Seeing and being seen: Wet Paint, by Chloë Ashby, reviewed
In this arresting debut novel we follow 26-year-old Eve as she tries to come to terms with the loss of…
A modern Medea: Iron Curtain, by Vesna Goldsworthy, reviewed
Vesna Goldsworthy’s finely wrought third novel explodes into life early on with a shocking scene in which Misha — the…
The stuff of everyday life: Real Estate, by Deborah Levy, reviewed
Real Estate is the third and concluding volume of Deborah Levy’s ground-breaking ‘Living Autobiography’. Fans of Levy’s alluring, highly allusive…
The art of negotiation: Peace Talks, by Tim Finch, reviewed
Early on in Tim Finch’s hypnotic novel Peace Talks, the narrator — the diplomat Edvard Behrends, who facilitates international peace…
Male violence pulses through Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock
‘It’s a woman’s thing, creation,’ says Sarah,a girl accused of witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland, in one of the three storylines…
Hell and high water: eco-anxiety dominates Jenny Offill’s latest novel
Lizzie, the narrator of Jenny Offill’s impressive third novel Weather, is ‘enmeshed’ with her brother, according to her psychologist-cum-meditation teacher.…
Kathleen Jamie’s luminous new essays brim with sense and sensibility
There is a moment in one of the longer pieces in Surfacing, Kathleen Jamie’s luminous new collection of essays, when…
Jessie Burton’s The Confession is, frankly, a bit heavy-handed
Jessie Burton is famous for her million-copy bestselling debut novel The Miniaturist, which she followed with The Muse. Now she’s…
Brutish Brits: You Will Be Safe Here, by Damian Barr, reviewed
Damian Barr explains the upsetting genesis of his impressive debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, in his acknowledgements: This…
The cruise of a lifetime: Proleterka, by Fleur Jaeggy, reviewed
Near the start of Fleur Jaeggy’s extraordinary novel Proleterka, the unnamed narrator reflects: ‘Children lose interest in their parents when…
Kristen Roupenian’s debut short stories fulfil all expectations
Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection, You Know You Want This (Cape, £12.99), comes hotly anticipated. Her short story, ‘Cat Person’, went…
Caught between fascism and witchcraft: All Among the Barley, by Melissa Harrison, reviewed
All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison’s third ‘nature novel’, centres on Wych Farm in the autumn of 1933, where the…
Crudo, by Olivia Laing, reviewed
Olivia Laing has been deservedly lauded for her thoughtful works of non-fiction To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring…
Love and loneliness prevail in the latest short stories
Carmen Maria Machado’s debut collection Her Body & Other Parties (Serpent’s Tail, £12.99) takes a confident straddle across speculative fiction,…
Françoise Frankel: a spirited woman on the run in Occupied France
Françoise Frenkel was a Polish Jew, who adored books and spent much of her early life studying and working in…
A choice of first novels
Black Rock White City (Melville House, £16.99) is ostensibly about a spate of sinister graffiti in a Melbourne hospital. ‘The…
Mysticism and metamorphosis
‘I frankly hate Descartes,’ states a character in Nicole Krauss’s new novel, Forest Dark: ‘The more he talks about following…
The dark side of creativity
In Eureka, Anthony Quinn gives us all the enjoyable froth we could hope for in a novel about making a…
Dark secrets of village life
Jon McGregor’s first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, a surprise inclusion on the 2002 Booker longlist that went…
Intimations of immortality
A preoccupation with death is felt from the start of Margaret Drabble’s new novel, which opens with Francesca Stubbs, in…
Words on the street
A white van pulls up outside St Giles in the Fields, an imposing 18th century church in central London, around…
London’s lost rivers
I found my first of London’s many lost rivers when I walked across Holborn Viaduct, looked down at the sweep…
London’s lost rivers
I found my first of London’s many lost rivers when I walked across Holborn Viaduct, looked down at the sweep…
The power of music and storytelling
Madeleine Thien’s third novel, recently long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, begins in Vancouver with Marie, who, like the author,…
Holiday reading
Holidays are a welcome chance to lose ourselves between the covers of a book, especially for those of us who…
