A magical epic: Moon Witch, Spider King, by Marlon James, reviewed
When the first volume of Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy appeared in 2019, it was quickly recognised as a masterly…
Blood on the tracks: the unsolved murder of the Japanese railway chief
‘There is no end to influence,’ says Harold Bloom in his seminal 1973 work, The Anxiety of Influence — and…
A picture of rural Kentucky: Stand by Me, by Wendell Berry, reviewed
Anyone picking up a book by Wendell Berry, whether it be fiction, essays or a collection of his lucid and…
Washed-up in LA: This Storm, by James Ellroy, reviewed
When James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential appeared in 1990, it introduced us to a world of blatant corruption, casual racism and…
Tolkien in Africa: Black Leopard Red Wolf, by Marlon James, reviewed
Anyone who has issues with Tolkien (at 16, even in a suitably ‘altered state’, I could not finish The Hobbit,…
Denis Johnson: where pain and comedy collide
The death of Denis Johnson last May marked the loss of a great original who catalogued the lives of junkies,…
The saddest show on earth
It’s the early 20th century, and two strange-looking boys, purportedly twins named Iko and Eko, are playing in a circus…
Thirtysomething blues
If ever there was a book for our uncaring, unsharing times, it is Gwendoline Riley’s First Love, in which Neve,…
Thirtysomething blues
If ever there was a book for our uncaring, unsharing times, it is Gwendoline Riley’s First Love, in which Neve,…
A matter of life and death
Shades of The Master and Margarita haunt Rabih Alameddine’s sixth book, in which Jacob, a Yemeni-born poet with a day…
