An enjoyable write-up for The Doctor in today’s Scotland on Sunday, this one by Hannah McGill, formerly the director of the Edinburgh Film Festival who was, like myself, a guest on the Book Cafe radio show last Monday and, if I heard rightly through my headphones, is herself now writing a novel…:
“Richard T Kelly cuts loose with this Gothic thriller – and obviously has a great deal of fun… Kelly doesn’t rely on a twist or a stagey reveal, but rather lets his central plot device seep slowly to the surface so that the reader has the pleasure of gradually gathering the story’s nasty truths. The author has also adeptly incorporated modern horrors that might well have intrigued Stevenson, Hogg or Bram Stoker: plastic surgery, celebrity rehab, body dysmorphia, psychiatric manipulations. The world he creates is vivid and seductive… The Possessions Of Dr Forrest is a successful romp, and will make a pleasing addition to any bookshelf already darkened by Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry or Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf. A movie adaptation would be fun; perhaps Sean Penn should be practising his Edinburgh accent…”
(That last bit obviously a reference to my credentials as Mr Penn’s authorised biographer; and in itself an amusing thought, though anyone who’s read that book will recall that Sean doesn’t do genre films…)
drforrest.wordpress.com 