Fiction
Puzzle Pieces: Cowboy Graves, by Roberto Bolaño, reviewed
This might seem an odd confession, but the work of Roberto Bolaño gives me very good bad dreams. When I…
A study in vulnerability: The Coming Bad Days, by Sarah Bernstein, reviewed
When the unnamed narrator of Sarah Bernstein’s The Coming Bad Days leaves the man with whom she has been living…
Dark days for Britain: London, Burning, by Anthony Quinn, reviewed
Not long ago, a group of psychologists analysing data about national happiness discovered that the British were at their unhappiest…
Ghosts of the past: The Field, by Robert Seethaler, reviewed
Give dead bones a voice and they speak volumes: George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo was clamorous with the departed…
A celebration of friendship: Common Ground, by Naomi Ishiguro, reviewed
Naomi Ishiguro began writing Common Groundin the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The title refers to both Goshawk Common in…
Problem parents: My Phantoms, by Gwendoline Riley, reviewed
Gwendoline Riley’s unsentimental fiction hovers on the edge of comedy and bleakness, and has drawn comparisons from Jean Rhys to…
The dictator of the dorm: Our Lady of the Nile, by Scholastique Mukasonga, reviewed
In the cloud-capped highlands of Rwanda, even the rain-makers sound like crashing snobs. When two teenage pupils from Our Lady…
Man about the house: Kitchenly 434, by Alan Warner, reviewed
I have enjoyed many of Alan Warner’s previous novels, so it gives me no pleasure to report that his new…
Mommy issues: Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder, reviewed
This is a novel about ‘mommy issues’. Rachel is a Reform Jew, ‘more Chanel bag Jew than Torah Jew’, and…
Escape from reality: How to Survive Everything, by Ewan Morrison, reviewed
Ewan Morrison is an intellectually nimble writer with a penchant for provocation. His work has included the novels, Distance, Ménage…
Slanging match: rein GOLD, by Elfriede Jelinek, reviewed
I’ve tried hard to think of someone I dislike enough to recommend this novel to, but have failed. Elfriede Jelinek…
Celebrating Jesus’s female followers: Names of the Women, by Jeet Thayil, reviewed
The gnostic Gospel of Mary has long been the subject of controversy, even as to which of the several Marys…
Bright and beautiful: Double Blind, by Edward St Aubyn, reviewed
Edward St Aubyn’s ‘Patrick Melrose’ novels were loosely autobiographical renderings of the author’s harrowing, rarefied, drug-sozzled existence. Despite their subject…
Two for the road: We Are Not in the World, by Conor O’Callaghan, reviewed
A father and his estranged 20-year-old daughter set off across France, sharing the driver’s cabin of a long-haul truck. This…
Women of the streets: Hot Stew, by Fiona Mozley, reviewed
For a novel set partly in a Soho brothel, Hot Stew is an oddly bloodless affair. Tawdry characters drift in…
The robot as carer: Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro, reviewed
The world of Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel — let’s call it Ishville — is instantly recognisable. Our narrator, Klara, is…
Savage aperçus: Fake Accounts, by Lauren Oyler, reviewed
Lauren Oyler is viral and vicious. A critic with a reputation for pulling no punches, she is known for delivering…
Algeria’s War of Independence still leaves festering wounds, two new novels reveal
In France, even the car horns yelled about Algeria. A five-beat klaxon blast — three short, two long — signalled…
The cannibal feast: Mother for Dinner, by Shalom Auslander, reviewed
Seventh Seltzer is a nice family man, working as a publisher’s reader in New York, who happens to come from…
A toxic atmosphere: Slough House, by Mick Herron, reviewed
Mick Herron has been called ‘the John le Carré of his generation’ by the crime writer Val McDermid, and in…
A bubo-busting muckfest: Hurdy Gurdy, by Christopher Wilson, reviewed
In an essay for Prospect a few years back the writer Leo Benedictus noticed how many contemporary novels used what…
The Generic Asian Man: Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu, reviewed
Of the handful of things we can establish about Willis Wu, the protagonist of Charles Yu’s second novel, the most…
Scenes from an open marriage: Luster, by Raven Leilani, reviewed
One of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2020, Raven Leilani’s debut comes acclaimed by a literary Who’s Who that includes…
The burden of guilt: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan, reviewed
Thanks to the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan is probably the only Tasmanian novelist British readers are likely to have heard…
House of horrors: Girl A, by Abigail Dean, reviewed
If the last quarter of 2020 saw a glut of novels published, of which there were winners (Richard Osman) and…
