Author:John Hartley Williams
The long poem at the centre of John Hartley Williams' new collection is a dramatic monologue narrated by a laconic, possibly lamed, forest dweller, a lowly crewmember on a barge travelling an unnamed waterway. Some of his remarks are addressed to his talisman, the shrunken head of an African tribesman. The barge carries a sinister cargo and its captain has a preference for sadistic sex. Other poems in the book undertake journeys - to Northern Cyprus, China, medieval France, Florida - but like 'The Barge' they're not exactly travel poems, more poems which travel. Welcome to the unsettling world of John Hartley Williams, whose restless, inexhaustible imagination, originality and maverick humour have enlivened contemporary poetry for years. Paranoid, erotic, disturbed and disturbing, these are bulletins from a dislocated, parallel world that excites, entertains and terrifies - and often feels more real to us than our own.
Of all the contemporary novelists who are compared to Dickens, Susan Hill probably has the best claim....Hill has produced another perfectly controlled work of fiction... What is striking about the best of Hill's fiction...is her almost Bachian ability to plumb the depths of emotion and bring the reader back out again
—— Amanda Craig , ProspectHill impresses without seeking to astonish, and so is one of those rare writers whose work is brilliant in the single, secondary sense- not glittering, but distinguished- her prose as pleasing and surprising, say, as a perfectly round stone, or home-cooked haute cuisine
—— Ian Sansom , GuardianHill's writing here is superb, conveying emotion and pain in the sparest of prose...a comforting keenly moving tale of endurance and the eternal springs of friendship and love
—— Philip Womack , Literary ReviewIt has a power beyond its pages; a haunting resonance between each stark sentence that stayed with me long after I'd turned the final page.The delicate balance between kindness and bitterness, hope and despair, a dying man and a dying town, are almost unbearably poignant. This is a short book that will live long in the memory
—— Rebecca Armstrong , Independent on SundayConcisely captures primal emotions and offers astonishing transformations... Movingly perceptive
—— David Grylls , Sunday TimesI read this short novel in one sitting; it is an enthralling story, touching and ultimately positive
—— BookshelfSusan Hill is the mistress of subtle atmosphere
—— Country LifeMoving study of faith and humanity
—— Sara Keating , Sunday Business Post, IrelandBeautiful novel
—— Sainsbury's MagazineA bittersweet family drama set in an English industrial town
—— Katie Owen , Sunday TelegraphRichly satisfying
—— IndependentThe legendary Ms Trollope triumphs yet again, with her latest slick of classy chick-lit
—— HEATThis thoroughly engaging, intelligent, literate novel
—— WASHINGTON POSTThe brilliantly observed portrayal of family life is wonderfully compelling - and a story many will be able to identify with. ****
—— CLOSER
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