I Put a Spell on You

Author(s): John Burnside

New Hardbacks

In this exquisite, haunting book, John Burnside describes his coming of age from the industrial misery of Cowdenbeath and Corby to the new world of Cambridge. This is a memoir of romance - of lost love and the love of being lost - darkened by threat, illuminated by glamour. The old Scots word 'glamour' means magical charm, and the first time he was played I Put a Spell on You, John Burnside thought he had never heard a more beautiful song - it was an enchantment, a fascination that would turn to obsession. Implicit in the song were all the ambiguities that intrigued him - love, possession and danger - and this book is an exploration of the darker side of glamour and attraction. Beginning with memories of a brutal murder, the book follows the author through a series of uncanny encounters with 'lost girls', with brilliant digressions on murder ballads, voodoo, acid and insomnia, and a cast that includes Kafka and Narcissus, Diane Arbus and Mel Lyman, The Four Tops and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and time spent lost in the Arctic Circle, black-and-white films and a mental institution.
Ending with the tender summoning of the ghost of his dying mother as she sings along to the radio in her empty kitchen, I Put a Spell on You is a book about memory, about the other side of love: a book of secrets and wonders.

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The latest memoir by the prize-winning author of A Lie About My Father

John Burnside's recent books include the poetry collection All One Breath, the book of stories, Something Like Happy, - the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year - the novel, A Summer of Drowning, shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Prize, and his poetry collection, Black Cat Bone, which won both the 2011 Forward Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. He is a Professor of English at St Andrews.

General Fields

  • : 9780224093873
  • : Vintage
  • : Jonathan Cape Ltd
  • : 0.421
  • : 01 May 2014
  • : 222mm X 143mm X 25mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 01 June 2014
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : John Burnside
  • : Hardback
  • : 821.92
  • : 288