'Vodka, naturally': an interview with Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy, author of the magnificent Swimming Home, is currently undergoing something of a Mantel effect. Having written books for years, it was only after being shortlisted for the Booker last year for her fifth novel that she now is the name to drop.

Not one to rest on the laurels of a Booker shortlisting, and having been shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award for 'Black Vodka', she is back with a full short story collection called Black Vodka and Other Stories, a dark, funny, sad set of stories about... well, why don't we ask Deborah...

Hello Deborah, what has been your warming drink of choice during these cold months?

Vodka, naturally! Although Oscar Wilde did tell us that being 'natural' is just a pose- and the most irritating pose of all. I like Vodka the way my Polish friend taught me to drink it- a 'long vodka' mixed with apple juice and ice. I also really like tea. I have just written a short story in which a man dips one of those chocolate biscuits called 'Wagon Wheels' in to his cup of tea. This prompts his wife to talk about fate - 'the wheels of the wagon were turning but who was driving the wagon? '

Well for writers it's the attempt to reach our ideas that is invigoratingFirst of all, before we talk about the collection, I wanted to ask about the success and acclaim that came with Swimming Home. Has this invigorated your writing and what do you hope this means now for future novels?

Well for writers it's the attempt to reach our ideas that is invigorating. The success of Swimming Home has meant a wider readership, translations in many countries and of course it played a major part in shining the spotlight on the invigorating literary values of independent publishers such as And Other Stories.

Have you always written short stories? What is it about the form that you love?

Yes, I started writing short stories when I was a theatre student in my early 20's. I was supposed to be writing plays but somehow short stories snared my attention and wouldn't let go. It's a good form for writers to experiment with techniques to achieve their ideas. On the level of plot, it's fine for very little to happen in a short story - but the writer will have to know what else is happening (apart from plot) to keep readers on the bus. Stories are a place to experiment with how time passes, to explore strategies for digressions and point of view, to create places and traces, to ask all the big and small questions- life, death and taking out the garbage. All fiction that matters tends to fly quite close to philosophy politics and economics- whilst being in conversation with the literary equivalent of air traffic control - so a short story is a manageable place to begin that conversation. Most of all the form allows us to get to grips with notions of character, tense and tone. I think the most successful short stories often resembles films: the writer is moving the camera to achieve close ups, long shots, point of view, jump cuts. At the moment I am one of the judges for a short story competition organised by the arts and literary journal The White Review. We are looking at a shortlist of eight innovative and sophisticated stories- all of the writers push the form of short fiction in to interesting places - there are no assumptions about what a short story should be like.

Do you think a short story collection needs to necessarily be interlinked?

The link is the writer's voice - but writers have many voices.

...love and war and the idea that while sexual intercourse is often very nice, most of us find it quite confusing. 'Black Vodka', shortlisted for the BBC last year, seems to play with the idea of how we are and how we present ourselves. Is this a theme that runs through the stories?

Other themes are at play too. Consumerism, which is a bit like shamanism (adverts have to get inside the unconscious of the consumer to broadcast 'buy this product') - that is the theme of the story 'Star Dust Nation'. Also gender and identity politics, love and war and the idea that while sexual intercourse is often very nice, most of us find it quite confusing.

There are explorations of Rome, of Prague or other countries. What was it about those locations that sung to you?

Black Vodka resembles a road movie through contemporary Europe (shifting geographies and cultural identities) and also refers to Eastern Europe after the communist regimes started to unravel. We might live in a wired globalised world but that doesn't mean we have stopped feeling things that were probably felt in the stone age. One story also has a scene that takes place in Dublin - a confused man from Prague encounters the spirited intelligence of a young Irish woman who seems to know more about him than he knows about himself; another story explores the wilder side of English suburbia. J G Ballard suggested that while we might not be mugged in suburbia, it's likely that our soul will be stolen instead. I give that idea an airing in 'Cave Girl'. Black Vodka is mostly about love - it asks some questions about the risks we take when we encounter a desired other- what is going on and why does love makes us sad as well as dizzy?

...while we might not be mugged in suburbia, it's likely that our soul will be stolen instead.What are you currently working on?

At the moment I am working on the following; my new novel, Hot Milk, is about hypochondria. Every family has a story about someone who loves their symptoms more than they love any one else. It will be published by Hamish Hamilton. My long autobiographical essay, Things I Don't Want to Know, a response to George Orwell's 1946 essay, Why I Write, will be published at the end of May 2013 by Notting Hill Editions. My poetry collection, An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell will be extended and re-reprinted by And Other Stories, alongside a new stretch of writing in response to a magnificent song by the Cowboy Junkies.

What one book would you recommend that everyone go out and read now, and why?

Near the end of her life, Marguerite Duras wrote a luminous series of conversational short essays, titled in English, Practicalities. All women and men should read this- but women most of all. It will tell you things you know- but don't want to know you know. I have quoted from it in my new autobiographical essay - Things I Don't Want to Know. Those are the things I usually end up writing about. As for short stories, once again, I recommend Girls At War by the late, great Chinua Achebe.