Category: Uncategorized
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Derry in absentia: Bernard MacLaverty’s ‘Midwinter Break’
I toyed with the title of this blog. It could easily have been titled ‘Love in Amsterdam’, because the novel is mostly about a third-age love story between husband Gerry and wife Stella who go on holiday to Amsterdam. But Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break (Jonathan Cape, 2017) is shadowed by a hazy story of tragedy…
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Not quite everything: ‘Fatherhood’ by Caleb Klaces
The question of form may never be resolved. Is the novel better than poetry? Are short stories just novel-lite? In Fatherhood (Prototype, 2019), Caleb Klaces avoids that scrutiny completely by mixing two of those forms together. Fatherhood combines ‘prose and poetry in an experimental work of verse fiction’. The text tells the story of Caleb…
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Whose fault is it anyway? Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’
No doubt editors are as old as authors. For Shakespeare, there were not only his fellow actors, but also the Master of the Revels to regulate, edit, and to censor his plays. T.S. Eliot made abundant and explicit use of Ezra Pound’s incisive cutting for ‘The Waste Land’ (1922), calling him ‘il miglio fabbro’ (‘the…
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Booker Prize Longlist, 2019
Backing the favourites The eagerly-awaited Booker Prize longlist was announced on Wednesday this week. The £50,000 Prize is well sought-after, and winning it has cemented the careers of many writers. In the eyes of many, to be known as the ‘Booker Prize-winning author’ is only beaten by ‘Nobel Prize-winning author’ title. Big bucks; big stakes.…