Loitering with Intent

Art, reality and the strange ways the two imitate one another are at the core of Muriel Spark's delightful Loitering with Intent, first published in 1981. Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty, irascible Sir Quentin Oliver at the Autobiographical Association, whose members are all at work on their memoirs. When her employer gets his hands on Fleur's novel-in-progress, mayhem ensues when its scenes begin coming true. Generating hilarious turns of phrase and larger-than-life characters (especially Sir Quentin's batty mother), Sparks's inimitable style make this literary joyride thoroughly appealing. ( June 28) Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review A delicious conundrum. -- The New Statesman Generating hilarious turns of phrase and larger-than-life characters...Spark's inimitable style make this literary joyride thoroughly appealing. -- Publishers Weekly , 18 June 2001 I found it a delight from start to finish—funny, unexpected and compulsively readable...this strange, immensely enjoyable novel. -- Auberon Waugh, Daily Mail One of Spark's very best novels—funny and clever and surprising. -- The New Republic The most intensely Sparkian of her books. -- The Listener Though first published only 20 years ago, Spark's offbeat fiction certainly deserves a place in [ND's] line of contemporary classics. -- Kirkus Reviews, , 15 February 2001 Unsurpassable. -- The Times Literary Supplement [London] What a coolly crafted, wickedly funny novel this is! -- Daily Express [A] delirium of delight....robust and full-bodied, a wise and mature work, and a brilliantly mischievous one. -- The New York Times Book Review Book Review [O]ne of Muriel Spark's most accomplished moral fables or puzzles...it provides considerable insight and wit, and no easy answers. -- A.S. Byatt

Muriel Spark in prime form: one of her most enjoyable, complex, and instructive jeux d'esprit.

"How wonderful to be an artist and a woman in the twentieth century," Fleur Talbot rejoices. Happily loitering about London, c. 1949, with intent to gather material for her writing, Fleur finds a job "on the grubby edge of the literary world," as secretary to the peculiar Autobiographical Association. Mad egomaniacs, hilariously writing their memoirs in advance—or poor fools ensnared by a blackmailer? Rich material, in any case. But when its pompous director, Sir Quentin Oliver, steals the manuscript of Fleur's new novel, fiction begins to appropriate life. The association's members begin to act out scenes exactly as Fleur herself has already written them in her missing manuscript. And as they meet darkly funny, pre-visioned fates, where does art start or reality end? "A delicious conundrum," The New Statesman called Loitering with Intent.

"How wonderful to be an artist and a women in the twentieth-century," Fleur Talbot rejoices. Loitering about London, c. 1949, with intent to gather material for her writing, Fleur finds a job "on the grubby edge of the literary world," as secretary to the odd Autobiographical Association. Mad egomanics, hilariously writing their memoirs in advance - or poor fools ensnared by a blackmailer? Rich material, in any case. But when its pompous director, Sir Quentin, steals the manuscript of Fleur's new novel, fiction begins to appropriate life. The association's members begin to act out scenes exactly as Fleur herself and already written them in her missing manuscript. And as they meet darkly funny, pre-visioned fates, where does art start or reality end? From *Publisher's Weekly*: "Art, reality and the strange ways the two imitate one another are at the core of Muriel Spark's delightful Loitering with Intent, first published in 1981. Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty, irascible Sir Quentin Oliver at the Autobiographical Association, whose members are all at work on their memoirs. When her employer gets his hands on Fleur's novel-in-progress, mayhem ensues when its scenes begin coming true. Generating hilarious turns of phrase and larger-than-life characters (especially Sir Quentin's batty mother), Sparks's inimitable style make this literary joyride thoroughly appealing."