now i have heard much about alasdair gray (who, incidentally, has a brand new book out: old men in love) but years went by, and none came my way, and last week one did and now i commend to you his 1992 novel poor things - three-part novel, beginning with the gothic victorian romance (and what a romp! especially the long letter in shakespearean verse!) subsequently deconstructed through socialist, feminist perspective in an appendix letter, which in turn is undercut by political cynicism in the deliberately, revealingly solicitious "editorial footnotes."