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From the reviews of Topics About Which I Know Nothing:
‘Here are 10 short fictions, each of which works as a showcase for Ness’s highly quirky imagination … Each story is a tasty titbit, to be savoured briefly before moving on to the next one. What makes these stories so delightful is that there actually is something very substantial at work behind them, however airy they seem at first. They’ll lodge in the mind.’ Guardian
‘Ness’s first collection brims with inventiveness and creative audacity.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Ness’s take on the absurd and offbeat is sharp, intelligent and funny.’ Time Out
‘Remarkable, an extraordinary, yet utterly convincing creation.’ Scotsman
‘Sparkling humour … Ness has a wonderful imagination: creative, unpretentious and pleasingly bonkers.’ Metro
‘Very, very funny … a unique comic manifesto from a very talented newcomer.’ Daily Express
For Vicki Burrows, Belle of Puyallup
We’ve got so many tchotchkes,
We’ve practically emptied the Louvre. In most of our palaces, There’s hardly room to manoeuvre. Well, I shan’t go to Bali today, I must stay home and Hoovre Up the gold dust.
That doesn’t mean we’re in love.
The Magnetic Fields
Contents
From the reviews of Topics About Which I Know Nothing
Introduction to the New Edition
Ponce de Leon is a Retired Married Couple From Toronto
Jesus’ Elbows and Other Christian Urban Myths
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers
The Motivations of Sally Rae Wentworth, Amazon
The Seventh International Military War Games Dance Committee Quadrennial Competition and Jamboree
Introduction to the New Edition
You always love the awkward child best, don’t you?
I get asked all the time (by teens in particular) what’s my favourite book of the ones I’ve written. I always answer that it’s the same as asking your parents if they have a favourite child: you know they have one, but they’re never going to admit it.
But Topics About Which I Know Nothing has a bit of a special place for me (not least that it taught me never to have a comedy title; funny the first time, but 500 times later…). Because these are all stories I wrote on the real expectation that no one would ever read them, and if that were true, then I could just have loads of fun amusing myself and seeing if I could get away with murder. With some of these, perhaps, it’s a close call.
‘Sally Rae Wentworth’ (even with its slightly imperfect grasp of geography) is still one of my secret favourite children. ‘The Gifted’, too – a rare instance of autobiographical writing (to an obvious point). ‘Quis Custodiet’ goes all the way back to my college writing classes with T. C. Boyle (if heavily revised), and ‘Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers’ is my first published piece of writing ever.
I love short stories and have kept on writing them. The new story in this collection, ‘Now That You’ve Died’, was written as a commission for the Royal National Institute of Blind People for ‘Read for RNIB Day’ (readforrnib.org.uk, which gets many more books into the hands of blind and partially sighted people). It was recorded as an immersive play, so imagine it in complete darkness, read to you in the terrifying and majestic tones of Christopher Eccleston.
In fact, that’s a good way to imagine pretty much any story, including the ones here. The original notes at the end thank the good and fine people at the much-missed Flamingo imprint, and I remain forever grateful to them for giving my awkward child such a good home.
London, 2014
1
‘Implied violence,’ says the boss, ‘is our bread and butter.’
He means implied violence is what we sell, which it isn’t, we sell self-defence courses over the phone, but the boss likes to think in themes. He’s talking to the new girl, Tammy, which sounds American to me. I’ll have to ask Percy.
‘I don’t like to say we need to frighten our customers,’ says the boss, looking down at Tammy who is looking right back up at the boss, ‘but let me put it this way: we need to frighten our