A haunting novel about grief, love, secrets and fascism from the author of Asylum, Trauma and Spider.
Patrick McGrath is the author of two short story collections and nine novels, including the international bestseller, Asylum. He is also the author of Writing Madness, a collection of his short fiction and selected non-fiction. His novel Trauma was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Spider was filmed by David Cronenberg from McGrath's adaptation. He co-edited an influential anthology of short fiction, The New Gothic, and recent non-fiction includes introductions to The Monk, Moby Dick and Barnaby Rudge. Patrick McGrath lives in Manhattan and London.
The Wardrobe Mistress isn’t just an entertaining ghost story,
assembled by a master-manipulator to be full of narrative
trapdoors, tantalising at one moment and agreeably grotesque the
next: it’s also an exploration of the deep mythology of theatre . .
. McGrath himself seems ambivalent about the sentimentality he
depicts. But there’s no political ambivalence here: by the end of
the novel, the icy postwar alleys, the shattered theatres and
public houses are under the malign enchantment of a quietly
resurgent politics. The plentiful mirrorings, the doppelgangers and
dybbuks both real and false, make that plain, and make plain that
fascism is also a kind of theatre – always already a re-enactment
of itself.
*Guardian*
A brilliant evocation of the theatrical world’s seedy glamour, The
Wardrobe Mistress is also a moving portrait of a woman struggling
to make sense of her past and imagine a future for herself.
*Sunday Times*
McGrath is so adept at creating a sense of foreboding that one is
never sure whether there will be a rational, a psychiatric or a
supernatural explanation . . . wonderfully sinister . . . a delight
. . . you are in for a thrilling ride.
*Spectator*
A chilling novel of grief, passion and unfulfilled longing, where
secrets lurk in every dark alley . . . McGrath takes us backstage
in the London theatre — and you can just about smell the
greasepaint. But he also opens out his story to embrace the
zeitgeist of the time, the misery and deprivation of post-war
Britain, the persistent running sore of fascism and the feeling
that life after victory isn’t what it was supposed to be.
*Daily Mail*
A rich and highly spiced feast of a novel, even before it reaches
its classically gothic McGrath climax
*Reader’s Digest*
[A] theatrical tale of malice, artifice and stunted affection.
*Mail on Sunday*
Splendid…spooky, elegant, self-aware and intellectually deft
*Telegraph*
[An] unnerving thriller.
*Stylist*
Absolutely superb.
*Saga Magazine*
McGrath delivers another accomplished novel.
*Woman & Home*
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