Patrick McGrath is a master of novels about post-traumatic fragmentation and dissolution, set amid gothic gloom. His childhood years spent at Broadmoor, where his father was medical superintendent, have given him a solid grounding in psychiatric illness for these disquieting dramas.
His ninth novel is set in London’s theatreland in 1947, and the grey, skeletal remains of the bombed East End. As usual with McGrath, the narrator is far from straightforward; in this case it is the ladies of the local theatre-world chorus, who are omniscient, knowing each character’s thoughts. In the absence of an obviously unreliable narrator (such as the possessive Dr Cleave of Asylum or the deluded eponymous doctor of Dr Haggard’s Disease), these disembodied voices resemble a classical Greek chorus, describing and passing judgment on the drama as it unfolds.
And judgmental they certainly are.
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