Emotionally compelling and formally innovative, Life-Like is Toby Litt’s most ambitious collection of short stories to date, bringing to fruition themes first aired in his previous books, Adventures in Capitalism, Exhibitionism, and I Play the Drums in a Band Called Okay. Life-Like is a book about our globalizing and atomizing world―with stories set in India, Sweden, Australia, and Iran―that also looks at how we meet and fail to meet and what connects us to one another, as well as waste and communication, and, in turn, communication through waste. The twenty-six stories begin with Paddy and Agatha, an English couple last seen in Litt’s Ghost Story. Following the stillbirth of their second child, their marriage has gently begun to collapse. Paddy and Agatha both meet someone else. First, Paddy meets Kavita, and Agatha meets John. Then each of these four engages with a different new person―and so on, through a doubling and redoubling of intimately interconnected stories. The remaining short stories exemplify Litt’s impressive, unflinching prose.
Author
Toby Litt was born in Bedfordshire, England. He studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia where he was taught by Malcolm Bradbury, winning the 1995 Curtis Brown Fellowship. He lived in Prague from 1990 to 1993 and published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled Adventures in Capitalism, in 1996. His latest project is A Writer's Diary, on Substack. In 2018, he published Wrestliana, his memoir about wrestling, writing, losing and being a man. His latest novel, Patience, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. He is the author of the novels: Beatniks: An English Road Movie (1997), a modern On the Road transposed to middle-England; Corpsing (2000), a thriller set in London's Soho; and deadkidsongs (2001), a dark tale of childhood. Exhibitionism (2002), is a collection of short stories that explore the boundaries of sex and sexuality. A short story by Toby Litt was included in the anthology All Hail the New Puritans (2000), edited by Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoe. In 2003 Toby Litt was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'. He lives in London and teaches creative writing at Birkbeck College.
