By Erica Eisdorfer
My colleague at the Bull’s Head read The Pesthouse by the novelist Jim Crace and really loved it. We often appreciate the same sorts of books, so armed with her advice I took it home, where my husband, as is his wont, snatched it away and wouldn’t let me have it back. He loved it. When he’d finished it and I was able to get my hands on it, he went to The Bookshop and bought a used copy of Being Dead, also by Jim Crace.
When he returned to the house, he put the copy of Being Dead on the kitchen table where I found it and then hid it so that when I finished The Pesthouse, which I was crazy about, I would have something to read. Meanwhile, bewildered by the disappearance of Being Dead, my husband went to the library where he checked out Quarantine and Gift of Stones and Arcadia, all by Crace. By that time, I’d finished the extremely impressive Being Dead, at which point I called my mother, who is certainly the pickiest reader the world has ever known. Like, if it ain’t Proust, what good is it really, is her point of view. Even she thought Being Dead was tremendous. I have now promised that I will get Being Dead back from my mother so that my husband can bring it on our vacation. Otherwise, he’ll want to be bringing library books with us, which means that we will lose them and then the fines will kill us.
The Pesthouse: A completely riveting apocalyptic story of a couple who journey through the USA of the future, when the term “Americans†is as exotic as the word “Etruscans.†The writing is clear and gorgeous and the story is completely compelling and ingenious.
Being Dead: A Whitbread Award (England’s big book prize) winner. A middle-aged couple is murdered on a beach and as their bodies are being deconstructed by nature (Crace knows a whole lot of forensic science), their marriage – as mundane and profound as marriages usually are – is deconstructed for us by the narrative.
Quarantine: An alternate account of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, during which time he eases the sufferings of a merchant who wasn’t all that nice a guy to begin with.