Glaister, Lesley

(British, 1956– )

Glaister often writes about women whose experience has pushed them outside conventional life, towards horrific destinations. Begin with Trick or Treat (1991), which deals with three sets of neighbours, most memorably the aged couple Olive (too fat now to go out) and her skinny partner Arthur, still together and still socialist after fifty years. Move on to Digging to Australia (1992), which describes a young girl growing up, and veers between the innocence of her naturist parents’ home and the evil lurking in the unholy church she visits. Partial Eclipse (1994) takes the same character on to commit arson. In Sheer Blue Bliss (1999) a disturbed youth takes hostage the elderly painter Connie, to try to force her to give him a magical elixir created by her dead partner. Connie is a wonderfully vivid, eccentric, sharply drawn character. There is a thread of dark humour running through all these books.

Anne Fine, Hilary Mantel, Deborah Moggach  JR