Unbelievable Things

When the old man died, Dr Brunner found in Gallagher's room five boxes of manuscripts. They told the story of the Gorst family and their rambling house in southern England, and how Gallagher had fallen in love with Monika Gorst. But there was something odd about this story and the way it was told. And then Brunner died and the story went on without him - which did not seem to bother Bezerides, who once said that he was not from earth. Moving between The Clock House and a psychiatric institution, the Western Front and the Bolshevik Revolution, this postmodern tale may be the first to rewrite the English country house novel and the history of the twentieth century from the perspective of Alpha Centauri. "Characters change name, as do actions, or even existence according to what draft of the text is in favour. Earlier drafts may have been abandoned but references to them and the changes abound. Homage is paid to authors such as Philip K. Dick and William Burroughs, including using occasional characters from other authors. In short, it is immense fun and keeps you frequently wondering what is going on. Sharp not only addresses serious issues, not only subverts the novel form and makes us think very clearly about what it is and what it means and why it might be no longer relevant to the contemporary world and not only keeps us both laughing and wondering throughout, he tells a good story or, rather, several stories." "Sharp's writing in this narrative is astonishingly various in manner and technique. Firmly in the cloacal tradition of Swift, Joyce and Beckett, he is a supreme master of comic disgust. Yet he is also deeply serious and can write descriptive prose of astonishing passion and power." "This novel is rather like a singular traditional story told by a multitude of competing voices and idioms, some real and some fictional, all stretching and distorting the narrative in their peculiar telling - imagine, for instance, Jane Austen lying in a large unmade bed with Tolstoy, the two of them seriously blocked with amphetamines, having various breakdowns, while downing their fourth bottle of red. As far-fetched and hyperbolic as all this may seem, the above description is actually, after reading this extraordinary book myself, quite true to form - only I would take it a step further: imagine, if you will, the same surreal scene on the bed, only it being suddenly gate-crashed by William S. Burroughs, Laurence Sterne and B. S. Johnson and various fanatical film aficionados of every description, all carrying their own stash of heavy intoxicants, dribbling, yakking, jabbering, pouring out their thoughts, all at once, in a cacophony of literary and linguistic brilliance. You see, then, and only then may one begin to realise the grand landscape Ellis Sharp has created within ." Lee Rourke,