Joe Murray > Recent Status Updates

hype moments and aura incoming!!! (as well as actually good storytelling)

‘Ground so crimson it was no longer the colour of dirt but rust-red with old blood.’ - AKA ‘ground so red it was no longer brown but red with red stuff’ what a pointless pointless sentence

stunning work being unable to write poetry or prose and somehow managing to get a verse novel published, I wish I knew more about poetry so I could hate on this with authority but maybe my ignorance is keeping me from being sent to an early grave by this book

verse novel so half-assed the author occasionally gives up and hands you a page of prose 💀💀💀

I am sorry Ms Brontë I am ready to listen and learn…

as I am getting a sense of what this book is doing I am getting incredibly excited about it - seems like it’s all about seeing our present as future history and god that already feels profound

i guess i can have a little vampire YA as a treat...

‘I know it must be embarrassing for you, but I happen to like this bad set. I like getting drunk at luncheon, and though I haven’t yet spent quite double my allowance, I undoubtedly shall before the end of term. I usually have a glass of champagne about this time. Will you join me?’

aside from making me sad about colonialism (a noble thing to do) all this book is doing is intensifying my parasocial obsession with Mariana Enriquez.

Halfway through and definitely in the throes of hyperbole but this is in contention for one of the best collections I’ve read in years. Haunting but only in the subtlest touches

glad to have my memory of it confirmed: god this rocks so hard

this book is pure gas my lord

back on my reviewing grindset

yada yada ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ new ruins has so much swag

it may be physically suffering daily in my backpack but this is the sort of slow, contemplative book that is perfect for travelling. All the superlatives on the increasingly creased cover start to make sense

I don’t think we’re finishing this one chief…

genuinely so hard to make progress through this book - narrative voice is interesting but kinda provides no momentum/differentiation between one page and the next. I want to continue in case it changes but if it doesn’t, the prospect of another ~300 pages sounds exhausting

Mr Krasznahorkai your sentences too long, your interiorities too poetic, they’ll kill you