Reviewing novels, short stories, plays and non fiction.
One day, an 72 year old widow named Vesta Gul is taking her daily walk in the forest with her dog, Charlie. And comes across a chilling note, weighed down with smooth black stones. It says “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”.
This leads to an investigation, a meditation on life and death, and the realisation that her marriage was not what it seemed.
Continue reading “Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Mosfegh – Review”
Altered States by Anita Brookner is a excellent novel of the ‘repressed, English, and unreliable’ genre perfected by authors like Kazuo Ishiguro. It follows solicitor Alan Sherwood, his failed marriage, his blended family and the object of his obsession.
An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is a beautiful, hazy portrait of life in post war Japan. It explores generational tension, changing social mores, guilt and atonement. It is also another excellent example of the unreliable narrator, a trope of Ishiguro’s work.
Continue reading “An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguru”
Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man lives with his sister’s family in a sleepy suburban 1950s town. He makes a living by winning a newspaper contest over and over again. He dallies with his neighbour and plots where the Little Green Man will be Next, but starts to realise all is not well. This is how Time out of Joint, by Philip K Dick, begins.
COPPER LANTERN BOOK REVIEWS 