Fiction Reviews

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Cover image for American Fantasy by Emma Straub

American Fantasy by Emma Straub: ‘Who’s ready for the best weekend of their lives?’  

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Emma Straub writes reliably enjoyable fiction, tending more towards the commercial than the literary. I’ve read most of her novels but was surprised to find I’d only reviewed The Vacationers back in the early days of the blog. American Fantasy has an unusual premise: a full-on nostalgia cruise for over two thousand mostly female fans […]

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Cover image for Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson

Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson: An evocative tale of rural Italy

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Rupert Thomson’s one of those authors who delivers well turned out, interesting fiction with little brouhaha. His work ranges widely from the early days of Soft!, a satire on the advertising world, to Secrecy, set in the Medici court of seventeenth-century Florence. Dark is the Morning takes us to a small town in Abruzzo where

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Cover image for The Last Movent by Robert Seethaler

The Last Movement by Robert Seethaler (transl. Charlotte Collins): ‘Everything is either work or destiny’  

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I’m not a Mahler fan but put up my hand as soon as I spotted Robert Seethaler’s brief novella, The Last Movement, which sees the composer on his last transatlantic voyage to Europe, a few months before his death. I’ve read all four of Seethaler’s translated novels, beginning with A Whole Life over a decade

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Cover image for The Things We Never Say

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: ‘No one is superior to anyone else in this world’  

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As Elizabeth Strout fans will already know, The Things We Never Say is a standalone novel set in a small Massachusetts town rather than Crosby, Maine with which we’ve become so familiar. Spanning several years either side of the 2024 presidential election, it follows Artie Dam, a popular high school history teacher whose life is

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The Secret Lives of Murderers' Lives by Elizabeth Arnott

The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott: ‘She may be pretty, but pretty doesn’t keep you alive’  

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Elizabeth Arnott’s The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives caught my eye on NetGalley with its arresting cover, but it was its 1960s California setting that swung it for me together with a mention of Mad Men in the blurb. It has an interesting premise, too: three women, all once married to convicted serial killers, are

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Cover image for Small Comfort by Ia Genberg

Small Comfort by Ia Genberg (Tr. Kira Josefsson): Money, money, money   

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An international bestseller, Ia Genberg’s The Details was one of 2023’s standout reads for me. Published for the first time in English, this year’s International Booker Prize longlisted Small Comfort is an earlier novel, also translated by Kira Joseffson. It has a similar structure, following five characters although this time the link is money rather

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Cover image for Transcription by Ben Lerner

Transcription by Ben Lerner: A characteristically discursive novella

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I reviewed Ben Lerner’s novella 10:04 here over a decade ago, commenting on its many-layered interconnections, impossible to encapsulate in a short post. Since then, I’ve read Leaving the Atocha Station which brought him a great deal of acclaim although, for me, it didn’t match 10.04. Divided into three parts, Transcription is another brief novel

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