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Patrick McGrath

    February 7, 1950

    Patrick McGrath is a British novelist whose work is often categorized as gothic fiction. His prose delves into the darker recesses of the human psyche, frequently exploring themes of obsession, guilt, and fractured relationships. McGrath masterfully builds suspense and atmosphere, drawing readers into worlds steeped in mystery and moral ambiguity. His distinctive style is evocative, examining humanity's fascination with the shadow aspects of existence.

    Patrick McGrath
    Dr Haggard's Disease
    Asylum
    The Angel and Other Stories
    The Monk
    Last Days in Cleaver Square
    TOAD. Pocket Reference for Oracle
    • 2021

      Last Days in Cleaver Square

      • 320 pages
      • 12 hours of reading
      4.1(17)Add rating

      It is 1975 and an old man, Francis McNulty, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, is beset with sightings in his garden of his old nemesis, General Franco. The general is in fact in Spain, on his deathbed, but Francis is deeply troubled, as is his daughter Gillian, who lives with him in Cleaver Square. Francis' account of his haunting is by turns witty, cantankerous and nostalgic. At times he drifts back to his days in Madrid, when he rescued a young girl from a burning building and brought her back to London with him. There are other, darker events from that time, involving an American surgeon called Doc Roscoe, and a brief, terrible act of betrayal. When Gillian announces her forthcoming marriage to a senior civil servant, Francis realizes he has to adapt to new circumstances and confront his past once and for all. Highly atmospheric, and powerfully dramatic, rich in pathos and humour, Last Days in Cleaver Square confirms a major storyteller at the height of his powers. '[W]onderfully sinister ... a delight ... you are in for a thrilling ride.' Spectator on The Wardrobe Mistress.

      Last Days in Cleaver Square
    • 2017

      The Wardrobe Mistress

      • 320 pages
      • 12 hours of reading
      3.1(47)Add rating

      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

      The Wardrobe Mistress
    • 2014

      Constance

      • 229 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      The acclaimed Costa-shortlisted author of Trauma and Asylum brings us a masterful novel of psychological suspense and marriage in 1960s America

      Constance
    • 2014

      Set in the sinister monastery of The Capuchins in Madrid, The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions leads its main character, the monk Ambrosio, to temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt. Inspired by German horror romanticism and the work of Ann Radcliffe, Lewis produced his masterpiece at the age of 19. It contains many typical Gothic elements - seduction in a monastery, lustful monks, evil Abbesses, bandits, and beautiful heroines. But, as the Introduction to this new edition shows, Lewis also played with convention, ranging from gruesome realism to social comedy, and even parodied the genre in which he was writing

      The Monk
    • 2011

      Ein faszinierendes Werk mit seltenen Einblicken in den Prozess vom Buch zum Film Ein aufregendes Projekt von einem der originellsten Fotokünstler unserer Zeit Dies ist der magische Begleitband zum gleichnamigen Kurzfilm, der auf Filmfestivals weltweit zu sehen sein wird. Tim Walkers lange erwartetes, fantastisches filmisches Erstlingswerk ist genauso skurril und aufwendig in Szene gesetzt wie seine berühmten Modestrecken. Das Buch enthält die dem Film zugrunde liegende Kurzgeschichte von Patrick McGrath und ein Faksimile des mit Anmerkungen versehenen Filmskripts. Es entführt uns auf eine unvergessliche Reise mit der jungen Hauptfigur Evelyn, die zum Auftakt einer packenden Geschichte voll dunkler Abenteuer in ihrem Garten einen verschollenen Forscher entdeckt.

      The lost explorer
    • 2007

      Trauma

      • 240 pages
      • 9 hours of reading
      3.3(28)Add rating

      A psychiatrist specializing in trauma therapy finds himself confronting his own psychological struggles, blurring the lines between healer and patient. As he navigates the complexities of his clients' haunting experiences, he is drawn into a chilling exploration of the human psyche and the impact of trauma. The narrative promises to deliver a gripping blend of psychological tension and emotional depth, characteristic of the author's acclaimed style in contemporary psychological terror.

      Trauma
    • 2006

      SuperPocket: Port Mungo

      • 297 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      "From the days of their privileged, eccentric English childhood, Jack Rathbone has always enjoyed the adoration of his sister Gin. When both attend St. Martin's School of Art in London, it is a painful wrench for Gin to watch him fall under the spell of Vera Savage, a flamboyant, not entirely clean nor sober artist from Glasgow. Jack and Vera run off to New York and, from a bruised and bereft distance, sister Gin follows the couple's progress to Port Mungo, a seedy river town in the mangrove swamps of the Gulf of Honduras. There, Jack single-mindedly devotes himself to his art, while Vera succumbs to infidelity and a chronic restlessness, which even the birth of two daughters cannot subdue." Patrick McGrath tracks these individuals across decades and continents: the latter-day Gauguin figure Jack, his buccaneering mate Vera and their two girls, Peg and Anna, cast adrift in their parents' chaos - as observed by Gin, their far from detached chronicler. It is ultimately a world of dark tropical impulses and Manhattan art-market forces, where a mysterious death is swathed in tight complicit secrecy, and the imperatives of narcissism and art hold human beings in outlandish thrall.

      SuperPocket: Port Mungo
    • 2005
    • 2005

      Ghost town

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading
      3.6(236)Add rating

      From the war of Independence, via the turbulence of the nineteenth century to the aftermath of 9/11: three startling visions of New York combine in a book of extraordinary scope.

      Ghost town
    • 2004

      Port Mungo

      • 297 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      "From the days of their privileged, eccentric English childhood, Jack Rathbone has always enjoyed the adoration of his sister Gin. When both attend St. Martin's School of Art in London, it is a painful wrench for Gin to watch him fall under the spell of Vera Savage, a flamboyant, not entirely clean nor sober artist from Glasgow. Jack and Vera run off to New York and, from a bruised and bereft distance, sister Gin follows the couple's progress to Port Mungo, a seedy river town in the mangrove swamps of the Gulf of Honduras. There, Jack single-mindedly devotes himself to his art, while Vera succumbs to infidelity and a chronic restlessness, which even the birth of two daughters cannot subdue." Patrick McGrath tracks these individuals across decades and continents: the latter-day Gauguin figure Jack, his buccaneering mate Vera and their two girls, Peg and Anna, cast adrift in their parents' chaos - as observed by Gin, their far from detached chronicler. It is ultimately a world of dark tropical impulses and Manhattan art-market forces, where a mysterious death is swathed in tight complicit secrecy, and the imperatives of narcissism and art hold human beings in outlandish thrall.

      Port Mungo