BOOK REVIEW: Expertly exploring language and the scenes we create for ourselves
The White Room Craig HigginsonPicador Africa Local author and playwright Craig Higginson moves seamlessly between writing theatre and fiction. He also, at times, borrows from playwrighting to fuel his novels. The White Room takes its genesis from his 2012 play, The Girl in the Yellow Dress.
And in a further bending of the genres, and experimentation of form, The White Room follows the trajectory of a play within a novel’s pages. Much of the cerebral verbal play of The Girl in the Yellow Dress has been retained, and the repartee makes for delightful reading. The novel opens in present-day London, where SA playwright Hannah Meade is presenting the premiere of her play, The English Girl. She goes to the performance alone, but has invited Pierre, the man she knew long ago, and who is the main character in the play, to it via e-mail. The play opens, and Pierre is in the audience with his wife. And then the novel segues into the action of the play — but all told in a novelistic,...
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