25 MAY 1991, page 32

To A Poet From Eastern Europe, 1988

Strong drink — on the bare table a neat vodka, Innocently transparent as pure water, Shimmers before you, with your fence of bone (Stake shoulders, propping arms) set up around......

Raining In My Heart

Patrick Skene Catling DAY OF ATONEMENT by A. Alvarez Cape, £13.99, pp. 221 A . Alvarez's third novel is what Graham Greene would have called an entertainment. It is a good one.......

Sorry It's Late, Will This Do?

William Scammell U AND I by Nicholson Baker Granta Books, f12.99, pp. 179 fi rst I made the usual phone call, to a man I've never met, sitting in a building I've never visited,......