Piers Paul Read Summary

Piers Paul Read was born in Beaconsfield, England, the son of poet, essayist, and art critic Herbert Read and Margaret Ludwig Read. When Read was eight his family moved to the rural north of Yorkshire... Read more

Critical Essay by Nick Totten Novels like Polonaise usually die at the outline stage. In skeletal form they impress everyone, not least the author; but as the appalling difficulty of actually writing... Read more

Critical Essay by James Brockway The sub-title of [Polonaise] should read: 'Or the Wreck of the Titanic'. Like the Titanic, the greater part of this book is a magnificent piece of engin... Read more

Critical Essay by David Craig Piers Paul Read's experimental novel [Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx] is an infuriating mixture of the trenchant and the perverse…. The novel spirals backw... Read more

Critical Essay by Christopher Lehmann-haupt Mr. Read has outdone himself [in "A Married Man"], blending for the first time with absolute success his preoccupations with domestic, social... Read more

Critical Essay by Thomas M. Disch The formula [for A Married Man] is familiar: a man of ordinary social dimensions is drawn inchmeal towards a pit of moral quicksand and then neatly pushed in. Usuall... Read more

Critical Essay by William H. Pritchard It is typical of Piers Paul Read that he should preface [A Married Man] with an Author's Note informing American readers about the difference in the Engl... Read more

Critical Essay by Angela Huth [In The Villa Golitsyn Mr. Read] skilfully infiltrates an air of menace, of intense unease, over the daily events that quicken towards the tragedy at the end. He juggles... Read more

Critical Essay by John Mellors Breaches of etiquette come thick and fast in Piers Paul Read's The Villa Golitsyn, from insulting one's guests at dinner to talking about money—&#x... Read more

Critical Essay by David Rees [The Junkers is an ambitious novel and inevitably leaves a] confused, fragmented impression as one realises towards the end of the book that the author has failed, honour... Read more

Critical Essay by Edwin Morgan A year spent by [Piers Paul Read] in America seems to have tempted him into writing [The Professor's Daughter, a] low-keyed, unexciting account of the generation... Read more

Critical Essay by Carl Senna The Professor's Daughter is a good fictional portrait of our American malaise. Here a father and his daughter find that their search for a meaningful cause is an o... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Prince Mr Read's non-fiction approach, as we know from Alive, is to surround large and shocking events with understated prose. It seemed to work well for such a lurid s... Read more