What Was Theodora Keogh’s Best Novel?

By Neal 

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One more note about recently deceased novelist Theodora Keogh and the flurry of attention being repaid to her work, this time from Brooks Peters, who wrote one of the most talked-about online appreciations, and was cited by Glen David Gold as the inspiration to track down The Double Door. “I didn’t actually say that The Double Door was Keogh’s best book,” Peters clarified by email. “It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and led me to get all her other books. My favorite, as I mentioned, is The Tattooed Heart. But I think a case could be made that Meg, which Patricia Highsmith herself praised, is probably the ‘best,’ if one wants to compare them.”

Damn. Now there’s three more books I want to read… And I love that Tattooed Heart cover; you might change the drawing style a little bit, but that basic layout and maybe even the lettering would work perfectly for so many of today’s “transgressive” literary writers. I could totally see it on, say, a Scott Heim or J.T. Leroy dust jacket…