Known for wrapping readers in his historical web, Paul West, in his marvelous, new novel, Cheops; A Cupboard for the Sun, turns his attention to the 4th Dynasty (approx. 2680 BC) of ancient Egypt. Here, we find the pharaoh Cheops, building the great pyramids at Giza, surrounded by workers and solar boats. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, "a hundred thousand men were made to toil constantly for him, " and, as Herodotus claimed, Egypt was "plunged into all manner of wickedness." In Cheops, West delightfully has Herodotus transported back in time, to meet the great pharaoh, face to...
Known for wrapping readers in his historical web, Paul West, in his marvelous, new novel, Cheops; A Cupboard for the Sun, turns his attention to the 4...
In A Fifth of November, Paul West describes the events surrounding the English Gunpowder Plot (1605). Instigated by thirteen Catholic conspirators, most famously Guy Fawkes, the Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the English Parliament and King James I. At the heart of West's novel are the trials of Father Henry Garnet, superior of the English Jesuits, who is hidden from the king's henchmen behind the walls of English mansions. Shielding him from harm is the melancholy noblewoman Anne Vaux, a Catholic sympathizer. A Fifth of November tells the tale of Garnet: it begins when he first hears...
In A Fifth of November, Paul West describes the events surrounding the English Gunpowder Plot (1605). Instigated by thirteen Catholic conspirators, mo...
