One of the reasons for The Shining's success is that it was not simply a horror story, but the story of a family struggling to make a go of it, in a situation which becomes horrific. A hopeful but hesitant mother: "For the first time she let herself believe that this
Readers familiar with Michael Winter's fiction will immediately recognize the contrast between stark prose and emotional intensity; in the gap between, the reader resides. For it's not as though Henry Hayward does not feel, but it's as though he has raised a hand to protect himself from the heat of
"The Son of A Certain Woman. You don’t have to have read Joyce to 'get' it. But it’s a touch more fun if you have." And that is because it is Wayne Johnston's "Joyce book". Which one might take to mean that it's about the Joyce family. (Primarily about Percy
The cover image for Anthony De Sa's Kicking the Sky perfectly encapsulates the novel's themes, structure, setting and tone.* A child's bicycle leans against a garage door, the only sign of habitation. The view of the alleyway leaves the safety of home beyond the edges of the scene. The shadows are
One might say that the narrator of Margaret Drabble's novel is an anthropologist of sorts. Perhaps that would be misleading, however: "Anthropology is full of strange spirit stories, about shamans and witchcraft and night ridings and animal shape-shiftings, stories which hover between myth and fairytale and religion and tribal memories
