Written by C.S. Richardson
Some books are nearly perfect.
Some writing doesn’t simply live the philosophy of “brevity being the soul of wit”. Some writing in the world is crystalline in its brevity…a story, here and tere, told so perfectly, in such a compact space…where no further words are needed. Where the concise nature of the writing…the words…the emotions…are shared with the reader in exactly the required amount of space…and no more.
The End of the Alphabet is such a book. This is not a cheery, breezy novel. This IS a novel, however, about the tiny, beautiful details of life…and of living life with contentment.
A man is told he has one month left to live…but how will he live it? How will his wife cope? How can society simply continue, oblivious to the man’s condition?
In 130+ pages, laid out with the grace of a Margaret Atwood book of poetry, this story is told to the reader. Simply, authentically, tragically, beautifully, hopefully. Even the mighty imperial delights of London are presented in tiny, perfect little vignettes that fit hand-in-glove with the gentle scope of Richardson’s story.
I inhaled this work in a single hour…an hour that passed calmly, softly, and perfectly. An hour embodied in a single little novel. A beautiful, tiny little light in a sea of hum-drum grey life.
