2007-04-01

durham_rambler: (Default)
2007-04-01 09:54 am

Rave review for Alice in Sunderland

Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland has a rave review in today's Observer, by Rachel Cooke:
"Alice in Sunderland ... is one of the most exhilarating books I've read in years. It's a minor masterpiece." and "The result is a book so full of facts it would make your head ache if it didn't look so beautiful." and "Talbot's book pushes the genre to a new level. It is so deeply learned. It captures, in a way that many postmodern novelists have singularly failed to do, the haphazard connectedness of things in the 21st century: the dockyards that become loft apartments, the Victorian civic monuments that become branches of Boots."

It's been a real pleasure seeing this book develop over the years. Every time Bryan came to our house, or we went to his, there would be extra pages to pore over. [livejournal.com profile] shewhomust and I were roped in to do some of the minor research (and get our names in the acknowledgments), and there's an entire sequence with [livejournal.com profile] desperance and Colin Wilbourne.

Highly recommended.