{"id":1134,"date":"2020-06-18T09:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T08:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2020-06-18T09:42:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T08:42:09","slug":"watch-shoulder-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/watch-shoulder-season\/","title":{"rendered":"<span>Watch: Shoulder Season<\/span><span>Joe Dunthorne<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Joe Dunthorne reads Shoulder Season\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kq31WntCQtw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shoulder Season<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The creature lies still in the villa\u2019s pool,<\/p>\n<p>waiting for the day the caretaker rolls back the tarp<\/p>\n<p>and the first wasps of the year thrash themselves<\/p>\n<p>to stillness. Then they come, writhing on their inflatables,<\/p>\n<p>the holidaymakers. It\u2019s not until midweek<\/p>\n<p>that the family\u2019s youngest, grown sufficiently bored<\/p>\n<p>and appalled, takes a rock in each hand, sinks cross-legged<\/p>\n<p>down to the cool blue tiles, relieved to meet this speaking eel,<\/p>\n<p>talk business, stroke its flex of tangle-proof neck.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As the child\u2019s bubbles shrink to little pills<\/p>\n<p>the creature offers her a scale from its back,<\/p>\n<p>an oiled disc, indisputable proof to take up there<\/p>\n<p>where, of course, her parents <em>just adore <\/em>her story<\/p>\n<p>of the unamused eel-thing \u2013<em> and how clever<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>of you to find\u2026 what is that? A foreign coin? \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n<p>so even when she insists they meet the beast firsthand,<\/p>\n<p>still they come up grinning <em>\u2013 oh, yes \u2013\u00a0very fearsome.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Bet it would taste delicious on the grill.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All through lunch the child keeps the sharp-edged<\/p>\n<p>eel-scale secreted beneath her tongue<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Are you feeling okay, sweetpea? Not hungry?)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>an almost-pleasant numbness in her gums,<\/p>\n<p>the certainty that behind this yellow sun<\/p>\n<p>a blue one is waiting and while her parents<\/p>\n<p>won\u2019t listen, she sees it in their afternoon headaches,<\/p>\n<p>in how they loll, woozy-necked in deckchairs, mouths slack,<\/p>\n<p>bobbing for air \u2013 another world they refuse to believe in<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>and soon it will slide dripping<\/p>\n<p>from the water \u2013 slip down their throats<\/p>\n<p>like wine.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"entry-title\"><\/h1>\n<p><strong>Joe Dunthorne<\/strong> was born and grew up in Swansea. His debut novel,\u00a0<em>Submarine<\/em>, was translated into twenty languages and adapted for film. His second, <em>Wild Abandon<\/em>, won the 2012 Encore Award. His latest is <em>The Adulterants<\/em>. His first collection of poems, <em>O Positive<\/em>, was published by Faber in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>(Photo credit: Tom Medwell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Shoulder Season &nbsp; The creature lies still in the villa\u2019s pool, waiting for the day the caretaker rolls back the tarp and the first wasps of the year thrash themselves to stillness. Then they come, writhing on their inflatables, the holidaymakers. It\u2019s not until midweek that the family\u2019s youngest, grown sufficiently bored and appalled, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/watch-shoulder-season\/\">Read More&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> from <span>Watch: Shoulder Season<\/span><span>Joe Dunthorne<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,6],"tags":[48,94,93,47],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Watch: Shoulder Season - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/watch-shoulder-season\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Watch: Shoulder Season - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Shoulder Season &nbsp; The creature lies still in the villa\u2019s pool, waiting for the day the caretaker rolls back the tarp and the first wasps of the year thrash themselves to stillness. 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