Book Review Heartbreak 
By Craig Raine
fiction, Atlantic Books, pb, £12.99
Book Review: Heartbreak
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Heartbreak is an unconventional object: through character studies, historical reimaginings, anecdotes and academic discourse, Raine debates the nature of love and loss. Here the monologues in Anthony & Cleopatra are as important as the parents of a Down’s Syndrome girl; a train journey with Miroslav Holub has as much to tell us as the author’s own mother. At times it is an essay with fictional case studies: Notes Towards the Definition of Heartbreak.
All this is done in a prose style that mixes the detached observations of Muriel Spark with the comic meta-misogyny of Updike – there’s even the occasional glimpse of Charles Kinbote. Raine will divide his audience as always, but undeniable the pleasures of Heartbreak are its arresting images and poignant characters: Gallagher, hiding her poems from her husband; teenage actress Milly, consciously exploiting her potential emotions; and Steph and Assia, profane academics who mix theory and practice to devastating effect. Drawn fleetingly and lasting only a few pages each, these women give Heartbreak its real sense of heart.
Posted on Wednesday 4th August 2010
Swithun Cooper
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