Life
Author of A Vicious Circle (London: Hamish Hamilton 1996), 416pp.
Commentary
uncomplimentary review of A Vicious Circle (1996) by Aisling Foster
( Times Literary Supplement, 13 Dc. 1996, p.23) depicts a vicious
satire of London’s literati at play, in which Mary Quinn, Belfast
waitress turned reviewer makes her way through a scene of snobbery and
racism populated by characters such as Ivo Sponge, literary editor of
the Chronicle, and Mark Crawley, and eviscerating journalist; Quinn
eventually turns away from reviewing to become executor of Adam Sands,
whom she suggests did not die from AIDS; reviewer notes asides on sublime
qualities of the Poor, the Irish, and Britain’s neglected beauty-spots
but finds the author more at ease dispensing vitriol.
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