Author:Una McCormack
Even a Time Lord can’t change the past.
A wasteland. A dead world… No, there is a biodome, rising from the ash. Here, life teems and flourishes, with strange and lush plants, and many-winged insects with bright carapaces – and one solitary sentient creature, who spends its days watering the plants, talking to the insects, and tending this lonely garden. This is Inyit, the Last of the Kotturuh.
In All Flesh is Grass we are transported back to The Dark Times. The Tenth Doctor has sworn to stop the Kotturuh, ending Death and bringing Life to the universe. But his plan is unravelling – instead of bringing Life, nothing has changed and all around him people are dying. Death is everywhere. Now he must confront his former selves – one in league with their greatest nemesis and the other manning a ship of the undead…
Anything J.M. Coetzee writes deserves our full attention…The Death of Jesus is full of truth, irreducible, tearfully moving to read
—— David Sexton , Evening Standard, *Book of the Week*Concludes the trilogy with force and heart… if The Death of Jesus strikes you in the right place, then you will read its cool, dry final sentences – as I did – with tears in your eyes
—— John Self , The TimesAny new novel from Coetzee commands respect, and the final part of the trilogy is no exception… The Death of Jesus constantly challenges what we believe and why
—— Max Davidson , Mail on SundayThe Death of Jesus is a necessary read, casting a strange new light on one of the world’s greatest and most elusive novelists
—— Doug Battersby , Financial TimesA phenomenon that arrives from out of nowhere and challenges our received ideas to breaking point ... a delicate, iridescent mystery
—— Stephen Poole , GuardianA formidably intelligent writer who synthesizes millennia of thought into intricate multilayered narratives
—— Claire Lowdon , Times Literary SupplementAn extraordinary new novel… The Death of Jesus is the best in the series
—— Leo Robson , New StatesmanCoetzee always writes with pace and precision. His otherworldly landscapes have a gritty, scuffed plausibility. Never overlook the deadpan comedy, either: he learned from Samuel Beckett, an early idol
—— Boyd Tonkin , SpectatorA remarkable achievement by a writer whose evolution, at the age of 79, continues to surprise
—— EconomistThe enigmatic final instalment of Coetzee's trilogy of novels...is a triumph: subtle, philosophical and playful
—— Daily TelegraphAn unnerving breathlessly told love affair
—— Sainsbury’s MagazineBeautifully written
—— Oxford TimesI love ghost stories and this one is hugely atmospheric.
—— Judy FinniganI really enjoyed the authentic wartime detail in this book.
—— Richard MadeleyThe ideal ghost story for Halloween ... Full of suspense ... If you loved Woman in Black, you'll love this atmospheric tale.
—— Daily ExpressThis book is spooky, erotic and evocative. We loved it.
—— Richard & Judy , Daily ExpressA magnificently grotesque fantasia.
—— MetroLike all great Gothic works, Luckenbooth deals in duality: good/evil, light/dark ... Fagan comes at Edinburgh like a voracious lover, eager to explore both its conspicuous beauty and its secret places ... Fagan's writing sparkles most when she is describing landscape ... Luckenbooth is a horror story, originally and beautifully told.
—— The Herald[Fagan's] sinuous, supernatural story unwinds down nine decades ... Her narrative weaves between the real and the spirit world.
—— The Times, ScotlandLuckenbooth is a compulsive study of our entanglement with place and each other. Brimming with character, subversion and decadence, Fagan builds a striking portrait of the Scottish city's deep-seated repression and toxicity and the grand strength of its inhabitants as they push the city into a modern age. An exhilarating, courageous story of the need to expose the evils of our communal past, Luckenbooth is nothing short of a masterpiece.
—— Christina Spens , Irish TimesAn exuberant, raucous book.
—— BookmunchBrilliantly strange ... From the start, Luckenbooth gives the feel of a legend or fairy story ... Time periods slip about, gleefully penetrating one another. A multistorey horror story reveals itself obliquely in fragments across a number of years and viewpoints, weirdly paced, the action rushed and breathless, generalised, then freezing for a moment on an unexpected scene or event ... Everyone in the novel is a chimera of one sort or another, caught between forms, illuminated from inside by the light of their own unkempt ideas and desires ... Fagan's booth of stories - her Cornell box of frenzies, tragedies and delights - offers the present moment in the endless war between love and capital. It's brilliant.
—— M. John Harrison , GuardianMasterly ... A lesser writer would struggle to control this cacophony of voices but what marks out Luckenbooth is the fierce intelligence driving Fagan's tale ... This is a mad god's dream of a book - it deserves to be shortlisted for every prize going this year.
—— iNewsImpossible to adequately describe this extraordinarily inventive novel. You'll just have to read it yourself. Early days, I know, but suffice to say this one's already heading for my books of the year list together with both my Women's Prize for Fiction and Booker Prize wish lists.
—— A Life in BooksOne of the hottest titles right now, Jennie Fagan's Luckenbooth has won all round acclaim.
—— Edinburgh Evening NewsThe novel unfolds like a set of dark short stories, with a different character narrating or guiding each one. But there's a twist: Luckenbooth is not just haunted by the realities of time and history, but also by the strong musk of the gothic imagination ... Thickly worked and carefully assembled, the novel functions as a claustrophobic chiller and as a testament to lives led beyond the margins and in the shadows.
—— Bidisha , The ObserverLuckenbooth ... is littered with lines like this. The sort of lines that demand to be read and reread: splendid in isolation, electric in combination. Fagan writes with drama. She can pick out the fine detail, in neat brush strokes, no doubt, but it is in drawing her arm back and attacking a story with great, sweeping lyricism that she propels Luckenbooth forward, dragging the reader through the 20th century, as experienced by a compelling cast of characters.
—— Buzz MagSlips and slides through layers of history, tears in the fabric of time and a series of strange shape shifting characters - it's a wonderful work that is a trip into a spectral interzone but also staged in a warped reality - great writing and a major talent.
—— John Robb , Louder Than WarA novel for readers with sophisticated tastes.
—— Fantasy HiveUniquely gripping visions of the hidden social, economic and spiritual forces at play in 20th-century Edinburgh.
—— Morning StarDazzlingly ambitious.
—— Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain , The WeekAs sexy and horrifying as any fairy story, it is a book concerned, not only with a structure, but with structures: alphabetical, architectural, societal, what they are built upon and how they crumble
—— Bella CaledoniaPrize-winning author Jenni Fagan does not disappoint with her latest novel, Luckenbooth, which is easily her most compelling yet. In her usual poetic style, Fagan tells of a nine-storey Edinburgh tenement just off the Royal Mile that is creaking with secrets. Throughout this haunting novel, characters' secrets and memories live on in the howling gales of the spirit world, desperate to re-enter their lives. The narrative takes us through eight decades - from 1910 to 1999 - working its way up all nine floors of the building in hopscotch fashion, allowing for an intriguing interpretation of 20th-century life in the capital. Prepare to be transported into a Fagan's weird and wonderful imagination. It is a whirlwind read and one that I could not put down until the final page had turned.
—— Scottish FieldAs sexy and horrifying as any fairy story, it is a book concerned, not only with a structure, but with structures: alphabetical, architectural, societal, what they are built upon and how they crumble.
—— Bella CaledoniaAn Edinburgh tenement building is haunted by tall stories and unnerving strangers, from William Burroughs to the devil's daughter, in this weird and wonderful gothic confection.
—— GuardianHer "world building" is highly effective, and each character fully inhabits their decade. Fagan's writing is anchored in societal issues, the wrongs done and the ways individuals have challenged those wrongs and asserted their individuality and sexuality in ways that might make them seem misfits, outcasts. Fagan certainly pulls no punches and is determined that these passionate, authentic stories should not be confined to the periphery.
—— Historical Novels ReviewA deliciously weird gothic horror
—— The Washington PostAn ambitious and ravishing novel that will haunt me long after
—— The New York Times