You know, I really like Patrick McGrath. This is the fourth of his books that I've read and each one has taken a distinctive path in my admiration and disappointment. As a result, Martha Peake is nothing new. Let this be known: the prose stylings of this novel are brilliant; full of twisting mazes of language, spinning (almost) out of control around the winding dark corners of predictable gothic dialect, the book is a near smashing success and, ultimately, a tragic failure.

It's a shame when an author of such impeccable talent comes up with a great idea for a story and bogs it down with his already done narrative format. I wish Mr. McGrath would outgrow his still adolescent 'gothic' pretentions and come into his own with a story (perhaps much like the one told in this almost great novel) that shows not just lingual superiority, but a true sense of storytelling and narrative innovation. I know you can do it, Paddy. Please don't let your still lingering fans down.

Patrick McGrath is a master stylist, and it is his skill with language that allows him to pull off successfully in Martha Peake what could have been a very bad novel. The first potential problem is indeed the style itself, which verges on self-parody. To illustrate, the opening scene has the narrator - whom we never learn much about - crossing a dank English moor alone at night to visit a ghostly mansion, where he meets his old and wizened uncle who, over a sputtering candle, starts telling a mysterious tale about the book's heroine, Martha Peake, and her tormented father, Harry. You can see the unsatisfactory level to which this might descend, and in fact the portion of the book that unfolds in England - more than half of it - is written in this kind of exaggerated super-Gothic style. But the technique works, at least if you have a tolerance for that sort of thing, because Mr. McGrath is so very good at it. The other potential problem - and I myself found this more troublesome - is the quirky and labored symbolism that pervades the novel. It is essentially about the American Revolution, and the symbolic contrast between creepy, death-ridden England and the vitality of revolutionary America underlies the entire story. Harry Peake is a deformed hunchback, and the author devotes so much attention to Harry's hump that it's clearly meant to represent something more than itself. Yet I have to confess to never quite getting it. Moreover, the plot culminates in a weird surprise ending that twists the book's meaning and, for me anyway, aggravated the sense of confusion about its thematic content. I can't recommend Martha Peake wholeheartedly - some readers will hate it - but I found it an engrossing work despite it's oddness and its flaws.

Not since Sheri Holman's The Dress Lodger, have I read a novel so wonderful in form, characterization, and setting. McGrath, who writes neo-Gothics, has written his best novel in Martha Peake. While some readers may find his narrations taxing, it is precisely those narrations that give this novel its genius. The heroine of this dark story is one Martha Peake. Slowly her life is revealed, and we see Martha's fate approaching with an aching horror. I cannot tell you the plot here [too intricate], but if you liked Wuthering Heights, you will love this novel. It has the same kind of narration, the same darkness of setting and soul, the same intensity of fate. Martha is plagued with her own strange Heathcliff, one Harry Peake, only he reminds me more of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. What more can I say? It's a brilliant novel formed out of collected fragments and memories, a powerfully written story that you won't ever forget. It's the kind you expect to hear "told by firelight." It will definitely leave you with a delightful shiver. History, love, death, courage, fate -- you will find them all here!