Tag: Stephen McWilliams
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The lost genius of Vaslav Nijinsky
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film Black Swan tells the tale of a dancer in the New York City Ballet’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Key to the story is the ballerina’s descent into psychosis under immense pressure to compete for the leading part of the White Swan. The film, inspired in part by…
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Agatha Christie’s first post-mortem
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Aficionados of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple could do worse than read Carla Valentine’s Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie.1 In the book’s introduction, we’re reminded that Christie, the “Queen of Crime,” remains the world’s all-time bestselling novelist, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Valentine describes Christie’s dedication to…
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Brain surgery, now and then
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland In Michael Crichton’s novel The Terminal Man (1972), Harry Benson undergoes brain surgery at the hands of Dr. Roger McPherson, head of the prestigious Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, Los Angeles.1 By implanting electrodes deep in Benson’s brain, McPherson plans to cure him of the violent seizures that require him to be guarded by…
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Mental illness, conscience, and time in the fiction of Peter Swanson
Stephen McWilliams Dublin, Ireland In Peter Swanson’s fifth novel, Before She Knew Him, Hen and Lloyd move in next door to Mira and Matthew in West Dartford, Massachusetts. Hen soon suspects her new neighbor of murder, but has trouble convincing people because her own history of mental illness makes her an unreliable witness in the eyes…
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Eric Ambler’s psychopath
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Years before Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and Alistair MacLean were popular, there was another spy novelist they all admired. His name was Eric Ambler and, in the late 1930s, just as Europe’s core temperature was heating up for war, Hodder and Stoughton published half a dozen of his earliest thrillers. His…
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The truth about the Mad Hatter
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Few works of fiction are as original as Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Replete with singular characters such as the White Rabbit, the King and Queen of Hearts, the March Hare, the somnolent Dormouse, and the infamous grinning Cheshire Cat, the novel also boasts one of the true icons of…
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The ordeal of Evelyn Waugh
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland In Evelyn Waugh’s second-last novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957), the eponymous character experiences some singular and troubling symptoms. Mr. Pinfold is a successful writer, not unlike Waugh himself, who embarks on a sea voyage in an effort to cure the chronic insomnia and fatigue he suffers from consuming too much…