Friday 25 November 2011

Crusaders, and "proper novels"...

Amid the broad spectrum of print reviews garnered by my Crusaders back in 2008 (the 'broad' being a huge bonus for a debut-novelist, and the 'spectrum' probably a necessary corollary of his fledgling level of attainment) I seem to remember the Telegraph, both Daily and Sunday, being kind enough to review the novel while finding a fair few things to criticise as well as praise. Fair do's; and for that very reason I was pleasd to see that in his Telegraph round-up of the best fiction of 2011 Keith Miller made a point (in the course of extolling the most recent novel by Philip Hensher) of offering a rather kind comparison:
"Like Richard T Kelly’s Crusaders of 2008, it is a proper, fat, politically and ethically engaged condition-of-England novel..."
Nothing else to say, really, other than 'Cheers Keith'...