Essentially, mind, Watkins gives us a grand feat of storytelling; and after a ride that takes in plenty of diverting incident, myriad twists and turns, and a denouement deftly concealed, we are left with an open-ended ending.
Tag: fiction
A review of Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi
It’s easy to imagine that Kureishi’s intent here was to provide a sense of the era, and the immediate colour that these characters conjure, but instead these dropped-in names turns the book into a compendium of the times and detracts from both the character development and the fictive dream.
A review of Moonshadow: Eye of the Beast by Simon Higgins
The language used in Moonshadow describes ancient Japan brilliantly, with all its floral roses, exotic arts and brutal military strength. The plot is well developed, especially the relationship between Moonshadow and Snowhawk. Plus, it keeps you in the dark about a lot of good twists.
A review of Man in the Dark by Paul Auster
The book is short and sharply structured. It moves quickly and makes its points neatly. It is inescapably cold in some respects but the reader will come from it with an unforgettable experience. It is a pleasure to see a writer of such gifts – albeit sometimes uneven performance – produce a work of this quality.
A review of Birnbaum by Michael Hoffman
The twists of narrative are skillful and Hoffman sustains the interest of the reader right to the end. The conversations are real and Hoffman peoples his novel with convincing characters. He is an expert in what critics once described in the novels of Aldous Huxley as “cold agonies”.
A review of The Steele Diaries by Wendy James
The novel is easy to read and moves quickly, effortlessly creating that fictive dream that makes for a pleasurable reading experience, but this is anything but a lighthearted read. The complexities of parenting, the shifting trends of the art world, the struggle to balance self-actualisation and artistic fulfilment with responsibility and love, the way we create and define ourselves, and the relationship between the interior world and the exterior one are all covered with great subtlety and depth.
A review The Man Who made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez
There’s a spare loveliness to Waldman’s prose, infused as it is with loneliness, humour, and a deep sense of irony in the cyclical prison of our nostalgia for the past. Good Americans Go To Paris When They Die manages a delicate, and all too rare, balancing act between entertainment and introspection.
A review of Dirty Money by Richard Stark
Stark as a crime writer is beyond criticism. He does pretty much everything well. The way he writes dialogue, especially scenes where three or more people are talking, is well worthy of study. His art as a storyteller is to create problematical situations, uncertainties, iffy anxious stuff – and then to resolve them in a felicitous manner.
A review of God of Speed by Luke Davies
Though Davies’ Hughes isn’t exactly a likable character, the intimacy is so striking and the intensity of the portrait so great that Hughes becomes someone entirely familiar. Not so much the grand aviator with all the superlatives of his status: richest, fastest, most inventive, but instead, a man like any other, pursued by demons and running hard to find a way to live through them.
A review of Through A Glass, Darkly by Bill Hussey
Hussey has been kind to the reader by slicing his novel into bed-time-reading sized chapters. But unless you like your nightmares to be as ‘jittery as a dog full of fleas’ then read Through a Glass Darkly on a bright summer’s day.