Trauma

Patrick McGrath is the author of a short story collection, Blood and Water and Other Tales, and six previous novels including Spider, Asylum, Martha Peake and Port Mungo. His most recent book was Ghost Town, a volume of novellas about New York. Spider was made into a film in 2002 by acclaimed director David Cronenberg. Patrick McGrath lives in London and New York.

'Few writers are capable of taking their readers to such dark places with such evident relish. Among McGrath's greatest skills lies the ease with which he compels us to read on as his tales of madness, murder, abuse and incest unfold ... this masterly specimen of modern gothic delivers the unsettling sting in its tail' Financial Times 'A gripping expose of life on the hinterland of sanity ... McGrath is that rare yet essential thing, a writer who can expose our darkest fears without making us run away from them' New Statesman 'A bolt of queasily inspiring brilliance' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'McGrath has the gift, the storyteller's gift, to compel attention, so that you gaze rapt into the fire and listen to the tale unfold' Sunday Times