The Hothouse by the East River
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 First edition (UK) | |
| Author | Muriel Spark |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Macmillan (UK) Viking (US) |
Publication date | 1973 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 168 (UK) 146 (US) |
The Hothouse by the East River is a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark published in 1973. The main two settings of the novel both reflect the author's life where she lived in Manhattan and where she worked in a POW camp in Britain in World War II.[1]
From a later introduction to the novel Ian Rankin wrote 'As early as 1965, Muriel Spark had a title in mind for a new book. That title was Hothouse East River. The novel itself, however, would not appear until 1973, much changed from its original incarnation, as Spark herself would confide during a 1970 interview with the Guardian newspaper: ‘I’m so interested in the present tense that I’ve redone a book I’ve been working on for three years,The Hot House by the East River, and put it all in the present tense.’ ... the novel she would eventually pen about New York would be one of her strangest, most jarring works, painting an unflattering portrait of the city's wealthier denizens and their spiritually empty lives...'