Having spent many years spinning various tales to the hacks sent to get her life story, Vida has finally sent for a biographer to tell the truth about her early life. What’s it about?Įxtremely successful author Vida Winter is dying. This sustained me as the narrative-within-a-narrative moved on to focus on a pair of almost mythically awful characters: violent Charlie and manipulative Isabelle. And nothing is more telling than a story.’Īfter that seriously engaging opening I was delighted to realise that this is a story in which books and reading and storytelling and truth are inextricably bound up in the narrative. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. I discovered Diane Setterfield’s ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ at my local Lounge bar book swap one afternoon and was immediately hooked. You know a story’s good when you start again at the beginning as soon as you’ve read the ending.
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