Mailing List


Aaron Peck
Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Articles Available Online


The Abyss Echoes Back: Judith Schalansky’s ‘An Inventory of Losses’

Book Review

January 2021

Aaron Peck

Book Review

January 2021

Early in Judith Schalansky’s An Inventory of Losses, the narrator describes the way an ancient form of writing survived oblivion. The soft clay tablets...

Book Review

May 2018

Harry Mathews’s ‘The Solitary Twin’

Aaron Peck

Book Review

May 2018

Imagine a small fishing village on the edge of the world. Its inhabitants are progressive and content. The surroundings...

‘INQUESTS INTO THE DEATHS ARISING FROM THE FISHMONGERS’ HALL AND LONDON BRIDGE TERROR ATTACK CASE MANAGEMENT’1   with asides, insertions, questions and other patterns repeating   Begin with the facts: A convicted terrorist attacked and killed Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmongers’ Hall on 29 November, 2019 The attacker [ ] was shot dead by police officers on London Bridge   No: again   A terrorist incarcerated in a high-security prison appeals his indeterminate sentence        He will now be released automatically, in a fixed number of years, without parole board assessment   December 2018 He is released He is living halfway and then alone under myriad restrictions He had counter-terrorism mentors        the government contract abruptly ended        Months pass No train stations, no trains        no internet access, no trips to London, no        level of security        stops what happens next The oversight of Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa) probation, police, counter-terrorism, Prevent, Special Branch, MI5        who read creative writing, who read Cambridge University programme        (there was none, post release) and with bare discussion, and        the risk downgraded from very high        to high        and no one exactly gives permission        no one exactly assesses the risks he takes the train to London for one day 29 November, 2019   Arrives at London Bridge to celebrate five years of Learning Together, a prison education programme2 Taking university students into prisons to learn alongside incarcerated people In minimum, medium and maximum facilities (call it high- security, Category A), learning Plato in Philosophy, the laws of probability, and creative writing   The Justice asked the prison governor: did you consider the risks of putting people who were potentially violent, manipulative and predatory directly alongside potentially young students in a learning environment        yes        and the course began   No physical harm came to them there The deep violence of the prison apparently held outside        the writing room The meeting of writing together        considered low risk        the violence of the prison where he was known as emir The concentration on him and his        masks        the violence of the prison,  the breaking        the drug        abuse, the harm        the many serving long and life there        the violence of the prison only seen in reflection        the emphasis on counter-narrative        on hope   He took part

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Gloria

fiction

May 2017

Aaron Peck

fiction

May 2017

Bernard, whenever he thought of Geoffrey, would remember his gait on the afternoon of their first meeting. Geoffrey walked with the confidence of a...

READ NEXT

Interview

Issue No. 2

Interview with William Boyd

Jacques Testard

Tristan Summerscale

Interview

Issue No. 2

On a wet, grey morning in March, William Boyd invited us into a large terraced house, half-way between the...

fiction

Issue No. 5

Sent

Joshua Cohen

fiction

Issue No. 5

These women lived in hope, they lived for the future as if they were every one of them already...

Interview

Issue No. 8

Interview with Sophie Calle

Timothée Chaillou

Interview

Issue No. 8

Sophie Calle is France’s most celebrated conceptual artist. Her highly autobiographical, multi-disciplinary work combines the confessional and the cerebral,...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required