Slim paperback pickings for August thanks to summer reading dominating the schedules. Not usually my cup of tea although some readers might think my first few titles fit that bill.
Beatriz Serrano’s Discontent is about Mansa whose life appears enviable but isn’t. She lives in central Madrid in an apartment above her lover’s, having quickly been promoted to a senior position in an advertising agency, a job she hates. On a teambuilding retreat, one hot summer, she finds herself tasked with giving a presentation on creativity. ‘Surrounded by psychopathic bosses, flirty facilitators, and an excess of drugs, Marisa is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral’ says the blurb making me feel sympathetic.
Set in gentrified small town America, Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair follows Cora, Sam and their families through a decade after they meet and instantly click at a baby group. Cora escapes the drudgery of domesticity by indulging in fantasies of an affair with Sam after a brief kiss. Neither of them wants to be unfaithful but both want each other. Over the next ten years, parties are held, chores are done, the kids grow up, confidences are shared and secrets revealed as the families become increasingly entangled in each other’s lives. Inevitably the ‘will they, won’t they question’ hovers over it but essentially this enjoyable, witty novel is about marriage and how it survives – or doesn’t – the mundanity of everyday life lived with the same person for many years.
Thomas McMullan’s Groundwater follows a couple who move to a lakeside house in a remote location in the hope of repairing their relationship. They’re barely settled in before Liz’s sister and her family come to visit for a week which only serves to increase the tensions simmering between them. ‘As summer draws to a close, and their family is thrown into crisis, John and Liz must confront what it means to belong to a place – and to each other’ says the blurb. I like the sound of that.
I’ve yet to read Aysegül Savaş’s much praised The Anthropologists but I like the sound of Long Distance, her first short story collection whose characters are often starting new lives but still caught up with the people they’ve left behind, from the researcher eagerly anticipating a visit from her lover only to be disappointed to the expat who meets a childhood friend and is unsettled by her contentment. Much praised by the likes of Sigrid Nunez, Catherine Lacey and Katie Kitamura.
That’s it for August. A click on a title will take you either to my review or to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more. If you’d like to catch up with new fiction, it’s here and here.
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Although I’m way behind on my Savaş reading, I’ve been a big fan since reading White on White a few years back (think it was her second book). From this list (thanks again, BTW; I always love checking it out) Long Distance is a “definite” and Opt Out a “maybe.” (I already have a copy of Serrano’s Discontent, which was published in the U.S. last fall. If you’re interested, there’s a favorable New York Times review from last September. Think they called it a “tasty little bonbon” or some such; apparently job ennui transcends cultures!)
You’re welcome! Thanks for letting me know about the Serrano. I imagine the reviewer was quite pleased with that bonbon phrase.
Summer reading titles aren’t generally my bag either but thank you for picking out a few that do tempt me. I’m particularly drawn to Caroline Setterwall’s Opt Out and Somers’ The Ten Year Affair.
My pleasure! I can certainly vouch for the Somers.
Thankfully the only ones of these that appeals to me is Discontent and Tynan’s short stories. Is it just me or is the trope of ‘couple in crisis go to remote setting to regroup but…’ becoming really prevalent?
I hadn’t noticed that but now that you come to mention it, I think you’re right. I thought you’d fancy the Tynan.
Sounds like he is capturing the Dublin I remember living in back in the early ’90s!
Hoping you’ll review it!
It might be slim-paperback-pickings but Discontent is fabulous.
Not so fabulous was Ten-Year Affair – I’d had high hopes for this one but it really didn’t work.
I’ll be hunting down Opt-Out though.
Pleased that Discontent hit the spot. I enjoyed the Somers but perhaps my hopes weren’t so high.
I borrowed The Ten Year Affair (in hardback) from the library, but had to give it back when I’d barely started it. I’ll get it back! I’m tempted by the short story collections too. And Groundwater ….
I’m particularly keen on the Irish short story collection.
Noted – thanks.
I have The Ten Year Affair and The Anthropologists to read (the latter almost made it onto my 20 books of summer list). So I should really get on with them before being dragged off the straight and narrow by more books! That being said….. Opt Out and Groundwater sound rather tempting too!
Always hard to resist the shiny and new!