All too rarely a certain mood settles on me as I scan a library or bookstore shelf. Then lightning strikes. It seems to involve a surrender on my part, a willingness to be surprised. And Providence provides. In such a mood years ago I picked up Tim Powers’ Last Call in a bookstore in Manly, Australia. Once picked, the cover enticed: a Grail story, a fight for a magical Fisher Kingship, set in Las Vegas in Holy Week, 1990. A page sampled at random confirmed Powers can write. And how — he has John Le Carr?’s gift with thought and dialogue.
Last week I picked up The Calligrapher, a first novel by Edward Docx. And fell asleep over it the next night, finishing it in a second gulp the following day. How could I resist this tale of a London calligrapher, unreconstructed ?sthete and womaniser, woven around the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne, which I’ve now caught as a secondary infection. I wonder, by my troth, what ’twas I read of Donne’s ere I found Docx.
» Chapter 1 of Last Call, by Tim Powers
» Review of The Calligrapher
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