'Carry me, son. Do not leave me behind.
'Are you listening to me?
'Of course you’re listening, you say, and add the F-word. Off you go to cope with a storm. Lucerne armfuls for horses. For cows, plain hay.
'Alone in the paddocks of his grass hotel a man tends to his beloved horses, Socks and Boy. The voice of his mother—accusatory, fragmenting from dementia—haunts his every move, an excoriating reminder of his failures in the world of people.
'The Grass Hotel is a story of damage and repair, of familial obligation and the resentments it can cause. It is also about the profound comfort that a connection with animals can offer.
'With its extraordinary use of language, Craig Sherborne’s novel is by turns savage and tender, raw and poetic: a small masterpiece.'
Source : publisher's blurb
'A poetic word painting of dementia and of dying, of love and yearning'
Book It In : Craig Sherborne
Paul Daley
(presenter),
2022
25159616
2022
single work
podcast
'Craig Sherborne’s novel The Grass Hotel tells the story of caring for a mother who is declining with dementia. He talks to Paul Daley about his own complex upbringing – one that was affectionate, but also filled with stilted and misunderstood expressions of care.'
Source: Book It In.
'In How Fiction Works (2008), James Wood examines how novelists write characters and allow us to sympathise with them. He refers to the philosopher Thomas Nagel’s now famous question, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ Nagel reckoned we cannot know, can only imagine what it would be like to behave like a bat. We can’t know ‘what it is like for a bat to be a bat’. (Introduction)
'Craig Sherborne’s new novel, The Grass Hotel, might be seen as the third instalment in a trilogy that started with his outstanding memoirs Hoi Polloi (2005) and Muck (2007).'
'Sherborne’s latest work is comprised of a mother’s bitter and turbulent internal monologue to her son, as her mind – and her language – collapses'
'Sherborne’s latest work is comprised of a mother’s bitter and turbulent internal monologue to her son, as her mind – and her language – collapses'
'Craig Sherborne’s new novel, The Grass Hotel, might be seen as the third instalment in a trilogy that started with his outstanding memoirs Hoi Polloi (2005) and Muck (2007).'
'In How Fiction Works (2008), James Wood examines how novelists write characters and allow us to sympathise with them. He refers to the philosopher Thomas Nagel’s now famous question, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ Nagel reckoned we cannot know, can only imagine what it would be like to behave like a bat. We can’t know ‘what it is like for a bat to be a bat’. (Introduction)
'A poetic word painting of dementia and of dying, of love and yearning'
Book It In : Craig Sherborne
Paul Daley
(presenter),
2022
25159616
2022
single work
podcast
'Craig Sherborne’s novel The Grass Hotel tells the story of caring for a mother who is declining with dementia. He talks to Paul Daley about his own complex upbringing – one that was affectionate, but also filled with stilted and misunderstood expressions of care.'
Source: Book It In.
