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Joshua in the Sky
Hardcover
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About the author
Rodge Glass
27 books8 followersRodge Glass is the author of the novels No Fireworks (Faber, 2005) and Hope for Newborns (Faber, 2008), as well as Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography (Bloomsbury, 2008), which received a Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. Recently, he was co-author of the graphic novel Dougie’s War: A Soldier’s Story (Freight, 2010), which was nominated for several awards. He is currently a Programme Leader in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University, and was Associate Editor at Freight Books. His novel, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs, was published in April 2012 by the multi-award winning Tindal Street Press, then as a paperback by Serpent’s Tail, and it appeared as Voglio la testa di Ryan Giggs in April 2013 (66thand2nd, Roma). His latest book, LoveSexTravelMusik, was published by Freight Books in April 2013 and was nominated for the International Frank O’Connor Award. His fiction has been published in Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Danish and Italian.
(from http://rodgeglass.com/ )
(from http://rodgeglass.com/ )
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 17, 2024
I should say at the outset that when seated in front of even the most mawkish film or TV show, I am easily moved to tears; I am not, as Rodge Glass puts it, a ‘fridge’. Books, however, rarely draw tears and so it might appear that I am, as far as books are concerned, a ‘fridge’ after all; but I’d argue against this: books touch me and move me and they make me feel stuff – but with books I think the feelings are not so near the surface, which is to say they are a little deeper than that.
This is a book that touched me deeply and I was so very close to tears in the final chapters where we get an account of a child called Joshua’s birth and death. Joshua is Rodge Glass’s nephew – it is important that I talk about Joshua as being and not as having been… that, I think, is the point of this book.
I’ve never met Rodge Glass, though I have heard him talk in interviews and on the radio. We are both published by Taproot Press, but that is not why I wanted to read his new book, ‘Joshua in the Sky’. Rodge Glass talks softly and sensibly and in interview sounds like someone you’d want to know, to be friends with. His new book is a memoir so it seemed a good way to get to know the man a little better.
'Joshua in the Sky' is a book about Rodge Glass’ grief and even at times his despair in the five years following the death of his nephew, and it is about the part reading and writing has had in bringing Rodge Glass back from ‘the brink’. If ever you have questioned the relevance and importance of books and fiction, let Rodge Glass educate you with this book. He writes about his nephew’s birth and death and the ache this has left behind; but also, in the end, about how the death of Joshua has brought so much good into the world, even though he lived for only 3 hours after his birth.
I do not know if I trust writers when they write their own life stories; at one point even Rodge Glass confesses, ‘I can’t be trusted to tell a true story to anyone’. But there is an honesty in this book, and a vulnerability in Rodge Glass’s open admission of how hard it has been for him to deal with the death of Joshua. I believed and trusted every word.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Even as I write this I am moved close to tears again – not mawkish, sentimental tears, but the tears that surface in response to both the strength and the fragility of the lives we all lead, a strength and a fragility that is the warp and weft of this moving memoir.
This is a book that touched me deeply and I was so very close to tears in the final chapters where we get an account of a child called Joshua’s birth and death. Joshua is Rodge Glass’s nephew – it is important that I talk about Joshua as being and not as having been… that, I think, is the point of this book.
I’ve never met Rodge Glass, though I have heard him talk in interviews and on the radio. We are both published by Taproot Press, but that is not why I wanted to read his new book, ‘Joshua in the Sky’. Rodge Glass talks softly and sensibly and in interview sounds like someone you’d want to know, to be friends with. His new book is a memoir so it seemed a good way to get to know the man a little better.
'Joshua in the Sky' is a book about Rodge Glass’ grief and even at times his despair in the five years following the death of his nephew, and it is about the part reading and writing has had in bringing Rodge Glass back from ‘the brink’. If ever you have questioned the relevance and importance of books and fiction, let Rodge Glass educate you with this book. He writes about his nephew’s birth and death and the ache this has left behind; but also, in the end, about how the death of Joshua has brought so much good into the world, even though he lived for only 3 hours after his birth.
I do not know if I trust writers when they write their own life stories; at one point even Rodge Glass confesses, ‘I can’t be trusted to tell a true story to anyone’. But there is an honesty in this book, and a vulnerability in Rodge Glass’s open admission of how hard it has been for him to deal with the death of Joshua. I believed and trusted every word.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Even as I write this I am moved close to tears again – not mawkish, sentimental tears, but the tears that surface in response to both the strength and the fragility of the lives we all lead, a strength and a fragility that is the warp and weft of this moving memoir.
October 14, 2024
It's interesting this book because in many ways it feels like I'm being lectured, but I think that's because Rodge was my lecturer and this book is so completely Rodge Glass every conceivable way that this was going to be unavoidable anyway.
January 16, 2025
Heard the author speak at a college event. Very moving. Much wrestling, overthinking and vulnerability. Reading as consolation and provocation. I love that it comes with a reading list!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews