276°
Posted 20 hours ago

The Loney: the contemporary classic

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Well, then – here is the masterpiece by which Hurley must enter the Guild of the Gothic: it pleases me to think of his name written on some parchment scroll, alongside those of Walpole, Du Maurier, Maturin and Jackson. The landscape that I saw and felt when I was writing The Loney was one of co-existing opposites: then and now, buried and unearthed, permanent and transitory, real and unreal. He is as happy with births, marriages and deaths as he is with hammed-up folk ritual and dialogue that splits the difference between Stella Gibbons and Susan Cooper. who were running some kind of 'sacrifice a child and get well' scheme but, as you say, Hanny's part in it made no sense: they shoot him (why? Clearly Tonto had been prescribed therapy and it seemed he and Hanny were no longer on speaking terms until the very end of the story, after the baby's body has been found and the subsequent "awakening" of memories in Hanny.

As I read of Collier, Parkinson, Clement etc I actually found myself thinking of the film "Straw Dogs. Lastly, I think that Tonto always worred that Hanny might revert to his old self or somehow remember that he had shot that baby. I may be looking back on those lunches hunkered down behind a stone wall in the rain or those interminable trudges up Skiddaw or Scafell Pike with a little more affection than I felt at the time, but I clearly remember that there was an excitement to it all, not least the danger of high paths and steep ridges. She also has a pet white cat - like the black cat in the USA, it is a symbol of evil in the UK (or so I've read). It’s an odd place to holiday, but the burning purpose of this pilgrimage is to visit the nearby shrine, where it is hoped that Hanny, who has a condition that seems to be a combination of severe learning difficulties and muteness, might be cured.Hurley's third novel Starve Acre was published 31 October 2019 by John Murray ( ISBN 9781529387261). The Loney is a stunning novel—about faith, the uncanny, strange rituals, and the oddity of human experience. But descriptions of water and wind don’t necessarily make a novel and so I began to think about how the landscape might be used to explore religion and belief – a subject which had been niggling away at me for some time and perhaps was always going to form my first book.

Who was Jenny Brown of Jenny Brown’s Point, where the chimney from an old copper smelt still remains?but then the local satanists (or whatever they are) end up giving Hanny, the mute brother, his health (after, he can speak and his wounded leg is fixed) in exchange for Else's baby who is left shrivelled up like a prune on the floor.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment