Glister

A novel that pierces the heart of evil… Consume it at night. Turn out the lights and watch the walls glow * Scotsman *
Baffling, haunting, terrifying, moving, and compulsively readable * Daily Telegraph *
In the end we are left with the resonance of a book whose centre is nowhere but whose circumference is extraordinarily large * Financial Times *
Nobody does eerie quite like John Burnside… exquisite and haunting….. the violence in Glister is shot through with an awful grace…As with all of Burnside’s work - poetry, novels and memoir - there is a vision of something inexplicable at the heart of things. I doubt I will read a more unsettling and memorable book this year * Scotland on Sunday *
Darkly compelling murder mystery., the novel is also a densely layered engagement with questions of politics, spirituality, environmentalism and meta fiction. It is an incredible book; its echoes sound long after the end has been reached * Big Issue *
An intersection between horror story, morality tale, feigned memoir and ecological satire * Times Literary Supplement *
Tackles the question of what lies beyond with wit and subtlety * Herald *
The atmosphere of Glister is sustained by Burnside’s distinctive and widely praised prose style, spare but ruminative, full of ideas and unusual formulations * Irish Times *
Burnside burns most brilliantly when he allows himself free rein to become a prophet of the natural sublime… The world of this chilling novel is steeped in a nature so finely drawn that it aches with its pulsing, crippled mortality * Independent *
Puts him in the class of Hardy and Lawrence * The Times *

John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

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