There I was trapped in the bathroom at 10.55 p.m., unable to leave for fear of missing anything. The time it would have taken me to get to the bedroom, touch the screen of the digital radio, encouraging it to dawdle its way into life, was just too long, too risky. Vital information in the story might have been lost. The tension, created by that single voice holding me on a thread, would have been dissipated.
It came as a surprise. Book at Bedtime (Radio 4, Monday to Friday evenings) is often such a disappointment these days that the radio gets switched off at 10.51 (after six minutes you know for sure that whatever is being read is not going to get any better). The last few books, in particular, have been too mannered, the writing too stylised, the reading itself too clunky, too raw for this time of night. In some ways that’s a relief. Years ago — before iPlayer — I had to stop listening to Book at Bedtime because it was so frustrating to be drawn in night-by-night only to miss an episode because I was not home in time. With some books (Turgenev, Winifred Holtby, Bernard MacLaverty) it would make me want to leave things early, or even not go at all. It was not so much that I needed to know what was going to happen (I could always go find the book), but I wanted that fix, that particular experience — the consolation of a great story, beautifully told, lulling the mind into sleepfulness.
Louise Welsh’s A Lovely Way to Burn, though, had an immediate impact. It was not a book I would ever have picked up in the bookshop, not being a fan of sci-fi or thrillers, let alone a combination of both genres.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in