Dawson often draws on real people for inspiration in her novels, and this one is no exception. Here, she takes the fascinating character of the legendary crime novelist Patricia Highsmith as both a subject for biographical scrutiny and the protagonist of an imagined story, in which Highsmith crosses the line between writing about murderers and… Continue reading…
It just so happened that both Annabel and I had copies of Jill Dawson’s new novel, The Tell-Tale Heart, and by swiftness of reading and writing, Annabel’s was the review that made it into Shiny New Books. I’ve been saving up mine for the blog, though, as we both agreed it was one of the… Continue reading…
‘Patrick, at first an unsympathetic character, becomes easier in his skin, denying all personality changes to his surgeon while demonstrating the opposite in his actions – but then who wouldn’t after such an extraordinary experience. Dawson has Maureen, his transplant co-ordinator, rehearse the theories of cellular memory, then steps quietly aside as Patrick speculates about… Continue reading…
The Fens don’t receive much fictional attention, perhaps due to an assumption that a landscape so lacking in dramatic topography must have no interesting stories to tell. As one apologetic inhabitant of the Cambridgeshire countryside admits in Jill Dawson’s novel: “The Fens. Most people find them – boring. Most people think they’re a bit flat.”… Continue reading…
Over the course of The Tell-Tale Heart, we watch as Patrick, an unhealthy fifty-year-old academic, changes from a grubbily sensuous, selfish egotist to someone chastened and purified, much to the sur-prise of his children and ex-partners. What’s got into him? A new heart, figuratively as well as literally; Dawson leaves no meta-phor unturned in this… Continue reading…
Dawson, whose previous novels include Fred and Edie, shortlisted for the Whitbread and the Orange Prizes, is an elegant but easy writer. She swiftly hooks the reader in with strong, convincing narrative voices, pacy dialogue, carefully crafted prose and an engagingly dramatic plot. Important too is one of Dawson’s trademarks, an evocative, brooding sense of… Continue reading…
This absorbing novel tells the story of a 50-year-old professor’s exploration of identity after receiving a heart transplant. Patrick, an alcoholic and a womaniser, is granted a second chance by accepting the heart of an ill-fated 17-year-old. He then embarks on a mission to find out all he can about his donor. Dawson skilfully entwines… Continue reading…
Worn out by drinking and womanising, the heart of 50-year-old academic Patrick is about to give out. In its place is transplanted the lusty young heart of a teenager, Drew Beamish, killed in a motorcycle accident. From the start, Patrick is unconvinced of the rightness of his new life. Can Drew’s consciousness somehow impinge on… Continue reading…
‘An accomplished novel by a great writer’ Patrick, 50, Professor of American Studies, womaniser – he has an ex-wife and two children, an ex-mistress and a third child almost the same age as his second, and a mature student ex-lover who’s filed a complaint of sexual harassment against him – is only the third person… Continue reading…