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Reservoir 13 ()


So if correctly guessing the identity of the murderer isn’t always the chief attraction, what is? Perhaps it is the age-old and universal pleasure provided by a well-told story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, a tale which takes us into a world in which we know that wrong will finally be righted, the guilty exposed, the innocent vindicated, and human reason will triumph. Perhaps is it the frisson of vicarious terror and danger as we sit safely by our fireside or pull the bedclothes more comfortably under our chin. Above all, in our increasingly violent and irrational world—in which so many of our societal problems seem insoluble—the mystery offers the psychological comfort of a story, based on the premise that murder is still the unique crime, that even the most unpleasant character has the right to live to the last natural moment, and that there is no problem, however difficult, which cannot be solved by human ingenuity, human intelligence, and human courage. I suspect that these are some of the reasons why I enjoy mysteries. Perhaps they are also the reason why I choose to write them.
    -Murder Most Foul (P. D. James, August 3, 2020, Paris Review)
Critically speaking, I’m on the fence. McGregor’s writing style is ingenious. Indeed, “Reservoir 13,” which was published in Britain earlier this year, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, a testament to its artistry and a tip-off that this is not, in any conventional way, a mystery novel. But, as admirable as McGregor’s achievement is, I frequently found myself looking for excuses to stop admiring it and read something else. Staying inside his finely wrought construction for long stretches of time made me feel wistful for Agatha Christie. I wanted clues to track, criminals to nab and, most of all, a timely solution that would lay evil to rest.
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post)
It is impossible to discuss this novel without spoiling its central innovation, so do not read further if you’re about to crack it open (or fire up your Kindle.)

Jon McGregor has here taken the rather daring step of writing an anti-mystery. He opens with the disappearance of and search for a young girl who was on a family vacation in the Peak District, 13-year-old Rebecca Shaw. But, in the ensuing pages, contra Dame James, we get no investigation, no clues, no middle, no end, no restoration of order. Well, that last isn’t quite true: what he offers us is the deeply disturbing reality that such disappearances/deaths are just part of the natural order of our lives.

He achieves this via two narrative techniques. First, he focuses on the day-to-day lives of the local villagers. Over the course of over a decade, we watch as children grow up, marriages and businesses fail, folks run afoul of the law for other reason, holidays are celebrated, entertainments are mounted, economic development is pushed and resisted, etc. In a peculiar way, this is a source of dread. When children reveal that they knew Rebecca better than anyone knew, when the school janitor refuses to let anyone enter the boiler room he tends, when someone smashes up a laptop, whenever someone’s behavior is peculiar or a secret seems to be hidden, we fear that a murderer is about to be exposed and the townfolks’ lives shattered.

But we are always left hanging. Meanwhile, pulsing over the course of years we get the chorus: “The missing girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex.”

The other technique Mr. McGregor utilizes is to make the flora and fauna of the area into characters of the novel. The birth, life, death of badgers, birds, sheep, crops, plants and so forth are treated with exactly the same detail and depth as the stories of the human characters. The whole becomes nothing more than the normal cycle of existence. The disappearance, likely death, of a young woman is simply part of the rhythm of our lives.

Ms Corrigan’s frustration, voiced above, is understandable and echoed by more than one reviewer. On the other hand, it is a book you’re not unlikely to read in one sitting. And it is certain to disturb you in the best way possible.


(Reviewed:)

Grade: (A-)


Websites:

See also:

Crime
Jon McGregor Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Jon McGregor
    -AUTHOR SITE: Jon McGregor
    -FACULTY PAGE: Jon McGregor: Professor of Creative Writing, Faculty of Arts (University of Nottingham)
    -SUBSTACK: Class Notes by Jon McGregor
    -TWITTER: @jon_mcgregor
    -The Letters Page (a literary journal in letters, published by the School of English at the University of Nottingham and edited by Jon McGregor)
    -PUBLISHER PAGE: Jon McGregor (Catapult Books)
    -PUBLISHER PAGE: Jon McGregor (Harper Collins)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (Fantastic Fiction)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (Good Reads)
    -ENTRY: Reservoir 13 (Good Reads)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (The Booker Prizes)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (Dublin Literary Award)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (Book Browse)
    -ENTRY: Jon McGregor (Fiction Database)
    -ENTRY: McGregor, Jon 1976- (Encyclopedia.com)
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-AWARD: Jon McGregor wins International Impac Dublin Literary Award: British author wins one of the world's richest literary prizes for his novel Even the Dogs, about an alcoholic who dies at Christmas (Alison Flood, 13 Jun 2012, The Guardian)
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-VIDEO INDEX: “jon mcgregor” (YouTube)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (The New Yorker)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (LitHub)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (The Guardian)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (Granta)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (New Statesman)
    -INDEX: Jon McGregor (Times Literary Supplement)
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-VIDEO ARCHIVE: “jon mcgregor” (YouTube)
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-ESSAY: Saying a Few Words About My Novel at the Aphasia Self-Help Group: Jon McGregor Writes What He Doesn’t Know—But Does The Research First (Jon McGregor, September 29, 2021, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: From me, with love: the lost art of letter writing: Three years ago, novelist Jon McGregor invited strangers to send him a letter in the post. Scribbled notes and love letters are still landing on the doormat… (Jon McGregor, 26 Nov 2016, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: Once upon a life: During the anti-road protests of the 1990s, Jon McGregor handcuffed himself to a fellow activist in the loft of a house due for demolition – and waited to be evicted. It was the defining moment of his last teenage summer (Jon McGregor, 12 Feb 2011, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: ‘Everywhere I stop bookshops are thriving’: novelist Jon McGregor tours his latest book by bike: Bored of the online book readings brought on by Covid, the writer saddled up to see how many independent book stores he could visit in a week on two wheels (Jon McGregor, 22 Apr 2022, The Guardian)
    -AUDIO:2: Still Life with Coffee Pot (Still Lives by Jon McGregor, 17 Sep 2024, BBC)
    -AUDIO ESSAYS: Still Lives by Jon McGregor (BBC, 2024)
    -ESSAY: Jon McGregor: ‘I have never been asked how I juggle writing and fatherhood’: The winner of the Costa best novel award on the surprising similarities between writing and training for an Olympic slalom (Jon McGregor, 6 Jan 2018, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: A Reading List About Small Towns Where Everyone Has Something To Hide: Jon McGregor, author of ‘The Reservoir Tapes,’ on small communities that make for good storytelling (Jon McGregor, 8/06/18, Electric Lit)
    -AUDIO STORY: Staying Up All Night To Write A Story, Part 2 – Jon McGregor: For our Winter 2021-22 issue, Editor-at-large Thomas Morris invited Marie-Helene Bertino, Rebecca Ivory, Jon McGregor, and Stephen Sexton to each write a short story in a single night: starting at dusk and submitting by dawn: In this second episode of a two-part series, we are joined by Jon McGregor, who reads and discusses his story ‘Dwell’, which he wrote from start to finish in a single night. (Jon McGregor, 12/15/21, The Stinging Fly)
    -STORY: What the Sky Sees (Jon McGregor, 28th June 2002, Granta)
    -STORY: The First Punch (Jon McGregor, 12th November 2003, Granta)
    -STORY: Which Reminded Her Later (Jon McGregor, 25th October 2007, Granta)
    -ESSAY: Portrait of My Father (Jon McGregor, 20th November 2008, Granta)
    -STORY: In Winter the Sky (Jon McGregor, 18th January 2012, Granta)
    -STORY: Birds II (Jon McGregor, 4/06/22, New Statesman)
    -ESSAY: Four weeks at Santa Maddalena, March 2004 (Jon McGregor, Santa Maddalena Foundation)
    -EXCERPT: from The Reservoir Tapes: In Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor surveyed a town after the disappearance of a teenage girl. In an extract from The Reservoir Tapes, McGregor provides a prequel to those events (Jon McGregor, 1/05/18, TLS)
    -AUDIO: The Reservoir Tapes (Jon McGregor, BBC4)
    -STORY: We Wave And Call (Jon McGregor, 22 Jul 2011, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: #747 Fleeing Complexity (Jon McGregor, 5/21/17, 366 Short Stories)
    -EXCERPT: ‘Martin’s Story’ by Jon McGregor: 12 Tales for Christmas: an extract from ‘The Reservoir Tapes’ (Jon McGregor, Dec 28 2017, Irish Times)
    -AUDIO STORY: Keeping Watch Over The Sheep by Jon McGregor (Melanie Whipman, The Story Player)
    -ESSAY: ‘Cow Tower to Kett’s Heights’ (Jon McGregor, National Centre for Writing)
    -PLAYLIST: Living With Music: A Playlist by Jon McGregor (Gregory Cowles, April 21, 2010, NY Times)
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-PODCAST: Researching for fiction with Jon McGregor (National Centre for Writing, Jul 15, 2024, The Writing Life)
    -VIDEO: Lean Fall Stand book launch, with Jon McGregor (Five Leaves Bookshop, May 10, 2021)
    -VIDEO: Jon McGregor + Jarvis Cocker | Lean Fall Stand (Strand Book Store, Oct 13, 2021)
    -PODCAST: Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor (Literary Roadhouse Bookclub, 3/08/18)
    -VIDEO: Lean, Fall, Stand with author Jon McGregor (Swindon Festival of Literature, May 5, 2021)
    -PODCAST: Jon McGregor & Ted Hodgkinson: Jon McGregor talks about reworking his first published story from the female perspective and reads from both the original and updated version. He also discusses his enduring fascination with Lincolnshire and his new short story collection, This Isn’t The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You. (Granta Podcast, 1/20/12)
    -STORY: Clough (Jon McGregor, 30th November 2012, Granta)
    -VIDEO: Reservoir 13 (Music for the Novel by Jon McGregor): The official soundtrack to the COSTA Novel of the Year 2017, Reservoir 13 (Music for the Novel by Jon McGregor) was written to accompany the author’s book tour throughout 2017-18 and features fellow Derbyshire instrumentalists Haiku Salut. (Richard Birkin)
    -PODCAST: Small Pleasures Episode 8 Jon McGregor's 'The Singing' (The Short Story Podcast, Nov 30, 2022)
    -PODCAST: Episode 435 | Jon McGregor Interview (Author Stories Podcast With Hank Garner, 8/08/18)
    -VIDEO: Jon McGregor, in conversation with Rachel Hewitt about 'Lean Fall Stand' (Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, May 13, 2021)
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-INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor: ‘I’m allergic to trying to make points in fiction’: The prizewinning novelist and short story writer on capturing daily rural life and the joy of a bad review (Justine Jordan, 7 Apr 2017, The Guardian)
“The passive voice was really deliberate because it just feels very English to me,” McGregor says. “It’s a gossipy village, but they would never think of themselves as gossips. ‘Somebody was seen.’ They’re not going to say: ‘I saw so and so.’ Small communities can be very inclusive, but they can also be very claustrophobic.”

    -INTERVIEW: Disaster in Antarctica: Jon McGregor on his suspenseful new novel: His Booker-nominated novel Reservoir 13 was a quiet portrait of rural life. Now he has taken on the peril of the Antarctic. He talks about discovering the thrill of page-turning tension (Alex Clark, 24 Apr 2021, The Guardian)
    -PROFILE: New kid on the block : Jon McGregor is 26, lives in Nottingham and has been working part-time in a vegetarian restaurant to fund his writing. Now his first novel has made it on to the Booker prize longlist - and he's as surprised as everyone else. (Matt Seaton, 19 Aug 2002, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor: My desktop: The winner, last week, of the Impac prize for his novel Even the Dogs, explains why he always backs up his photos (Interview by Ben Johncock, 20 Jun 2012, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Time Marches On: An Interview with Jon McGregor (George Saunders, October 18, 2017, The Paris Review)
INTERVIEWER

Nabokov once said that in Tolstoy’s work you see the most accurate representation of time passing as it actually passes. And I had that feeling in your book for just the reason you described. There was no feeling of the author rigging the system to slow time down. Time just marched on. And that gave me a very beautiful sense of the way people actually decide things and the way love actually happens and the way things that in retrospect look like fate are actually sometimes quite circumstantial.

MCGREGOR

I was trying to remember where the impulse for doing that came from. I don’t know. I think it was as basic as I’d written a whole bunch of these separate narrative lines, I stuck them all together to see what would happen, and I really liked the way that felt on the page. The one thing, then the other thing, then meanwhile this thing is still happening. It just felt good in a way I didn’t really understand.

    -INTERVIEW: The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Jon McGregor (The Rumpus Book ClubNovember 22, 2017, Rumpus)
    -PROFILE: Jon McGregor: Tessa Harris reports from our event with novelist Jon McGregor and appreciates a new approach to the standard author event. (Chapter & Verse, Manchester Literary Festival Blog, 7 October 2017)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor | 'I tried really hard not to toy with the reader, not to lead them down the garden path' (Alice O'Keeffe, 2/17/17, The Bookseller)
[M]cGregor describes Reservoir 13 as an “anti-thriller”. He says: “I’m very aware that I use the fact of the girl being missing as a hook to bring the reader in and to keep them going. I tried really hard not to toy with the reader, not to lead them down the garden path. Because what I’m interested in is, why do we always expect resolution from fiction? Why do we insist on it as a justification for having read the book, somehow, when life is so often not like that?

    -INTERVIEW: Q&A With Jon McGregor: Jon McGregor is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award for his 2012 novel Even the Dogs. He is currently a Professor of Creative Writing and a Writer in Residence at the University of Nottingham, where he runs his literary journal, The Letters Page. ( Laura Stanley, 28 July 2020, Nottingham, City of Literature)
    -INTERVIEW: Reading with... Jon McGregor (Shelf Awareness, 11/29/17)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview with Jon McGregor (Shelf Unbound, October/ November 2021, Shelf Media Group)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview with Jon McGregor (Caroline Edwards, 2010,Contemporary Literature )
    -INTERVIEW: [Interview] Jon McGregor (Conversations with Writers, May 18, 2007)
    -INTERVIEW: Twenty Questions with Jon McGregor: Any book worth reading a second time is one that makes me want to do better, work harder, be less satisfied with what I've done so far. (TLS)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview: Jon McGregor (Interview: James Walker, 11/01/06, LeftLion)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘It’s not as though literature really is a mystical process of discovery’: – An interview with Jon McGregor, author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things & Even the Dogs (Valerie O’Riordan, 2/15/10, Bookmunch)
    -INTERVIEW: The Silence You Don’t Know: PW Talks with Jon McGregor (Aaron Gwyn, Jul 02, 2021, Publishers Weekly)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor on story cycles, show-don’t-tell and the ‘Reservoir’ novels (Joe Bedford)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor: ‘Book prizes can be useful but can also be a fairly shallow marketing trick’: Novelist on his new book, Lean Fall Stand, written 17 years after his trip to Antarctica (John Self, Apr 29 2021, Irish Times)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘As a writer you see something from the outside, but you also have the view from inside’: Jon McGregor, award winning British novelist and short story writer (KERNAN ANDREWS, Apr 16, 2015, Galway Advertiser)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor: I wanted to show how we normalise male violence: The author of Goldsmiths Prize-nominated Reservoir 13 on domestic abuse, following farmers on Twitter and building a novel with ring-binders and Sellotape. (Tom Gatti, 11/13/17, New Statesman)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor on turning the 'missing girl' genre on its head (The National)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor on His Latest Novel, Reservoir 13 (Interview: LP Mills, 15 October 2017, LeftLion)
    -INTERVIEW: Jon McGregor (Sue Leonard, 26th June 2017)
    -INTERVIEW: A Drowned World: Jon McGregor and Maile Meloy on “Reservoir 13” (Maile Meloy, November 15, 2017, B&N Review)
    -INTERVIEW: This Isn't The Sort Of Things That Happens To Someone Like You: Having languished for decades, the short story is making a comeback with authors such as Jon McGregor leading the charge. He explains how he convinced his publisher to let him return to his first love. Anne Sexton, 3/01/12, Hot Press)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview: Jon McGregor, Author of The Reservoir Tapes (Shelf Media, July 7, 2019)
    -INTERVIEW: Drawing out the dispossessed: Jon McGregor tests his readers' loyalties with his latest novel: Jon McGregor's latest novel, Even the Dogs, following a group of homeless drug addicts, is a radical departure from his previous work. (James Urquhart, 05 February 2010, Independent)
    -INTERVIEW: Meet Jon McGregor (Bold Journey, June 16, 2023)
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-STUDY GUIDE: Reservoir 3 (Book Rags)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Reservoir 13 (LitLovers)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Reservoir 13 (New Book Recommendation)
    -READING GROUP GUIDE: So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor (Reading Group Guides)
    -ESSAY: Connected through Custom: Well Dressing in Jon McGregor’s Novel, Reservoir 13 (Sophie Parkes-Nield, April 2021, Folklore)
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-REVIEW ESSAY: The Visionary Power of the Novelist Jon McGregor: He mixes the mundane and the ecstatic, and refuses to settle into conventional form. (James Wood, November 20, 2017, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: Ways of Looking: The Composite Novel and Posthuman Community in Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13 A. Guyton, 2023, , C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings)
    -PODCAST: Discussing Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (Literary Roadhouse Bookclub Ep 18, Jul 3, 2018)
    -ESSAY: Diffracted Landscapes of Attention: Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 (Jean-Michel Ganteau)
    -INTERVIEW: Reading With Authors #7: Even The Dogs – Jon McGregor; With Isabel Ashdown (Savidge Reads, 9/18/11)
    -ESSAY: Masters and Slaves: Britain's Cultural Selves in Jon McGregor's 'So Many Ways to Begin' (D. Shortt, Edge Hill University)
    -CHAPTER: 5 - Suburban Worlds: Rachel Cusk and Jon McGregor (Berthold Schoene, 9/12/12, The Cosmopolitan Novel)
    -CHAPTER: 5 Jon McGregor (Twenty-first-century fiction, Daniel Lea)
    -ESSAY: Vistas of the Humble: Jon McGregor’s Fiction (Jean-Michel Ganteau, 2015, Études anglaises)
    -ESSAY: Jon McGregor’s Negative Space in If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Par Isabelle Keller-Privat, 2017, Études anglaises)
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-REVIEW INDEX: Jon McGregor (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW INDEX: Jon McGregor (Kirkus)
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-REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (Tessa Hadley, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Kate Taylor, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Avril Hoare, RTE)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Susan Osborne, A Life in Books)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Stephen Highcock, Pennington Public Library)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Mark Reynolds, Bookanista)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (A Book or Ten)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Lesley West, Good Reading)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Entertaining Mr. Pete)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Audiofile)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Word by Word)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Scuffed Granny)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Sandra Danby’s Book Reviews)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Elle Thinks)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Booker Talk)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Lonesome Reader)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Paul Gorman, Into the Gyre)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Girl With Her Head in a Book)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Sarah Crown, Times Literary Supplement)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Schatje's Shelves)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Liis Pallas, Cover to Cover)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Linda Newbery, Writers Review)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Monniblog)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Work Over Easy)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Life is too short to read bad books.)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Joslyn Allen, chronic bibliophilia)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (The Book Lovers' Sanctuary)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Charles Finch, Chicago Tribune)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Fiendfully Reading)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Rook Reading)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (The Lit Review)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Toast)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (AEQAI)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (The Longest Chapter)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (No Word Limit)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (New Book Recommendation)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Laura Tisdall)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Sarah Musk, Love Reading)[pdf]
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (John Day, Financial Times)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (BookBrowse)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (we can read it for you wholesale)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Elizabeth Baines)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Jessica Norrie, Words and Fictions)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Zoe Colvin, zmkc)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Paraic O'Donnell, Irish Times)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (BookMarks)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (MALCOLM FORBES, Minnesota Star Tribune)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Bill Kelly, Booklist)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Keeping Up With the Penguins)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Nathan Deuel, LA Times)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Alex Peake-Tomkinson)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (Lonesome Reader)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 (B. Morrison)
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 ()
    -REVIEW: of Reservoir 13 ()
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-REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor (Cory Oldweiler, AM NY)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Paula Bardell-Hedley, BookJotter)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Claire Ogilvie, zyzzyva)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (The Reader’s Room)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Avril Hoare, RTE)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Rozalind Dineen, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Susan Osborne, A Life in Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Reservoir Tapes (Mary Whipple, Seeing the World Through Books)
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-REVIEW: of Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor (Christopher Tayler, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (Edmund Gordon, The Observer)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (Lizzie’s Literary Life)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (John Self, Asylum)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (Musings of a Literary Dilettante)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (The Bookbag)
    -REVIEW: of Even the Dogs (Kevin from Canada)
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-REVIEW: of So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor (Alfred Hickling, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways to Begin (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways to Begin (The Owl on the Bookshelf)
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways To Begin (Christopher Bray, Literary Review)
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways To Begin (Monique, So Misguided)
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways To Begin (
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways To Begin (
    -REVIEW: of So Many Ways To Begin (
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-REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (Julie Myerson, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Rotten Books)
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Joel Seath)
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (
    -REVIEW: of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (
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-REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor (Alexandra Harris, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Yiyun Li, NYRB)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Stand Fall (The Literary Sisters)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Booker Talk)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Stand Fall (Susan Osborne, A Life in Books)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Christopher Tayler, Harpers)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Toby Lichtig, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Blair Braverman, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Allan Massie, The Scotsman)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Book Marks)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (James Walton, Times uk)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Jon Michaud, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Lily Meyer, NPR)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Sam Sacks, WSJ)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Jonathat McAloon, Irish Times)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Jonathan Meyerson, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Leyla Sanai, The Spectator)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Meg Ringler, Chicago Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Mandy Jackson-Beverley, NY Journal of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Estelle Birdy, Irish Independent)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Edmund Gordon, London Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Claire Allfree, Daily Mail)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Elizabeth Baines)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Story Machines)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (David Hebblethwaite, Shiny New Books)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (Cory Oldweiler, Minnesota Star Tribune)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand (The Economist)
    -REVIEW: of Lean Fall Stand ()
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-REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You: Stories By Jon McGregor (Jan Stuart, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You: Stories (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Valerie O’Riordan, Bookmunch)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Vuples Libris)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (ABC Tales)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Pale Outlaw)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Teresa, Shelf Love)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Arifa Akbar, Independent)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Dylan Moore, Wales Arts Review)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Debra Martens, Numero Cing)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Lee Thomas, Fiction Writers Review)
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (
    -REVIEW: of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (
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-STORY REVIEW: of Still Life with an Open Door by Jon McGregor (A Personal Anthology)
    -STORY REVIEW: of In Winter the Sky by Jon McGregor (A Personal Anthology)
    -STORY REVIEW: of That Colour by Jon McGregor (Grahame Williams, A Personal Anthology)
    -STORY REVIEW: If It Keeps On Raining by Jon McGregor (Short Story Magic Tricks)
    -STORY REVIEW: Jon McGregor, ‘Wires’ (2011) (David Hebblethwaite, David’s Book World)
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-REVIEW: of Tom Conaghan’s “Reverse Engineering” (Declan Ryan, LA Review of Books)

Book-related and General Links:

    -ESSAY: How TV Procedurals Make What’s Bad Feel So Good: On "the procedural as its own separate space in mystery storytelling." (Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare, 3/13/25, CrimeReads)
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