Max Porter’s new novel The Death of Francis Bacon was published by Faber last week, and we were thrilled to see such fantastic reviews.

The Scotsman said “what kind of a book this is is an otiose question to ask. It’s a Max Porter book.” The review went on to say that “it tells you more about how to look at a Bacon than anything I have read about the painter” and called it a “very moving depiction of a mind in dissolution at the very edge of death.” The Spectator said “Porter is one of our most exciting writers. He dares to experiment and that means both the flare of mercury and the burnt crucible. Some sections enthral, others alienate.” The review praised the book as “tricky, wicked and wonderfully weird.”

We were also delighted to read the Irish Times review, which described the book as a “little masterpiece” which “packs a mean Peter Lacy-style punch.” Meanwhile, the Guardian called it a “fragmentary, poetic reimagining of Bacon’s last days in Madrid”, which “reads like brilliant notes towards a very private communion with the painter.” Finally, the Telegraph review had this to say: “The Death of Francis Bacon is a mirror of Bacon’s paintings: tragic, cruelly funny, shallow, repetitive, wild, controlled, grotesque.”