Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Review: The Fire-Eaters by David Almond
Jan Mark reviews David Almond's The Fire Eaters
"...beautifully written, and polished to a lapidary gloss. It reads less like a novel than a memoir, reserved and distant, a record of events so skilfully arranged that everything shows to advantage. Everyone is invested with dignity, the most commonplace remark is rendered poetic. There are heroes, villains and martyrs, but no idiots."
What message, one wonders, is to be drawn from the timing of this review (less than a week ahead of the public announcement of the winner of The Guardian Children's Fiction Award, for which Almond's book is one of the four shortlisted titles)?
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