ISDAL
- Author Susannah Dickey
- Narrator Susannah Dickey
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Run Time 2 hours and 3 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Modern and contemporary poetry (c 1900 onwards), Poetry, Poetry by individual poets.
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price p/Title
- €9.95
- €8.95
- €7.95
- €6.95
- €5.95
Listen to a sample
What to expect
The much-anticipated debut poetry collection, written and read by acclaimed novelist Susannah Dickey, on the subject of our cultural obsession with true crime.
ISDAL is a timely interrogation of the true crime genre. In the first of its three parts, we follow the flirty co-presenters of a podcast about the mystery of 'Isdal Woman', whose burnt remains were discovered in Norway in 1970 and who has never been identified. At the centre of the book is a philosophical enquiry into our perennial obsession with female victims, sexiness, and death: ‘The death in question has already occurred’, the poet observes, ‘has occurred to someone sufficiently abstract as to allow us to romp gainfully, guilelessly, guiltlessly through a simulacrum of death’s corridors’. The free verse poems in the final section both explore and—perhaps inevitably—enact the ethical ambiguities of the genre. Witty, excoriating, formally ingenious, ISDAL marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent in contemporary poetry.
Critics Review
-
‘a poet of tremendous imaginative range, artistic vision, and accomplishment’
Kayo Chingonyi, author of A Blood Condition -
Susannah Dickey’s bloodthirsty for marriage made me think of Alice Notley in its urgency and playfulness. But Dickey is more surreal, more vivid; there are more dead gerbils. These are poems that scorch the earth with their originality and then write out of the ashes.
Will Harris -
A rare talent, and certainly one to watch.
The Sunday Times
More from the same
Author
Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.