The Astonishing Colour of After

The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily X.R. Pan -Set in America and Taiwan, this young adult novel has elements of gothic, including allusions to Emily Dickinson’s poetry, ghosts and ghostly communications …including an explanation of the East-Asian buddhist concept of the hungry ghost and its associated festival, supernatural avians and a central concern with memory and remembering. It’s also notable for its heterosexual, lesbian and cross-cultural love stories (Sarah Olive, Bangor).

Patient X

Patient X by David Peace – A fictionalised (or is it?) biography of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, populated with lashings of rehashings of the famed Japanese writer’s own work. It has a thematic emphasis on in/sanity and containment. The friendlier critics suggest it has stylistic echoes of Henry James and Edgar Allen Poe. (Sarah Olive, Bangor)