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American born but naturalised French, Eugène Green is a writer, filmmaker and expert in baroque theatre and music. This collection of 5 short stories demonstrates the unique perspective on the world seen in his films, simple little tales that taking the form of fairytales – Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, disgruntled fairies casting spells are all in here – presenting them in a modern context. Although there is knowingness and humour in the stories, there’s no sense of irony or parody, Green using their structure and delicately twisting them to show innocence at large in the often cruel wider world – or at least in the beautiful setting of the Seine and the Paris Left-Bank district of Saint-Suplice. Simply magical.

Zeroville comes as some relief after the impenetrable stream-of-consciousness of Our Ecstatic Days , and surprisingly just so happens to be Steve Erickson's most accessible book yet. That's providing you are well-versed in classic Hollywood and international cinema. If so, you're in for a treat. Vikar is a troubled young man who arrives in Los Angeles in the late sixties, bearing a tattoo of his favourite film on his shaven head, trying to escape from a strict religious upbringing and an oppressive father through his love of movies. Through his relationships with maverick characters in the movie industry, his obsession with movies and an encounter with a mysterious bit-part actress who may just be the unacknowledged daughter of Luis Buñuel, Vikar delves into the mythology of Hollywood filmmaking and, as a film editor, starts to formulate and put into practice his own unique vision of the world as a movie. Not quite as hallucinatory or visionary as the author's best wor...

There's no doubt that Evans can write well and you can't deny the impact he achieves with the opening scene of The Divide , the mood and tone perfect for the discovery of a body by two skiers in the Montana wilderness, or the emotional force he achieves with the gut-wrenching reaction the discovery has on the parents of the dead girl.  The correctness of tone and quality of the writing is maintained throughout the main section of the novel, a flashback sequence which recounts the events leading up to the present. There's a strong thematic coherence as well, capturing in the break-up of the Cooper family the deep sense of a divide and shift in attitudes between class, generations and their relative values in modern-day America, particularly with regard to environmental issues. The division between the old world and a post 9/11 loss of innocence however seems a bit forced.  It is all a little neat - particularly the well-wrapped conclusion - but Evans manages to capture this ...