Fiction
The monk’s tale
In an essay for Prospect a few years back the writer Leo Benedictus noticed how many contemporary novels used what…
The invisible man
Of the handful of things we can establish about Willis Wu, the protagonist of Charles Yu’s second novel, the most…
Portrait of the artist as a young woman
One of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2020, Raven Leilani’s debut comes acclaimed by a literary Who’s Who that includes…
Life and death decisions
Thanks to the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan is probably the only Tasmanian novelist British readers are likely to have heard…
House of horrors
If the last quarter of 2020 saw a glut of novels published, of which there were winners (Richard Osman) and…
Longing to belong
Olivia Sudjic’s second novel, Asylum Road, is a smart and sensitively layered story that’s told through niggling memories, unspoken thoughts,…
Ancestral voices
Despite innovative work by younger writers, there remains a prominent strain in Irish literature of what we might call the…
Easy pills to swallow
Having a breakdown? Try this pill, or that — or these? Built on the 1950s myth of a chemical imbalance…
Flight from reality
The Autumn of the Ace begins in 1945, as the second world war ends, but both Louis de Bernières and…
Raw Bacon
Francis Bacon once told the art critic Richard Cork: ‘I certainly hope I’ll go on till I drop dead.’ Max…
Unhealed wounds
At some point in his twilit, enigmatic novels of vanished lives and buried memories, Patrick Modiano likes to jolt his…
‘People confuse sadness with darkness’
An interview with the American novelist Mary Gaitskill
You, the protagonist
When the estimable Andy Miller, the host of the Backlisted podcast, recommended a new collection of short stories on Twitter,…
When all else fails…
This is an Exquisite Corpse of a novel — or if you prefer another name for that particular game, Heads,…
In the same boat
‘We should be living in a brave country and on a brave planet that bravely distributes its occupants,’ thinks Rose…
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…
