Matthew Dennison

Margaret Drabble tries to lose the plot

Can you write fiction in a non-fiction way? In Pure Gold Baby, the author tries to avoid a beginning, a middle and an end, keeping us always in the midst of the moment

Margaret Drabble at the offices of publisher McLelland Stewart Photo: Toronto Star via Getty 
issue 30 November 2013

Halfway through her new novel, Margaret Drabble tells us of Anna, the pure gold baby of the title, ‘There was no story to her life, no plot.’ That statement is partly true. It is also a challenge, a gauntlet cast by this very knowing writer at the reader’s feet; in terms of Drabble’s narrative, it is something of a mission statement.

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