According to Mark

Sep 2, 2025 5:35 AM

Author:Penelope Lively

According to Mark

A respected literary biographer, Mark is working on the life of Gilbert Strong - a writer about whom he thinks he knows everything. Happily married, and apparently dedicated to a life of letters, he nevertheless falls in love with Strong's granddaughter Carrie, a vague and unsophisticated young woman more interested in bedding plants than books or passion. As Mark's obsessions develop over a hot, complicated summer, he begins to understand that nothing is ever what it seems; not Gilbert Strong, and certainly not himself.

According to Mark is a witty and moving look at love, literature and the dangers of middle-aged folly.

Reviews

Any time spent with Penelope Lively is a joy

—— Observer

Stella Gibbons is the Jane Austen of the 20th century

—— Lynn Truss

One of the most adventurous and significant writers of our time … If the Coen Brothers want their next Oscar they should buy the rights to this book now

—— Scotland on Sunday

Terrifying ... an unsettling masterwork

—— GQ

Superb

—— The Times

Like being dragged backwards through a briar patch by William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor while Nick Cave howls hosannahs at a blood-black moon

—— Time Out

Braiding his plotlines into a taut narrative, Pollock is poised to emerge as a new hero of fans of the American gothic literature

—— Metro

If Pollock's powerful collection Knockemstiff was a punch to the jaw, his follow-up ... feels closer to a mule's kick

—— Publisher’s Weekly

Sticky, violet and exhilarating - Pollock's southern gothic tale of thrill killers, pervy preachers and vengeance is best read on a long road trip or at a seedy model poolside

—— Eliza Clark, author of PENANCE , Observer, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Riotously high in laughs and glamour. I defy a festive grump not to be cheered by it

—— Independent Books of the Year

Fast-paced and funny

—— Women & Home

Influenced by magical realism and the cool prose of modernism, first-time author Chloe Aridjis takes the best from each

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

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