LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING IS AN intensely Wintersonian artefact. It has the usual had physical dimensions, being, in fact, not much more than a 40,000-word novella bulked out to routine length by judicious use of blank pages and double-spaced type. It contains the customary and, to this reviewer at least, somewhat obvious reflections on the nature of 'stories' (sample: 'The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative. There are lit-up bits and the rest is dark.' Well, yes indeed). And above all it has the usual moist-eyed exhalations about 'love', how love wins the day, walks in the straightest line, gets right to the front of the queue and so on.

These are not cheap shots. Like many another of MS Winterson's reviewers over the years, I imagine, I am keenly admiring of her dexterity with words and the intense seriousness that underpins these tales of weird girls spectrally a-tumble in the clamour and magic of the world, while suspecting that