PD Smith

I’ve just reviewed a fas­ci­nat­ing new his­to­ry of squat­ting — The Autonomous City by Alexan­der Vasude­van.

Here’s a para­graph from my piece:

‘Vasude­van sees his book not mere­ly as a dry con­tri­bu­tion to urban his­to­ry, but as cel­e­bra­tion of the vital ideas and achieve­ments of those squat­ters who dared to imag­ine an alter­na­tive vision of life, an alter­na­tive to the neolib­er­al city and the urban­i­sa­tion that is still engulf­ing the world. His high­ly orig­i­nal argu­ment is that the his­to­ry of squat­ting reveals “the poten­tial reor­gan­i­sa­tion of our cities along more col­lec­tive, social­ly just and eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able lines”. Using archives cre­at­ed by squat­ters them­selves, doc­u­ment­ing their evanes­cent exper­i­ments, Vasude­van demon­strates that “the squat was a place of col­lec­tive world-mak­ing: a place to express anger and sol­i­dar­i­ty, to explore new iden­ti­ties and dif­fer­ent inti­ma­cies, to expe­ri­ence and share new feel­ings, and to defy author­i­ty and live autonomous­ly”.’

Vasude­van’s book is essen­tial read­ing for any­one inter­est­ed in the recent his­to­ry of cities or indeed how we can improve them in the future. Read my review on the Guardian’s web­site.

Net­ley Lucas was a debonair and charm­ing con man, described by the press as the “prince of trick­sters”. Matt Houl­brook has writ­ten a remark­able study of this extra­or­di­nary char­ac­ter who died in 1940, aged just 36. He was a noto­ri­ous con­fi­dence trick­ster, con­vict­ed thief, con­coc­ter of fake crime news sto­ries, and the writer and pub­lish­er of bogus roy­al biogra­phies.

Lucas changed iden­ti­ties as eas­i­ly as oth­ers change their cloth­ing. Houl­brook admit­s being fas­ci­nat­ed by the moti­va­tion of this gen­tle­man crook: “I’m obsessed with mak­ing sense of you.”

He began his crim­i­nal career aged just 14. A friend lat­er recalled how con­vinc­ing Lucas could be: “I had no idea that he was oth­er than he pre­tend­ed to be…he had a fas­ci­nat­ing way with oth­er men and women. He would look you straight in the face and assure you that he was lord some­body or a hero of the war – and you believed him.”

Lucas mon­e­tised his gen­teel man­ners and appear­ance, sweet-talk­ing hotel man­agers and shop­keep­ers, turn­ing charm and class into cred­it. By 17, he was dri­ving around in a chauf­feur-dri­ven Daim­ler from Har­rods and social­is­ing with duchess­es and cho­rus girls. Lat­er he went on to rein­vent him­self first as a crime jour­nal­ist and then as the author and pub­lish­er of roy­al biogra­phies. After he pub­lished a biog­ra­phy of Queen Mary in 1930, she went through a copy of the book high­light­ing the errors: “I have anno­tat­ed this book to show what a num­ber of inven­tions are writ­ten about one.”

For Houl­brook, Lucas’s life-sto­ry reveals deep­er truths about the peri­od after the Great War in which the bound­aries between class and gen­der were shift­ing. New forms of mass cul­ture and democ­ra­cy were chang­ing how peo­ple viewed the state’s insti­tu­tions and offered greater pos­si­bil­i­ties of social rein­ven­tion: “Lucas’s crimes were unusu­al, but his aspi­ra­tions echoed those of count­less ordi­nary men and women in a peri­od when adver­tis­ing encour­aged dream­like fan­tasies of social mobil­i­ty.”

Lucas’s suc­cess as a con­fi­dence trick­ster sug­gest­ed that in an “age of dis­guise” all you need­ed was mon­ey and a veneer of class to pass your­self off as a gen­tle­man. In a soci­ety of strangers, his crimes were deeply sub­ver­sive.

You can read my Guardian review of Houl­brook’s book here.

I’ve just reviewed a new col­lec­tion of essays on Crime Fic­tion in Ger­man, edit­ed by Katha­ri­na Hall who, as well as being a Pro­fes­sor of Ger­man, blogs on inter­na­tion­al crime fic­tion at Mrs Peabody Inves­ti­gates. Appar­ent­ly it’s the first study in Eng­lish “to offer a com­pre­hen­sive overview of Ger­man-lan­guage crime fic­tion from its ori­gins in the ear­ly nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the post-reuni­fi­ca­tion Ger­many of the new mil­len­ni­um”.

It’s an absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ing col­lec­tion, one which has proved very use­ful to me in my research for Watch­ing the Detec­tives. You can down­load Pro­fes­sor Hal­l’s intro­duc­tion to the vol­ume for free here. Unfor­tu­nate­ly you will have to buy a copy of the Times Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment to read my review. Or if you have a sub­scrip­tion you can read it here.

I’ve been talk­ing to Dar­ran Ander­son, author of the remark­able Imag­i­nary Cities, at Strange Hori­zons. It was great fun! Hope you enjoy it too.

Read the con­ver­sa­tion here.

I’ve just reviewed Geoff Man­augh­’s new book, A Bur­glar’s Guide to the City, for the Guardian.

Here’s a pas­sage from my review:

Bur­glary, Man­augh writes, is “topol­o­gy pur­sued by oth­er means: a new sci­ence of the city, pro­ceed­ing by way of short­cuts, splices and worm­holes”. Bur­glars don’t see the city we see. They see a city full of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to be used for break­ing and enter­ing. They see lift shafts that can be shim­mied up, ther­mal cam­eras that can be dis­abled with hair spray, and doors that can be eas­i­ly opened with lock­picks. They see plas­ter-board walls that can be cut through in an instant with the right tool: “like clouds, apart­ment walls are most­ly air”. Accord­ing to Man­augh, bur­glars under­stand the archi­tec­ture of the city bet­ter than any­one. They are the “dark wiz­ards of cities and build­ings, unlim­it­ed by laws that hold the rest of us in”.

The book is full of won­der­ful anec­dotes and insights, both into archi­tec­ture and the city. If, like me, you’re a fan of Geof­f’s web­site then you’ll love this book. It offers a delight­ful­ly play­ful and sub­ver­sive view of the built envi­ron­ment, fizzing with ideas and new ways of look­ing at the spaces we inhab­it. Read the review here and I hope you enjoy the book.