Fiction
Dark secrets: The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett, reviewed
Passé Blanc is the Creole expression — widely used in the US — for black people ‘passing for white’ to…
The Sixties vibe: Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell, reviewed
There aren’t many authors as generous to their readers as David Mitchell. Ever since Ghostwritten in 1999, he’s specialised in…
Spotting the mountweazels: The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams, reviewed
There is a particular sub-genre of books which are witty and erudite, comic and serious and often of a bibliophilic…
Let’s swap murders: Amanda Craig’s The Golden Rule reviewed
It has been three years since Amanda Craig’s previous novel, The Lie of the Land, the story of a foundering…
The attraction of repulsion: The Disaster Tourist, by Yun-Ko Eun, reviewed
Disaster tourism allows people to explore places in the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters. Sites of massacres and concentration…
A panoramic novel of modern Britain: The Blind Light, by Stuart Evers, reviewed
A decade ago — eheu fugaces labuntur anni — Stuart Evers’s debut story collection, Ten Stories About Smoking, was one…
A Chaucerian tale: Pilgrims, by Matthew Kneale, reviewed
Matthew Kneale is much drawn to people of the past. In his award-winning English Passengers, he captured the sensibilities of…
The cure becomes the problem: The Seduction, by Joanna Briscoe, reviewed
Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home.…
Northern noir: The Mating Habits of Stags, by Ray Robinson, reviewed
It is winter in north Yorkshire. On the brink of New Year, Jake, a laconic, isolated former farmhand in his…
The fitness fetish: The Motion of the Body Through Space, by Lionel Shriver, reviewed
In her 2010 novel So Much for That, Lionel Shriver examined the American healthcare system with a spiky sensitivity. Big…
A ponderous parable for our times: The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana
Twins are literary dynamite. For writers, they’re perfect for thrashing out notions of free will, the pinballing of cause and…
The sorrows of young Hillary: Rodham, by Curtis Sittenfeld, reviewed
Question: which American president and first lady would you care to imagine having intercourse? If that provokes a shudder, be…
The Stacey Abrams presidency
‘You don’t run for second place.’ That’s how Stacey Abrams responded when asked if she would consider being presidential hopeful…
From blue to pink: Looking for Eliza, by Leaf Arbuthnot, reviewed
On the way back from my daily dawn march in the park, I often pass my neighbour, a distinguished gentleman…
Another alien in our midst: Pew, by Catherine Lacey, reviewed
It needs authorial guts to write a novel in which details are shrouded, meaning is concealed and little is certain.…
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…
Sadness and scandal: Hinton, by Mark Blacklock, reviewed
In 1886 the British mathematician and schoolmaster Charles Howard Hinton presented himself to the police at Bow Street, London to…
A Wiltshire mystery: A Saint in Swindon, by Alice Jolly, reviewed
This novella is suited to our fevered times. Scheduled to coincide with the Swindon spring festival of literature, now cancelled,…
Guilty pleasures that fail to satisfy: Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell, reviewed
In Henry and June, Anaïs Nin asks her cousin Eduardo if one can be freed of a desire by experiencing…
Mysteries of English village life: Creeping Jenny, by Jeff Noon, reviewed
I doubt whether any book would entice me more than a horrible hybrid of crimefiction, speculative fantasy, weird religion and…
The dirt on King David: Anointed, by Michael Arditti, reviewed
Michael Arditti has never held back from difficult or unfashionable subjects. His dozen novels, including the prize-winning Easter, as well…
Sinister toy story: Little Eyes, by Samanta Schweblin, reviewed
We often hear that science fiction — or ‘speculative’ fiction, as the buffs prefer — can draw premonitory outlines of…
A paranormal romance that seems to go nowhere: NVK, by Temple Drake, reviewed
NVK, which is the IATA (International Air Transport Association) code for Narvik’s old airport, is in this instance Naemi Vieno…
The devastating effects of bigamy: Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones, reviewed
Conservative estimates place the number of those in America with more than one spouse as up to 100,000, but the…
At last, a novel about the art world that rings true: Annalena Mcfee’s Nightshade reviewed
On a winter’s night an artist of moderately exalted reputation and in lateish middle age journeys across London, away from…
