Part detective story, part analysis of a writer s urge to place real people in his fiction, this is a Christmas fireside tale that examines the horrors of The Turn of the Screw while revealing those of today. We read Henry James s unfinished tale, The Beautiful Child, with its chilling depiction of cruelty and neglect, which he abandoned in 1902. And we learn about the terrifying scandal behind James s inability to proceed with his story of a couple who beseech a fashionable artist to paint the child they never had a scandal involving the alcoholic Mr and Mrs Smith who had served James for many years. Will the chief guest at a house party, an English professor, solve the mystery of the hauntings at James s home, Lamb House, in Rye? This book fills out the unfinished story and ends on a note of terror that would surely have been appreciated by the master himself.
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Review:
Since the death of Angela Carter, Tennant has been the queen of Gothic. Postmodern excursions into chaos are what she does best; there is nothing quite like being with her in a Tardis. . an ingenious tale. . . only increases the tension in the classic story at its heart --Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph
This is not simply an updated tale or a tribute to The Master. It is also a strike for modernism, the modernism in James, a rallying call for the challenging and the difficult that lie behind the cosy terror of a ghost story. --Lesley McDowell, Glasgow Herald
Emma Tennant's cunning, moody and bone-chilling new story inspired by "The Turn of the Screw" --Boyd Tonkin, The Independent --The Independent
Like The Turn Of The Screw, Emma Tennant narrates a tale within a tale, with many surprises and twists; it culminates in a truly chilling denouement that may keep you up at night. --The Lady
A ghost story that is both postmodern and Jamesian --Publishers Weekly
An enjoyable diversion, and Jamesians will find much here to please and flatter them --Times Literary Supplement
About the Author:
EMMA TENNANT founded the influential literary magazine Bananas in the late 1970s and is the author of a succession of acclaimed literary novels including thrillers, fantasies and subversive sequels to classic novels by Jane Austen and Emily and Charlotte Brontė.
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