Rippling Pages Live with Katharina Volckmer Part 2 - On Clowns, Mothers and Part Time Jobs

“They got fired for that!”

Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event. This is the second part of our conversation. 

Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was translated into over fifteen languages, it was adapted for the stage starring Camille Cottin and was nominated for several prizes. Katharina is in ribald mode in this funny, outlandish, and yet, very melancholic novel about a man called Jimmie who works in a call centre. Jimmie helps holiday makers.  He placates their fears about sharks in the waters of Mykonos, Greece, among many other strange and wonderful challenges.  He also manages a complicated relationship with his mother and has a traumatic memory of an electric carving knife that threatens to burst to the surface. The Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, said the book is ‘filled with brilliant dialogue, unexpected turns, some very dirty talk with sudden bursts of hilarity, and then fierce sadness.’

A special treat here - Leeds based poet Kirsty Went gave a reading for, some of her work to open the event. We’ve re-recorded for the purposes of the podcast.

You can buy CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod

Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:

https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages 

Where to find Next Chapter Books:  https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/ 

 

Rippling Points 

1.35 - writing about mothers and fathers
5.03 - clowns
9.45 - on jokes and fantasies 
11.23 - Kirsty Went reading 
14.19 - questions from the audience - where does the relentless comic vulgarity come from?
20.10 - question from the audience - does this book fit into the wonderfully weird fiction category? Can we have more daring takes in fiction? 
23.35- question from the audience - did Katharina know the book would end in this subversive way? 

Reference points

Thomas Bernhard