Review of Spotted Lily (Paperback)

SPOTTED LILY is a remarkable novel of dark satire.It is brutal and terrifying.It is painful and beautiful.It is profound and I think it has the makings of a classic.This is far from an easy read, and it is not commercial -- it simply cannot be, not with the nature of themes it explores:god is dead and ultimate ennui.

Herein lies a peculiar, resonant, and bitter combination of Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, a very adult version of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS, and frequent touches of Kafka and Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.

The satire is dark and biting and yet it is the pathos of Angela that got to me, her humanism and vulnerabily and the subtle nature of the fragile self and self-image hell (on earth!) she wallows in -- it broke my heart.

The novel is steeped in a succession of naturalist and surreal details -- sensual, beautiful/ugly dissonance and erotic fetish, frequently shocking and supremely memorable.There is loss of dignity and the redemption of self, over and over; a dance.

And the Australian heart is there -- I who have never been to Australia feel that now I have; the Bush is IMPRINTED upon me. Her childhood home, the secret place her father wept... flowers placed in ordinary jam jars to bloom in small private wonder.

The journey of Angela is ultimately an amazing piece of pshychological portraiture.And her deal with the Devil is merely the tip of the iceberg.

This is, to me, a work of literary significance, far transcending the boundaries of genre of the fantastic -- Anna Tambour makes an amazing novel debut.

Product Description
Angela Pendergast, escapee from the Australian bush, grew up with the smell of hot mutton fat in her hair, the thought of her teeth crunching a cold Tim Tam chocolate biscuit-the height of decadent frivolity.

Now, though her tastes have grown and she knows absolutely what she wants, her life is embarrassingly stuck.

So when the Devil drops into her bedroom in her sharehouse in inner-city Sydney with a contract in hand, she signs.

He's got only a Hell's week to fulfil his side, but in the meantime he must chaperone her-or is it the other way around?

A Locus Recommended Reading List Selection

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