The trauma plot, and its exploration of the depths of victimhood and suffering, has been the novel’s passport to notoriety.

Fitting a novel‘s plot into two hours is an undertaking like jamming Cinderella‘s stepsister’s foot into the glass slipper: You have to hack off toes or full limbs. But this ...

Darwin's theory of evolution and the case of Deacon Brodie were social influences on the novel. Plot Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is about the complexities of science and the duality of human nature.

Such epiphanies are scattered across “Water Moon” and lack a clear connection to the novel’s plot. Given how often the plot loses itself, it is unsurprising that these elegant kernels of ...