James Lasdun: The Horned Man

By PETER CALDER*

Unpredictability is the strong suit of this literate psychological thriller, which plays with the postmodern commonplace, that reality is what we construct it to be.

Lasdun, a poet and writing teacher at Princeton who wrote the story that formed the basis of Bernardo Bertolucci's excellent film Besieged, plays his cards so cannily that the reader is always slightly off-balance, drawn forward through a story that looks like a murder mystery but turns out to be much more.

His central character is, like the author, an Englishman abroad and an academic in America who begins to notice puzzling evidence that someone is in his office when he is not. As he investigates he finds himself drawn into what looks like a complicated conspiracy but ends up being a textured rumination on the nature of truth and the perils of self-regard.

It's not hard to see what gave Lasdun the intriguing idea and it's impressive to watch the way he weaves a dense fabric of narrative from a single thread of symbol. His technical virtuosity is breathtaking. He is a poet who uses words like "cumbrous" but it never seems laboured. His imagery is often inspired: the last patron in a bar as staff put chairs on tables, he sees "the upturned chairs approaching like a herd of inquisitive cattle".

Rich, dense, allusive but never less than crystal clear, the prose drags the reader by the nose and offers that delicious ambivalence that only the best novels manage - you can't stop reading but you don't want it to end.

Jonathan Cape

$36.95

* Peter Calder is a freelance journalist.