, and her best stories are the ones which feature protagonists that enter your consciousness and refuse to leave: the boy in 'Routes' who goes off on journeys to nowhere on the bus, in flight from a family that seem not to care for him; the couple in 'Tilicoultry/Anywhere' who consider wife-swapping, the husband pushing the wife into something she doesn’t want to do; the little girl in 'Imaginary Friends', tricked by her piano teacher into believing they have a magic relationship, when all he wants to do is abuse her. Nail and Other Stories is an excellent collection. Full of direct, robust prose, it shocks and surprises in a way reminiscent of early Ian McEwan. At their best, Hird’s stories are provocative, wit-fuelled, energetic and dark, and linger long in the mind.
Born Free (1999), Hird’s debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award. Somewhat inevitably, it lost out to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Like Nick Hornby’s latest novel A Long Way Down, Born Free is narrated by four different characters. Hird differentiates between them, making each live independently of the other. This impressive ventriloquism is something Hornby singularly fails to do; his characters often run into one another, at times merging into one single narrative voice. There is never a moment in Born Free when you want to say, 'hang on, this character just wouldn’t say that.'
The series of connected monologues in Born Free are written with an evident flair for character. Jake, Joni, Angie and Vic are recognisable to anyone who has seen Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, read a book by Alan Warner, or had an interest in '60s dramas such as A Taste of Honey. Hird’s world is one of unbearable mundanity, without recognisable achievement or expectation. Boredom reigns, a boredom so deep that it comes out of the pores like last night’s curry. Vic is a quiet bus driver married to Angie who works in a bookie’s. They no longer make love and are incapable of speaking to one another without it becoming an argument. Their two children, Jake and Joni, are both mired in adolescent obsessions with getting their rocks off - Jake alone in his room with his mum’s defaced glossy magazines, and Joni going out on the town to look for men with Rosie, her more sexually experienced friend. Angie, Joni and Jake tear into everyone else with a wild contempt; they rage and scream and battle. Vic is more reluctant to fight, his natural hippy ways in conflict with his disintegrating family. But he, like everyone else, is just as desperate for something beyond what he has, for an escape to a place where desires are met.
Criticism of Hird tends to come from those who consider her a wilful nihilist, as someone who revels in a world where people hate each other and seem intent on destroying themselves and those around them. This ignores not only the accuracy of Hird’s observations of ordinary life, but how she enlivens her narratives with a delicious black humour. Her debut novel would be perfect material for Mike Leigh, and further cements Hird’s burgeoning reputation as one of the most striking young writers currently at work in Britain. (By the way, the last time I heard, Kevin Williamson, was working for the Scottish Socialist Party. It can only be hoped that he will one day return to the writing world to discover more writers of the calibre of Laura Hird.)
Garan Holcombe, 2005
Author statementI write to describe the world as I see it, in all its ugly beauty, minus the boundaries of taboo or political correctness.
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