Fiction
No one is ordinary: The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout, reviewed
Writing about the inner lives and struggles of small-town characters, Strout reminds us that we are all battling something, even if we don’t broadcast it
They shoot horses: Boyhood, by David Keenan, reviewed
Two young Glaswegians revenge themselves on the men who assaulted them at a nightclub by murdering one of them and killing their herd of horses
Haunting images: The Shadow of the Object, by Chloe Aridjis, reviewed
With its eerie slides portraying the long dead, a magic lantern becomes a focus for the novel’s understated meditation on mortality
An outpouring of jaunty black comedy
Whether reportage or dashed down diary entries, Xandra Bingley’s vivid stories seem to catch life on the wing as it flashes past at terrifying speed
A dying fall: The Last Movement, by Robert Seethaler, reviewed
Gustav Mahler looks back on the pleasures and pains of the past from the windblown deck of SS Amerika on his final journey across the Atlantic
‘A lost generation’: My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, by Deborah Levy, reviewed
Stein coined the phrase to describe the disillusioned writers and artists she mentored – but it is the woman herself who proves most elusive
Motherless friends: Kin, by Tayari Jones, reviewed
In the Jim Crow American south, two girls are left to make their own way in life, one more successfully than the other
Singing of arms and the man: Son of Nobody, by Yann Martel, reviewed
Fragments emerge of an epic poem describing the Trojan War from the viewpoint of an ordinary soldier, in it for the loot
Rebarbative relatives abound: The Palm House, by Gwendoline Riley, reviewed
Even Riley’s most exasperating characters seem desperate for a quiet sanctum of their own
Tradecraft secrets: a choice of crime fiction
Spy thrillers from James Wolff and Alex Preston reviewed. Plus: a third Rilke novel from Louise Welsh and a rediscovered classic from Duff Cooper
Looking back in anguish: Good Good Loving, by Yvvette Edwards, reviewed
Close to death, Ellen recalls her 49-year marriage to philandering Clyde and wonders what she’s done to deserve her children’s censure
Tales of quiet intensity: The News from Dublin, by Colm Toibin, reviewed
Familiar themes emerge in this third collection of short stories, such as neglect, bereavement and the Irish diaspora in the US
Two Tokyo misfits: Hooked, by Asako Yuzuki, reviewed
Eriko and Shoko, both lonely 30-year-olds, have difficulty conforming to the intricate social rules ‘ensnaring’ Japanese women
James Baldwin – dogged by painful uncertainties throughout life
Often snared in emotional turmoil, he never knew who his father was, and resisted being pigeonholed on questions of race, blame and responsibility
Dark family secrets: Repetition, by Vigdis Hjorth, reviewed
With a haunting crime at its heart, this bitter, brief novel leaves one wondering uncomfortably whether it might be a memoir in disguise
No Hungarian rhapsody: Lázár, by Nelio Biedermann, reviewed
A dark forest swallows up successive generations of an entitled Hungarian family in a story imbued with symbolism that spans two world wars
A sinister strangeness: City Like Water, by Dorothy Tse, reviewed
A beloved native city is in a state of flux, slipping from normal into nightmare as freedom vanishes, time collapses and people throw themselves from rooftops
Thoughtful fantasy: Travel Light, by Naomi Mitchison, reviewed
Borrowing from Arthuriana, Norse sagas, fairy tales and legends, Mitchison’s novel modulates midway between magic and realism
Fractured loyalties: The Tribe, by Michael Arditti, reviewed
A powerful Jewish family flee Salonika in 1912 – only to fall apart in France on the eve of the second world war
Blockchain fantasies: My Bags Are Big, by Tibor Fischer, reviewed
Everyone in Dubai’s confected utopia is reinventing themselves and failing miserably in this dark satire on greed, stupidity and regret
The world destroyed by madness: Howl, by Howard Jacobson, reviewed
Apart from the atrocity of 7 October 2023 itself, it is the reaction of neighbours and even family that appals Jacobson’s protagonist in a novel that still manages to be darkly comic
Chasing happiness: The Daffodil Days, by Helen Bain, reviewed
Leaving London with her husband and daughter to make a new home on the edge of Dartmoor, Sylvia Plath longs for ‘everything to be perfect… and hasn’t learned yet that, in life, nothing can be’
Ghastly middle-class materialism: The Quantity Theory of Morality, by Will Self, reviewed
Self’s latest satire suggests that a world where the avaricious prosper, and the meek inherit the debts of the unscrupulous, contains a limited amount of morality
A nasty little tale about a marriage: Look What You Made Me Do, by John Lanchester, reviewed
The life of recently widowed Kate is cast into further turmoil by a hit TV series which suggests that her husband had been having an affair with its scriptwriter
Revelling in reading: The Enchanting Lives of Others, by Can Xue, reviewed
A group of young fiction enthusiasts and intellectuals channel their energies into devouring novels – and marvel at how enlightened it makes them feel
