This inaugural post is going by the same name I chose for the blog; apparently the title of the last novel ever written by Angela Carter before she died and held back from publication by the trustees of her estate until 2006. According to this arguably dubious website Carter was in the final stages of terminal lung cancer when she wrote it thus giving the novel a cathartic sense of loss and a sorrowful perspective not found in her previous novels.
The problem is, I cannot find evidence of the actual existence of this book anywhere! Is it a literary myth? Angela Carter is possibly my favourite author of all time. Her novels, short-fiction and essays envelope wonderfully many things I love in literature - fantasy, fairy-tale, feminism, post-modernism and the picaresque to name but a few. Moreover, I'm fixated by magpies, particularly the superstition and folklore associated with them. Since I was old enough to remember I would never pass a magpie without a discreet salute or a polite enquiry into the state of his family's health. In short, if this book exists, I want to find it...
And thus my blog begins. Not only by setting a precedent for my literary tastes and for the kind of books I want to share by writing this, but also with a message in a bottle... cast out into cyber-space to similar minded readers in the hope that someone can enlighten me regarding the mystery of the magpie...
In which we put a little something in our lemonade.
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