Beauty in Terror: Janette Turner Hospital's Orpheus Lost

Janette Turner Hospital, in embracing the theme of terrorism, has taken the literary novel back to something akin to Graham Greene's work. She is a thriller writer where the murderers and the victims are "real." Orpheus Lost is a powerfully plotted book that has moral gravity and that is also touched by a spirit of mercy. It is a remarkable literary performance that can explain why Joyce Carol Oates described Hospital as a major writer.