Date: 16 August 2010
Henry has written a bestseller, but can't get anyone to publish his second project. One of his readers makes contact via letters and Henry, intrigued, goes to visit. He finds a taxidermist, talented at his craft but anti-social, who has written a play about Virgil, a howler monkey and Beatrice, a donkey. The play contains the best description of pears that you are ever likely to come across. All intriguing but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The novel is a metaphor for the holocaust and is a very disturbing read.
cao