Originally posted on Palimpsest:
Well, I have now finished two books consecutively for the first time in ages, and at last my Palimplist is making some movement. I think I should thank Patrick McGrath for that. Port Mungo is every bit as good as everyone has said it is.
It is a remarkable book – superbly written yet easy to read, gripping yet horrifying too. I read it with an ever increasing sense of dread, the slow drip feed of what might be the truth opening more avenues rather than pushing you down one path. His characters are superbly drawn, and mostly vile, every one of them deeply flawed in some way, though some deeper than others, of course.
I gave it 5 stars, which it fully deserved, though it doesn’t get the red treatment because I didn’t love the book like I did Owen Meany say, or Gatsby. It’s a remarkable achievement, though, a brilliant book and I will certainly read more McGrath in the near future.