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a novel by Debra Murphy
The myth of St. George-and-the-Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this literary mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee. A gifted young Shakespeare scholar is haunted by a tragic...
Q & A with Debra Murphy about The Mystery of Things
Question: Tell us something about The Mystery of Things. Debra Murphy: It’s essentially St. George-vs-the-Dragon in the form of a modern mystery-thriller. In keeping with the...
La Guadalupana draws millions
As many Idyllist readers know, Our Lady of Guadalupe figures prominently in my novel, The Mystery of Things. Well, here’s a little factoid from the Catholic news agency, Zenit,...
Holy Grail buried in Rome?here’s an article in today’s Catholic World News reporting that an Italian archeologist believes that the cup Christ used at the Last Supper may be buried beneath the walls...
Second Spring reviews TMoTStratford Caldecott, author of many books and editor of Second Spring: A Journal of Faith and Culture, has written a brief but alarmingly gratifying review of The Mystery of Things...
Holy Hill Shrine named a Minor BasilicaAfter the dreadful news of the satanic-motivated vandalizing of the Carmelite Shrine of Holy Hill in June, it is with double pleasure that we now learn that Pope Benedict has named...
Godspy Review of tMoTMatthew Lickona has published a very nice review of The Mystery of Things on Godspy. Matthew is the author of Swimming with Scapulars, a sort of youthful (and frequently humorous) autobiography...
INFUZE review of The Mystery of ThingsThe cool Christian Arts & Entertainment ‘zine INFUZE has published a review by Matthew Winslow of The Mystery of Things. You may need to register (it’s free) to read...
My favorite Vaughan WilliamsI originally set up my bedroom desk, now under piles of piles of manuscripts and miscellany, as a cozy little area to be used strictly for “reading and writing”. (That’s...
Read More Posts From This CategoryThemes
Hamlet (BBC, 1980)Buy BBC Hamlet on DVD from Ambrose Video Buy BBC Hamlet on VHS from Ambrose Video It is also available from Ambrose Video as part of a boxed set of 5 DVDs of the BBC Shakespeare Tragedies....
Uh, Hopkins also Lear?We reported two days ago the news that Al Pacino was set to play King Lear in a new adaptation directed by Michael Radford. A little internet searching on the subject yielded another...
McKellen’s LEAR on PBS…fully clothedThe news has been making it around the web that PBS, which is broadcasting a performance of the Trevor Nunn production of King Lear starring Ian McKellen on March 23, had decided to...
Q & A with Debra Murphy about The Mystery of Things
Question: Tell us something about The Mystery of Things. Debra Murphy: It’s essentially St. George-vs-the-Dragon in the form of a modern mystery-thriller. In keeping with the...
Liev Schreiber & the “Young Shakespearians”The New Yorker online has a wonderful video from their recent conference featuring Liev Schreiber, Ethan Hawke, et al., discussing Shakespeare in performance. Kirsten Johnston—very...
“You’ll never get it right…”
Ever since I began writing The Mystery of Things, I’ve had a fascination for Shakespeare’s villains in general and Iago in particular. It’s the “why?”...
La Guadalupana draws millions
As many Idyllist readers know, Our Lady of Guadalupe figures prominently in my novel, The Mystery of Things. Well, here’s a little factoid from the Catholic news agency, Zenit,...
Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and AppropriationThis is a fairly new online journal, dealing (academically) with what one might call the “Steal, but only from the best (namely Shakespeare)” industry. (I, um, have been...
Holy Grail buried in Rome?here’s an article in today’s Catholic World News reporting that an Italian archeologist believes that the cup Christ used at the Last Supper may be buried beneath the walls...
Ian McKellen’s King LearA good friend of my son’s is across the pond, as they say, studying abroad in London. As a theater major, she’s doing some exhaustive “homework” taking in a whole slew of...
Read More Posts From This CategoryDebra Murphy
Q & A with Debra Murphy about The Mystery of ThingsQuestion: Tell us something about The Mystery of Things. Debra Murphy: It’s essentially St. George-vs-the-Dragon in the form of a modern mystery-thriller. In keeping with the Elizabethan motifs in the book, the version of the St. George tale that I borrow from is the Redcrosse Knight/Una story in Book I of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.... [Read more of this review]
Sex, Death and Christian FictionChristian sci-fi writer Simon Morden gave a talk at the 2005 Greenbelt Arts Festival entitled “Sex, Death and Christian Fiction” in which he (quite cogently, I believe) critiques “Christian fiction, its theology and its shortcomings” as it is presently being published, particularly by US publishers adhering to Christian Booksellers... [Read more of this review]
The Triumph of the ThrillerThe New York Times online has published the first chapter of Patrick Anderson’s book, The Triumph of the Thriller, which charts the change in American reading habits (as judged by bestseller lists) over the last forty years. Here’s an excerpt: “The more I read, the more I was struck by the transformation in America’s reading... [Read more of this review]
My favorite Vaughan WilliamsI originally set up my bedroom desk, now under piles of piles of manuscripts and miscellany, as a cozy little area to be used strictly for “reading and writing”. (That’s in contrast to my “work” desk down in the basement office/dungeon of Idylls Press proper.) Beginning the daunting task of reclamation this morning—my... [Read more of this review]
My interview with Claire AsquithMy interview with Claire Asquith, author of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare is up on GodSpy. Speaking with Claire over the phone for an hour was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done that I also got paid for. She is an incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and fair-minded woman. She also exhibits a fair... [Read more of this review]
“Northwestauthors” interviewThe Northwest Authors Blog has posted an interview with me, hosted by Marlene Moore of Northwestwriters.com. Read More →
“Disagreeable Facts” and Catholic FictionPhilip Lawler, editor of The Catholic World Report, has a wonderful editorial in the most recent issue of the magazine. The title is “Disagreeable Facts,” and the tagline is: Christians want to counteract the campaign to debase public morality, but prefer to avoid discussing the ugly details. That may prove impractical. The thrust of Lawler’s... [Read more of this review]
The “Missing Link” in Catholic FictionI’ve been talking about the increasing “genrefication” in bookselling, publishing, and marketing, and about the Mars Hill Review article on the “CBA” and “anti-CBA” writers of Catholic fiction. The “CBA”-type writers, from this perspective, tend to make evangelization and sending a Christian message,... [Read more of this review]
On Mysteries and Thrillers…and religionHere’s an article from the Boston Globe about the formation of a new group of writers, the International Thriller Writers. The aim of the group is to promote thrillers, and get this “sub-genre” out from underneath the shadow of the mystery genre. What distinguishes a thriller from a mystery? ”Mysteries focus on who done it. Thrillers... [Read more of this review]
Mysteries and “the Mystery”Christianity Today online has posted an article by Louis Markos entitled “The Compulsive Reader.” “What,” Markos asks, “is this mania to reach the end of the book?” Why, if a novel is gripping and well written, do we find we can’t put it down till we find out what happens? Markos answers, in part: What we hope... [Read more of this review]
Read More Posts From This CategoryTHE MYSTERY OF THINGS
The myth of St. George and the Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee.
More about the book....
