Flamboyant historical staging characterised Andrew Miller's first two novels, Ingenious Pain and Casanova: his third makes use of a very different kind of theatricality. Here, in two discrete, barely overlapping stories - one of a dying woman attended by her sons, the other of an exiled Hungarian playwright tempted by a shameful memory into a last-ditch act of political redemption - the stage directions are slow and deliberate, the settings minimal and swiftly sketched. Every action carries a purposeful weight that leaves no room for chaotic exuberance.

LRB 18 October 2001 | PDF Download