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INTERVIEW
The Art of Fiction No. 135
Don DeLillo

In our Spring issue, we published selections from Annie Ernaux’s 1988 diaries, which chronicle the affair that served as the basis for her memoir Simple Passion. To mark the occasion, the Review has begun asking writers and artists for pages from their diaries, along with brief postscripts.

July 13, 2018

I was up all night and it’s afternoon now. Maybe writing this will let me go to sleep. Sometimes it feels as if I’ve been awake for six months. Longer? In Cyprus I felt like I never slept. Even when I did my body felt impatient, braced, alert, waiting for the knock of the cat’s paws on the bedroom door at 5 A.M. I would be out of bed before she could start mewing for food. “Acutely, terribly awake,” I wrote in a poem I’m still trying to finish. She knew I was an easy mark, looking for an escape into the day. I saw nearly every sunrise from my window onto the garden. The bougainvillea. “I want to make love to everyone who’s ever lived,” I wrote in the same unfinished poem. An unwise wish, and a lie, of course, if taken literally—but the feeling. What was I trying to ask for? Pleasure. Recompense from the world. Surprise. The end of desire. Something.

And now I’m a sad woman, apparently; sleeplessness is entirely changed, desire’s not ended but it holds hands with pain. He does not come to me because he does not want to come, and not for any other reason. It’s all very boring, this recitation. Last night it rained horribly but even so I forced myself to go to Chelsea for dinner with J. and her friend Y., who has one of those jobs I always want when I find out they exist. He’s an expert on repairing antique, or simply old, sound equipment. I envy expertise that seems both useful and specific. And like you had to actually do something to acquire it, like it’s not just blather. J. was late, so I had to make conversation with Y. while he finished a blueberry galette. The galette was a godsend, actually, since I had just listened to his complaints about how blueberries are an inferior fruit, tasteless, and the only reason he was making this was because J. had requested it. And then, after I had enough wine to feel like talking, J. arrived, and everything improved as they sparred the way old friends do. I didn’t eat enough for Y.’s satisfaction, so he chided me and then forgave me after I ate more galette, and then he started playing records on a record player so beautiful I didn’t want to go near it, and then J. got out the molly and coke. We took a signed photo of a famous musician off the wall to do lines off of, now I don’t remember who, but Y. joked “he’d approve” so it was probably Keith Richards or someone like that. I saw K. R. joke once about how his ghostwriter did all the work on his memoir. It sounds like a relief to have someone translate, or invent, your memories, to tell your life story so you can read it.

Arsenal have been linked with a move to sign Dominic Calvert-Lewin from Everton this summer, but Kevin Phillips wants the club to aim higher.

The England international may be in want of a move to a bigger club, but given his struggles throughout the current term, it is difficult to argue his cause.

Phillips claims he can see why we are supposedly interest in his signing, but as an Arsenal fan he simply doesn’t want to see us invest a substantial sum in bringing him to north London.

“It’s a strange one,” he told the Football Insider.

“I think when he’s fully fit and firing, I can see it. But putting my Arsenal cap on, as an Arsenal fan – would it really excite me?

Kevin Campbell has heaped praise on Arsenal loanee Dinos Mavropanos with West Ham claimed to be eyeing his potential signing.

The Greek international is currently on loan with Bundesliga side Stuttgart where he has been enjoying a fine season, but with the club currently under the threat of relegation, they are unlikely to be able to keep hold of him beyond the season.

Stuttgart do have an option to buy the defender, one which you would expect them to take up, even if the decision was then to sell him on for a profit should they succumb to relegation.

West Ham are now being linked with his potential signing this summer as they look to continue to bolster their squad, and former Arsenal striker Kevin Campbell has praised the defender amidst links with such a move.

“From what I’ve heard, he’s done really well in Germany,” Campbell told the FootballInsider.

David Moyes has claimed that it’s ‘quite difficult’ to understand Arsenal’s set pattern ahead of his West Ham side’s clash with Arsenal.

The Gunners are hoping to make it three wins in a row as they look to close in on a top-four finish, having a two-point lead over Tottenham in the table at present.

After recent wins over both Chelsea and Manchester United, we now have the tough challenge of going away to London rivals West Ham, and their manager has praised the job being done by Mikel Arteta, before admitting that it is difficult to understand our patterns of play.

“I think he’s done a really good job,” Moyes told reporters during his pre-match conference (via the club’s official website.

“They were in the semi-finals of the Europa League last year and it shows how well they have come on from what they have done last year, so I am sure Mikel wants his teams to be in Europe (again).

Despite many Arsenal fans not giving any credit to Mikel Arteta, despite bringing in half a team of unnkown younsters last summer, and somehow guiding them into the fight for the Top Four spot, the fact is that him and his half-baked team have worked wonders this season.

If we can win again tomorrow against our local rivals West Ham, we are most definitely in the driving seat again, unless Tottenham can pull off another miracle by beating Liverpool at Anfield next week.

Arteta himself is very happy with the way the team has developed, and cannot help but praise them and fully expects the youngsters to improve even further next season, with a few new additions in the coming transfer window.

The boss made it clear at the end of last summer that we were only half-way through our rebuilding project, and we should see a lot more progress ahead of the next campaign. “I think the team has made a great leap at the level of identity, game, style, clarity… And obviously, the ability that has given us to be able to repeat line-ups, the power to repeat the system and the power to repeat movements, dynamics, structures that we want, has made it easier for us, it has given us a lot of fluidity and security”, explains the Spanish coach on DAZN’s podcast (translated by Google).

LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 23: Mikel Arteta, Manager of Arsenal gives their team instructions during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on April 23, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

“They have shown that they have the ability to win games and be decisive, and they have done so in a very consistent way for many games, ”

Fabrizio Romano has claimed that reported Arsenal target Darwin Nunez ‘will leave’ Benfica this summer, but adds that he will not be moving on cheaply.

The Gunners are unlikely to be alone in their pursuit of Nunez, who has scored 33 goals in all competitions this season, although we are believed to be eyeing alternatives also.

It is unclear where his future lies at present, but Fabrizio Romano insists that he will be on the move in the coming window, and that they have already opened talks over his replacement.

“Darwin Nunez will leave the club, and €75m now could not be enough,” Romano apparently wrote on his social media (via Football.London). “Talks opened for David Neres as target, confirmed as reported by @ojogo – but nothing agreed yet.”

Our chances of signing have to be boosted with his club seemingly having accepted his departure, but whether we are ready and willing to splash out in excess of €75 Million (£63 Million) to land him remains to be seen.

When Arsenal bought Thomas Partey from Atletico Madrid in 2020, the Ghanain came with an impeccable reputation and an injury-free record, and was fully expected to come straight in and boss our midfield straight from the off.

But after leaving Madrid, due to the Covid problems he went straight off to internationals and then straight back into the Premier league. It is little surprise he came down with injury problems which have never really left him. Last season, he only managed 24 appearances for the Gunners, and he had just reached that total again before succumbing to yet another season-ending injury.

Thomas he has been one of our best players since Christmas and Mikel Arteta has been speaking about how much he has to change his tactical setup without his midfield general, and how important Partey is to the team as a whole. ‘The stats are there and they are unquestionable,’ Arteta told the Daily Mail.

‘The win rate when Thomas is there is higher. It is something that is not good for us because in the last two seasons he has not been there as much as we want.’

‘We need him to play in that role on his own, with the quality he brings and the experience that he brings. And the fact he brings things that are unique that we want.

West Ham are claimed in the DailyMail to be showing interest in a deal to sign Nicolas Pepe from Arsenal, but should we be weary of deals with our London rivals?

I think there is little doubt that under the right conditions Pepe will thrive and he could potentially land at a top side again later in his career, but for a number of reasons, it just isn’t working out for him in north London at present.

While Mikel Arteta has shown a strong preference in having Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe ahead of him in the pecking order, and it is hard to argue against that decision with all of that trio thriving down the wings, and it now seems inevitable that the former Lille man will be leaving the club in the coming window.

While we will likely sell to the highest bidder, I feel like we should be weary of West Ham, who have shown that they could well be challenging for the European places on a consistent basis, and allowing Pepe to join them could well come back to bite us in the coming years.

Newcastle are an obvious threat to our future hopes given their new mega-rich owners, but they will time to build the squad that can propel them up the table on a consistent basis, while the threat of David Moyes side is right in our face at present.

“This is my Versailles,” Mike Gibson says as we stand in a backyard in Bishopville, South Carolina. He pauses for a moment, regarding this perfect site of precisely trimmed trees and geometric shrubs, and displays an abundance of pride. For me, this topiary garden is a wonderland. Standing in the shadows of a row of slinky, sensuous, and hulking trees, I feel a deep sense of letting go as the trees accept my admiration.

Five months ago, Gibson acquired the unique title of topiary artist-in-residence of the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, and as we stand there the 35-year-old exudes a sureness that he is exactly where he should be. But building something to last forever is difficult. Everything here is always a work in progress. Nothing is lost on Gibson: There is a dying juniper, and many of the beds need clearing. The longer he looks, the longer his to-do list grows.

You wonder how one man could have built all this. Yet one man did. Pearl Fryar began this journey back in 1980 after looking for a home near his job as an engineer for a Coca-Cola bottling factory. Fryar, who is Black, felt unwelcome in a white neighborhood near the plant (“Black people don’t keep up their yards,” he was told) and settled on a mostly Black residential street farther out in Lee County. It was there that he began his relentless pursuit of the little Garden of the Month lawn sign that a local garden club awarded to meticulously groomed yards in the neighborhood. Fryar would work 12-hour shifts at the factory and then labor through the night on his garden with the help of a floodlight, a double-blade gas-powered hedge trimmer, a wobbly ladder, and a jury-rigged hydraulic lift. He did this with no training or horticultural books. He simply listened to the trees, opening them up, allowing the sun to shine in.

In 1984 a small pom-pom topiary caught his eye at a local nursery. The garden center’s owner gave Fryar a three-minute pruning lesson and a throwaway juniper to practice on. Fryar planted it, cultivated it (with no fertilizer or pesticides), pruned it, and was hooked. Soon came another plant, then another, mostly whatever he could rescue from the nursery’s compost heap, unwanted or near-death plants that were given to him or sold to him cheap. Gibson estimates that 40 percent of the trees in the garden came from the trash.