Music Upstairs (Virago Modern Classics) - Softcover

Shena Mackay's work has glittered from the start. Her early short novel Music Upstairs, published in the sixties, twisted the English language into a new, harsh poetry, sang an Earl's Court blues (Michele Roberts Independent)

Mackay's gift for the killing simile and the surprising, spot-on image is splendidly in evidence . . . the writing has a studied and altogether individual brilliance (Guardian)

Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was fourteen. Two novellas, Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumberger and Toddler on the Run were published before she was twenty. Redhill Rococo won the 1987 Fawcett Prize, Dunedin won a 1994 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize and, in 2003, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Southampton.