Abandoned by his creative muse, famous painter Olly Orme finds himself in a state of “rigor artis”.
This self-confessed petty thief decides to help himself to his friend’s wife, Polly Plomer, and their semi-passionate fling plays out with rippling repercussions, not just for the duo themselves. When news of their illicit coupling reaches Polly’s husband and Olly’s best friend, Marcus, it prompts our cowardly anti-hero to hide out in his childhood home, from where he reflects on the affair and its aftermath. Banville’s 16th novel is not his greatest feat of storytelling, but his wonderful writing is worth the price of admission. “How treacherous language is, more slippery even than paint,” opines Olly, yet Banville’s prose is delightfully muscular, whether musing on art or the stench of dog farts, the “borborygmic blarings” of a three-piece band or “the flames of guilt and dread that lick at the lover’s bared and bouncing backside.” Exquisite.