Just a handful of paperbacks for November, none of which I’ve read although I did toy with Laurie Canciani’s The Insomnia Museum before taking off on holiday earlier in the year then somehow never got around to reading it. It’s about seventeen-year-old Anna who has spent the last twelve years building the titular museum with her father using his hoard of junk. One day when her insomniac father finally falls asleep she steps outside their flat into a world stranger than the one they’ve constructed inside it. ‘In this dazzlingly original debut novel, Laurie Canciani has created a world that is terrible, magical, and richly imagined’ say the publishers making me think I should look at it again
Sarah Françoise’s Stories We Tell Ourselves sounds much more straightforward. It’s about a marriage in trouble, or perhaps a whole series of them. Joan and Frank have spent three decades in an unfinished house in the French Alps. Frank is involved in an epistolary affair with his German ex-girlfriend, and Joan is losing patience but it’s Christmas. They’re about to be visited by their three children, all wrestling with their own relationship difficulties. ‘Written with a rare precision and insight, the author explores the thorniness of familial love and its capacity to endure with warmth, wit and disarming honesty’ say the publishers, a promise which if it’s fulfilled could result in an entertaining read
Jonathan Dee’s The Locals features a character fleeing New York for a small town in New England just after 9/11. Hedge fund manager Phillip Hadi employs Mark Firth, recently swindled by his financial advisor, to make his new home secure. These two men are from very different worlds: one rural middle class, the other urban and wealthy. Hadi’s election to mayor has a transforming effect on Firth’s home town, one that will have implications for Firth and his extended family. ‘The Locals is that rare work of fiction capable of capturing a fraught American moment in real time. It is also a novel that is timeless in its depiction of American small town life’ say the publishers which sounds very appealing to me.
After beginning this short preview with a debut it feels fitting to end it with a collection from an author whose first novel was published in 1964 when she was twenty and who’s still going strong. Shena Mackay’s short story collection Dancing on the Outskirts draws on five decades of writing. Known for her darkly comic, sometimes surreal observations of suburbia, Mackay is one of those writers who has quietly garnered a loyal following and a good deal of a critical acclaim. I’m expecting a treat.
That’s it for November. A click on a title will take you to a more detailed synopsis and if you’d like to catch up with new titles they’re here and here. With publishing eyes firmly fixed on a bright shiny Christmas, I suspect there won’t be much to snag my attention for December but you never know…
I’d never heard of The Insomnia Museum and it looks intriguing. Thanks for making me aware of it. I’ll also keep an eye out for your review of the Mackay stories.
You’re welcome, Rebecca. I don’t think The Insomnia Museum got much coverage which seems a shame.
The Insomnia Museum sounds fascinating. The real world is very strange, after all. Interesting selection, as always.
Sometimes I wish it was less strange than it is! Thanks, Belinda
Dancing on the Outskirts definitely sounds like something I would enjoy. I have only read one of her novels, The Orchard on Fire, which I would rather like to read again, I remember it so fondly.
I particularly like the jacket for that one. I loved Orchard on Fire, too
I’ve read three of her novels this year and that one was my favourite. Such a convincing evocation of childhood experience.
I agree – both the the good and the bad aspects. It neatly punctures the idea of childhod as an idyllic time.
Stories We Tell Ourselves immediately appeals, but I also love investigating short story collections, so I’m intrigued by the Shena MacKay as well. I might read a couple of her novellas for November, but am feeling a little cramped with end-of-year reading plans too, so maybe not. Why are you so sure you won’t be tempted in December?
I worked in the book trade for a long time and I know publishers have all their goodies on display well before Christmas but there are usually a few cherries to pick, particularly towards the end of the month aimed at those book tokens that lucky people have been given.
I have two Mackay novellas (in one volume) on my stack for November too!
The Insomnia Museum sounds intriguing. And a new MacKay too – what a treat!
Shena Mackay’s one of those writers who never seems to have got the attention she deserved to me. Her own story is such an interesting one, too.