Sarah Hall is one of the most daring, rewarding, and original writers at work today. Already acclaimed as prize-winning novelist, she is now just as feted as a radically gifted short story writer.
Madame Zero is a book of sometimes conflicting landscapes - rural, industrial, psychological - all of which are hauntingly resonant with dread. Whether set in an apocalyptic storm, local swimming pool, or surgical theatre, Hall's stories always inhabit the hinterland between the natural and urban, the mundane and surreal, human and animal.
From a wife's hidden sexual desires to a girl's secret phobias, Hall has a disturbing way of illuminating our buried impulses and sometimes occult motives. Marked by a fascination with the intimacy of nature - and the nature of intimacy - Madame Zero is the candescent new collection from an author twice nominated for the Man Booker Prize.
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That he loves his wife is unquestionable.- MRS FOX
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(@FaberBooks, 6 July 2017, paperback, 192 pages, bought from @bookshop_org_UK, #POPSUGARReadingChallenge, a book you bought from an independent book store)
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I enjoyed all of the stories in this collection. I felt a bit sad when I read the final story as I wanted to read more. The stories were all quite dark at times, surreal and twisted. There was a strangeness to them I found appealing. I specially liked Mrs Fox, Wilderness and Goodnight Nobody.
