:fill(white):background_color(white)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/2ZPXIVJSVF6GB7PUOR2EWEI5ZY.jpg)
In one of the stories collected here, a character imagines conducting a “dissertation-level inquiry into the limits of revulsion regarding people who ostensibly love each other”. The concept serves as a good description of these pieces, which feel like a cumulative fictional exploration of the messy and contradictory depths of human relationships.
In this world, solitude and fear are the governing conditions of life, self-loathing is par for the course, and the family unit is a baffling and perverse trap. If this sounds like difficult reading, it sometimes is: likeable characters are at a premium here and the humour is of the very blackest variety.
Marcus’s vision is a distinctive one and his ability to twist sentences into bizarre and wonderful shapes – along with his unsettlingly persuasive sense of absurdity – gives these stories a strange power.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.irishtimes/5OB3DSIVAFDZJCTVH2S24A254Y.png)