Fiction Reviews Archives - Page 44 of 120

Cover image for Afterparties by Antonio Munoz Molina

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So: ‘Generational Differences’ Cambodian-American style

17 September 2021 / 8 Comments

I spotted Anthony Veasna So’s short story collection, Afterparties, on Twitter quite some time ago and was delighted when a copy dropped through my letterbox. Just as Souvankham Thammavongsa’s wonderful collection, How to Pronounce Knife, explored the experiences of the Laotian diaspora through its second generation, So’s is about young Cambodian-Americans whose parents and grandparents […]

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Seven Days in Edinburgh and Two Books

15 September 2021 / 38 Comments

I’ve been meaning to visit Edinburgh for ages and managed to track down a lovely flat in New Town for the week, complete with a quirky guard at the door. It took us all day to get there and when we arrived, we had the curious feeling of being somewhere at once very different and

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Cover image for The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne; ‘Cancelling the Cleverleys’

1 September 2021 / 25 Comments

It took me some time to get around to reading a John Boyne novel probably because they tend to be chunksters rather than the pared-back novellas I favour. I took A Ladder to the Sky on holiday to Portugal then read and thoroughly enjoyed The Heart’s Invisible Furies. The Echo Chamber follows the Cleverleys, made

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Cover image for Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

Five More Novels I’ve Read About Art

30 August 2021 / 28 Comments

This is the second set of novels with an art theme in this series of posts. I introduced the first wondering why I’d read so much recent fiction featuring artists, speculating about a publishing trend or that it was simply my own interest in the subject but perhaps it’s because artists often lead interesting lives

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Cover image for Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson: Profit trumps all

27 August 2021 / 17 Comments

It was Nickolas Butler’s ringing endorsement that sold Ash Davidson’s Damnation Spring to me. The cover suggested it might have the same gorgeous descriptions of the American landscape I’d loved in his Shotgun Lovesongs and Godspeed. Spanning a single year from 1977-78, Davidson’s tale of environmental despoilation is set in a small Californian community where

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Cover for Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: Forever the guest

25 August 2021 / 21 Comments

I’ve had Charles Yu’s How to Life Safely in a Science Fictional Universe on my TBR list for quite some time but, as with so many books, never got around to buying it let alone reading it. His new novel sounded intriguing with its premise of a bit-part actor in a perpetual TV series, eyes

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Secrets of Happiness by Joan Silber: More please!

20 August 2021 / 19 Comments

I read Joan Silber’s quietly impressive Improvement back in 2019 ending my review hoping to see more of her novels published here in the UK. I was delighted, then, to spot Secrets of Happiness in the publishing schedules. While Improvement explored the fallout of an accident through all that were affected by it, this new

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Cover image for Godspeed by Nickolas Butler

Godspeed by Nickolas Butler: Too good to be true

18 August 2021 / 12 Comments

I was a wee bit wary of reading Nickolas Butler’s Godspeed. His first novel, Shotgun Lovesongs, had set the bar so high that perhaps a slight feeling of disappointment in his second, The Hearts of Men, was inevitable. Rather than Butler’s beloved Wisconsin, this new novel is set in Wyoming where three men, friends and

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Cover image for Mrs Marsh by Virginia Feito

Mrs March by Virginia Feito: A deliciously dark debut

13 August 2021 / 22 Comments

Isn’t that jacket splendid? Strikingly bright with just a hint of something nasty as a cockroach makes its way towards the elegantly attired woman’s manicured hands. Virginia Feito’s Mrs March lives up to that promise, a novel as smartly delivered as its jacket’s design. Married to a successful novelist, Mrs March is beginning to worry

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Books to Look Out For in September 2021

9 August 2021 / 21 Comments

September may not be as jampacked with potential goodies as I might like but there are several titles that shine out like a beacon beginning with Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World Where Are You. Readers would have to have been living on Mars not to know about this one by an author who arouses feelings of

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Paul by Daisy Lafarge: Revisiting Noa Noa

6 August 2021 / 14 Comments

Despite the fact that I rarely read poetry, I’m a sucker for novels by poets hence the attraction of Daisy Lafarge’s Paul which also promised a vicarious trip to France, somewhere I’m unlikely to visit in reality for a while. Spanning four weeks of a hot summer, Lafarge’s debut follows Frances who has volunteered to

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