The Angel

The Angel is a small short-story collection by the British writer Patrick McGrath, published by Penguin Books in 1995 as part of the Penguin 60s pocketbook series issued to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Penguin paperback; at just over fifty pages, it is meant to be read during a single short commute. All four pieces are selected from McGrath's 1988 collection Blood and Water: "The Angel," "The Black Hand of the Raj," "The Arnold Crombeck Story," and "The E(rot)ic Potato." The four stories vary widely in subject: "The Angel" places an angel figure in a grim and horrifying situation, overturning the usual image of angels; "The Black Hand of the Raj" weaves colonial-era exotic memory with an atmosphere of terror; "The Arnold Crombeck Story" concerns an American journalist's series of interviews with a British murderer before his execution; and "The E(rot)ic Potato" unfolds from a highly absurd first-person perspective and is regarded as both an ecological fable and black comedy. The little book continues McGrath's signature Gothic sensibility: precise, restrained prose; characters who are mostly tense and inwardly trapped; horror that comes not from gore but from a slow psychological seep. For readers who want to sample this "representative Gothic writer" in a very short time, it is a low-cost introduction; but it is only a selection, and those left wanting more should seek out the complete Blood and Water.