 First edition | |
| Author | Muriel Spark |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Go-Away Bird with Other Stories |
| Cover artist | Victor Reinganum |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Macmillan (UK) Lippincott (US) |
Publication date | 1958 (UK), 1960 (US) |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 215 |
The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories is the first short story collection by Scottish author Muriel Spark, first published in 1958 by Macmillan in the UK and in 1960 by Lippincott in the US.
It contains 11 stories :-
Writing in the New York Times Aileen Pippett praises the collection: "They are at once spine-chilling and comical, teasing the imagination, sticking like burrs to the memory. They tell of what indubitably happened one is momentarily convinced, but in a very odd world...She communicates her special vision of the universe because she is a master of her craft, combining simple language with subtle construction and because she has perception of the reality of evil. Damnation and salvation are facts to her, and so is hocus pocus. The mixture of mischief and mystery makes her work unique." [3]
Thomas Rogers writes in Commentary about Spark: "Her chief equipment is a style that suggests neighbourhood gossip raised to art by the exercise of an economy that does not destroy the texture of petty, solid, local factuality. She tells you about her characters in a tone that applies scandal where there is none, and she employs this tone even when she is dealing with frankly supernatural events...I am able to become annoyed by tone so much at odds with the material, but when Miss Spark handles realistic subjects her potential coyness disappears and in stories like 'The Black Madonna' she illuminates a whole slice of postwar English life." [4]
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