I did something slightly unusual for me when reading Mark Haddon’s The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea – I put it to one side for a while. The reason was that I hadn’t made up my mind about it; I wasn’t sure how good it was, or if I liked it… Not that I should have been surprised to find myself doing so given Haddon’s famous The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
My eventual verdict? There are some wonderful poems in the collection – “Trees”, “The Model Village”, “Thunderbirds are go” – all suffused with a very slant perspective and a certain acrobatic use of language.
Worth reading – though you may need to take multiple passes through it…
Ian Gouge - Writer 