Memento Mori - Softcover

Spark, Muriel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811214389 ISBN 13: 9780811214384

Publisher: New Directions, 2000

Synopsis

Unforgettably astounding and a joy to read, Memento Mori is considered by many to be the greatest novel by the wizardly Dame Muriel Spark.

In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone informs each, "Remember you must die." Their geriatric feathers are soon thoroughly ruffled by these seemingly supernatural phone calls, and in the resulting flurry many old secrets are dusted off. Beneath the once decorous surface of their lives, unsavories like blackmail and adultery are now to be glimpsed. As spooky as it is witty, poignant and wickedly hilarious, Memento Mori may ostensibly concern death, but it is a book which leaves one relishing life all the more.

About this title

About the Author:

Muriel Spark (1918–2006) was the author of dozens of novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Driver’s Seat, and many more. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.

From AudioFile:

This tale of old age and death has a delightful twist--a veritable brigade of septua-octogenarians puts its minds (which are in various stages of disrepair) together to discover who is making threatening telephone calls telling them, "Remember, you must die." Petherbridge's reading is just short of perfect though one wonders why the producers selected a male reader when the majority of characters are women. Petherbridge creates a variety of voices, from menacing housekeepers, to haughty matrons. The only problem is his frequent use of a whisper to convey "sotto voce" dialogue. This style is positively annoying, never mind difficult to hear (particularly in a car), and detracts from an otherwise excellent performance. R.B.F. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0811214389
• ISBN 13: 9780811214384
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224