Damage

Rating:
Summary: Passion without restraint- and its consequences
Review: Hart manages to do what few authors can-- make a central character capable of drawing disgust and sympathy from the audience at the same time. _Damage_ is reminiscent to me of _Lolita_ and the middle-aged MP is quite similar to Nabokov's Humbert Humbert (small wonder that Jeremy Irons was selected to play both men on film).
The plot is something like this: Stephen Fleming is a bored, stuffed-shirt politician. He is smart and successful with a loving family but he is slowly smothering from his life of routine. When Anna Barton comes along, he is drawn in by how different she is. Anna and Stephen begin a passionate affair quickly and it escalates with even more rapidity. They take more and more risks until finally, Martyn, Anna's fiance and Stephen's son, catches them. Obviously, the game is over and the characters disperse. Anna returns to the only person who can truly comfort her in times of crisis and Stephen loses the outwardly perfect life he once had.
For the most part, this novel kept my undivided attention. I was able to finish it quickly and have read it several times since. Though other novels that deal with forbidden love have been recommended to me, I have not found any that I enjoy quite as much as _Damage_. True, the prose is sparse though not "joined-up" as one reviewer quipped. I am not put off by minimalism in literature or art so I found the unencumbered text to be refreshing. Others will disagree and wish Hart had provided more, but I think all of the necessary details are included with style.

Rating:
Summary: Erotic yet painful, spare yet lush
Review: I am always wary of telling people that this is one of my favourite books due to the nature of its story - a man who falls in lust with his son's fiancee, with horrifying results. And i am not sure that it is the story i like. Rather, it is Hart's beautiful prose.
The writing here is so economic, yet wonderfully descriptive - the small room that becomes the lovers tryst-loft, and the diary with a ribbon that marks when they will next meet is covered is simple yet evocotive prose. The opening page (of my copy anyway) would have to be some of the best paragraphs of prose in the English language. I would recommend the book for this page alone.This book reminds me of a lot of some French Erotic literature (i.e. The Story of O) more than any British writer.
This is a short book, so if you read it and don't like it you won't have wasted too much of your time on something you didn't like. But if you are like me, and can sometimes appreciate a book as much for how it is saying something as for what it is saying, i believe that Damage will have something for you. Either way, it is sure to touch you, by stirring some hidden corner of your soul, whether that is a corner you wanted to know or not.

Rating:
Summary: An unfogettable tale of love and lusty obcession
Review: Impossible to put down at times and truly unforgettable! A definate must read!