#literary-biography

#literary-biography

I never felt the influence of Muriel Spark, despite the fact that she was a substantial female figure in British literature. It's a pity, because there was much to learn from her macabre, entirely unsentimental art and its account of the strange violence of living. It was only quite recently, when I came across a new volume of her collected letters (meticulously edited by Dan Gunn), that I first felt confronted by her persona.

In 1951, a blind 65-year-old man named Max Gerlach claimed he was the inspiration for Jay Gatsby, asserting, 'I'm the real Jay Gatsby.' His story went largely ignored.