Muriel Spark had superpowers. Even as a child she was aware of “a definite ‘something beyond myself,’” an “access to knowledge that I couldn’t possibly have gained through normal channels,” including a sixth “literary” sense possessed only by certain readers and critics. Her own sixth sense can be seen in her biographies of Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë, and in her 22 novels, which are best read chronologically because they anticipate one another and form a perfect whole. Her first novel, The Comforters (1957), for example, begins at an open window in the early morning, and nearly 50 years later, The Finishing School (2004), Spark’s appropriately named final novel, concludes at another open window, “as we go through the evening and into the night.”
In her second novel, Robinson (1958), Spark referred to herself as “Muriel the Marvel with her X-Ray Eyes.” “Everything that happened to Muriel,” said Barbara Epler, Spark’s favorite editor, “had been foreseen,” usually in the books themselves. After writing about Mary Shelley being blackmailed over a cache of love letters, Spark was also blackmailed over a cache of love letters; after writing about a couple being struck by lightning, Spark was also struck by lightning.
