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Titus Groan
Titus Groan
Nov 13, 2025 11:37 AM

Author:Mervyn Peake,Saul Reichlin

Titus Groan

As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.

Reviews

Mr Peake's first novel holds one with its glittering eye - It has a genuine plot in the strictest sense, and it persuades you to read on simply in order to know what will happen - its gallery of characters is wonderful

—— Nation

A gorgeous volcanic eruption... A work of extraordinary imagination

—— New Yorker

The Gormenghast Trilogy is one of the most important works of the imagination to come out of [this] age

—— Anthony Burgess , Spectator

Vibrant...an intense, sun-drenched story. The prose veers dizzily between the poetic and the convoluted, spreading a hallucinatory patina of weirdness over everything. This is a writer for whom ordinary language just will not do.

—— The Times

An extraordinary novel, beautifully rich, vividly atmospheric and psychologically complex. Every woman should read it

—— Bernardine Evaristo, author of MR LOVERMAN

So mesmerising that reading it is to be under a spell...Sex suffuses the novel, with pleasure frequently crossing into pain

—— Independent on Sunday

A smart, seductive and utterly beguiling read

—— Mail on Sunday

Elegant and deeply strange [and] hummingly funny throughout

—— Spectator

What makes the book so good is Ms. Levy's great imagination, the poetry of her language [and] moving gracefully among pathos, danger and humor

—— New York Times

Gripping... an elegant and eerie tale.

—— Shortlist

McCarthy’s crisp, clean prose is stimulating, his concepts original and his visual imagery powerful.

—— Leyla Sanai , Independent on Sunday

[An] entertaining slice of experimental fiction.

—— Sunday Express

Booker-nominated author Tom McCarthy’s latest offering is lean, smart and infuriating.

—— Charlotte Heathcote , Sunday Express

McCarthy's writing is cool and elegant, descriptive, yet informal and conversational.

—— Curious Animal Magazine

An intellectually challenging and highly engaging work of art.

—— JP O’Malley , Washington Post

It is dead-clever, very funny, insanely ambitious, sometimes insane, essentially brilliant and commendably engaged with the way we’re living our lives right now.

—— Stuart Hammond , Dazed Digital

Reading a McCarthy novel is like being in a McCarthy novel: everything is part of a fizzing network, the scope of which can never be fully apprehended.

—— Duncan White , Telegraph

Without beginning, middle, end – and especially lacking centre! – the novel comes to a halt, leaving the reader in a gorgeous daze of symbol and cypher, whose meaning is so clear, and yet tantalizingly opaque.

—— Aisling O’Gara , Totally Dublin

Satin Island is clever, vogue, slick and sleek.

—— Tamim Sadikali , Book Munch

Packed with intriguing and intellectual ideas… refreshingly thought-provoking.

—— Good Book Guide

Slender, foxily postmodern.

—— Sam Leith , Radio Times

The bleeding edge of science fiction is Satin Island.

—— Interzone

In Satin Island the narrator, U, takes us on a journey through the modern world of ideas, theories and references. It’s a wonderfully intense experience – as soon as I’d finished I wanted to read it again.

—— Edith Bowman , Radio Times

Convincing proof that the best writers of our time are anthropologists.

—— Anna Aslanyan , The Spectator

Favourite novel of 2015.

—— John Banville , Observer

A darkly funny and disturbing meditation on the intricacies and insubstantiality of our technology-ridden times. McCarthy is one of the most daring, most ambitious and most subtle of what at my age I can all the younger generation of writers.

—— John Banville , Irish Times

The novel often reads like a dramatic monologue, a very modern stream of consciousness, akin to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake… McCarthy’s novel is innovative, well crafted and challenging… This novel is breaking new ground, a breath of fresh air, at times a tour de force.

—— Vincent Hanley , Irish Times

McCarthy has put his finger on something, and he’s nailed it very precisely. It’s how we live now. All the information we process every day. What it’s doing to us.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard
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