Simon Baker
Simon Baker Considers a Quartet of First Novels
At the beginning of Phil LaMarche’s American Youth, a teenager accidentally kills his brother with a friend’s rifle. The question of blame seems straightforward; however, the friend, Ted, had loaded the rifle and left the brothers to mess around, despite knowing that they weren’t used to guns. Ted’s mother is sufficiently concerned to insist that her son deny any involvement.
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'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
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https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
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From the archive: Beryl Bainbridge talks to Sebastian Shakespeare.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/sebastian-shakespeare-talks-to-beryl-bainbridge