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Sophie Mackintosh
Sophie Mackintosh's fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the Virago X Stylist short story prize. Her debut novel, The Water Cure, is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and forthcoming from Doubleday in the US.

Articles Available Online


Lena Andersson's ‘Acts of Infidelity’

Book Review

July 2018

Sophie Mackintosh

Book Review

July 2018

Acts of Infidelity is the second novel by Lena Andersson that follows unlucky-in-love heroine Ester Nilsson, and it’s another scalpel-sharp look at a doomed...

Fiction

May 2018

Self-Improvement

Sophie Mackintosh

Fiction

May 2018

I had been sent back from the city in disgrace, back to my parents’ house in the country. It...

Due to a clerical error on my part, the current Prime Minister is now living in the box room at our house The former Prime Minister was, of course, replaced at the last election by an almost formless howling mass resembling a fleshy cyst lump This fleshy cyst lump now lives in a city centre flat share with some not quite young, almost professionals It’s an awkward situation but we’re really trying to make the best of it The highly confidential policy documents he leaves in our communal living space give me an illicit thrill but his nightly wailing is very distracting I suppose overall the situation is slightly worse than when Helen decided to sublet her room to an actor but not as bad as Nina and Karen breaking up and continuing to live in the same room They’ve divided the room down the middle with balled up socks and dirty knickers and secretly fuck on the dividing line two out of seven nights a week, leaving the undeniable tang of sex hanging in the space around their faux innocent faces  I’m going through quite a stressful time in the office right now It’s mostly, if not entirely, due to the clerical error, the consequences of which I could never have predicted three or four months ago when certain machinations created the tragic circumstances which led me to commit such a heinous mistake Therefore right now I could do without the Prime Minister’s howling and crying when I get home Certainly life would be improved without his rending of garments and the haunting screams that disturb the air for hours after they have left his so called body But I suppose as long as he pays the rent on time I can cope I’ve left it to Nina to chase him up on that She complains about the responsibility associated with this role but I know she secretly loves the task: every month flogging us until we pay up It seems the weeping sores on my back heal just in time for the next message

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh’s fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the...

Grace

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

Sophie Mackintosh

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

14. It comes for me in the middle of the day when I am preparing lunch, quartering a tomato then slicing each segment in...

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Art

May 2011

Twelve Installations

Lawrence Lek

Art

May 2011

These installations express the transience of our sensory world, the impermanence of form, and the artificiality of our environment....

Interview

July 2014

Interview with Geoff Dyer

Tom Overton

Interview

July 2014

‘I’ve always believed that an artist is someone who turns everything that happens to him to his advantage’, Geoff...

Interview

Issue No. 9

Interview with Rebecca Solnit

Tess Thackara

Interview

Issue No. 9

Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby, like many of her books and essays, is a tapestry of autobiographical narrative, environmental and...

 

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