THEATLANTIC MONTHLYBEST BOOKS OF 2009
THEWALL STREET JOURNALBEST FICTION OF 2009
LIBRARY JOURNALBEST BOOKS OF 2009
FAVORITE FICTION OF 2009 FROM THELOS ANGELES TIMES
James Lasdun's great gift is his instinct for the vertiginous moments when the essence of a life discloses itself. In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales inIt's Beginning to Hurtchart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the range of human passions. As James Wood has written, James Lasdun seems to me to be one of the secret gardens of English writing. . . . When we read him we know what language is for.
James Lasdun was born in London and now lives in upstate New York. He has published previous collections of stories, books of poetry, and novels, including
TheHorned Man, which was a
New York TimesNotable Book. His story The Siege was the basis for the Bernardo Bertolucci film
Besieged.
Lasdun's novels succeed as efficient entertainments, narrowly focused, linguistically dextrous, coolly presenting their characters' foibles . . . His short stories relinquish none of this gamesmanship, yet they seem to expand where the novels contract . . . Their characters have a complexity and confusion that override the unfolding plot. And the narratives seem opened up to the entire history of ?ction . . . Touching and revelatory . . . Devastating. Mark Kamine, The Times Literary Supplement
Reading Lasdun is like reading a sly collaboration between Kafka and Updike: elegant, acutely observed and utterly unflinching . . . This is a collection that examines the most inward mechanisms of rage, fear and desire with astonishing skill and strangely lyric power. John Burnside, The Times (London)
Lasdun has a Nabokovian eye. Few exponents of the short form offer such tempting, distul“.
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