WSJ? Whassa' then?

My US editor emailed me with news of, in his words, a "fantastic review in the WSJ". Naturally, I was pleased. Any good review is gratifying. Though I did have to admit I had no idea what the WSJ is. I was rather embarrassed to learn that it's The Wall Street Journal. Somehow, I feel I ought to have been able to work that out.

I haven't seen the whole review and I can't find it online (think you have to be a subscriber). But here's the quote that Scott sent me:

"English writer R. N. Morris has produced perhaps the most audacious police-inspector novel of the season with "The Gentle Axe."....The tale hums along with controlled excitement, as if written by a Russian minimalist and rendered by a fine translator. The psychological and spiritual themes seem worthy of Dostoyevsky; there are traces of Gogol and Gorky, too. Such an accomplished book transcends pastiche."

In other news

Last week (I think it was last week - no maybe it was two weeks ago!) I went to see a screening of Strike, the 1924 silent movie by Eisenstein, at the Barbican. It was being shown with a new sound track by my friend Ed Hughes. It was a wonderful experience and Ed's music was fantastic. The dvd is going to be released by Tartan Video on July 16th. It will also contain Battleship Potemkin, also with a new soundtrack by Ed, and a propaganda film called October, which does not have Ed's music on it.

I've also made a short (very short!) film which uses Ed's music. It's the following trailer for my novel Taking Comfort.

taking comfort

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Ed contacted me this week to let me know that a project we worked on many years ago, a short one-act opera called The Devil's Drum, is going to get a new performance. It has been picked up by a young director called Poppy Burton-Morgan and she is putting on a production at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, on Monday August 20th. I'm very excited about that, as there is nothing quite like the thrill of live performance.

Oh, yes, almost forgot... an old story of mine, called 'The Tender-hearted Man', has been published in Libbon, the short story magazine. My thanks to the editor David Soulsby, for picking it out.