Fiction
Anything but a quiet life
Kikuko Tsumura is a multi-prizewinning Japanese author whose mischievously deceptive new novel takes us into what purports to be the…
The making of a monster
Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier fighting for France in the trenches of the Great War, is consumed by bloodlust, which…
Modern man’s role
Masculinity, we are often told, is in crisis. The narrator of Men and Apparitions, Professor Ezekiel (Zeke) Stark, both studies…
From St Petersburg to St Andrews
Aneliya, the Russian narrator of David Keenan’s enjoyably weird new novel, is worried about her dad. Tomasz’s modest music career…
Haunted by the past
Mr Wilder & Me is not in any way a state- of-the-nation novel — and thank goodness. Brilliant as Jonathan…
Cut out and keep
William Burroughs was introduced to a British readership in November 1963, and the welcome he received was ‘UGH…’ The headline…
Tabula rasa
Elaborated over a writing career that spans half a century — a career crowned with every honour save the Nobel…
A masterpiece of modern manners
Of all the successful modern female writers documenting their search for love, none has been as endearing as Dolly Alderton.…
The mystique has gone
So upsetting it would have been, for those of us who rate Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers so highly, if…
A friend in need
What Are You Going Through is both brilliant and mercifully brief. Weighing in at 200-odd pages, it can be read…
Figures in a landscape
Some of my happiest fiction-reading hours have been spent in the company of Kevin Barry: two short-story collections, both prize-winners,…
Dublin pub crawl
Far be it from me to utter a word against the patron saint of Dublin pubs, Roddy Doyle. Granted he’s…
The mask of deception
Talbot Kydd, film producer; Anny Viklund, American actress; Elfrida Wing, novelist; these make the trio of the title. Private lives…
Breakdown in Berlin
‘I was what they call an “independent scholar”’, confides the narrator of Hari Kunzru’s Red Pill, a middle-aged writer from…
Between heaven and Charing Cross
After Stalingrad, Hitler desperately needed an encouraging novelty. Wernher von Braun, Germany’s leading rocketeer in the second world war, expertly…
Opposites attract
Babysitters are having a literary moment. Following Kiley Reid’s debut Such a Fun Age, Nick Hornby is the latest author…
Other men’s wars
‘That was how that part of the world was at the time. Every bit of it belonged to Europeans, at…
A meditation on love
The scrawny little girl with ‘pipe-cleaner legs’ wants to feel at home with her parents. But father and mother live…
A novel sort of novel
Inside Story is called, on the front cover, which boasts a very charming photograph of the author and Christopher Hitchens,…
Into the labyrinth
Susanna Clarke is a member of the elite group of authors who don’t write enough. In 2004, the bestselling debut…
What sort of family is this?
The line between obsession and addiction is as thin as rolling paper. Neither are simple and both stem from absence,…
Searching for solace
Rose Tremain has followed her masterly The Gustav Sonata with an altogether different novel. In 1865, Clorinda Morrissey, a 38-year-old…
Primal longing
Sophie Macintosh’s Blue Ticket is not classic feminist dystopia. Yes, it is concerned with legislated fertility, a world where women’s…
Forlorn hope
Parents are always terrified of bad family history repeating itself. Prince Albert dreaded his son Bertie turning into a roué…
Going quietly mad
Like Ottessa Moshfegh’s first novel Eileen (2015), Death in Her Hands plays with the conventions of noir. Vesta Gul, a…
