All Hail the New Puritans

by Nicholas Blincoe (Editor), Geoff Dyer (Contributor), Simon Lewis (Contributor)

'All Hail, the New Puritans' is the collection of new stories from the most exciting young novelists today. Inspired by the Dogme 95 group of film makers, the New Puritans are attempting to rediscover fiction as a discipline rather than a category. 1. Primarily storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form. 2. We are prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of expression. For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms. 3. While acknowledging the value of genre fiction, whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new openings, rupturing existing genre expectations. 4. We believe in textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of rhetoric, authorial asides. 5. In the name of clarity, we recognise the importance of temporal linearity and eschew flashbacks, dual temporal narratives and foreshadowing. 6. We believe in grammatical purity and avoid any elaborate punctuation. 7. We recognise that published works are also historical documents. As fragments of our time, all our texts are dated and set in the present day. All products, places, artists and objects named are real. 8. As faithful representation of the present, our texts will avoid all improbable or unknowable speculations on the past or the future. 9. We are moralists, so all text feature a recognisable ethical reality. 10. Nevertheless, our aim is integrity of expression, above and beyond any commitment to form.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Blincoe was born in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1965. After briefly studying art at Middlesex Polytechnic he attended the University of Warwick where he studied Philosophy, gaining a PhD in 1993. The thesis was entitled Depression and Economics. The thesis explored the relationship between political sciences and economic theories, with particular reference to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida.

Blincoe released a Hip-Hop record on Manchester's Factory Records in 1987 and his subsequent relationship with Factory records and the nightclub The Haçienda informed his early work.

In 1995, Blincoe married the Bethlehem Palestinian film-maker Leila Sansour, director of the documentary Jeremy Hardy vs The Israeli Army (2003).

Blincoe has written for British radio and television, including episodes of the BBC TV series Waking The Dead and Channel 4's Goldplated. As a critic and reviewer he has worked for the Modern Review, under the editorship of Toby Young and Julie Burchill. He was a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph until September 2006, writing the weekly 'Marginalia' column.

He is the author of six novels, Acid Casuals (1995), Jello Salad (1997), Manchester Slingback (1998), The Dope Priest (1999), White Mice (2002), Burning Paris (2004). He was a founding member of the New Puritans literary movement and co-edited (with Matt Thorne) the anthology 'All Hail The New Puritans' (2000) which included contributions from Alex Garland, Toby Litt, Geoff Dyer, Daren King, Simon Lewis, and Scarlett Thomas.

Blincoe won the Crime Writer's Association Silver Dagger for his novel Manchester Slingback in 1998. His early novels were crime thrillers set in or around his native Lancashire and the clubs of Manchester.

Some of his more recent novels reflect his life split between homes in London and Bethlehem. He is also a co-editor of a book on the International Solidarity Movement Peace Under Fire: Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement (2003) with Josie Sandercock, Radhika Sainath, Marissa Mcloughlin, Hussein Khalili, Huwaida Arraf and Ghassan Andoni.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Museum piece: dogmatic and dull. Rebecca Ray's story is the only stand-out work.

[Ancien Parisian · Rating 1 out of 5]

What I have always sought to avoid. Why is this country, in its lowest forms of lower middle class life, so degenerated? Ugly and vulgar. The stories themselves are uninspiring but they feel like an image of a time I know and despise, felt its fingers coming into me at a time and walked on another plane (perhaps to my life's detriment, but now I'm here with a wandering mind). It feels like BBC and ITV of the 2000s so I suppose whatever this book aimed at was successful. But it's like a gunshot on a darkened rugby field behind me. Run for your life.

People don't generally understand what I mean by this and use it to browbeat. I'm being charitable in my description. I'm not even British so to be one thing forced to cloak in another is revolting.

[Douglas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Must-read story: "Monaco."