AHEAD of tomorrow’s World Book Night, three experts from the Department of English and the Manchester Writing School at MMU share their recommendations for what you should read next.
Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Lecturer in Film Studies and American Literature – The Damnation Game by Clive Barker (1985)
My chosen novel is a reimagining of a Faustian bargain set in a grim and dark 1980s London. Barker’s debut novel is beautifully written, combining taut prose and nightmarish visions to produce a timely gothic eruption at the height of the Thatcher government. For Barker, the awful truth at the core of the Faustian bargain is the isolation it confers on those who gain immortality; it is an exciting and gruelling battle between a wealthy millionaire who refuses to pay his infernal debt, and the immortal who has come to collect his prize at any cost. This novel anticipates Barker’s next and most famous work The Hellbound Heart (1986), filmed as Hellraiser (1987), which also features a Faustian bargain, and introduced the world to the beautiful, S&M-styled Cenobites.
Livi Michael, author and Senior Lecturer – The Lie Tree by Francine Hardinge (2015)
I have just read The Lie Tree, by Francine Hardinge, which was the first young adult novel to win the overall Costa Prize 2015. It was excellent, a dark historical thriller on the theme of evolution, containing a fantastic metaphor at its core. And also Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping. I’ve now read all of hers in reverse order and I just think she’s a stunning writer. Narrated by an orphan girl, it touches on themes of transience and what it means to belong to a family or community.
Professor Andrew Biswell, Director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation – Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood (1976)
My recommendation for World Book Night is Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood, a remarkable autobiography which I have been reading with undiminished pleasure for 25 years. Isherwood wrote this book in 1977, when he was 73 years old. It’s a vivid account of the period in the 1920s and 1930s when he was living in Berlin, Amsterdam, Portugal, Copenhagen, Belgium and elsewhere in Europe. His partner, Heinz, was on the run from the German army, and Isherwood was on his way to becoming a major novelist. Along the way they encounter a variety of characters – rogues, con-artists, political maniacs, dissidents, nightclub artistes, sado-masochists – all of whom are brought to life by Isherwood’s rich talent as a portrait-painter.
Although Isherwood was already well known as the author of Goodbye to Berlin (adapted for the stage as the musical, Cabaret) when this book appeared, Christopher and His Kind represents a courageous coming-out moment from a major novelist who wanted to play his part in the gay liberation movement. His autobiography became an instant best-seller, and since his death in 1986 it has acquired the status of a classic. Many people know the BBC TV adaptation featuring Matt Smith of Doctor Who fame, but Isherwood’s gloriously uninhibited book still compels attention.