Dimensions
131 x 197 x 8mm
That Mark Haddon's first book after 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' was a poetry collection perhaps came as a surprise to his legions of fans; that it is a collection of such virtuosity and range did not.
The gifts so admired in Haddon's prose are in strong evidence here too – the humanity of his voices, the dark humour and the uncanny ventriloquism – but Haddon is also a writer of considerable seriousness, lyric power and surreal invention, and 'The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea' combines bittersweet love-lyrics, lucid and bold new versions of Horace, comic set-pieces, lullabies, wry postmodern shenanigans (including a note from the official board of censors on 18 certificate poetry), and an entire John Buchan novel condensed to five pages.
Consolidating Haddon's reputation as our most powerful myth-weavers and spell-makers, 'The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea' also confirms him as one of the most outrageous and freewheeling imaginations at work in contemporary literature.
