Author:D. H. Lawrence,Paul Poplawski,James Lasdun
The three works collected in this volume, all written in 1924, explore the profound effects on protagonists who embark on psychological voyages of liberation. In St Mawr, Lou Witt buys a beautiful, untamable bay stallion and discovers an intense affinity with the horse that she cannot feel with her husband. This superb novella displays Lawrence's mastery of satirical comedy in a scathing depiction of London's fashionable horse riding set. 'The Princess' portrays the intimacy between an aloof woman and her male guide as she travels through New Mexico in search of new experiences, while in 'The Woman who Rode Away' a woman's religious quest in Mexico brings great danger - and astonishing self-discovery.
These are stories in the easiest and most pleasurable sense of the word. MacLaverty's work is in a line from Chekhov, via Frank O'Connor
—— Anne Enright , GuardianI have not read anything as good for a long time
—— Literary ReviewEleven exquisite examples of the genre... MacLaverty writes with consumamte skill... This is a book to cherish and one to read and re-read with pleasure in the skilful craft of its composition
—— Irish IndependentMacLaverty is an exhilarating, tender, humorous wirter... who can set a scene and create a character with Chekhovian delicacy and economy... He reminds us that although life is a dangerous, painful business, we should never despair
—— Sunday TelegraphThis stupendous new book - crucial, shattering sentences - that express, modestly, monumentally the achievement of this extraordinary writer. He is in behind your eyes before you feel his thinking knife ...Matters of Life and Death is a great book. The explicit presiding literary presence is Chekhov. Not reached nor striven for, innate, rather
—— Candia McWilliams , Scottish Review of BooksThis most enticing of writers is also one of the most penetrating
—— Rosemary Goring , HeraldHis insights into the female mind are unique
—— Jackie McGlone , Scotland on SundayA masterly control of pace and structure, pitch-perfect capturing of voice, characterisation that has spot on credibility, human pleasure in life's satisfactions shadowed by awareness of the ways in which they can be jeopardised
—— Peter Kemp , Sunday TimesMacLaverty has never written more powerfully or with greater authorial grip
—— Tom Adair , ScotsmanThis is a fine collection of short stories, sometimes brutal and shocking, but written with a sort of underground tenderness
—— The TimesMacLaverty's stories don't lack drama, but their effect is subtle and stealthy: they creep up on you
—— Ludovic Hunter-Tilney , Financial TimesA master at work...richly textured, filled with vividly humorous detail
—— Lee Langley , Daily MailConfirms MacLaverty's status as an impressive heir of Chekhov and James Joyce
—— Peter Kemp , Sunday Times