Friday 8 December 2017

Tring Book Club - The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon

The Pier Falls (Paperback)
A collection of pretty dark stories. I can watch a horror movie, but the written word has much more of an effect on my brain. Fortunately, the shattering nature of each piece seems to melt over time, and I was just left with a sense of wonder at their construction. Haddon is such a great writer; has anyone described an appendectomy in such vivid detail? And I loved it when one of the characters in danger recalls his wife's warnings as "my greatest fault was to give insufficient weight to her misgivings". Superb.

This was my choice for book club, and I was a little concerned how the ladies might view such an intense batch of stories. I need not have worried as the majority thought, like me, that they were brilliant.

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