Reviews
ALICE WALKER Now is the Time to Open Your Heart 0..
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FHAHCIS ELLEN The Samplist
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MARK GArIss The Vesuvius Club t;‘."\.\ 'l .‘1 IS l‘ithit"
Full-time authors probably get pissed off when successful stand-up comedians and actors turn their talents to novel-writing, presumably because these performers and entertainers already have access to their fair share of adulation. Anyway, the increasing tendency for celebrities to release their prose efforts on an unsuspecting book-buying public has led to some rather pathetic, half-read paperbacks cluttering up the bargain bins of second-hand shops across the nation.
Happily, Mark Gatiss (one third of the performing leg of the League of Gentlemen) has made a successful transition from purveyor of grotesquely funny situation comedy to spoof novelist. His debut The Vesuvius Club is relentlessly parodic of the Edwardian pulp melodrama from its impeccably dilapidated jacket in. The hero in jeopardy here is Lucifer Box Esq, a kind of Edwardian equivalent of Austin Powers who resides at 9 Downing Street - a fine example of Gatiss' brazen cheek throughout. This celebrated portrait painter, raconteur and rake. whose wit and exquisite profile have seduced many a society belle, leads a perilous double life as an audacious secret agent.
The plot, for what it‘s worth, involves Box’s investigation into the strange deaths of Britain‘s most brilliant scientists, but this is superfluous to the disarmingly outrageous comedy, rollicking pace and inch-perfect spoof. Of course, the success or otherwise of Gatiss' book will largely depend on the individual reader‘s fondness for parody. Certainly The Vesuvius Club has a cheerful pointlessness about it, but is none the less page-turning for that. (Allan Radcliffe)
38 THE LIST "
RICH HALL
Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society
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BOOKS OF
THE YEAR
Books editor Brian Donaldson selects his top literary
highlights of 2004.
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It u'xzis also a {Ir/xi -,'ear to" the Glzisrgwx girls nth Colette Paul releasing her deeply irr‘prewve debut collection of short stones. l/‘I’hoever You Choose to Love. Louise Welsh wandering closer to genuine stardom with coo! no .Aella Erwin/dame Wilt/31‘ Die and Zoe Strachan enhancing her reputation With her launderette drama. Spin Cycle.