The Stepford Wives needs no introduction. Thanks to not one, but two movie adaptations, it has a plot so famous as to have entered cultural discourse – everyone knows what a Stepford Wife is now, but the novel upon which the films are based is a much more interesting and ambiguous affair. It is in…
It just goes to show that in this small country nearly every family has undergone a loss. Even minor psychological scars run as deep here as bullet holes but, without them, our writing would not have its passion and depth. Northern Irish writer Rosemary Jenkinson in The Irish Times One by One in the Darkness…
Read more No 468 One by One in the Darkness by Deirdre Madden
In 1999, riding the wave of interest in Korean horror movies, Takashi Miike’s Audition hit our cinemas and subsequently appeared on every ‘Best Horror Films of All Time’ list with remarkable regularity. The source material for the film was written by Ryu Murakami in 1997 and its horror is of a much more insidious kind.…
Read more No 469 Audition by Ryu Murakami, translated by Ralph McCarthy
Now that 20 Books of Summer is done and dusted, it is back to the grind of bringing that 746 down another few notches. I have some books lined up for October and November to coincide with the RIP Challenge, Novella November and Non-Fiction November, but September’s reading plans are pretty relaxed at the moment.…
Keith Ridgway’s writing gets under my skin. I first encountered his work when I read Hawthorn & Child a surreal, esoteric crime novel like no other crime novel. Even more intriguing was Animals, a novel which charts the mental and physical breakdown of an unnamed narrator as he wanders around his city and becomes terrifyingly…
Read more No 471 Horses by Keith Ridgway Book 20 of #20booksofsummer20
I am a big fan of George Saunders’ short stories, having really enjoyed Tenth of December and Civilwarland in Bad Decline. In Persuasion Nation is another thematically linked collection which explores a world, somewhat like our own, where consumerism and advertising have taken over and individuality is being crushed in favour of conformity. Split into…
Read more No 472 In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders Book 18 of #20booksofsummer20
Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor is a sly and complex book that uses recognisable literary tropes as a starting point for its narrative, before heading in a much more interesting direction. The novels opens as newly orphaned Cassandra Dashwood leaves her family home for the last time. A sensitive eighteen year-old, her knowledge of life comes…
Read more No 473 Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor Book 16 of #20booksofsummer20
