Book review – fiction

Gang warfare in the west of Ireland: Wild Houses, by Colin Barrett, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

The brother of a small-time drugs dealer is kidnapped, and his family and girlfriend set off to find him over the course of one violent, hectic weekend

Back from the beyond: The Book of Love, by Kelly Link, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Three adolescents reappear in their home town on the Massachusetts coast, having been presumed dead – which is closer to the truth than their families realise

The truth one year, heresy the next: The Book of Days, by Francesca Kay, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

A richly imagined novel unfolds in an Oxfordshire village as the accession of the child king Edward VI brings another round of ‘newfanglery’ in religion

The magic and mystery of Georgia: Hard by a Great Forest, by Leo Vardiashvili, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Homesick after 20 years in London, Irakli returns to his Caucasian roots and promptly disappears. Can Saba, his youngest son, track him down against the odds?

Three men in exile: My Friends, by Hisham Matar, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Terror of discovery by the Libyan authorities haunts Khaled, Hosam and Mustafa after their protests against Gaddafi make their return home impossible

Surprise package: Tackle!, by Jilly Cooper, reviewed

16 December 2023 9:00 am

Rupert Campbell-Black (‘still Nirvana to most women’) decides to buy a football club – to the amazement of Rutshire, and no doubt Cooper’s devoted readers

Mother’s always angry: Jungle House, by Julianne Pachino, reviewed

9 December 2023 9:00 am

But who – or what – is Mother? And are her exasperated warnings about ever-present danger exaggerated?

Fast and furious: America Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien, reviewed

9 December 2023 9:00 am

As the avalanche of lies issuing from the White House morphs into the pandemic, Covid becomes in an engine of justice in this rollicking satire on Trumpworld

Prejudice in Pennsylvania: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride, reviewed

18 November 2023 9:00 am

Inspired by his own family history, McBride explores the problems faced by a Jewish shopkeeper and her black neighbours in the small town of Chicken Hill in the 1930s

Tea and treachery: Sheep’s Clothing, by Celia Dale, reviewed

11 November 2023 9:00 am

Posing as social services employees, two female ex-cons talk their way into the homes of elderly widows in order to drug them and steal their valuables

From the Odyssey to The Wizard of Oz: Praiseworthy, by Alexis Wright, reviewed

11 November 2023 9:00 am

Everything blends into everything else as an Aboriginal knight errant sets out on a quest to save his scorched native bushlands

A bird’s-eye view: Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, reviewed

11 November 2023 9:00 am

Six astronauts at the International Space Station observe the ravages on Mother Earth, but remain hopeful that mankind will find another parent planet

Niall Griffiths. Credit: Toril Brancher

Something in the air: Broken Ghost, by Niall Griffiths, reviewed

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Broken Ghost begins in the aftermath of a rave on the shores of a mountain lake above Aberystwyth, with three…

Deborah Levy

A hazardous crossing: The Man Who Saw Everything, by Deborah Levy, reviewed

24 August 2019 9:00 am

Serious readers and serious writers have a contract with each other,’ Deborah Levy once wrote. ‘We live through the same…

Yukio Mishima posing in Tokyo in 1970. Credit: Getty Images

Capers in crime: Life for Sale, by Yukio Mishima, reviewed

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Few biographies are quite as impressive as Yukio Mishima’s. One of Japan’s most famous authors, he wrote 80 plays and…

Credit: Getty

A picture of rural Kentucky: Stand by Me, by Wendell Berry, reviewed

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Anyone picking up a book by Wendell Berry, whether it be fiction, essays or a collection of his lucid and…

Not far fom the Dozier School, a small cemetery with 31 metal crosses is thought to contain further unmarked graves of children murdered by the staff

America’s brutal borstals: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Novelists will always be interested in enclosed communities — or the ‘total institution’, as sociologists say. When you separate a…

Nicola Barker

Fun and games: I Am Sovereign, by Nicola Barker, reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

In 2017’s Goldsmiths Prize-winning novel H(A)PPY, Nicola Barker strewed pages with multicoloured text. The Cauliflower, her joyful previous offering, employed…

Deborah Moggach. Credit: Getty Images

Angel or demon? The Carer, by Deborah Moggach, reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

You might think The Carer rather an unpromising title, but Deborah Moggach’s book delivers a wickedly witty entertainment. Towards the…

An inflatable boat with 47 migrants is rescued off Libya’s coast in January 2019. Credit: Getty Images

Desperate souls: Travellers, by Helon Habila, reviewed

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Death by water haunts the stories of Africans in Europe that flow through this fourth novel by Helon Habila. From…

Niven Govinden. Credit: Dan Lepard

A drag army in waiting: This Brutal House, by Niven Govinden, reviewed

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Niven Govinden’s This Brutal House is set in the demi-monde of the New York vogue ball. This is an organised,…

Boer refugees were herded by the British into cattle trucks to be shunted into concentration camps at Bloemfontein in 1901. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Brutish Brits: You Will Be Safe Here, by Damian Barr, reviewed

25 May 2019 9:00 am

Damian Barr explains the upsetting genesis of his impressive debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, in his acknowledgements: This…

Murder in the basement: The Language of Birds, by Jill Dawson, reviewed

20 April 2019 9:00 am

Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the…

Writing as revenge: Memories of the Future, by Siri Hustvedt, reviewed

23 March 2019 9:00 am

Why are people interested in their past? One possible reason is that you can interact with it, recruiting it as…

Sam Lipsyte. Credit: Ceridwen Morris

Hitting the bull’s-eye: Hark, by Sam Lipsyte, reviewed

16 February 2019 9:00 am

This is an ebullient, irreverent and deeply serious novel in the noble tradition of Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis (especially Babbitt…