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ANNE ENRIGHT Taking Pictures .J' 1' :: v 0...
The unheralded winner of last year's Booker Prize with fourth novel The Gathering, Anne Enright here presents her second collection of short fiction. The first was also her debut publication, 1991’s The Portable Virgin, although any hint that the timeliness of this volume is coordinated to cash in on Booker glory is offset by the quality of its contents. Born and based in Ireland, Enright (a graduate of the University of East Anglia‘s prestigious creative writing course) writes with the easy lyricism that’s stereotypically associated with an author of her background. Yet her voice accentuates her characters’ easy identification with life.
All female, all ages, all meeting some challenge in their life - puberty, pregnancy, marriage and marital frustration (theirs and those of their male friends) — the characters meet these circumstances with a natural, conversational. first person flow of introspection. True, they are all particularly overly-analytical characters, but then which of us isn‘t from time to time? Such personalities at least make great reading.
While these are expertly-crafted short tales, Enright has made it her position to describe the characters rather than find a solution for them. So, two teenage girls worrying over the cancer of a male friend’s mother is wrapped up in the hurricane of youthful politics that such individuals tend to invent, while issues of mortality remain unresolved by the end. Another older woman, meanwhile, drowns her dissatisfaction with life by entering an affair with a mentally ill friend. These are welcoming, gorgeously-told tales which often disguise their dark hearts well. (David Pollock)
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RURAL DRAMA ROSS RAISIN God's Own Country Vtkl"(; ....
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28 Fe
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5 UNIT- SHIFTERS
Jeffrey Archer A PnSOner 0! Birth He lust can't get free of that pnson cell, can he? Belmarsh is the setting for a revenge drama where an innocent man has been sent down at HM's pleasure. Macmillan.
Loulo do Barnum. A Partisan 's Daughter A married man having something of a midlife crisis hooks up wrth a young Serbian lass but soon regrets his misdemeanour when he is dragged into a less than savoury world. Harv/ll Sec/(er. Kate Long The Daughter Game A school drama in which a teacher in her early 405 has her life turned upside down by a new 15-year-old pupil called Kali. Picador
Loo Chlld Nothing to Lose Flags out time. as Jack Reacher is back. This time he's in a Colorado hamlet where a bunch of deputies want to run him out of town. Bantam.
Clive Cusslor The Navigator More high- octane action as Kurt Austin goes hot on the trail of an ancient Phoenician statue stolen from Baghdad. Michael Joseph.
mme COUNTRY
I ' R053 RAISIN
with everything he meets which yield the 'lchest seams of the nO‘iel. Chilling, heart- .varmiog and disturbing, Marsd/ke's fantasy .vorld teameo ‘xiitt‘ Qaislr‘s liri'ulstic virtuosity makes fOr an admirable read. and stir cu'loslty as to where the authors VOlce Will take Us next. (Peggy Hughes)
0—13 Mar 2008 THE LIST 33