Product Description

Cameraman Richard Grey's memory has blanked out the few weeks before he was injured in a car bomb explosion. When he is visited by a girl who seems to have been his lover, his attempts to recall the forgotten period produce an odyssey through France and conflicting accounts of what happened. When Susan Kewley speaks to him of that time, he finds himself glimpsing a terrible twilight world - the world of "the glamour".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #215340 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-09
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

The Independent
"A tightly narrated slice of psychological horror."

Review
"A tightly narrated slice of psychological horror." (The Independent )

"[a] cool, understated chiller. Priest's control over his story will keep you turning the pages as events slowly twist their way to an unseen climax." (Brian J. Robb DREAMWATCH )

Synopsis
Cameraman Richard Grey's memory has blanked out the few weeks before he was injured in a car bomb explosion. When he is visited by a girl who seems to have been his lover, his attempts to recall the forgotten period produce an odyssey through France and conflicting accounts of what happened. When Susan Kewley speaks to him of that time, he finds himself glimpsing a terrible twilight world - the world of "the glamour".

Customer Reviews

Is it just me?
SPOILERS FOLLOW

I have to admit this is a superbly written book and it had me gripped until the very last page but, and I'm going to stick my neck out here as I know this guy is revered by a good many people, what a cop out of an ending! I was mortified and actually really angry when I read it. I totally get the ambiguous nature of what's going and I love that up to a point but he's gone too far with this one.

I remember as a child having to write an essay for English homework and I had nearly finished it when my mum called me for my tea so I scribbled a quick rubbish ending just so I could have my fish fingers. I'm thinking Mr Priest may have found himself in the reshaped-fish-bits based situation!

Also, I understand the version I read has the revised ending. I really hate to think what the original was like.
I read The Separation before this book and again, it was great up to a point but the end of that one also negates the entire novel. I think I will have to steer clear of this guy in future as I can't take the stress.

Truth and fiction
The Glamour is a wonderful story of a man who, caught by the blast from a car bomb, is trying to recover his memory, with the best hope apparently a woman who claims to have been his lover.

But this being a Christopher Priest book more is going on than that. Priest uses his trick of changing the perspective on the story, without suggesting that any particular point of view is more valid than another, leaving you guessing as to what is going on.

I always think of Priest as being the British Philip K. Dick, a man who loves writing about shifting realities. The difference being that whereas Dick seemed compelled to write and would often write hurriedly, Priest is a more considered writer, his prose is more elegant. Similarly Priest is more concerned with the middle classes than Dick's blue collar heroes. And in this book, Priest is doing what Dick would have done more of, had his publishers been more daring, he writes a book that seems like science fiction but isn't. Not really. It's more about relationships and stories and glamour. The science fiction or fantasy element is very slight and if you look at the story in a certain way, does not necessarily exist.

The book is beautifully ambiguous and the fractured nature of this review just testifies to the fact that no review can do it justice. You just have to read it. And then all of Priest's other books. He's that good.

Superlatives begin to fail....
Christopher Priest is a superb writer. Using simple direct and unornamented prose he weaves a world where nothing is quite what it seems but where the impact of what he writes is stupendous.

To reveal the storyline in a review like this would be grossly unfair but this is probably one of the two best books I have read this year -- and I read lots.

The writing is crystal clear and unaffected. The story is superbly constructed with the author fully in command of the twists of the plot. Priest's writing is absolutely unimprovable. Why isn't this man at the top of the best-seller lists?