Set in 1994 in Wroclaw, Poland, THE HORIZONTAL WOMAN is the second in David Brierley's Eastern European trilogy, and opens with the artist hero Tadensz in prison, pending the outcome of his trial for murder. His cellmate thinks he is mad when he hears him confess to his crime, claiming it was all for love. Eighteen years earlier Tadeusz had been a founding member of the Satirist Movement, part of Poland's intellectual and political underground within an oppressive Communist regime. His model, the beautiful Zuzanna, had completely seduced the artist as he painted his masterpiece, The Horizontal Woman. This brilliantly written novel of mystery, desire and betrayal describes how we raise statues in tribute to men - but women are always commemorated in the horizontal position.
