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“... on politics (the object of Michael’s affections complains that he’s ‘too dogmatic’, too ‘black and white’), while the tragi-farcical ending collapses the different levels of reality in a surprising and effective way. In The House of Sleep, on the other hand, a kinky, right-wing mad scientist rubs shoulders with more plausible cast members for no ...”

“... and most obvious dreams, the psychoanalyst deduces the most incongruous and extravagant results. A black savage tells him that he has dreamed of being chased by lions, or, maybe, by crocodiles; and the psycho man knows at once that the black is suffering from the Oedipus complex. That is, he is madly in love with his own ...”

“... poet runs off with her infant daughter and conceals herself from his inquiries by passing as a black lone parent. The racial caste system in rural Virginia being what it is, the blonde daughter, Karen, grows up not only thinking of herself as being black but accepted as such by everyone around her, to the extent ...”

“... of comparative philology. This cardinal fact about him comes forcibly home in a letter to his son Christopher dated 21 February 1958. Christopher had read a paper to a college society on the heroes of Northern legend as seen in different fashion by Germanic poets and Roman writers. His father, having heard the paper, went ...”

“... to death, in unexplained circumstances, in a high-security prison cell in 1992. His son and heir, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, is the man the Jamaican army and police were looking for when they killed at least 73 civilians in a raid on the Tivoli Gardens estate in West Kingston in 2010. So there are more than enough killings to go around. James begins his ...”

“... other to give warning of the action to come. And this is not all that frightfully difficult, since black people en masse can still be recognised, whether in New York or Atlanta, by their signature noise of Unnhhh ... unnhhh, while the susceptibilities of the well-to-do are summoned with equal ease as follows: ‘All of ...”

“... while being at the same time, in a faintly macabre way, en fête. I could have got in without a black tie, but would have looked wildly conspicuous in mufti and was glad to have observed the protocol of the invitation. The event had the feel of a fundraiser for the Republicans (or, admittedly, in these days of high-tab politics, the Democrats). Since Warhol ...”

“... is killed with his dogs and servants, not by Irishmen resenting his English connections, but by Black and Tans avenging the hanging of an informer from a Quinton oak. Willie’s mother takes to drink and slits her wrists. In the emotion of the moment, Marianne conceives shy Willie’s child, but by the time she knows and has cut herself off from her ...”

“... two palm trees in the foreground. It is hard to see the illustration clearly because of two thick black cancellations which almost obliterate it, but this vignette is of some significance – it is upside down. I feel a little guilty seeing the Lake Taupo for the first time in these surroundings – Jason and I are sitting on a small sofa in the Mount Vernon ...”

“... with more than the usual leavening of colonial Frenchness’. Then, shouldering a handbag ‘of black East German laminate, purchased on eBay’, she steels herself for a mind-blowing trip to the pullulating ‘logo-maze’ of Harvey Nichols. Cayce – pronounced ‘Case’, not ‘Casey’ – is a spectacularly talented, unerringly prescient branding ...”

“... The Olcester Hudsonite, The Las Vegas Review and The Gleaner. 100% HUMAN HAIR declared a sign on Christopher. We saw a president declare a war in the TV store in Union Square. The Oregon Emerald, The Forty-Niner, The Panther and The Pine Bluff Commercial, The West Plains Daily Quill, The Kingman Miner, The Point and The Wichita Eagle. In Gramercy Park I ...”

“... famous bon mot – veni, vidi, vici – for his campaigns in Pontus on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Britain was annexed a century later by the otherwise unmilitary Claudius who, once his generals advised that victory was certain, sailed from Boulogne with reinforcements. Most accounts of Roman Britain pass quickly over the initial shock of conquest ...”

“... narrator of Enduring Love, is an obvious example, as is Bernard, the no-nonsense materialist in Black Dogs (1992). If the fantasists are too solipsistic, these figures are too relentlessly outward-looking for corrective self-scrutiny. Bernard, like Joe, loses the woman he loves, accused by her of being obsessed with rationality at the expense of ...”

“... man’ in the fall of 1999. And like the doomed protagonist, George, in the novel A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood, I too was gay; I too was an English professor (on a one-term sabbatical back then); I too was middle-aged (at 39 years old then, whereas George is 58); I too was living in Los Angeles (although my teaching position is in Iowa City); I too ...”

“... naive argument that he might not say such-and-such about absolute freedom in America if he were black. An incredulous pause, a bulge in the vinous features and then the outraged roar, ‘But I’m not black, yer daft booger!’ Fond, perhaps over-fond of recalling his days as a working-class Yorkshire socialist lad, he ...”