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'One of the smartest, darkest imaginations in contemporary fiction' Literary Review 'Magrs's characters have the courage to make themselves believe there is still magic in the world' The Times

Like his creator Paul Magrs, Robin teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. At night he becomes Funkymonkey, king of the Internet chatroom, casually dissing (and dismissing) his harem of female admirers (Brazenhussy, Neckrubslut etc). Then, one day, a new name appears: Iris Murdoch. She seems to know a lot about Robin. Things only he - or a ghost - could possibly know. This is a good premise for a novel. Unfortunately it never goes anywhere. The narrative slides from its intriguing, other-worldly beginning into the banal world of a small Norwich community - Robin's partner Glenda, who is taking early retirement from her job in a high-street department store; Robin's fellow lecturer Darren, who lusts after mainly straight vet John; Glenda's erstwhile workmate (and object of hate) Kim; Kim's mother Elsa, a (very) mature student at the University, and Geoff, a ginger-haired loser hopelessly in love with Kim. These people's lives converge around the tragic death of another department store employee, Marion, who crashes her car en route to Glenda's leaving-do. In a way this is the literary equivalent of the recent, criminally under-rated British movie The Lawless Heart, which also used a death, and Tarantino-esque time shifts, to sketch the lives of small-town England. But The Lawless Heart did it much better. The jacket blurb promises 'a strange, tender fantasy'. Strange it is not, nor fantastic, in any sense, though there is some tenderness to be found in Darren and John's on-off affair. Aisles is not only artless, but pointless. It smacks of laziness, of a writer resting on his laurels. You wait for something to happen, for these people's banal lives to amount to something worth knowing, but they never do. This is Magrs's sixth novel, and, we are told, 'his most extraordinary yet'. If that is true, you should steer clear of the other five. The only thing extraordinary about Aisles is that it got published. (Kirkus UK)

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Paul Magrs is a lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at UEA. He is the author of five highly acclaimed previous novels, Modern Love, Marked for Life, Does it Show?, Could it be Magic and All The Rage, as well as a collection of short stories, Playing Out.

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