What does John Gray’s anti-atheism amount to?
K. Chesterton, in one of his wise and gracious apothegms, once wrote that ‘When Man ceases to worship God he…
More menace – and magic – on the moors
Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney was one of the surprise stand-outs of last year, and a worthy winner of the…
Elegiac and exuberant: short stories from Philip Hensher and Helen Oyeyemi
Discussions about the short story too often fall into a false dichotomy that can be characterised, in essence, by a…
O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I!
Given this year’s 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, there was always going to be a slew of new publications; few,…
Love, Robert Lowell and poetic licence
The conceit of this book — the author’s third on Robert Lowell — is strong, although its execution is less…
Why on earth did Jeanette Winterson agree to retell Shakespeare's Winter’s Tale?
It is fair to say that Jeanette Winterson is not Shakespeare, though I cannot imagine why any authors would accept…
Wrangles over the Rust Belt
In the opening sentence of this subtle and finely poised novel, the narrator, Greg Marnier, known as ‘Marny’, admits that…
Seeds of a mystery in a great-aunt’s will
There is something cruelly beautiful, delightfully frustrating and filthily gorgeous about a Scarlett Thomas novel. Two family trees open and…
All roads lead to Blackpool in Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel, The Illuminations
The illuminations of Andrew O’Hagan’s fifth novel are both metaphysical and mundane. In the course of its taut plot, they…
