The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories, by Hilary Mantel
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The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories, by Hilary Mantel
Free Ebook PDF The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories, by Hilary Mantel
Named a Best Book of the Year byAmazon, Barnes & Noble, The Guardian (London), The Independent (London), Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Telegraph (London), The Washington Post
In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display with stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher will brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way.
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories, by Hilary Mantel - Amazon Sales Rank: #274569 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-01
- Released on: 2015-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.22" h x .86" w x 5.46" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories, by Hilary Mantel Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2014: Bookended by stories about two very different kinds of home invasions, Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher is a daring but frustrating collection. There are only ten stories after all, a few of them quite spare, but all so chock-full of vivid detail and devilish wit that it leaves the reader wanting more. Standouts in the collection are the semi-autobiographical “Sorry to Disturb,” which illustrates the perils of being too polite, the spooky “Terminus” that exquisitely depicts the madness and longing of loss, and the tender “How Shall I Know You?” where a writer’s encounter with a needy child leads to a stark reminder of her own fragile state. Many of the stories mine the baser sides of humanity, but Mantel does it with a wink. At the conclusion of “Winter Break” a ghastly truth is revealed, and like the woman who witnesses it, we want to look away... but only until the next page. They don’t hand out Man Bookers like candy, and these stories further explain why Mantel has two on her mantel (so far). –Erin Kodicek
Review
“An event with a capital 'E' . . . Breathtaking” ―NPR
“Scintillating . . . Like the Olympic gymnast who nails her landing every time.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat.” ―USA Today (four stars)
“[Mantel is at] the top of her game.” ―Salon
“Genius” ―The Seattle Times
“[Mantel is] an international literary star.” ―Elle
“One of the best novelists writing today.” ―Entertainment Weekly
“Mantel's] writing is cinematically exquisite… you can't help but get sucked in.” ―The Chicago Tribune
“The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher delivers on its promises: the promise built by Mantel's reputation as one of the unquestionably great contemporary writers, the promise made by its shocking title, and the promise inherent in the genre of short stories...Mantel pokes and prods and scratches at our tiny collective wounds, opening them into something much bigger. Readers may find the stories uncomfortable, but also hard to put down.” ―A.V. Club
“A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat.... Some of the stories are so brief and twisted...they have a hint of the cruelty of Roald Dahl's short stories (the ones that were definitely for grown-ups).... Mantel's narrators never tell everything they know, and that's why they're worth listening to, carefully.” ―USA Today (4 stars)
“Here is the Mantel of her earlier, darker kitchen-sink novels: harsh and comic, even derisive.” ―Los Angeles Times
“Mantel] evokes a shadowy region where boundaries blur and what might have happened has equal weight with what actually occurred…. Despite the plethora of sharply observed social detail, her short stories always recognize other potential realities…. Even the most straightforward of Mantel's tales retain a faintly otherworldly air.” ―Washington Post
“[A] barnburner of a title story...It's not the plot that matters as much as the superb little touches with which Ms. Mantel punctuates it.” ―New York Times
“Hilary Mantel has escaped from King Henry VIII's court.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“Mantel is not just a novelist, however, but a great political novelist at the top of her game.” ―Salon
“The stories are artfully constructed and share a muted gothic tone marked by the same ‘heightened, crawling quality' that one of Mantel's narrators, a writer, finds at a moldering hotel.” ―New Yorker
“The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, untied from the historical record, she gives her characters freer rein to rattle their chains, and the results...are satisfyingly chilling.” ―The Daily Beast
“Here are stories in which horror shudders between the high gothic of Grimm and the menacing quotidian. Oppression comes from air conditioners that 'labor and hack' and from 'the smell of drains.' Cruelty is made manifest by a wayward young girl who finds an even more outcast target in the form of a severely deformed child.... These are Ms. Mantel's signature strokes - freaks made human and humans made freakish, and always with the expiation of a dark and judgmental humor.” ―Pittsburg Post-Gazette
About the Author
Hilary Mantel is the two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize for her best-selling novels, Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies―an unprecedented achievement. The Royal Shakespeare Company recently adapted Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for the stage to colossal critical acclaim and a BBC/Masterpiece six-part adaption of the novels will broadcast in 2015.
The author of fourteen books, she is currently at work on the third installment of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy.
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Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful. THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER is a powerful, provocative work. Nothing happens the way you expect it to. By Bookreporter When you think of Hilary Mantel, you probably think of her as one of our finest writers of historical fiction. Her last two novels, WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES, chronicle the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell. (The third book of the series comes out next year.) An earlier work, A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY, takes place during the Reign of Terror. And she has been celebrated for these works: She is one of only three authors to win the Man Booker Prize twice, the others being Peter Carey and J.M. Coetzee.It’s unlikely, however, that you equate Mantel with genre fiction. You’d be surprised, then, upon reading THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER, her first work of short fiction since 2003’s LEARNING TO TALK, to discover a ghost story and a tale about vampires. Another surprise, at least to me, is the timidity and innocence of some of the female protagonists. One suspects that Mantel’s goal was to have fun with genre conventions and shock readers accustomed to the style of her more muscular novels.And what could be more shocking than the imagined assassination of the most polarizing British prime minister of the last half-century? Given the dancing-on-the-grave reactions to her death last year, Margaret Thatcher still provokes strong feelings. It’s no surprise that the title story, first printed in the Guardian and the New York Times, has garnered so much attention.The action is set in 1983. Mantel describes beautifully the female narrator’s quiet neighborhood: she writes, for example, of homes that have warm scoops of terra-cotta tiling. Journalists and photographers wait for Thatcher to leave a private hospital after minor eye surgery. The narrator, meanwhile, waits for a Mr. Duggan to come fix her boiler. When the doorbell rings, a man she doesn’t recognize appears at her door. She assumes he is one of Duggan’s men and lets him in.The man carries a large, heavy bag. She becomes suspicious and asks if he is a photographer. He doesn’t answer right away, but she later assumes the bag contains photography equipment, especially after the man tells her that the vantage from her third-floor flat will allow him to get a good shot.The visitor is instead a member of the Irish Republican Army. When the woman realizes this, she and the intruder engage in a spirited discussion of Thatcher and everything they hate about her, from her accessories and hair to her stance on Ireland. This is the most accomplished and fully realized story in the book. There are many wonderful touches, such as the moment when the woman sees that the assassin’s hands are slippery with sweat, and she brings him a towel. Nothing happens the way you would expect it to. It’s a powerful, provocative work.Only one other story is as good. “Sorry to Disturb” is about a woman living in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s with her geologist husband. She is lonely, frequently ill, and takes medicine that the Muslim women and company wives who share her apartment building believe to be fertility drugs. Her boredom is alleviated when a stranger named Muhammad Ijaz, a Pakistani man in the import-export business, asks to use her phone. The story is distinguished not only by the odd relationship the two develop but also by Mantel’s vivid details, such as that malls either strand or entrap visitors who are still shopping when evening prayers begin.The other stories are sketchy rather than fleshed out. “Comma” is a creepy tale of an eight-year-old girl, her 10-year-old friend, and their fascination with the not-quite-human creature they often see outside the home of a wealthy family. “Winter Break” is the grisly story of a childless couple and the disturbing object their driver finds under the front wheels of their taxi. In “Harley Street,” a greeter at a clinic run by vampires tries to befriend a new employee who wears capes everywhere and swoons at the first sight of blood on a patient’s arm. The narrator of “Offenses Against the Person” works for her father, a senior partner at a law firm, and witnesses the repercussions of his affair with a former employee.These lightweight stories, despite gorgeous turns of phrase, lack the emotional heft of the other two. The characters and situations aren’t as nuanced or compelling as those in the better stories, or in Mantel’s novels. Perhaps next year’s Cromwell book will be a return to form.Reviewed by Michael Magras
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. Nice, Varied Collection By Sam Sattler "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: is a nice collection of ten Hillary Mantel short stories.Two or three of the stories provide an unexpected, last-minute punch that managed to catch me by surprise after I had been lulled into thinking that I was reading little more than a well done character study of one or two characters. But, rather surprisingly, especially considering the controversy in the U.K. about the collection's title story, "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher," that story is not one of the best or most affecting ones in the book. It is, in fact, rather predictable and is one of my least favorites.Hillary Mantel is not known for her short work, so most readers will be unfamiliar with her short story style, but what she shows with publication of this collection is that she should spend more time writing stories of this length. She is very good at it.
31 of 37 people found the following review helpful. "summer had bleached the adults of their purpose." By Amelia Gremelspacher Each of these stories combines Mantel's trademark elegant turns of phrasing and her sly, bleak humor. Narrators regard the world with a jaundiced eye. Young or old, they have been jaded by the adults in their world whose incontinent views of right and wrong have skewed their perceptions.Readers of "Wolf Hall" may be startled by the wry wit on display, but Mantel has written in this vein before: notably "Beyond Black".My perverse favorite is "Comma" in which two marginally accepted children on the fringes of society watch a wealthy home for glimpses of a child with severe birth defects who appears to be a "comma". The physical metaphor is taken in a arc of brilliant writing until one of the girls come "full stop." All of these stories bear these twists, subtle and otherwise, of the observed judging those at the same margins as themselves. I would recommend this book not only to lovers of the short story, but any person fond of fine writing.
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