{"product_id":"electric-spark-the-enigma-of-dame-muriel","title":"Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel","description":"\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\" style=\"max-height: none; height: 280px;\"\u003e \u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\" style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eThe award-winning biographer Frances Wilson presents an exhilarating new look at Muriel Spark, a consummate artist of the twentieth century.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Is the story fact? Is it fiction? It is what it is,” said Muriel Spark. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences, and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as “Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes.” By following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography, and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eElectric Spark\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. It takes us through her early years, when turmoil reigned: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skullduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Spark, it is because her experiences in the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically distilled, the material of her art. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As good a critic as she is a biographer [and] as sharp a stylist as she is a reader” (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e), in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eElectric Spark\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Frances Wilson brings her enormous, incandescent powers to bear on one of the most formidable writers of the twentieth century.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-header a-expander-partial-collapse-header\" style=\"opacity: 1; display: block;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content-fade\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"javascript:void(0)\" role=\"button\" data-action=\"a-expander-toggle\" class=\"a-declarative\" data-a-expandev\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318659977501,"sku":"9780374613204","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0901\/5692\/5213\/files\/9780374613204.jpg?v=1757015361","url":"https:\/\/bookdelico.com\/products\/electric-spark-the-enigma-of-dame-muriel","provider":"Book Delico ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}