ISDAL

<p><b>The much-anticipated debut poetry collection from acclaimed novelist Susannah Dickey, on the subject of our cultural obsession with true crime.</b><br><br><i>ISDAL</i> is a timely interrogation of the true crime genre. In the first of its three parts, we follow the flirty co-presenters of a podcast about the mystery of 'Isdal Woman', whose burnt remains were discovered in Norway in 1970 and who has never been identified. At the centre of the book is a philosophical enquiry into our perennial obsession with female victims, sexiness, and death: &lsquo;The death in question has already occurred&rsquo;, the poet observes, &lsquo;has occurred to someone sufficiently abstract as to allow us to romp gainfully, guilelessly, guiltlessly through a simulacrum of death&rsquo;s corridors&rsquo;. The free verse poems in the final section both explore and&mdash;perhaps inevitably&mdash;enact the ethical ambiguities of the genre. Witty, excoriating, formally ingenious, <i>ISDAL </i>marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent in contemporary poetry.</p>