{"product_id":"electric-spark-the-enigma-of-dame-muriel-frances-wilson-hardcover","title":"Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel -- Frances Wilson, Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe award-winning biographer Frances Wilson presents an exhilarating new look at Muriel Spark, the most consummate artist of the twentieth century. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Is the story fact? Is it fiction? It is what it is.\" --Muriel Spark \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is \"puzzling.\" Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences, and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as \"Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes.\" Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography, and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eElectric Spark\u003c\/i\u003e explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skullduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Spark, it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"As good a critic as she is a biographer [and] as sharp a stylist as she is a reader\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e), Frances Wilson brings her enormous, incandescent powers to bear on one of the most formidable writers of the twentieth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Frances Wilson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/23\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 432\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.38w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374613204\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrances Wilson\u003c\/b\u003e is a critic, a journalist, and the author of six works of nonfiction, including \u003ci\u003eHow to Survive the Titanic: or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography; \u003ci\u003eGuilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize; and \u003ci\u003eBurning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Plutarch Award, was short-listed for the Duff Cooper Prize and the James Tait Black Award, and was long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Frances Wilson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46770172952804,"sku":"9780374613204","price":37.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9780374613204.jpg?v=1758731316","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/electric-spark-the-enigma-of-dame-muriel-frances-wilson-hardcover","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}