David Profumo
From Oh Dear To Oh Homo
It isn’t hard to see why literature has had such an affinity with islands. From Homer to Pratchett – via Swift, Defoe, Golding and Ballard – they offer microcosms, archetypes, fantasies, allegories, metaphors and utopias various. There are holy isles, prison colonies, hospital outposts, castaway crags, runaway boltholes, living laboratories, places of ostracism, escapism, treasure-seeking and despair. I have spent much of my adult life island-hopping, and occasional work has appeared everywhere from the Stornoway Gazette to the journal of the Kiribati and Tuvalu Philatelic Society: if that doesn’t qualify me as a nesophilic hack, then I might as well hang up my rusty rowlocks.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore
'As we read, we know that in a short time the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and colour television will sweep that age over the balustrade and into the sea, but for now everyone is happy.'
Simon Baker is charmed by Graham Swift's new novel, 'Here We Are'.
http://ow.ly/uDL050ylh80
'As science moves forward ... are we entering an era where sex is for leisure and IVF is for creating the perfect child?'
@MGilmore121 takes a look at the future of IVF in her review of @RobertKlitzman's 'Designing Babies'.
http://ow.ly/xuJY50ybNJa