SOCIAL DRAMA EMILY MAGUIRE The Gospel According to Luke
(Serpents Tail) .0.
EMILY MAGUIRE
Acclaimed Australian author Emily Maguire's latest book is nothing if not topical. it centres on Luke. a young Pastor of the Christian Revolution in Sydney. full of God and staunchly opposed to the sexual health clinic across the street. He tries to convert its overtly secular COunsellor Aggie. but in the process falls hopelessly in love. A forbidden affair connnences.onethat w0uld be complicated enough were it not exacerbated by Honey (a pregnant. lonely teenager. whom both are determined to save”) and a rogue bunch of militant religious mentalists. hellbent on punishing all involved.
Packing in more issues than a Hollyoaks omnibus. this novel reads like a tragic
POETRY COLLECTION EDWIN MORGAN A Book of Lives (Carcanet) 0000
Every so often, a collection of poems comes along which warrants closing the door, leaving emails unopened and the phone unanswered to read it from cover to cover. A Book of Lives is one such publication. As Scotland’s Makar, it’s pretty much expected that anything written by Edwin Morgan will be impressive, but this set is far more than that. Tremendous in scope, it rampages through the bloodshed and battlefield of Bannockburn; drifts with delight through ‘the blue glow of starlight lapislazuliing the dust-grains’ of the big bang; flies alongside Sputnik; laughs at the poet squatting over a hole-in- the-ground train toilet; manages to make the Scottish Parliament splendid; and listens in on a conversation in Palestine.
Sorrowful, playful, teasing, funny and yearning, ‘Love and a Life’, with its startling tales of the everyday, is the most moving. Then, from the short and sweet ‘Valentine Weather’ to the monumentally tragic ‘Twin Towers’, Morgan’s lives can almost be heard breathing as he captures their tales. Rimbaud lies in agony, longing for Verlaine while ‘poetry burned in him like radium’; Darwin is delighted by finches in the Galapagos; the citizens of Leningrad starve in the siege; Morgan is overjoyed at the removal of scaffolding outside his flat; Boethius waits for death in prison; a cancerous cell and a normal cell, Gorgo and Beau, converse; and an old woman delights in Drambuie and a duet on her 94th birthday. I recommend you shut the door on your own world and immerse yourself in his. (Katie Gould)
Shakespearean romance. given a coarse 2 1 st century rubdown. Maguire's simple prose neatly juxtaposes Luke's florid preaching against Aggie's cold realism with impressive authority.
The book perhaps raises more questions than it answers at times. but is certainly grim enough to entertain. it not enlighten.
(Malcolm Jack)
LITERARY ANALYSIS RENE WEIS Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography (John Murray) 0000
Combining taut prose with tight scholarship. Rene Weis has written a gripping biography of the world's most famous Bard. With the great man's life notoriously wreathed in mystery. Weis has plunged into the works for clues. He cites John Keats as his inspiration for conilating fiction and fact. but centuries of biblical exegesis are never far away. It is with the
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passion of a believer that Weis sets out to uncover the rich seam of biographical information that he detects in Will's output. The dark lady and the androgynous young man of the sonnets both feature but more contentiously. Weis argues that Shakespeare was disabled. 'made lame by Fortune's dearest spite'. Given that most scholars have difficulty stomaching Shakespeare's egg- shaped head. Weis is treading on delicate sensibilities. Against the unfolding life of a literary genius. he builds a colourful picture of an England full of petty disputes. sexual misdemeanours and raw. religious schisms. (Hannah Adcock)
SPORT
MICHAEL WEINREB
The Kings of New York (Yellow Jersey) 00.
Chess attracts both child prodigies and general oddballs. both of which can be found in abundance in this well- constructed and intriguing book about American's top high school chess team. The Edward R Murrow School in Brooklyn is an experimental. hippyish institution where kids are allowed to cut classes. but which boasts an incredibly
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successful chess team. Unlike posher private schools. Murrow's team is full of tinderprivilegetl kids from a cross— section of backgrounds. and Michael Weinreb tailed them for a couple of years as they went about the business of hammering all opi;)osition into submission.
Weinreb is a fine sports writer. and does well at getting inside the heads of these outsiders and geeks. working out the motivations and psychology of some incredibly gifted youngsters. Having said that. the book loses its way a tad in the middle. before the big finale of the American Supernationals tournament ratchets up the tension at the end. (Doug Johnstonei
COMIC NOViil DAN RHODES Gold
(Canongate) 00.
Were the cast of Last of the Summer Wine a little
more off-kilter and if Nora Batty was a bit less of a lumpy- stockinged battleaxe with an eye for mindless trivia. they could have easily come to mind when reading Dan Rhodes' pleasing and quirky tale. Gold. Set in a British coastal village. the locals at the Anchor fritter away their time discussing topics which may one day crop up in the pub quiz while some odd incidents from their pasts are recalled. Only a returning holidaymaker called Miyuki Woodward. with a hankering for graffiti. pints and books. breaks up their tedium.
Even for a book under the ZOO-page mark. barely anything actually occurs and the central mystery of the missing gent holds negligible tension only to be cleared up with little fuss. Not quite literary gold then. but another sign that Dan Rhodes is a burgeoning mercurial talent. (Brian Donaldson)
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TORY PAPERBAOKS
Margaret Atwood The Tent A bunch of updated tables and myths accompanied by the author's own black and white i drawings. Bloomsbury.
Valerie Martin The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories Some tales themed around artists trying to excel at their work while sustaining relationships with mere human beings. Phoenix. . Edward P Jones All Aunt Hagar’s Children Pulitzer prize-winner with 14 stories spanning the 20th century and focussing on the experiences of African Americans. Perennial. Susie Maguire (ed) Little Black Dress Stella Duffy, Kate Mosse and Muriel Gray are among those offering their literary thoughts on the classic wardrobe fixture. Polygon.
Jennifer Weiner The Guy Not Taken Chick lit collection about thirtysomething ladies who battle damaged childhoods and broken relationships to try and move on. Pocket.
(FE) Mar 900T THE LIST 29