Mantel Pieces | Book Review

Mantel Pieces

Hilary Mantel

335 pages

Paperback

4^th Estate

2021

£9.99

ISBN: 9780008430009

Review

Hilary Mantel is known to many for her peerless ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy, the last book of which I reviewed here. She was a true national treasure in an era when such terms are used cheaply. Her short stories, some of which are found in ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’, are also lean and gripping. Although I have listened to her lecture on YouTube many times, I had not read much of her non-fiction.

‘Mantel Pieces’ is a selection of her writing for the London Review of Books. Loosely based around the concept of book reviews, they are much, much more than this. Mantel often uses the premise of a book as a gateway for her own exploration of subjects as diverse as Marie-Antoinette, Jane Boleyn, Madonna, and James Bulger.

Interspersed with Mantel’s articles are copies of her correspondence with Karl Miller and Mary-Kay Wilmers, editors of the LRB. These are charming insights into a writer’s life, whether asking for more time before submission or expressing delight at what her research has uncovered. And what research. The depth and insight Mantel goes into for each of her subjects is both awe-inspiring and beautifully articulated. She is the best kind of teacher – one whose students don’t even know they are learning.

One review says that ‘unruly women’ have been Mantel’s obsession, but I feel this does her curiosity a disservice. There are many fine essays about women in ‘Mantel Pieces’, but also absorbing pieces on Christopher Marlowe, Robespierre, and Charles Brandon. In my opinion Mantel is led by her interests rather than any ‘obsession’, and such curiosity is contagious.

There was some contemporary controversy over ‘Royal Bodies’, an essay in which Mantel discusses various women – Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, Kate Middleton – being ‘eaten alive’ by their frocks. In what now seems a rather quaint hue and cry, Mantel had reporters camped outside her house at the perceived sacrilege of discussing the now Duchess of Cambridge in such a manner (the manner itself is rather benign). ‘Royal Bodies’ illustrates Mantel’s willingness to follow a line of thought, to risk an uncomfortable conversation.

Every time I read one of her book reviews, an essay, a short story, I am left in awe at Hilary Mantel’s depth of thought. She was a brilliant, brilliant writer.

*Thanks for reading. Find my other reviews below*

Kevin Barry – The Heart in Winter

Lauren Oyler – No Judgement

George Mackay Brown – A Time to Keep

Sarah Moss – Summerwater

Stephen King – 11.22.63

Damon Galgut – The Promise

Francine Toon – Pine

Robert Winder – Bloody Foreigners

P. G. Wodehouse – Very Good, Jeeves

Michael Palin – Erebus: The History of a Ship

Hilary Mantel – The Mirror and the Light

Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet

Raynor Winn – The Salt Path

Samantha Harvey – The Western Wind

Diarmaid MacCulloch – Thomas Cromwell: A Life

Peter Carey – A Long Way from Home

W.C. Ryan – A House of Ghosts

Val McDermid – A Place of Execution

Richard Cohen – How to Write Like Tolstoy

George Orwell – 1984

John Sampson – The Wind on the Heath

Michelle Paver – Wakenhyrst

Jess Smith – Way of the Wanderers

Zadie Smith – Feel Free

Max Hastings – Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975

Bernard MacLaverty – Grace Notes

Ernest Hemingway – In Our Time

Andrew Roberts – Napoleon the Great

Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights

Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale

Kamila Shamsi – Home Fire

Annie Proulx – Brokeback Mountain

Anthony Doerr – All the Light We Cannot See

Ellipsis: Three magazine

Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

Jon McGregor – Reservoir 13

Colson Whitehead – The Underground Railroad

Amor Towles – A Gentleman in Moscow

Thanks for reading, folks. Recent short stories include ‘Drip, Drip, Drip‘ and ‘Listen‘.

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Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.