reviews of Glitch
Glitch
By Oscar Mardell.
3AM Magazine
Glitch is a perfectly realised novel — one which never wastes a word, nor loses sight of its central theme..
Glitch by Lee Rourke review – an unflinching study of grief
By Jude Cook
The Guardian
Life’s hidden pattern of growth and decay powers a tender portrait of a son coming to terms with the loss of his mother.
Glitch
By Des Lewis
Gestalt Real-Time Reviews
I love the opening experience of reading this book.
Glitch
By Ross Jeffrey
Storgy Magazine
Rourke’s approach to Glitch is tantalisingly brilliant, his prose is delightfully crafted, and there always appears to be something bubbling below the surface, the rumbling fallout from the initial glitch.
Glitch
By Anthony Cummins
Metro
While the novel’s chilly style creates an ominous mood, at its molten core this is a melancholy narrative of illness and care, guilt and grief.
Things tend to collapse: art as a mother tongue in Lee Rourke's Glitch
By Harry Strawson
TLS
In Lee Rourke’s short and intelligent third novel, Glitch, a British-born New Jersey lineman named L-J returns to the United Kingdom after six years in America to find his mother in hospital with throat cancer and his sister Ellie manoeuvring to sell the family home.
Glitch
By Mariah Feria
Mazzing The World
Lee Rourke’s rich prose makes for a unique reading experience with Glitch, a hazy yet all too real look at modern-day grief.
Glitch
By Rebekah Latin-Rawstrone
Glitch is a thoughtful, meditative story with a singleness of purpose that gives the novel the polish of something sharp and poetic.
Glitch
By Jackie Law
Neverimitate
story of grief and the detachment needed to survive it – the free fall suffered when connections are severed. Although not always straightforward, the reflections evoked – the understanding of human nature – linger long after the last page is turned. A poignant and original read.
What Books Do: On Reading Glitch by Lee Rourke.
By Brian McGettrick
Glitch by Lee Rourke is a wonderful book. A book that deconstructs the complex and makes it simple and in doing so brings joy and heartbreak, warmth and endearment. I loved reading this book as I selfishly got to explore things about myself.
reviews of others’ work
Infinity: The Story of a Moment by Gabriel Josipovici – review
The compassionate story of a composer's life intrigues Lee Rourke
Artists today, he claims, are only interested in "showing off their noses" in newspapers and magazines, rather than "reaching down into the heart of mystery and bringing it out into the light of day, undefiled, still mysterious".
A shocking novel of ideas. Must be French
Lydie Salvayre's The Power of Flies movingly uses a condemned man as its narrator, says Lee Rourke
Lydie Salvayre's fifth novel is a powerful soliloquy with the immediacy of voice that only a cleverly constructed work of ideas can marshal, revealing the final thoughts of a man condemned for murder.
He's floating in a most peculiar way
Tom McCarthy's Men in Space is set in a fragmented Prague and is masterly crafted, says Lee Rourke
Men in Space follows a gaggle of characters set adrift within a fragmenting world: a stranded cosmonaut who has no country to come back to, a misguided football referee who has lost all perspective, an unsettled police agent, self-indulgent drifters seeking authenticity, political refugees and Western hangers-on who just don't seem to grasp what is happening on the streets around them.
Trauma, vegetarianism, and poetry: the best new novels
Lee Rourke on fiction by Catherine Lacey, Han Kang, and Ben Lerner.
The New Humanist
Three extraordinary works of fiction have captivated me recently and it’s no surprise they all (more or less) share the same UK publisher: Granta/Portobello Books, who are renowned for their far-reaching, idiosyncratic taste. The first, Nobody Is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey, is a powerful debut so good I had to read it again straight after finishing it. It’s a novel about traumas that have already come to pass, and the decisions made in their wake.
Architecture, an amphetamine-fuelled train journey, and obsessive self-doubt: the best new novels
Lee Rourke on fiction by Mathias Enard, David Rose, and Ian Parkinson.
The New Humanist
Three very different, but equally striking, novels have caught my attention recently. The first, Mathias Enard’s Zone, I consider to be a modern literary masterpiece. I truly haven’t read anything in the last ten years as astonishing and wonderfully maddening as this 521 page beast.
Lost children, missed opportunities, and an alternative history of the art scene: the best new novels
By Lee Rourke
The New Humanist
Three rather extraordinary debut novels were published recently. Each deals with its own idiosyncratic concerns and themes, but the books share a powerful common denominator: voice. Jeff Jackson’s Mira Corpora (The Friday Project) uses this powerful tool to extreme effect. First published in the US, this unsettling novel charts the young life of Jeff, a runaway who isn’t quite sure what he’s running from.
After & Making Mistakes, By Gabriel Josipovici
In his 2007 lecture "What ever happened to Modernism?", Gabriel Josipovici argued "the trouble with novels is that the only meaning they can have is that conferred on them by their authors". He added, "but what authority do they have to confer meaning? None, is the answer."
Wildlife succeeds in its assured surveillance of the myriad possibilities available, much more interesting than the the characters' own lives, on a burgeoning technology. This dark and twisted exploration of ego reveals life as we would like it to be, uploaded for our pleasure.
The Bird Room, By Chris Killen
Those who seek something unique in the contemporary British novel will delight in this adroit, snappy debut, a dark and beguiling meditation on the weight of being, conveying the notion of the trapped individual riveted to an existence that makes no sense.
Running Away, By Jean-Philippe Toussaint (trans., Matthew B Smith)
Reviewed by Lee Rourke
The Independent
Jean-Philippe Toussaint, a recent Prix Decembre recipient in France, has carved out a niche in pared down, slapstick literary fiction, within which a serious philosophical undertone lurks. In Running Away - the second in Toussaint's "Maria" series to be translated into English - much of the humour has been discarded to reveal a dark novel about relationships, distance and misunderstandings.
Build it.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Grow it.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.