Michel Faber

This book by Rodge Glass, the award-winning novelist, short story writer and biographer, is the first ever detailed assessment of Michel Fabers life and work across genre and form. It draws on intimate, wide-ranging interviews with the author over a two-year period and investigates previously unexplored archival material, from the Canongate Books records to Fabers own personal archive, to bring fresh perspectives to light. Glass presents detailed interrogations of unpublished texts, including a novel, A Photograph of Jesus, as well as providing deep dives into Fabers most celebrated works such as Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White. Known for his hybrid creative-critical approach, Glass uses Fabers interest in generosity and compassion in writing as a focus for this study. Grouping his works by World, the book ranges across poetry, short stories, novels and novellas to make an argument for Faber as a writer who has consistently sought to explore narrow emotional territory, that of the human instinct to seek connection with others, even if genuine connection seems unlikely or impossible. Glass draws on individual case studies across Fabers hugely diverse body of work in a way that will be both- interesting for fans and informative for students of Fabers writing.