Tag: fiction

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Boarding school challenges

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Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, bring us a “Our Evenings”. Gay life in England across the decades, from 1960s to the pandemic captured with glowing intensity through an actor’s memories. A dark luminous and wickedly funny portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from on the finest writers of our age. Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of … Continue reading Boarding school challenges

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Focus on real-life injustice

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John Grisham the master of legal thriller teams up with Jim McCloskey, who has dedicated his life to exonerating innocent people, to uncover stories that shine an astonishing light on miscarriages of justice. Joe Bryan suffered the unbearable tragedy of his wife’s murder, only to be tried and found guilty of the crime himself – despite being 120 miles away at the time of the murder. Clarence Brandley spent nine years in Death Row, coming to within six days of execution, before new evidence emerged clearing him of all charges. The case of Norfolk Four, police and prosecutors continued to … Continue reading Focus on real-life injustice

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Paula’s vulnerability and strength that radiates energy and life

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Booker Prize-winning Roddy Doyle first introduced “ The woman who walked into doors’ a mid-90s TV show whose subsequent novels featured woman’s story  and the second of which is Paula Spencer. The initial response was relentless and polarised with some critics outraged by his representation of domestic abuse and sceptical that such grim phenomenon could exist in modern Ireland. At sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor – is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who … Continue reading Paula’s vulnerability and strength that radiates energy and life

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Lust while the daylight dims

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Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, brings us a dark, luminous and wickedly funny portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from one of the finest writers of our age. Our evenings the flames of gutter and dwindle pleading for a snuffer. The author’s own life spanning from 1960s boarding school to the scoundrel times of just yesterday, graphic explanations of cosiness battles with lust  amid dimming of the daylight.  … Continue reading Lust while the daylight dims

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Overwhelming incandescent rage

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Zoe Stamper, Junior researcher in Ancient Greek Tragedy, the younger partner in a same-sex marriage which has produced two children, Zoe is, after almost 20 years, now messily attempting to separate from her spouse, Dr Penny Cartwright. Complications are added by the fact that Robin, the children’s biological father, who donated sperm to both women and is fully present in their lives, occupies the flat below theirs. Robin’s uncompromising parental role, rigidly set out before either child was even conceived, is amplified by a fourth party, his sister Justine – who also happens to be Penny’s-ex. Zoe, down the academic … Continue reading Overwhelming incandescent rage

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OnlyFans and Sex satire

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Twenty-year-old Margo, child of a Hooter’s waitress and an ex-pro-wrestler, got money troubles, but she’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college English professor, naïve and drifting – who is very keen not to be involved – she realizes she will need cash fast. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of having a baby- now  she’s lost her waitressing job and it looks unlikely she  will be able to afford her rent. Although Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan. … Continue reading OnlyFans and Sex satire

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Rich family’s trauma after kidnapping

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In 1980, a wealthy successful businessman, a factory owner, Carl Fletcher, living with his wife Ruth and their two sons, Nathan and Bernard, on their big estate on Long Island, is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of the nicest part of Long Island. He is brutalise, held for ransom and then returned to his family. Miraculously, carl, his wife and his three kids are left to move on with their lives and resume their prized places in the ongoing saga of the American dream. But nearly forty years later, when Carl’s mother dies, the trauma that has … Continue reading Rich family’s trauma after kidnapping

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Poetry in Scotland

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Writing about writers – with the skills only a writer knows!The novel of a Sestineer and the descendants of a Victorian novelist.Review of “Lettersgait” – her new novel by Sally Evans. Published byFiction Direct – a new branch of Diehard Callender press (established 1990). £8 in person, £10 posted. http://www.readfictiondirect.co.uk for this and other books. Sally Evans – now with a PHD in Literature follows up her very popular novel“Wild Goose” with new novel – “Lettersgait”, and so this is Sally’s secondnovel focussing on the environment of a literary world. The likeable and wellportrayed characters engross us in a story … Continue reading Poetry in Scotland

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Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

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A young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated.  She must tell the whole story before arriving the girl’s death. Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid:”smart appearance, full time”, their  ad said. She wanted to make enough money to suppor her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaner their laundry, wipe their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, Witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks … Continue reading Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

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Can good law topple the powerful

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Jolyon Maugham, a King’s Counsel, charismatic and successful obscure tax barrister, whose memoir cum social action manifesto Bringing Down Goliath, a product of the bird site, and large portions of it cannot really be understood unless the  reader has followed our hero’s perambulations  through Twitter. He started a mild successful blog, which led him advising the Labour Party on tax policy and even to fleeting fantasies of becoming attorney general in the House of Lords in an Ed Miliband government. But what really made him famous was hi energetic consistent abuse of anyone who disagreed with him on Twitter  where he has 420, … Continue reading Can good law topple the powerful