The Only Problem
Written by Muriel Spark / Introduction by Richard Holloway
£9.99
352 in stock
Fiction
About the Book
Wealthy Canadian scholar Harvey Gotham lives in splendid isolation in France and is working on a book about Job. He loves his wife, Effie,
dearly but she has taken to planting bombs in supermarkets and has joined an anarchist group. Here, Spark returns to the Book of Job, which
had always fascinated her, and ‘the only problem’ – the problem of suffering. Why does God allow it? A despairing and exhilarating read, The
Only Problem is a masterwork.
This is one of the 22 novels written by Muriel Spark in her lifetime. All are being published by Polygon in hardback Centenary Editions between
November 2017 and September 2018.
The Authors
Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh in 1918. A poet, essayist, biographer and novelist, she won much international praise, including being twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Times placed her eighth in its list of the Fifty Greatest British Writers Since 1945. She died in Tuscany in 2006.Richard Holloway
Richard Holloway is a writer and broadcaster who was Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2000 and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church from 1992 to 2000. He has written extensively on complex ethical issues such as sexuality, drugs and bioethics and is the author of more than twenty books, including his critically acclaimed memoir Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt.Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor has contributed to numerous publications, including The TLS, The New Yorker and The Melbourne Age, and edited four acclaimed anthologies – The Assassin’s Cloak (2000), The Secret Annexe (2004), The Country Diaries (2009) and most recently, Glasgow: The Autobiography (2016).Related
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Hardback | Pub: 06 Sep 2018£9.99Often described as the perfect partner to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Spark’s last novel is set in Switzerland where Rowland and his wife Nina run a finishing school. Murderous jealousy soon rears its head when a precocious young student shows...
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Hardback | Pub: 10 May 2018£9.99Geneva. As a ferocious thunderstorm rages outside, behind the locked doors of the library the aristocratic Klopstocks are ‘not to be disturbed’. In the attic, Baron Klopstock’s lunatic brother rants and raves. But in the staff quarters, all is...
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Hardback | Pub: 16 Nov 2017£9.99A bewitching comic masterpiece, The Ballad of Peckham Rye relates the tale of one Dougal Douglas, who is taken on by a small textile firm to ‘bring vision into the lives of the workers’. A devilishly charismatic force of nature who likes nothing...
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Hardback | Pub: 16 Nov 2017£9.99Described by David Lodge as ‘her first masterpiece’, Memento Mori opens with a telephone call and the words ‘Remember you must die’. Over several months, a circle of elderly men and women receive similar calls and everyone becomes a suspect....
