There’s a misconception about what is truly shocking – that the shocking is the purely explicit. It seems to me that’s easy, and it’s been done in literature for centuries. What’s problematic, the real way to be shocking, is to have an unstable tone, or to use the wrong tone, the tone that’s not appropriate or that’s deemed inappropriate.
Two-time Granta best young novelist Adam Thirlwell talks to the Guardian about his third novel Lurid & Cute, confessional writing, and how to be truly shocking.
