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The Review - BOOKS
Published: 10 January 2008
 
How Fee dumped Tod by txt

ANDY Croft’s handicraft is stretched to the limit in this ambitious project – to produce a novel based on Hamlet, entirely in verse and Pushkin sonnets.
But he rises to the challenge magnificently.
Once the less poetic reader has overcome the daunting prospect of starting such a long poem, he or she will find it gripping enough to read in one ­sitting.
The Hamlet plot is full of intrigue and brought bang up to date, with plenty of powerful ­political points, and bags of humour.
It is about a modern-day author, Tod Prince, writing a biography about a 1930s poet who fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
He comes under various competing pressures to modify it from his publisher (who has a personal axe to grind), the ghost of the subject himself, and the ghosts of his wife and comrade.
The novel has much to say about the nature of the modern-day media and publishing business, and what the Spanish Civil War was all about – from a communist perspective.
The self-imposed restraint of the format leads to some strange rhymes and line breaks, but this amuses rather than distracts.
One example is:
This morning’s Guardian says the odds-
On favourite book this year is Tod’s.
Woven into the plot is Tod’s volatile sexual relationship with Fee. This includes a hilarious passage where he is vexed to be dumped by text:
lst nite ws so humili8ing
nxt tme u fncy celebr8ing
fnd som1 else to hold yr h&
i 1der if u undrst&
ths tme it is gdby 4eva
wr brking up, ur batrys fl@
& u r actng lk a pr@
as sum1 said: the ?s weva
u wnt 2b or nt 2b
a tossa all ur lfe. x Fee.

MIKE PENTELOW

• Ghost Writer.
By Andy Croft. Five Leaves ­Publications £7.99.


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