Miranda Miller

I had a very fine tea with Miranda Miller last week. Her new novel Loving Mephistopholes is set to erupt out of the house of Peter Owen this week (if you're in reach of London, head for the launch at Daunt's main bookstore on Thursday evening).
This is one of those works so wondrous it takes its time in finding the right home. Peter Owen were surprised and delighted to have her back in their fold. For me they have long been one of the prime havens of fine writing in Britain ... I remember them, perhaps rightly, as publishers of Paul Bowles and James Purdy, for instance, doing for the UK what black Sparrow and City Lights have done for the US. Miranda is rare at stepping out of their illustrious past as a successful Peter Own author of old, proving herself not only very much alive, but kicking out splendidly.
Loving Mephistopholes finds a London chanteuse making a pact in in the 1920s to maintain her looks and figure. She wields the power of the whole gorgeous ensemble of her being through the rest of the century, till payback time arrives ... the book's a feminized Dorian Grey for the 21st century. I started talking to Miranda about nonfiction but clearly wasn't striking any particular chords. She can't face a fact, she tells me, without wanting to make grand fiction out of it.
It seems she and I share a penchant for fantasy, letting the imagination go wild in its search for that particular kind of truth only to be found where reality gets warped. Miranda's reached that stage where publishing is a bonus: the real essential purpose of life lies in the daily act of writing.

You might also enjoy visiting Peter Owen's new blog