Thursday, February 11, 2010

Neil Cross: literary top ten

Neil Cross' latest novel in the UK is Captured. An earlier novel, Burial, releases in the US in March.

One entry from his literary top ten at Pulp.Net:
Most Under-Rated Second Novel

Something Happened by Joseph Heller. Catch-22 is not a satire on war: it’s a satire on the logic of consumerism, on the individual's attempt to exercise freedom within the moebius strip of insanity. I don't know if it’s the best first novel ever written, but it would certainly be my candidate. Something Happened, more than a decade in the writing, was not such a hit. But it inspires in fans of Heller an equally rabid devotion. It’s a bleak satire on corporate life, on middle-age, on marriage. It’ll come to be regarded as Heller’s masterpiece, one of the great books of the previous century.
Read about another item on Cross' list.

Something Happened appears on Luke Leitch's list of ten cursed second novels.

--Marshal Zeringue