{"id":445,"date":"2008-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T01:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=445"},"modified":"2024-12-31T13:30:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T00:30:59","slug":"the-gargoyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/01\/01\/the-gargoyle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gargoyle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Andrew Davidson<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Text Publishing<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, 2008<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Andrew Davidson\u2019s captivation novel exemplifies the difficulty of taking things on face value.\u00a0 In this instance, the problem is that of mixed messages; the front cover is a sumptuous painting of a woman\u2019s back adorned with tattooed wings, the blurb on the back describes is as <em>\u201ca brilliant love story, sweeping across centuries and continents.\u201d\u00a0<\/em> No point for guessing my response to the latter-suffice it to say that I was less than hopeful as I turned the first few pages. But, as I soon discovered, this is not your typical romance.\u00a0 In fact the book should perhaps come with a \u2018viewer discretion\u2019 advisory instead.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The first few chapters describe in visceral detail what it feels like to sustain 3<sup>rd<\/sup> degree burns, which the narrator sustains in a car crash.\u00a0 Immobilised, grotesquely disfigured and in constant pain, his only goal is to recover to the point where he can kill himself (a plan that is, like his injuries, meticulously described).\u00a0 Before he has the chance to carry it out, however, he meets Marianne Engel, a beautiful, eccentric and gifted sculptor of grotesques, who claims to have been his wife centuries before.\u00a0 As he slowly recovers physically, she heals him emotionally and spiritually him with stories of love that survives death, and of their previous life together-none of which he believes except for tantalising details that leave him wondering\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is impossible to explain the story in a mere 250 words, so I will let a picture say it all; this is a book best judged by its cover!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Davidson<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Otago Daily Times review 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[75,85,370,18,407],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-75","tag-andrew-davidson","tag-fiction","tag-odt","tag-speculative-sci-fi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}