Is there anyone who ever imagined sex was going to be a simple act of coupling between two human beings? In Liz Lochhead’s What Goes Around, in which two actors play seven characters, drama and real life become as confused as the characters who pursue each other round and round on the merry-go-round of Glasgow’s Read More
Thingness? is the latest exhibition to emerge from the Cooper Summer Residency. The Cooper Gallery hosted an interesting group this year, with Joseph Fletcher being the first philosopher to be invited to the residency, to work alongside artists Anouchka Oler and Oliver Braid through discussions and explorations of Object-Oriented Ontology – the privileging of nonhuman Read More
A reviewer’s duty, before forming responses of any kind, is to read, and to read carefully. That responsibility begins from the moment the text is selected, whatever the seductions of the title, cover or writer. Anuradha Roy’s third novel is indeed seductively packaged. Sleeping on Jupiter revels in a very beautiful jacket and it is Read More
Hanif Kureishi, a man who counts not only fiction, but also screen and play writing amongst his repertoire, here turns his hand to personal reportage. A Theft reads as a confessional essay of sorts. Kureishi tells us of his own experience of having his savings stolen by his newly employed accountant, Jeff Chandler. Chandler appears Read More
After the hijacking of the U.S.-flagged sailing vessel Quest in the Indian Ocean in February 2011, Corban Addison “watched the media coverage of the tragedy with a heavy heart and a curious eye”. It was that curiosity which led to his writing of The Tears of Dark Water. However, I must stress here (as the Read More
This novel takes one of the many, infinite silences of history and gives it a voice. The voice is that of our narrator, Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, and the story is ‘a true account of his life and travels from the city of Azemmur to the Land of the Indians, where he arrived Read More
Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel, The Gap of Time, is the first “cover version” in Hogarth Shakespeare’s series where writers including Margaret Atwood, Howard Jacobson and Anne Tyler re-tell Shakespeare’s plays to mark, in 2016, the 400th anniversary of his death. Winterson has The Winter’s Tale and, given its focus on abandonment, adoption and forgiveness, it’s Read More
In his first crack at a fantasy novel, Tom Fletcher delivers a wonderful blend of magic, myth and adventure. Gleam is the first instalment of Fletcher’s ‘The Factory’ trilogy. Fletcher’s vision of a dark and foul dystopian underworld pours out from every page and captivates the reader. Several elements of Fletcher’s writing, such as setting Read More
I penned this on the day Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader. In keeping with so many former Labour luminaries, this was a result campaigned against by Alan Johnson. Despite their political differences, Johnson and Corbyn share similar histories. Born within a year of each other, neither went to university. Both were schooled in politics Read More
Byssus – strong, tenaciously anchoring; the mussel’s beard, all delicate multiple fibres, with the capacity to be woven into highly desirable cloth. Jen Hadfield’s title for her first collection since the Eliot-winning Nigh-No-Place is a near-perfect metaphor for her attachment to her adopted Shetland, and for that land’s own bedrock hold. Byssus challenges with its Read More