Grace McCleen

Grace McCleen (born 1981) is a British novelist. She has won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Betty Trask Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.

Grace McCleen
Born1981 (age 38–39)
OccupationAuthor
Notable worksThe Land of Decoration (2012), The Professor of Poetry (2013)
Notable awardsThe Desmond Elliot Prize 2012, The Betty Trask Award 2013

Life

McCleen was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian sect in Wales and for most of her childhood did not have much contact with outsiders.[1][2][3]

McCleen went to the University of Oxford to read English Literature aged 22.[4]. She later completed a MA, also in English Literature, at the University of York.[1][2][5] She experienced opposition from her religious community to her decision to attend university.[6] "It was an enormous step and one I almost didn't take, and one I felt bad about taking for many years afterwards, until I realised I hadn't done anything wrong."[7]

After graduation she experienced a mental breakdown and suffered from tinnitus and Chronic fatigue syndrome.[5] During her illness, she wrote "a long novel. It didn’t work and from that novel came three novels".[8]

McCleen has said that she will not continue to write fiction. "Writing is really destructive to me."[5] "I feel it's sort of like a knife in me".[9] She may, however, continue to write poetry.[10]

In 2016 McCleen was writer in residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and in 2017 she was writer in residence at the Manchester Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester.[6]

McCleen is also a musician, singer and songwriter.[11] She writes occasionally for The Guardian.[12]

Bibliography

Novels:

The Land of Decoration has been translated into 16 languages.[7]

Other work:

  • Every Sounding Line (2015), a collection of poetry inspired by the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, following McCleen's time as writer in residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum[15]
  • 'The Love Story', a short story in the collection How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Love (2016)[16]

Awards

Critical Reception

The Land of Decoration was described by Amity Gaige in The New York Times Book Review as "Gripping ... philosophically sophisticated ... The writing is born of a genuine inquiry into the nature of religious belief, especially as it relates to one’s psychological development".[20] Chris Cleave in The Financial Times called the book "loveable, unique and thrillingly uncategorisable ... an extraordinary and peculiarly haunting novel.’[21] Colin Greenland, however, in The Guardian, felt that "the world outside is ... contrived and confused ... [and that this] perilously weakens [McCleen's] argument".[22], and Ron Charles, in The Washington Post, felt "Much of the language here is too flat and pedestrian. Other passages soar into flights of preciousness".[23]

The Professor of Poetry was described by Hilary Mantel as "an astonishing and luminous novel".[24] Hepzibah Anderson in The Observer found "sentences here of such agile cleverness, charged with wit and beauty and enchantment."[25] Kate Clanchy, also in The Observer, however, found it "conservative and anti-feminist".[26]

Sam Kitchener in The Telegraph said of The Offering that "Huge questions, of faith, time, reality, individual responsibility and human sexuality are given pained and peculiar answers".[27] Max Liu in The Independent wrote that "Some of the dense, descriptive passages are frustrating to read but difficulty is one of this novel’s enduring themes".[28]

Influences

McCleen has said that she is influenced by Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, W.G. Sebald, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Franz Kafka and Moby-Dick.[2][29]

gollark: ~~all world affairs are controlled by my gecko~~
gollark: Moving is just the cover story.
gollark: * conspiracy
gollark: Can you make an *infinitely* meta conspirach?
gollark: Conspiracy theory: ballsystemlord is being paid by the government to make conspiracy theories seem less interesting.

References
  1. "The 2012 Prize". The Desmond Elliott Prize. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  2. Tashlee (22 March 2012). ""I think I find words hardest of all": new author Grace McCleen speaks to World of Books about her debut novel, her little people, and her inspirations". World of Books. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  3. Barr, Nicola (4 March 2012). "The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen – review". The Observer. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  4. "Q&A with author Grace McCleen". The Financial Times. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  5. Kean, Danuta (6 July 2013). "Grace McCleen: 'Writing is really destructive to me'". The Independent. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  6. "Writers in residence". Centre for New Writing. University of Manchester. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  7. "About The Author". Foyles. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  8. "Inspirations: Grace McCleen, author of The Land of Decoration". 26. 22 March 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  9. Kappala-Ramsamy, Gemma (26 February 2012). "Debut novelist: Grace McCleen". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  10. Sophie (8 August 2015). "Q&A with Grace McCleen". Fiction Uncovered. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  11. Alex, Clark (22 January 2012). "Why we're watching: Grace McCleen, author". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  12. "Grace McCleen". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  13. Feay, Suzi (12 July 2013). "The Professor of Poetry, By Grace McCleen". The Independent. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  14. "The Offering By Grace McCleen". Hodder and Stoughton. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  15. Knights, David (3 September 2015). "Book of Brontë-inspired poems to be launched in Haworth". Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  16. Foster, Rebecca. "How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Love by Carys Bray and others". Bookbag. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  17. "The 2012 Prize". The Desmond Elliott Prize. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  18. "The Society of Authors". The Society of Authors. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  19. "Winners Announced of Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize 2015". Foyles.co.uk. 2015-06-19. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  20. Gage, Amity (22 June 2012). "Child of God: 'The Land of Decoration,' by Grace McCleen". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  21. "Small wonders". Financial Times.
  22. Greenland, Colin (23 March 2012). "The Land of Decoration by Grace McLeen – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  23. Charles, Ron (20 March 2012). ""The Land of Decoration," by Grace McCleen". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  24. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2014-04-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. Hephzibah Anderson. "The Professor of Poetry by Grace McCleen – review". The Observer.
  26. Kate Clanchy. "The Professor of Poetry by Grace McCleen – review". The Guardian.
  27. Kitchener, Sam (22 Jan 2015). "The Offering by Grace McCleen, review: 'impressive and moving'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  28. Liu, Max (18 January 2015). "The Offering by Grace McCleen, book review: Tale of a troubled past is full of emotional power". The Independent. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  29. "Grace McCleen". The Financial Times. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
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