SOURCE: “Fast Like a Novel,” in Times Literary Supplement, December 22, 2000, p. 22.

In the following review, Greening offers an unfavorable assessment of Bloodlines.

The verse novel is becoming a popular genre. From Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate to Craig Raine's History: The Home Movie to Les Murray's Fredy Neptune, publishers have had to find ingenious ways of marketing what has generally been considered unmarketable—the Long Poem. Some have kept the v-word well clear of the front cover; others blazon it like a health warning. And so it is with Fred D'Aguiar's new “novel-in-verse”: we are advised to “Read this book fast like a novel, savour every word like a poem.” But by the end of Bloodlines, I had still not found a satisfactory way of reading it. D'Aguiar writes in ottava rima, which can certainly be used to tell a story, but it is a tricky form to...