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Patrick Langley
Patrick Langley's debut novel Arkady was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in March 2018. He writes on contemporary art for Frieze, Art Agenda, and other publications. He is a contributing editor at The White Review.

Articles Available Online


Jesse Ball’s ‘Census’

Book Review

May 2018

Patrick Langley

Book Review

May 2018

Reading Jesse Ball’s new novel feels like being hypnotised, or like having your heart broken – but really it feels like both at once....

Book Review

November 2017

M. John Harrison's 'You Should Come With Me Now'

Patrick Langley

Book Review

November 2017

In a 2012 interview with the Guardian, M. John Harrison argued that the segregation of literature into genres is ‘a...

We all have tombs from which we travel To reach mine I have to get a lift with some strangers to a place in the Catalan Coastal Range I’ll be spending the weekend taking part in a workshop called ‘Live your Death’ The main challenge of this adventure will be to relate my death in the first person, without really dying, I hope In the brochure they talk about us facing things very similar to NDEs (near death experiences), watching the film of our lives, glimpsing the light at the end of the tunnel, having out-of-body experiences and seeing languid and distant little men calling us affectionately from the threshold where it all ends It’s also possible, I think, that I’ll be put on a plane and taken to an island where weird things happen In the meantime I’m getting to know some of my fellow passengers   ‘Did we meet at “Recycling Ourselves”?’ asks the man   No, it was at “My Place in the Universe”,’ she replies   ‘Oh yeah and have you found it?’   ‘Not yet’   ‘After all these workshops you still haven’t found it?’   ‘I’m working on it’   ‘What you need is a clear objective,’ says the man, who despite all the money he’s spent on self-help workshops seems not to have grasped certain basic principles For example, that you don’t greet a woman by asking her if she’s figured out what to do with her shitty life yet I can think of various things to say to them both to solve their problems and earn myself some cash: that he try closing his mouth every now and again and that she tell guys who reckon they know more about her than she does where to go   ‘Well, girls, are you ready?’ This is the man’s second time at the death workshop and he claims to know what he’s talking about   ‘You have to take your clothes off, yeah? Get naked, yes siree’   The woman and I look at each other The man turns around and just speaks to me this time:   ‘You must have good lungs because you’re from over there, down south, people have good lungs there

Contributor

August 2014

Patrick Langley

Contributor

August 2014

Patrick Langley’s debut novel Arkady was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in March 2018. He writes on contemporary art for Frieze, Art...

Art

September 2014

Semi Floating Sculpture

Luke Hart

Patrick Langley

Art

September 2014

Luke Hart will meet me at Gate 7. I get the text on the DLR, heading east past Canary...

Ordinary Voids

feature

Issue No. 9

Ed Aves

Patrick Langley

feature

Issue No. 9

I am standing in a parallelogram of shrubbery outside London City Airport. Ed is twisting a dial on his Mamiya RZ67 and squinting into its viewfinder. He...
Car Wash

fiction

January 2013

Patrick Langley

fiction

January 2013

He is sitting on the back seat of a car, somewhere in France. It’s a bright blue day, absurdly hot, and the roads are...
Ryan Trecartin: The Real Internet is Inside You

Art

April 2012

Patrick Langley

Art

April 2012

 ‘What’s that buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing?’ Marshall McLuhan   1: Your Original Is Having A Complete Human Change Meltdown Makeover   It’s difficult to describe Ryan Trecartin’s...
Nigel

poetry

September 2011

Patrick Langley

poetry

September 2011

Jamie sat alone at the edge of the dance floor and wondered how long it would be until Nigel arrived. The band had been...
Beyond the Horizon

fiction

Issue No. 1

Patrick Langley

fiction

Issue No. 1

Listen to the silence, let it ring on. (Joy Division, Transmission) I It is not yet dawn. The city is a distant murmur. Laid...

READ NEXT

fiction

Issue No. 17

Harmless Like You

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

fiction

Issue No. 17

Interstate 95, September 2016   Celeste sat on the front seat wearing her black turtleneck sweater. She had three...

Interview

July 2015

Interview with Sarah Manguso

Catherine Carberry

Interview

July 2015

There’s a certain barometer of a writer’s achievement that urban readers know well: did this book cause me to...

feature

Issue No. 14

Editorial

The Editors

feature

Issue No. 14

Having several issues ago announced that we would no longer be writing our own editorials, the editors’ (ultimately inevitable)...

 

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