Weighty concerns: Paul Murray in Stoneybatter, Dublin. Photograph: Patrick Bolger

Review

The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray review – a philosophical shaggy dog tale

The follow-up to Skippy Dies is a playful, sometimes chilling farce set in an Irish investment bank

Stephanie Cross

Sunday 12 February 2016

Amid the bounce and twinkle-eyed hilarity of Paul Murray’s third novel, set in the Irish investment banking industry, there are several moments that strike a chill – the scene, for example, in which one trader explains that his monstrous institution is still too small, because it isn’t yet “setting its own agenda, reality-wise”.

Reality and fiction are the themes at the heart of this philosophical shaggy dog farce, which proves to be a more than worthy successor to the much-loved Skippy Dies.

Classics corner / The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson / Review

Classics corner

Short stories

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson – review

Stephanie Cross

Sun 16 Jan 2011 00.05 GMT

T

he title story might be the one for which Shirley Jackson is famed but, as this volume suggests, it was not entirely typical of her oeuvre. First published in 1948, "The Lottery" details a long-established rite that culminates in murder. Elsewhere, however, Jackson aims to disquiet rather than shock: the threat is often latent in Jackson's work,as Donna Tartt has observed. The weird farming community of "The Lottery" seems likewise anomalous: Jackson's protagonists tend to be mothers, or women starting their homemaking careers.