Gwendoline Riley’s New Novel Surveys the Wreckage of Middle Age
That repeated “nothing” is surely a deliberate echo of the “ ‘Nothing?’ ‘Nothing.’ ” in “King Lear,” when Lear beseeches each of his three daughters to declare the strength of their love for him, and his youngest, Cordelia, replies that she is unable to speak what is not true. The central deadlock of the play—a daughter unwilling…