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The Glamour

The Glamour

by Christopher Priest

Gollancz, $112

'Welcome to the world of the glamour,' reads the blurb on the back cover of this novel. The anomalous use of the word 'glamour' hints at the book's oddness. It's a story readers will love or hate. Richard Grey is a cameraman who survives a car bomb, but loses his memory. While recuperating, he receives a visitor called Susan, who claims to be his ex-girlfriend. Although he can't remember who she is, he feels as though he knows her. So far, so normal. But then the story shifts back to when Grey and Susan meet and fall in love. Their torrid affair is tempered, however, by Niall, the other man in Susan's life. His grip on her is sinister, but intangible to most because he has the glamours, or the 'charm of invisibility'. Christopher Priest may have had a steady hand in writing the story, but the outcome is nothing if not unsettling. Those who read through to the end will probably want to start at the beginning again to see if they were right about who did what, when and where.

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