Stanley Donwood - a landscape of dark streets and high-rise concrete, creeping shadows and shifting perspectives; its citizens forever caught between boredom and paranoia, alive to the threat of menacing machines and Aliens from Outer Space. Here disappearances (people, things) are everyday. Relationships are unstable. Nature has turned unnatural

Stanley Donwood, Humor. Faber & Faber, 2014.

There was disaster coming; that was blindingly obvious. Life had been almost ridiculously easy, and now things were going to get worse. Much, much worse. I couldn't believe that I had ever thought otherwise. I couldn't believe that I'd ever thought that there could be any other outcome ...
Welcome to Stanley Donwood's fictional universe: a landscape of dark streets and high-rise concrete, creeping shadows and shifting perspectives; its citizens forever caught between boredom and paranoia, alive to the threat of menacing machines and Aliens from Outer Space. Here disappearances (people, things) are everyday. Relationships are unstable. Nature has turned unnatural. Unsettling dreams segue into waking nightmares.
In Humor, Stanley Donwood reveals himself as a contemporary master of the micro-narrative, riffing on the four humors of the human body - sanguine, phlegm, choler and melancholy - to rummage beneath the veneer of sanity that passes for civilised society. Apocalyptic, funny and hallucinogenic in their intensity, these stories present a series of brief, haunting episodes in a world drained of meaning, sense and consequence.


A substantial selection of Stanley's fiction over the past ten years or so, (title) shows a contemporary master of the micro narrative. Apocalyptic, funny, unsettling and hallucinogenic in their intensity, Stanley Donwood's stories present a series of haunting episodes in a world drained of meaning, sense and consequence.


Stanley Donwood, Slowly Downward: A Collection of Miserable Stories, Naked Guides, 2013.


www.slowlydownward.com/


We'll leave it up to Mr Donwood to tell you about his excellent collection of 'Extremely Miserable Stories'.

This is the first book I did, now republished in a new edition. This is rather an elegant publication, and if enough of them sell then the publishers might print my next book. Ha! 'The most troubling explorations of thought and situation are described with clarity and minimalism like that of haiku genetically spliced with propaganda leaflets and air-sickness-bag instructions' is a part of what somebody said about it on Amazon. Quite an accurate description, until they start on about propaganda and vomit.


Stanley Donwood, Household Worms, Tangent Books, 2012.


Stanley Donwood says of a selection of stories contained in Household Worms that were inspired by drinking red wine alone at night: 'These were written to avoid staring for too long at a night-filled window that only reflected my own sorry-for-itself face. Perhaps I should try writing with white wine too. A lighter tone may emerge. Champagne would probably get me writing jokes for crackers. Never mind, never mind.' Donwood is best known as an artist, but this collection confirms his prowess as an equally talented writer of prose.

Donwood is apparently best known for being the artist responsible for all of Radiohead’s art. This is his second short story collection and clearly his creativity is not limited to the visual arts, although the first thing one notices about this book is its very striking cover; a detail of a Donwood piece entitled Fleet Street Apocalypse. The second thing one notices is the intriguing title - Household Worms.  Inside are 41 flashes, some no more than a paragraph long. Words are surrounded by white space and some begin with text appearing lower and lower down on consecutive pages. The titles are plain; Idiots, Loyalty Card, It's not here, that thing you're looking for, Another Fucking Supermarket - indicative of the lucid words to come.  The collection opens with Wage Packet. A man gets a job washing dishes in a restaurant and has responsibility for scraping leftovers into "the pig"; a food disposal machine. When the machine blocks one mishap leads to another and our protagonist muddles his way through a bleak farce. The end of the story takes us back to the beginning in a circular motion as with familiar dread he begins to look for a new job. It's probably the most traditional story here. Typically, Donwood's fictions offer glimpses of despair rather than complete tales. His landscape is one of litter and rust, faded signs and desiccated insects. His first person characters are demotivated and despairing as they try to manage their sense of not fitting into the world. Even happiness is described as a "sweaty fever" in Island of Doctor Moreau, one of a few stories which share a common premise - what would happen if feelings were manifested in some external way? The character here becomes too warm, his face turns into a caricature as he struggles with unhappiness.  In Very cold the narrator wakes one morning and feels there is something wrong.

It was like a place someone had poked me with an icicle. A splinter of winter. The days passed like they do and I just got colder. The cold spread until I was like a sculpture of ice.
However, nobody notices.
This is the silent scream of the man next to you in the supermarket queue. Comforting words for those who know what it is to suddenly feel out of place, out of step, baffled, afraid of what we see surround us.
My week seemed to me to be the defining work here with its diary of thoughts.

Tuesday - Something without a name has been eating at my thoughts for a while.
However, the story that made the biggest impression was the sad lament of Telescope where the narrator looks for "the gap between you and me" only to recognise his own shape as threatening, impossible to ever combine with the object of his affection.
Read one after another these tiny fictions can feel a little relentless and one wishes for some light amongst the grey. This is found in the humour that shines through despite its darkness, although there's little sign of hope. I'd suggest reading these one at a time, allowing them the room they deserve, and then finding something cheery to do as an antidote. - Sara Crowley

It’s about time I did a few more reviews, having read some really rather ace books in the last few weeks, even if the idea of reviewing things makes me a bit nervous. (What if I miss something important? What if I look completely shallow?) However, it’s about time I actually stepped up and gave an opinion or two. So here’s what should be the first of many reviews in 2012.
First of all, full disclosure. I was sent a copy of this by that lovely bloke, the Bristol Short Story Prize’s Joe Melia, (presumably) after I’d said nice things about Stanley Donwood’s previous collection “Slowly Downwards”. Stanley Donwood, in case you don’t know, is better known as Radiohead’s in-house artist, responsible for all their artwork from “The Bends” onwards.
Being a skilled visual artist of course isn’t necessarily a copper-bottom guarantee of an ability to write, although the two often go hand in hand and in any case the Radiohead connection really ought to pique interest. The good news, however, is that he most definitely can, although this isn’t a remotely conventional collection.
Like “Slowly Downwards”, it isn’t a book that grabs you right from the start. It’s more a case of gradually being sucked into its world. I don’t think that any of these stories would win any prizes on their own, but the cumulative effect is quite remarkable. Most of them are quite short (only a paragraph or two in some cases) and only two extend to any length (the first story, “Wage packet”, and “Sell your house and buy gold”, which plays some effective tricks with white space). Some of them amount to little more than a short lead-up to a punchline (the hilarious “Sky Sports”, for example, in which the protagonist’s suggestion of an alternative form of pub entertainment is met with hostility) whilst others seem to drift by without meaning much, only to hang on in your brain, nagging you. Generally speaking, it’s the short ones that really punch home.
I guess the nearest point of reference would be the stories of David Gaffney, except slightly odder. I’m pretty certain this is a good thing. And the cover’s lovely. - Jonathan Pinnock
           



Avatars Of The Unconscious: Stanley Donwood Interviewed 


Q&A with Stanley Donwood, The Sixth Member of Radiohead

Beyond Radiohead: The Paintings and Prose of Thom Yorke Collaborator Stanley Donwood


Meet the Artist: Stanley Donwood