Elizabeth Lowry writes:

There are posthumous editions of La Mordida, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, October Ferry to Gabriola, a Collected Poetry of Malcolm Lowry and two volumes of short stories, but in their uncertain state they are of interest mainly to scholars and hold little appeal for the ordinary reader, who invariably comes to Lowry after discovering the masterful Under the Volcano, in the hope that there will be more of the same. There isn’t, and knowing this, Hofmann wisely gives us only excerpts from the rest. His admirably concise Voyage contains seven short stories, a handful of poems, carefully selected chapters from the unfinished novels, and a judicious sampling of Lowry’s punning, impassioned, sometimes plaintive letters. That we will already be familiar with Under the Volcano is assumed; Hofmann’s ancillary and not unrealistic expectation is that the highlights of the literary hinterland will satisfy our curiosity ‘to read something else by the same hand’.

(LRB 1 November 2007)

NYRB | hardback 518 pp. |ISBN: 9781590172353