Amanda Craig
Urban Degeneration
Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us, given the current dire state of publishing, that so many literary authors hope that writing crime will help them spin straw into gold. ‘You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style’, as Humbert Humbert pointed out, and in the case of Kate Atkinson or Owen Shears it’s a winning combination.
John Burnside’s Glister promises to be another example. Burnside is a poet whose small body of fiction displays a fascination with violence and the nature of solitary, almost solipsistic consciousness. One novel, The Locust Room, took as its inspiration the Cambridge Rapist of the late 1970s; others, such as The Mercy Boys and The Devil’s Footprints, had male loneliness and accidie as their focus.
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
What's the worth of being zen when the icecaps are melting and populism looms? The world's leading thinkers including @ronpurser will assess the 'mindfulness' craze at the world's largest philosophy and music festival, @HTLGIFestival, this May. Learn more: http://ow.ly/STu650ywARQ
'Feminists have been caricatured so often that it’s worth recalling the many obstacles placed in the path of women campaigning for equal rights.'
@polblonde on @helenlewis's new book about difficult women throughout history.
http://ow.ly/Is9c50ywe7G
'Too many historians sneer at our forbears; scolding them if they follow the customs of their own day ... tut-tutting if the poor things are detected having a little fun.'
From the archive, Mary Clive on medieval travellers.
http://ow.ly/yk8a50yrjSG