Book review – fiction
Cold comfort farm in Canada
Patrick Gale’s first historical novel is inspired by a non-story, a gap in his own family record. His great-grandfather Harry…
Good old bad old days
Anthony Quinn’s fourth novel, set in London’s artistic and theatrical circles in 1936, is not the kind in which an…
A father goes over the edge
When Helen Garner, an award-winning Australian author, first saw the TV news images of the car being dragged out of…
No escaping the past
The title of A.D. Miller’s follow-up to his Man Booker shortlisted debut Snowdrops refers not to lovers but to two…
Here be dragons
If you’d been asked at the beginning of the year whose new novel would feature ogres, pixies and a she-dragon…
Pier pressure
Duncan Neville is an unlikely hero for a novel. Approaching 50, divorced and the butt of his teenage son Jamie’s…
Suffering in style
Nobody Is Ever Missing takes its title from John Berryman’s ‘Dream Song 29’, a poem which I’d always thought related…
The very stuff of life
There was nothing remarkable about the Whitshanks. None of them was famous. None of them could claim exceptional intelligence, and…
‘J’adore Michel’
News of Michel Houllebecq’s Soumission caused such a stir that the book was pirated online before publication. David Sexton reports on the latest literary event in France
Finding the key to life
Which of us, as an adolescent, did not experience at some point a terrible sense of not belonging? Which of…
Peeking into the seraglio
If you like to curl up by the fire with a proper, old-fashioned, saga-style tale about a boy and his…
Tricks of the trade
The American comic novel is going through an odd phase. Just lately it seems like anything funny must sneak in…
Words to savour
Although entitled Infidelities this collection of short stories could as well be called Choices, because that is what really preoccupies…
Older and wiser after the storm
The story of Frank Bascombe, a sports-writer turned estate agent but always a New Jersey homebody, has already taken Richard…
Wonders will never cease
The marvellous tales of the title are not just confined to the contents of this book, for the travels and…
Grimmer — and no better
Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than…
Struggling to keep up
Paul Fournel is a novelist, former publisher and French cultural attaché in London, and the provisionally definitive secretary and president…
Algerian dystopia
On the surface Harraga is the story of two ill-matched women colliding dramatically, with life-changing consequences. What emerges, in throwaway…
The man who fell from Earth
They say never work with children and animals. They could just as well say don’t write about aliens and God.…
The ebb and flow of inner thought
We live in a world in which nuance is trampled on and cannot survive. Is that true? I don’t know.…
Cry, the beloved country
By 1940 Irène Némirovsky, who had arrived in France at the age of 16 as a refugee from Kiev, had…
The first and last puzzle
One could have endless fun setting quiz questions about Georges Perec. Which French novelist had a scientific paper, ‘Experimental demonstration…
The worm turns
Something odd happened between the advance publicity for this book and its printed appearance. Trailed as addressing the troubled history…
The greatest sitcom never made
Funny Girl is the story of the early career of the vivacious, hilarious Sophie Straw, star of the much-loved BBC…
Short of a feast
Rose Tremain walks on water. Her historical novels are absolutely marvellous, brilliantly plotted, witty and wise, with some of the…
