Max Porter answers the door with his arms full of chuckling, wriggling four-month-old. “He’s lovely; isn’t he lovely?” he asks, beaming, before we’re halfway down the hall. We pass the living room, where Porter’s two older sons smile from the sofa; in the kitchen, he and his wife hand the baby back and forth as they make tea and fetch biscuits out of cupboards papered with playschool works of art. Coming in from the street, it’s like stepping into a Technicolor snapshot of that moment in midlife when, if you’re lucky, you find yourself at the heart of things; when the children are young and the parents not yet old. This is family at its most nuclear, and its most complete.
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Porter’s astonishing debut, which has been longlisted for the Guardian first book award, is set in a similar sort of family at a similar point in time, but the mirror it holds up to his own life is a cracked and mottled one, returning a reflection that’s fatally distorted and drained of light. His book – a freewheeling hybrid of novella, poem, essay and play-for-voices – opens on a scene of desolation. Suddenly, inexplicably, a woman has died, leaving behind her a husband and two young sons. Dad sits “alone in the/ living room wondering what to do”, dismantled by a grief that feels “fourth-dimensional, abstract, faintly familiar”; the boys are bemused by the disjunction between the vastness of their catastrophe and the world’s muted response: the unaccountable lack of “crowds and ... uniformed strangers”. Recovery – indeed, forward motion of any kind – seems impossible. Then in struts Crow.
Crow, as well as being a crow, is a bully, a therapist, a trickster and a nurse: “friend, excuse, deus ex machina, joke, symptom, figment, spectre, crutch”. He’s the desperate fantasy of a bereaved Ted Hughes scholar; an endlessly repurposed creature of folklore; a lush physical presence (“Feathers … rich smell of decay … one shiny jet-black eye … blinking slowly, in a leathery wrinkled socket”) and a puckish literary device. In short, he’s whatever the father and his boys, in their mourning, require him to be. “I won’t leave until you don’t need me any more,” he says, on first entering their flat; he keeps his word and, through him, the family learns to accept the hole at its heart and find a way to honour it. Although Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a narrative in triptych, with equal space given to Dad, the Boys (voiced as a single entity) and Crow himself, it’s the bird who’s the animating spirit here; he turns the book from a conventional, if heartbreaking, chronicle of loss into something wilder, stranger and far more potent.
Where does a book such as this spring from? In Porter’s case, the answer comes in two parts. On the one hand, there’s Hughes, whom he fell for, hard, in his early 20s; a decade on, he still talks about him with the shiny-eyed intensity of the convert. “At first, I was almost embarrassed,” he says. “I thought, ‘I can’t like Ted Hughes, he’s a poet laureate, for God’s sake.’ But none of the establishment stuff takes away from how dark and brilliant and deep and clever he is.” Of Hughes’s collections, it was Crow – his blackest, bleakest, most ambitious work, written in the wake of Sylvia Plath’s suicide – that obsessed Porter; he became, he admits, “a Crow nerd”, and read everything he could get his hands on relating to it. In Hughes’s poems, Crow is both a figure of legend and a means of interrogating it, a symbol of life force and an agent of chaos. Porter settled on him as the device through which to tackle the subject of grief because he brought all of those angles to the table.
Which leads us to the other hand: Porter’s compulsion to write about grief in the first place. He’s an remarkable polymath; our conversation darts from Rothko’s Seagram murals to the art of translation to Emily Dickinson (another of his obsessions, from whom he borrowed the book’s title and its epigram), his thoughts on each spilling forth at an almost stream-of-consciousness rate. But when we arrive at the question of where the story itself came from, he draws a deep breath, and slows almost to standstill. “It’s … erm … The experience of the boys in the flat is … based on my dad dying. When I was … six.” The circumstances of his father’s death were, he says, “completely different” from those of the mother dying in his book (and ones that he politely, but firmly, refuses to discuss). His family, too, was more complicated; as well as his brother and his mum, he had “a lovely stepdad” and a clutch of half-siblings. But there are odd moments in the book – such as “the bit where the boys are told that their mum’s died and are baffled at the lack of noise” – that are drawn from life. He clearly remembers “walking down the stairs and thinking, this is not how it should be – there should be other people here, high-vis jackets and fire engines and trumpets”. And the writing of it was “an opportunity for me to work out how I felt, about my brother, and about my dad”.
The book itself is very brief: just over 100 pages, with plenty of white space. “Life is short,” Porter explains, “and I wanted to write something short.” But it’s a project that’s been brewing at the back of his mind for as long as he can remember, running in shadowy parallel to the rest of his life until the moment when Faber agreed to usher it into the light. What’s curious, talking to him, is the extent to which everything – his reading, his writing, his own family life – appears to have conspired to produce this moment of catharsis. Even his career, when viewed from this end of the telescope, looks to have been made with the purpose of leading him to a point where he was able to see the book into print.
Porter was born in High Wycombe in 1981, went to the local state grammar and studied history of art up to MA level at the Courtauld in London. After graduating, he worked his way through a bunch of odd jobs before picking up temporary Christmas work at Hatchards bookshop in Piccadilly. When the shop jettisoned all its Christmas staff in the new year, someone suggested he talk to James Daunt (founder of the independent Daunt Books chain and, since 2011, managing director of Waterstones), who spotted his potential and offered him a permanent position. Porter enjoyed the work, and gave up on a planned PhD to open a new branch in Holland Park, followed by another on Fulham Road, winning the Young Bookseller of the Year award in 2009, and all the while accumulating “sketchbooks, pictures I’d drawn, bits of paper with notes and scraps of writing, all of which were precursors to this book”. By that point, he was spending his spare time freelancing as a manuscript reader, and when an opening came up at Granta Books, he was encouraged to apply. So it was that, not long after his book was finished, Porter found himself having lunch with an editor at Faber, at which the subject of Hughes came up. “She was working on their Modern Classics line, and I asked her which of his collections she was including. She said The Hawk in the Rain, and I sucked in my cheeks and said ‘Not Crow?’” The conversation took off, and he sent her his manuscript.
Porter’s keenly aware of just how “immensely jammy” all this makes him. The problem with the book, as he is quick to acknowledge, is that it is basically unsellable. One of the first rules of publishing is that you need to be able to summarise a book succinctly and pinpoint who’ll buy it; in this case, you can do neither. The fact is that, had he not been able to place it directly into the right editor’s hands, it might well not have seen the light of day at all. “The first person I sent it to was a publisher friend, and she said exactly what I expected: ‘It’s good, but I don’t know what you could do with it.’ But Faber liked it, and saw a way of publishing it, and I’m hugely grateful.”
Me too. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is heartrending, blackly funny, deeply resonant, a perfect summation of what it means to lose someone but still to love the world – and if it reminds publishers that the best books aren’t always the ones that can be pigeonholed or precis-ed or neatly packaged, so much the better. As a publisher himself, though, Porter has no plans to jack in the day job. “In the first place,” he says, when I ask, “I have three kids to support. In the second, I love my job. But the key thing is that this book erupted quite forcefully from me. I loved doing it; I loved being in that space, but I don’t want to write a second book for the sake of it. It’s the conditions I’d like to recreate. I’d like to feel that urgency again.”
Extracts from Grief is the Thing With Feathers
Once upon a time there was a demon who fed on grief. The delicious aroma of raw shock and unexpected loss came wafting from the doors and windows of a widower’s sad home.
Therefore the demon set about finding his way in.
One evening the babes were freshly washed and the husband was telling them tales when there was a knock on the door.
Rat-a-tat-tat. “Open up, open up, it’s me from 56. It’s … Keith. Keith Coleridge. I need to borrow some milk.”
But the sensible father knew there was no number 56 on the quiet little street, so he did not open the door.
The next night the demon tried again.
Rat-a-tat-tat. “Open up, open up, I’m from Parenthesis Press. It’s Paul. Paul … Graves. I heard the news. I’m truly gutted it’s taken me this long to come over. I’ve brought a pizza and some toys for the boys.”
But the attentive father knew there had been a Pete from Parenthesis and a Phil from Parenthesis, but never a Paul from Parenthesis, so he did not open the door.
The next night the demon ran at the door, flashing blue and crackling.
Rat-a-tat-tat. BANG. BANG. “Open up! Police! We know you’re in there, this is an emergency, you have five seconds to open the door or we will smash our way in.”
But the worldly grieving man knew a bit about the law and sensed a lie.
The demon went away and wondered what to do next. He was tabloid-despicable, so a powerful plan came to him.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Knock. Knock. Knock. “Boys? It’s me. It’s Mum. Darling? Are you there? Boys, open the door, it’s me. I’m back. Sweetheart? Boys? Let me in.”
And the babes flung their duvets back in abandon, swung their little legs over the edge of the bed and scampered down the stairs. The chambers of their baffled baby hearts filled with yearning and they tingled, they bounded down towards before, before, before all this. The father, drunk on the voice of his beloved, raced down after them. The sound of her voice was stinging, like a moon-dragged starvation surging into every hopeless raw vacant pore, undoing, exquisite undoing.
“We are coming, Mum!”
Their friend and houseguest, who was a crow, stopped them at the door.
My loves, he said.
My dear, sorry loves. It isn’t her. Go back to bed and let me deal with this. It isn’t her.
The boys floated their crumpled crêpe-paper dad back up, one under each arm steering his weightlessness, and they laid him down to sleep. Then they sat at the window looking down and watching what happened and they liked it very much, for boys will be boys.
Crow went out, smiled, sniffed the air, nodded good evening and back-kicked the door shut behind him.
Then Crow demonstrated to the demon what happens when a crow repels an intruder to the nest, if there are babies in that nest:
One loud KRONK, a hop, a tap on the floor, a little distracted dance, a HONK, swivel and lift, as a discus swung up but not released but driven down atomically fixed and explosive, the beak hurled down hammer-hard into the demon’s skull with a crack and a spurt then smashed onwards down through bone, brain, fluid and membrane, into squirting spine, vertebra snap, vertebra crunch, vertebra nibbled and spat and one-two-three-four-five all the way down quick as a piranha, nipping, cutting, disassembling the material of the demon, splashing in blood and spinal gunk and shit and piss, unravelling innards, whipping ligaments and nerves about joyous spaghetti tangled wool hammering, clawing, ripping, snipping, slurping, burping, frankly loving the journey of hurting, hurting-hurting and for Crow it was like a lovely bin full of chip papers and ice cream and currywurst and baby robins and every nasty treat, physically invigorating like a westerly above the moor, like a bouncy castle elm in the wind, like old family pleasures of the deep species. And Crow stands thrilled in a pool of filth, patiently sweeping and toeing remains of demon into a drain-hole.
His work done, Crow struts and leaps up and down the street issuing warnings while the pyjama-clad boys clap and cheer – behind-glass-silent – from the bedroom window. Crow issues warnings to the wide city, warnings in verse, warnings in many languages, warnings with bleeding edges, warnings with humour, warnings with dance and sub-low threats and voodoo and puns and spectacular ancient ugliness.
Satisfied with his defence of the nest, Crow wanders in to find some food.
***
Crow
Once upon a time there was a babysitting bird, let’s call him Crow. He had read too many Russian fairytales (lazy boy burn, Baba Yaga howl, decent Prince win), but was nevertheless an authorised and accredited caregiver, much admired by London parents, much in demand of a Friday night. On his newsagent advert it was written:
“Nappy Valley: And Beyond!”
The telly went off and Crow suggested a game.
“You two boys,” he said, “must each build – here on the floor – a model of your mother. Just as you remember her! And whichever of you builds the best model will win. Not the most realistic, but the best, the truest. The prize is this … ” said the Crow, stroking their shampooed hair … “the best model I will bring to life, a living mother to tuck you up in bed.”
And so the boys set to it.
The one son went for drawing, furiously concentrating like a little waist-high fresco painter scrabbling hands and knees on the scaffold. Thirty-seven taped-together sheets of A4 paper and the full rainbow of crayons, pencils and pens, his front teeth biting down on his lower lip. Heavy nasal sighing as he adjusted the eyes, scrapped them, started again, working his way down, happy with the hands, happy with the legs.
The second son went for assemblage, a model of the woman made from cutlery, ribbons, stationery, toys, buttons and books, manically adjusting – leaping up, lying down – like a mechanic in the pits. Clicking and tutting as he worked his way around the mosaic mum, happy with the face, happy with the height.
And, “Stop!” said the Crow.
“They are both extraordinary,” he said, admiring their work, “you’ve got her smile, you’ve captured her posture, her shoulders were hunched to that exact degree!”
And the boys couldn’t wait to find out who had won; “Which one?! Which Mum?!”, but Crow started hopping, avoiding their gaze, suppressing a giggle and turning away.
“Crow, which one of these fake mums has won us a real one?”
And Crow was quiet, laughing no more.
“Crow, don’t be funny, let’s have our real Mummy.”
And Crow started crying.
And the boys cooked Crow in a very hot oven until he was nothing but cells.
This is Crow’s bad dream.
***
Boys
Dad has gone. Crow is in the bathroom, where he often is because he likes the acoustics. We are crouched by the closed door listening. He is speaking very slowly, very clearly. He sounds old-fashioned, like Dad’s vinyl recording of Dylan Thomas. He says SUDDEN. He says TRAUMA. He says Induced … he coughs and spits and tries again, INDUCED. He says SUDDEN TRAUMA INDUCED ALTERATION OF THE ALERT STATE.
Dad comes back. Crow changes his tune.
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