Spark’s Satire

From a fraudulent psychiatrist grappling with two equally fraudulent clients in Aiding and Abetting, to the dirty dealings of The Abbess of Crewe’s band of corrupt nuns, to the three plane crash survivors of Robinson eking out an existence on an Atlantic island after its resident mystic disappears, these three satires probe the recesses of human fallibility with formidable precision. Spanning five decades, the glittering, sharp and sinister works of Spark’s Satire confirm their author as one of our most incisive and wickedly funny satirists.

Reviews of Spark’s Satire

Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass — JOHN UPDIKE * New Yorker * Enchanting, devastating genius — HELEN DUNMORE Peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent – the creme de la creme — IAN RANKIN A receptive and wholly distinctive genius * Spectator * A wholly original presence in modern literature — ANDREW MOTION The care with which she uses words is matched by a gloriously carefree attitude. It's all part of her sanity, her breezy authorial self-confidence; and because of this I think that reading a blast of her prose every morning is a far more restorative way to start a day than a shot of espresso * Daily Telegraph * A profoundly serious comic writer whose wit advances, never undermines or diminishes, her ideas * New York Times Book Review * She has a receptive and wholly distinctive genius — A N WILSON * Spectator * Spark is a natural, a paradigm of that rare sort of artist from whom work of the highest quality flows as elementally as current through a circuit * New Yorker * There can be few novelists who command such a formidable technique * Financial Times * Brilliant, Sparkian ice — ALI SMITH