Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction - Alison MacLeod

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About Alison MacLeod

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Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction

» Alison MacLeod

Hamish Hamilton
Paperback : 27 Sep 2007

£8.99

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Synopsis

Sexy, tender, funny and haunting by turns, the stories in Alison MacLeod’s daring new collection are tales of lovers, would-be lovers and lovers gone wrong. Here we discover ECT patient Gloria, who falls for her anaesthetist, ‘Dr Numb’; the cerebral Nick, who chases after the heavily pregnant Katie at an Ikea sale; and the legendary lovers Heloise and Abelard re-imagined for the twenty-first century. With settings that range from a cheap Paris café to London’s Hayward Gallery, and from the Brighton seafront to the Nova Scotia coast, these stories are at times magical, at times grittily real, but always affecting.

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Critic Review:

"Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction" is a potent and heady mix. Avoiding the perils of both overt erudition and sentimental whimsy, the whole is ably piloted by MacLeod’s total control of her material. Highly recommended. ' Time Out (London)

'MacLeod's fictions are modern indeed. They are fragmentary evocations of desire and its mysteries, passing glimpses into minds and hearts: tender; pierced; translucent.... [Her] characters are strong, and they are worth listening to...' Guardian

'Beautifully crafted, they range from brilliantly observed humour - customers stampeding in Ikea at the store's launch in Notes for a Chaotic Century - to the haunting and heart-rending - the tender elegy to a middle-aged love affair in Dirty Weekend. Immensely readable.' Big Issue

'MacLeod's range – spanning the movingly real to the mysteriously surreal – is excitingly, imaginatively realised and unified by an awareness of the dark menace of love's uncertainty.' Metro (London)