Review in Snack magazine

Nice review of Push Process by Charlotte Haley in this month's Snack magazine, which you'll find online and around Glasgow:  

The book encourages us to pay attention: the descriptions are detailed and hyper-focused, the photography of Venice is layered and intricate, and the accompanying captions raise ideas that any reader, novice or experienced photographer, can appreciate. ... 

Like his photography, Walker’s writing is contemplative, pairing pithy observations ... with highly specific photography vocab and snippets of Italian. These specialist details rarely make the reader feel alienated, however: we become tourists in Venice, acquainted with Richard’s artsy friends Merlo and Lars, catching soundbites and glimpses of meaning in a way that is clandestine, conspiratorial. 

The subtle manipulation of perspective is what really makes this book shine, as we zoom in and out of Richard’s life like the focus on a camera lens ...

Review in The Scotsman

Great review for my novel Push Process in The Scotsman today by Robert Cox:

I have long been a fan of works of literature such as, say, Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts, which experiment not just with the way a novel can be written, but also with its physical format. In Push Process, Walker not only weaves atmospheric and often somewhat enigmatic black and white photos of Venice throughout the text of his story about a history postgrad who falls in love with photography, he also includes a selection of some 48 images at the end, all his own. .... [The book's treats include] not just the never-less-than-fascinating discussions about photography and art, but also a genuine sense of being transported – by both words and images – to an atmospheric world of fully-realised characters for whom these questions are not merely of academic interest, but the stuff of life itself.

A Couple of Reviews

Jonathan Walker’s new novel Push Process (Ortac Press, 2024) pushed a bunch of positive buttons for me.

A nice write-up for Push Process at the well-known Vertigo blog, dedicated to novels with embedded photographs. 

And a positive review at 10 Million Hardbacks:

Just as a photograph compels the viewer to look at something afresh, a new perspective on the familiar, this unique work offers the reader another way to frame the magical city of Venice.

Second Edition of Five Wounds

My first novel, Five Wounds, a dark fantasy created in collaboration with the illustrator Dan Hallett, was originally published in Australia in 2010 by Allen & Unwin. That edition is now out of print, and rights have reverted to me, so I have prepared an updated second edition, with many improvements. I'll shortly make this second edition available as a free pdf download, or as a print-on-demand paperback (details to follow). 

Here's a synopsis and some quotations from reviews of the first edition:

Shortlisted for an Aurealis Award 

Surreal, darkly beautiful, and unsettling, this richly illustrated novel is by turns hilarious and horrific, grotesque and tender. 

A cruel and arbitrary world, where disturbing lapses in logic are commonplace. A city built on water. Five people, isolated from those around them, but mysteriously connected to one another. 

Gabriella is a mutilated angel, haunted by her inability to interpret prophecies. Cur is the rabid leader of a sect of dogs, desperate to escape his inheritance. Cuckoo is a gambler with a wax face, determined to find a fixed identity before his luck runs out. Magpie is a thief in search of the perfect photographic subject, terrified of going blind. Crow is a leper trying to distil the essence of death as an antidote to dying. 

Everyone’s connected,’ Gabriella said. ‘You, me, Cur, Crow, Magpie.’ She ticked the names off. 

    ‘Five fingers,’ Cuckoo said, watching her hand. 

    Gabriella picked up the theme. ‘Five wounds.’ 

    ‘Five wild cards,’ returned Cuckoo. 

    ‘Or five marked cards. Someone’s playing games with us.’ 

At the end of the game, who wins and who loses? Who escapes their fate, and who fulfils it? 

Reviews for the First Edition:

Five Wounds … is like Christmas for book nerds. It’s like Christmas in July and regular Christmas combined, that’s how good it is. … The five senses are a common theme in Five Wounds and it seems fitting then, that it appeals to the senses in such detail. I have literally tried everything short of licking the book. 

Dave Drayton, Vibewire 

The stories and studies of these characters intertwine with increasing intricacy as the novel builds to an immensely exciting, haunting, heartbreaking and ultimately satisfying conclusion. The depiction of this alternative Venice is dreamy and surreal, but the author paints a world that feels completely authentic. The illuminations by Dan Hallett are a joy, and bring a lot to the book. Sometimes striking and colourful, and at other times comical and cartoonish, they reinforce the idea that this is a fairy tale for grown-ups. … All in all, a very handsome book and a story that is symphonic in its poetry, breadth and cohesion. It is tempting to think that the author lives by the same motto as one of his characters; "Either Ceasar, or nothing." 

James Scott, The Spit Press 

One of the strangest books I've come across recently is the peculiar and wonderful Five Wounds, by the writer Jonathan Walker and the artist Dan Hallett (and designed by Zoe Sadokierski). Any attempt to categorise it is doomed to failure, but as a starting point it can best be described as an illustrated novel informed by the typographic structures of the King James Bible and inflected with various postmodern antics touches. And it has a talking dog. I've never read anything else quite like it. 

Caustic Cover Critic 

The story itself is a beautifully written and illustrated journey, but for me what made the novel truly ‘illuminated’ was the way in which the book refused to settle. Five Wounds is no summer beach distraction, it’s an intensely involved reading experience. For me the journey of reading the book was one of active problem-solving and code-breaking, … [For] those who will take its challenge the book is a truly unique project, and its reading reaps truly unique rewards. It is a beautiful and worthy piece of art, and with each stripping back, the heart of its mystery becomes more and more elusive, and yet more and more meaningful. Perhaps I will never uncover all of its secrets, but I have nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed the journey. 

Lyndon Riggall, Literary Minded 

Five Wounds’s story would stand proud in any format, but the combination of Walker’s rich cityscape and Hallett’s spidery imagery results in something beyond a conventional book with superfluous pictures. Text and imagery feed off one another like Siamese twins, to the extent that it’s difficult to imagine either element surviving if separated. … whether you find greater meanings bellow its soiled surface or reach Walker’s dual endings scratching your head, Five Wounds: An illuminated Novel remains immersive, satisfying and consistently inventive. 

9/10, Carl Doherty, Shelf Abuse 

Five Wounds is inspired by Jeanette Winterson's The Passion, Italo Calvino's versions of Italian folk tales, the history of Venice, the Bible, and the films of Terry Gilliam, especially Jabberwocky (1977). The last is a very good approximation of my novel's tone, approach and aesthetic.  

When the book first came out, I posted a lot of related discussion on this blog. Because I've simplified the design for the second edition, some of that discussion needed updating to avoid confusion. I've amended the most important posts as required, and reposted them all in succession below.

Review of The Angels of L19 in the TLS

There is a short review of The Angels of L19 by Hal Jensen in the TLS (from the 4 March issue). An extract:

Jonathan Walker’s rich evocation of 1980s Merseyside owes as much to his ability to see through young eyes as it does to the period details themselves (Soft Cell, Time Bandits, Walkmans, parka jackets). The industrial midlands versus Thatcher rumbles in the background, but the novel’s focus is local: a close-knit evangelical group, “The Brethren”, whose mix of protective social cohesion and stifling moral coercion is portrayed by Walker with the confidence of a finger tracing an old scar.

What starts out as an enjoyable and nostalgic slice of social realism soon morphs into something more like pure Horror.

Review at Horrified

I am very happy that my novel of the 'Christian Weird' seems to be being embraced by readers of fantasy and horror. A new review has just been posted at Horrified magazine:

In the end, The Angels of L19 is a strange, brilliant novel. It’s unsettling when it needs to be, but it is also an excellent coming-of-age story. It’s a novel about blind faith and the pressures of youth. It’s funny, unsettling, and often deeply, deeply uncanny. I don’t think I have ever read a novel quite like it. 

This follows previous reviews from fantasy or horror sites at Locus and Ginger Nuts of Horror. 

Review at Ten Million Hardbacks

A great review at Ten Million Hardbacks – the same site that hosted my photoessay 'I Was a Teenage Christian'.  The review author went to a Brethren church in Liverpool, so I'm particularly pleased that the book rang true for someone intimately familiar with the world in which the story is set:

I was swept away with the ambition of the novel, which deals with big questions of love, evil, faith and redemption, while creating compelling characters of the two leads and the cast around them. If I was worried about how a novel might deal with the kind people I met at church, the ones whose rock-solid faith was like the location of the wise man’s house in the Sunday school song, and how that faith would be depicted, I shouldn’t have been.

Review at Lunate

There's a lot of pressure on review space and competition for people's attention, so it's rare to get a lengthy discussion like the one just posted at the journal Lunate, which describes The Angels of L19 as: 

[O]ne of the novels of the year—a book of substantial scope, style and ambition, and one that speaks eloquently and authoritatively of connection, of kinship, and of what might result when we think to narrow the gap between the singer and the song. Thus, the reading of the book becomes a communion, every passage an article of faith. There are wonders here. Embrace them.

Many thanks to journal editor and review author Gary Kaill for this in-depth discussion.

Review at Locus

Lovely review at Locus from Ian Mond, who calls The Angels of L19 a 'tremendous novel', and says:

I, of course, loved Walker’s sudden switch from the quotidian to the supernatural. Not just because it’s an audacious move (which it clearly is) but because this clash of styles plays cleverly into the novel’s themes about religion and faith. ... While Walker is careful not to draw any facile conclusions about religious belief, in straddling between the real and the unreal, the mimetic and the fantastic, he brilliantly lays bare the struggles of two teenag­ers striving to find meaning and comfort in a world increasingly overburdened by misery and despair.

Review at Ginger Nuts of Horror

Really lovely, in-depth review at the splendidly named Ginger Nuts of Horror review site. Here's the tag line:

Highly original, thought-provoking, personal, and undoubtedly one of the literary highlights of 2021.

My publisher's mission statement emphasises literary fiction, but I also think of my book as a horror story (I see no contradiction between these two terms), and I really wanted it to be reviewed by horror readers. 

I'll have more to say on The Angels of L19 as a work of weird fiction and/or horror in a guest piece for Ginger Nuts of Horror shortly, and in a related blog post here.

Guardian Review by Nina Allan

There is a fairly lengthy review of The Angels of L19 in The Guardian, by Nina Allan. Though I think it is best described as 'mixed', it does have several nice things to say, e.g.: 'The book is beautifully written, making use of a low-key colloquial language that is always apposite and never intrusive or forced'.

Five Wounds: Review at 'Spike Magazine'

A belated mention for a review of Five Wounds by Declan Tan for Spike Magazine, for whom I also wrote a short piece on the design of the book a while ago. Here's an extract from the review:

Not every book looks and feels like an artefact when you pick it up. Oftentimes it is just words printed across cheap paper, the literal form of it separated from its content, cased in a merely functional cover with some gluey binding. But with Five Wounds, an “illuminated novel”, the very object itself is part of its mythology and there is a sense of something big, something heavy within it, if you have the time.

Five Wounds: Review at 'The Spectator Book Blog'

There is a nice review of Five Wounds over at The Spectator Book Blog, by Isabel Sutton, which describes the book as an 'engrossing and original fantasy'. Here's an extract:

To my amazement, I began to lose my scepticism and turn the pages with a genuine care for the characters’ fates. I squirmed at the gruesome deaths and held my breath as the hero and heroine made their getaway; by the end I was greedy to know what happens, fully absorbed in the throes of the story. My progress was checked, however, when the ending arrived. There wasn’t one pat conclusion, but two. In a final act of literary guile, the book pushes you back to consider how – as well as what – you are reading.

Some Further Comments at 'Shelf Abuse'

I somehow missed some further remarks on Five Wounds by Carl Doherty of the 'Shelf Abuse' site, who concludes:

I couldn’t recommend Five Wounds: An Illuminated Novel more. An accomplished, multifaceted work that follows the twisted fates of five sympathetic freaks in what is essentially an alternate-history Venice, its synthesis of words and images is effective enough to change anyone’s preconceptions about them thar picture books.

See here for a more detailed review by Carl. I also wrote a guest post for 'Shelf Abuse' on the influence of comic books on Five Wounds.

Five Wounds: Discussion at 'Caustic Cover Critic'

James Morrison of the book design blog Caustic Cover Critic (he is also the publisher of Whisky Priest Books) has posted a short discussion of Five Wounds, including some photos of page layouts. Have a look!

Five Wounds: Review at 'Shelf Abuse'

Following on from my guest post at the Shelf Abuse site, Carl Doherty has posted a review of Five Wounds there. A quotation is below:

Five Wounds' story would stand proud in any format, but the combination of Walker’s rich cityscape and Hallett’s spidery imagery results in something beyond a conventional book with superfluous pictures. Text and imagery feed off one another like Siamese twins, to the extent that it’s difficult to imagine either element surviving if separated.

Release of Five Wounds!

Five Wounds is released today in the UK. The official US release will follow shortly, although it is already available to buy in both countries (links are on the right). It is published by Allen & Unwin. Five Wounds is fantasy noir, and is presented in a unique 'illuminated' format with many original illustrations created by Dan Hallett (see the video below for more information on the format). 

Here is the publisher's synopsis of the story:  

In a cruel and arbitrary world, where disturbing lapses in logic are commonplace, five orphans must face their traumatic origins. Gabriella is a crippled angel, haunted by her inability to interpret prophecies. Cur is the rabid leader of a sect of dogs, desperate to escape his inheritance. Cuckoo is a gambler with a wax face determined to find a fixed identity before his luck runs out. Magpie is a thief in search of the perfect photographic subject, but terrified of going blind. Crow is a leper trying to distil the essence of death as an antidote to dying. 

Each of them is deformed; each has a special ability; each is connected to all of the others. And each gets exactly what they deserve. Or do they? 

Here are some quotations about the book:  

In a world of increasing vacuity and self-concern, this beautiful illustrated edition of Five Wounds is like a medication - a mystical, elegant treatise on empathy that is at once also a novel and an anti-novel. It’s a turning-point book, but one that can live on a coffee-table like a beating heart. I’ve seen nothing so rare, curious and beautiful in a long time. – DBC Pierre, author of Vernon God Little and Lights Out in Wonderland 

If I say this fable is peculiar, it’s a compliment. Not so much steampunk as, what? Canalpunk? This elaborate macabre book plays games, runs riddles, leaps in flights of fancy and dives down chasms of nightmare with Tarot, murder, jokes, and angels thrown in for good measure. The illustrations are Goya meets comic-book, the text is Perfume and Pan’s Labyrinth, Gogol, Calvino and Casanova’s memoirs of Venice all in one. Extraordinary. – Kate Holden, author of In My Skin and The Romantic  

The template suggests an old-fashioned children’s classic: handsome proportions, elegant print, fancy chapter headings, centre plates on shiny paper. But a virus has gotten in there: the illustrations are nightmarish and hermetic, calling on the Tarot, Escher, psychotic heraldry, and the text here and there is scribbled through, the nice fonts mocked by scrawled block capitals. And the story likewise takes the blackness that underpins traditional fairytales and brings it front and centre. .... [T]he book takes you places, and the illustrations are wonderful. - Owen Richardson, review in The Age 

Think back to your first trip with Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, or how it felt to enter the Matrix after Neo takes the red pill. Five Wounds: An Illuminated Novel takes you down a similarly twisting path and leaves you pondering the journey well afterwards. .... a thought-provoking and beautifully presented work. - Aliese Millington, review in Transnational Literature 

The five senses are a common theme in Five Wounds and it seems fitting then, that it appeals to the senses in such detail. I have literally tried everything short of licking the book. The hardcover, thoughtful selection of paper stock and red ribbon page-marker makes the book seem like an artefact; it is a privilege to hold it. .... The scribblings peppered through out the book add to its mystery. I feel as if I am reading a diary, a draft, a spell book; something personal that was not meant for the eyes of others. .... [They] lend the book a desperate sense of urgency. - Dave Drayton, review at Vibewire 

Here is a video interview (courtesy of the Wheeler Centre) about the unique format of Five Wounds:

I'll be posting some additional discussion about Five Wounds here over the next couple of months. I'll also be doing some guest posts on other blogs and sites, which I'll link to from here.

Five Wounds: Review at 'Literary Minded'

A very nice review by guest writer Lyndon Riggall at Literary Minded. An excerpt is below:

The story itself is a beautifully written and illustrated journey, but for me what made the novel truly ‘illuminated’ was the way in which the book refused to settle. Five Wounds is no summer beach distraction, it’s an intensely involved reading experience. .... For me the journey of reading the book was one of active problem-solving and code-breaking, and not only is this no bad thing; judging by the novel’s curious annotations, edits, and conflicting final chapters, I think it is also absolutely the intention of its authors.

Five Wounds: Review at 'Transnational Literature'

The latest issue of the academic e-journal Transnational Literature includes a review of Five Wounds, written by Aliese Millington. An extract is below: Think back to your first trip with Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, or how it felt to enter the Matrix after Neo takes the red pill. Five Wounds: An Illuminated Novel takes you down a similarly twisting path and leaves you pondering the journey well afterwards. Pooling influences trans-national, trans-cultural, trans-temporal and transart form, authors Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett spin the story of ‘five wounded orphans [who] must face their traumatic origins’ (blurb). These tales are told through the fascinating combination of Walker’s proclamatory prose, Hallett’s Goya and comic-book influenced illustrations, a Bible-like layout and handwritten notations. Described as ‘cruel and arbitrary’ (blurb) by the authors, the world of Five Wounds looks and feels at once early renaissance, modern and apocalyptic. I am particularly pleased to see a review in a journal on transnational literature, since many of the sources for Five Wounds are Italian: notably, Italo Calvino and Tintoretto. Below is a selection of transnational sources taken from a detail of an illustration (by Dan Hallett) on p. 100 of the novel.

Five Wounds: Review at Smṛti-Śruti

A very positive review at the blog Smṛti-Śruti (is that Icelandic?), whose author has done lots of research on Dan, Zoe and I. An extract below:

Images and little details within: the excellent cartouches throughout; the Solomonic columns with spectacular capitals and how almost inky black foreground column is; the Rota Fortunae of characters with Crow in his appropriate place; Cur's harrowed reflection on the blade; pipework winding through the text during the banquet; the curlicue of the candle holders and the efficient linework used to indicate the direction of light outside Cuckoo's bedroom door; the fencing diagrams; Cuckoo's seduction scene; Gabriella a replica of a classical Venus in Magpie's dream - excellent.

My favourite piece of art is the beautiful bit of marbling, a mushrooming red blotch against the milk white of the page particularly because it was such a simple but bold and perfect visual analogue for the text.