“[Claudette] doesn’t see a room, an alcove, a piece of flooring: she sees a work in progress, just waiting to be embarked upon.” This Must Be The Place. If there is one thing Maggie O’Farrell’s loyal readers expect, it’s a good disappearance. In this respect, her Costa short-listed This Must Be The Place follows in Read More
I must admit I felt a little strange looking in on what looked like an ancient muslin flower which might have fallen from Miss Havisham’s veil…I immediately felt it could be the core of a Rhona book. This is how the author describes how None but the Dead was “born”. Lin Anderson is an exponent Read More
Dirt Road, James Kelman’s latest novel, opens at the outset of a journey; Murdo, a sixteen-year-old accordionist, and his father, Tom, are travelling from Scotland to visit relatives in Alabama. Where one might expect feelings of excitement, the anticipation of an adventure, there is instead a solemn atmosphere. Murdo’s mother has recently passed away from Read More
A title like Treats suggests a lot. But be warned: the flavour of the short stories in Lara Williams’ debut collection is mostly one of bitterness and regret. These short short stories – 21 of them in a mere 120 pages – give a very bleak impression of modern existence. Written mostly in the final Read More
The year is 2116, and the place is an Independent Scotland. The Battle of the Sexes in which “men killed women killed men, fathers killed mothers killed fathers, daughters killed sons killed daughters …” (you get the idea) is 20 years in the past, superseded by a period of “kissing-and-making-up-and-fucking”. This results in the massive Read More
Madeleine Thien is not unused to being shortlisted for prizes, or winning them. Her previous work Dogs at the Perimeter was shortlisted for Berlin’s 2014 International Literature Award and won the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2015 Internationaler Literaturpreis. She, as with the narrator of Do Not Say We Have Nothing Marie Jiang, is the daughter of Read More
Virginia Reeves (Scribner, 2016) hbk. 14.99 A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Virginia Reeves has produced Work Like Any Other as her debut novel, a remarkable achievement given its impressive authenticity and potency. Apparently, after seven years of life in the wide-openness of the lone-star state, she has Read More
Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton, 2016); pbk, £12.99 In an interview given at the time of her previous Man Booker nomination in 2012, Deborah Levy is recorded as saying, “I want to walk my female characters into the centre of my work. They don’t have to be likable but they have to be compelling and complicated.” Well, Read More
Ian McGuire (Scribner, 2016); Hbk, £14.99 Ian McGuire was born near Hull and studied in Manchester and Virginia, USA. The North Water is McGuire’s second novel; his first, Incredible Bodies, follows the career of a University Lecturer. He is currently Co-Director of Manchester University’s Centre for New Writing. It might have been useful for McGuire Read More
Wyl Menmuir (Salt, 2016); pbk. £8.99 “Who was Perran?” This is the question that Timothy, the main character in Wyl Menmuir’s debut novel, The Many, continues to ask, and it’s a question we find ourselves asking too, especially towards the tragic conclusion. A definitive answer is never forthcoming however, and this is partly why The Read More