Memento Mori (New Directions Classics) - Softcover

Spark, Muriel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811214389 ISBN 13: 9780811214384

Publisher: New Directions, 2005

Synopsis

In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: a voice on the telephone informs each, "Remember you must die."
Their geriatric feathers are soon thoroughly ruffled by these perhaps supernatural phone calls, and in the resulting flurry many old secrets are dusted off. Cracks appear on the once decorous surface of their lives - unsavories like blackmail and adultery are now to be glimpsed.

About this title

Review:

There is a Waugh-like brilliance to this novel, in the easy economical narrative, the continuous invention producing a series of surprises, the well-cut dialogue, the controlled tone. This last is the most remarkable of Miss Spark's achievements. Nothing is forced, least of all the humour (V. S. Naipaul, NEW STATESMAN)

I am reading a trio of novels by Muriel Spark, a marvelously witty English writer, one of the few lady writers I like to read. Her best, I think, is Memento Mori, which is chillingly brilliant (Tennessee Williams)

This funny and macabre book has delighted me as much as any novel that I have read since the war (Graham Greene)

A brilliant and singularly gruesome achchievement (Evelyn Waugh)

Book Description:

A brilliant, daring and darkly funny novel by Muriel Spark, 'mistress of the highest high comedy' (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0811214389
• ISBN 13: 9780811214384
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228