Nice Work If You Can Get It by Herbert Williams
pre-order: out October 2011
Williams takes a sure stance, analysing the moments and the events that have shaped his life and career. He looks back, not with a sentimental gaze, but with understanding and objectivity. Yes, there is compassion for family and friends; and yes, there is a degree of nostalgia for people and places that have long since disappeared from view. He would not be a Welshman if there were not. But the story that Herbert Williams tells – his story – is one of hard-edged realism. This applies, in particular, to his and his family’s battles against TB. Two years in a sanatorium, at the most important stage of growth from childhood to manhood, gave Williams a rite of passage that has shaped his whole life.
His is an attractive speaking voice (literally and on the page) and this technique, easy on the eye and ear, holds the attention of the reader, providing a page-turning quality to the prose that is a cross between journalism and literary fiction.
Phil Carradice
Herbert Williams is a highly respected poet, novelist, short story writer and dramatist. His first collection of poetry was published 1965. He worked as a journalist, then a BBC producer before becoming a full-time writer in 1979. Herbert’s poems, short stories and plays have been broadcast by BBC, HTV and Thames Television. He has contributed to New Welsh Review, Planet, Cambrensis, Western Mail, The Transatlantic Review, Aquarius, Decal, Iota and other journals. Herbert is co-founder of Roundyhouse Poetry Magazine. His awards include the Hawthornden Poetry Fellowship 1992. He adjudicated the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition 1998. A book on his work, written by Phil Carradice, appeared in the University of Wales Press’ Writers of Wales Series in 2010.