Description
Book Synopsis''Brisk, bawdy and reckless'' Evening Standard
''A freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh'' Observer
The Alms for Oblivion sequence - an extraordinary series of murders, suicides, affairs, fighting, fires and at least one explosion, blackmail, gambling, illness, madness, lots of parties and plenty of sex - draws to a close with two novels about death and retribution. But Simon Raven''s achievement and the conflicted, colourful or uniquely vile characters he created are not easily forgotten after the last page is turned.
Volume III includes Bring Forth the Body and The Survivors
''There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell''s A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the c
Trade Review
Majestic, scurrilous and scabrous... Raven's novels are joyous in their characterisation, wit and erudition....truffling in the fertile fields of soldiery, academia, business, politics and publishing. Raven's world - the upper middle class and upper class - is peopled by some of the vilest, funniest characters in English literature. * Observer *
A ready made cult waiting to be discovered * Spectator *
A truly powerful vision of evil and corruption. This is an achievement which can hardly be dismissed as mere entertainment * Times Literary Supplement *
Exciting, sleazy, cynical and funny... Indulgently bizarre sex scenes rub shoulders with sharply observed human dilemmas and relentlessly exposed psychological and political manipulation * Sunday Times *
His world is as original and surrealist as P. G. Wodehouse's, an alligator swamp in the homely back garden where all manner of nasty things hatch out * Guardian *
