Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences, and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as “Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes.” By following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography, and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code.
Wilson revels in her sublimely contrary subject ... Wilson...feels free to focus on the parts of Spark’s life that informed her art—and luckily for us, these are plentiful, both because Spark liked to rework her own experiences and acquaintances for her fiction, and because her life tended toward the fantastical in ways that served her writing.
A deeply intelligent, captivating and passionate work that reminds us of everything a literary biography can and should be ... Wilson has the utmost respect for Spark, but more important for a biographer, she has fervent curiosity about her ... Who was the real Muriel Spark? We may never know, and that’s the joy and delight of this book.
