Home Books Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel

Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel

Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel

by Frances Wilson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux ·2025 ·432 pages
New Release
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Near the Top
I Index
58/99
Top of the Pile

91/99

Critics' Rating Index

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24/99

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Scholars' Citation Index

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Volume of Reviews

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About This Book

The award-winning biographer Frances Wilson presents an exhilarating new look at Muriel Spark, the most consummate artist of the twentieth century."Is the story fact? Is it fiction? It is what it is." —Muriel SparkThe word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is "puzzling." Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences, and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as "Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes." Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography, and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code.Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skullduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Spark, it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.


Reviews

"A multifaceted study of the writer through her work ..."

Marcus Field· The Evening Standard Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Tempting and extraordinary morsels."

Isabel Berwick· Financial Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Wilson's investigation into this part of Spark's career provides plenty of drama, both high and petty."

Brooke Allen· The Wall Street Journal Near the Top

"Wilson, 'taking direction' from Spark's habit of writing character lists for her novels, is at her high-spirited best in creating a grisly gallery of The Poetry Review's former editors and contributors, presented with all of Spark's malice and wit ..."

Miranda Seymour· New York Review of Books Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Fitfully illuminating the novels ..."

Peter Kemp· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Wilson revels in her sublimely contrary subject ..."

Judith Shulevitz· The Atlantic Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Wilson is understandably drawn to a period when a formidable writer devoted her energies to biographical projects ..."

Leo Robson· Bookforum Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Wilson does not aim to revise or correct Stannard's more conventional, straightforward biography."

Audrey Wollen· The New Yorker Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"A darting, innovative example of the form — perhaps more Ouija board than book ..."

Alexandra Jacobs· The New York Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"But Wilson often repeats herself…and aims for clever turns of phrase that end up saying too little ..."

Walker Rutter-Bowman· The New Republic Read review ↗ Near the Top

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