Synopses & Reviews
I aim to startle as well as please," Muriel Spark has said, and in these eight marvelous ghost stories she manages to do both to the highest degree. As with all matters in the hands of Dame Muriel her spooks are entirely original. A ghost in her pantheon can be plaintive or a bit vengeful, or perhaps may not even be aware of being a ghost at all. One in fact is the ghost of a man who isn't even dead yet. Another takes the bus home from work, believing she is still alive, though she is haunted by an odious tune stuck in her head (which her murderer had been relentlessly humming), and distressed by a "feeling of incompletion." And a reflective ghost recalls her mortal days of enjoying "the glory of the world, as if it would never pass. Spark has a flair for confiding ghosts: "I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were those odd things still to be done which one's executors can never do properly." In her case the odd things include cheerily hailing her murderer, "Hallo George!" and driving him mad. The remarkably nonchalant stories here include some of her most wicked and famous"The Seraph and the Zambesi," "The Hanging Judge," and "The Portobello Road"and they all gleam with that special Spark sheen, the quality The Times Literary Supplement has hailed as "gloriously witty and polished."
Review
She uses the pen with rapier precision...one of the most original and accomplished writers in the English language. (Advocate, Mary Garrett, 18 October 2003)
Review
Spark's spooky stories suggest that to live a life of quiet desperation is to be dead already. (Boston Sunday Globe, 26 October 2003)
Review
A refreshing mix of otherworldy stories and fiction of the disturbing. (Capital Times, Madison, WI, Heather Lee Schroeder, 31 October 2003)
Review
A bunch of charmers from an author not noted as a shiver-giver, but who does a darn good job at it. (Courier-Gazette, Rockland, ME, Marilis Hornidge, 30 October 2003)
Review
A single Spark sentence...kicks more chills up the spine than 300 pages of Stephen King. (WBUR Arts Online, Bill Marx, October 2003)
Synopsis
I aim to startle as well as please," Muriel Spark has said, and in these eight marvelous ghost stories she manages to do both to the highest degree. As with all matters in the hands of Dame Muriel her spooks are entirely original. A ghost in her pantheon can be plaintive or a bit vengeful, or perhaps may not even be aware of being a ghost at all. One in fact is the ghost of a man who isn't even dead yet. Another takes the bus home from work, believing she is still alive, though she is haunted by an odious tune stuck in her head (which her murderer had been relentlessly humming), and distressed by a "feeling of incompletion." And a reflective ghost recalls her mortal days of enjoying "the glory of the world, as if it would never pass. Spark has a flair for confiding ghosts: "I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were those odd things still to be done which one's executors can never do properly." In her case the odd things include cheerily hailing her murderer, "Hallo George!" and driving him mad. The remarkably nonchalant stories here include some of her most wicked and famous"The Seraph and the Zambesi," "The Hanging Judge," and "The Portobello Road"and they all gleam with that special Spark sheen, the quality has hailed as "gloriously witty and polished."
Synopsis
Eight spooky stories from the mistress of the unexpected.
About the Author
Muriel Spark (1918-2006) is the author of dozens of novels including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Driver's Seat, Not to Disturb, and many more. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.
Table of Contents
The girl I left behind me --The hanging judge --The Seraph and the Zambesi --The leaf-sweeper --The house of the famous poet --Another pair of hands --The executor --The Portobello Road.