Seizure - Softcover

Erica Wagner was born in New York City in 1967. She moved to Britain in the 1980s and now lives in London, where she works as Literary Editor of The Times. In 1997 she published a book of short stories, Gravity (Granta), and three years later, following the publication of Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters, a biographical gloss on that book, Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters (Faber & Faber). Her stories have been widely anthologised and been broadcast on the radio; her poems have appeared in The TLS and PNReview.
She now edits the Books section that appears every Saturday in The Times, and writes a weekly column in that section, as well as reviews and articles. She's interviewed such writers as Seamus Heaney, Donna Tartt, Maurice Sendak, Philip Pullman, Gitta Sereny, Paul Auster, Alan Garner, Peter Ackroyd, Bill Bryson and Nick Hornby. She reviews regularly for The New York Times, and also appears frequently on the radio and on television. She has been a guest on such programmes as Today, Front Row, The Culture Show, and (in the USA) Charlie Rose and Larry King Live.
She has judged many literary prizes; the Man Booker in 2002 (when the winner was Yann Martel's Life of Pi), the Orange Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Forward Prize. She sits on the Executive Committee of PEN. Erica is a fencer (epée), loves to cook, knit, sing and ride on her scooter (the push kind, not the motor kind). She loves to listen to stories as well as read them, and seeks out fine storytellers from all over the world. She is deeply attached to the Brooklyn Bridge, and often travels back to New York to cross the East River on its span.
She is married to the writer Francis Gilbert, author of I'm a Teacher, Get Me Out of Here!, Teacher on the Run and Yob Nation. They have a son, Theodore.

The primal fear of maternal abandonment is twisted into this insistently dark, atmospheric novel by London Times literary editor Wagner, author of a story collection (Gravity) and nonfiction book on Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath (Ariel's Gift). Janet Ward, in a settled long-term relationship but suffering from dreamlike seizures, is shocked to suddenly inherit a house from her mother—whom she had always believed died when she was three. Upon her arrival at the small seaside stone cottage in the English north, Janet discovers she is not alone: a man named Tom has been given a key of his own. A torrid spell of stories and dreams from the past (an elusive mother, seal-women and demon lovers, journeys across the sea) follows, along with the present reality of Tom and Janet together in the cottage, trying to figure out who they are to one another and why their meeting feels like destiny. Much of the book is a drawn-out, portentous standoff between the two, and readers won't be surprised at their mutual attraction or the truth of their connection. The prose is overblown and repetitive, and layers of symbolism further weigh the story down, but Wagner's lyrical vision of Janet is palpable through the haze. (Apr.)
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