Cover image for Monte Carlo by Peter Terrin

Monte Carlo by Peter Terrin (transl. David Doherty): Sliding into obsession and madness

/ 10 Comments

‘Check ignition and may God’s love be with you’ is the achingly familiar quote which prefaces Peter Terrin’s novella. It might be tempting to think that Monte Carlo was written after David Bowie’s death last year but it was originally published in Holland in 2014. Sometimes it’s a struggle to work out quite why an […]

Monte Carlo by Peter Terrin (transl. David Doherty): Sliding into obsession and madness Read More »

Cover image

When Light is Like Water by Molly McCloskey: Love in all its complexity

/ 11 Comments

I have a weakness for Irish fiction. It’s often characterised by a restrained clarity – beautiful, elegant prose with a yearning quality about it – or at least the work of authors I favour fits that description. Colm Tóibín, John McGahern, William Trevor, Ann Enright, Deirdre Madden all come to mind and after reading When

When Light is Like Water by Molly McCloskey: Love in all its complexity Read More »

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips: Out-Kafkaing Kafka

/ 13 Comments

This is the first English language novel I’ve read from Pushkin Press, a publisher of whom I’m very fond. Their books are often a little out of the way: Hiromi Kawakami’s dreamlike Record of a Night Too Brief, Auđur Ava Ólafsdóttir’s wacky Butterflies in November and Dorthe Nors’ Mirror, Shoulder, Signal with its out-of-step protagonist,

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips: Out-Kafkaing Kafka Read More »

Cover image

Paperbacks to Look Out for in June 2017: Part One

/ 17 Comments

There’s a fair old mix of attention-snagging titles published in paperback this June. I’ll start with one that was hotly anticipated in hardback: Peter Ho Davies’ The Fortunes, his first novel since the much-lauded The Welsh Girl back in 2007. Spanning 150 years, Davies’ novel explores the Chinese-American experience through the lens of four characters:

Paperbacks to Look Out for in June 2017: Part One Read More »

Cover image for The Last Painting of Sara de vos by Dominic Smith

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith: Art and fakery

/ 29 Comments

I’m not sure how I managed to miss Dominic Smith’s novel last year, although the hardback edition’s jacket is somewhat off-putting. In his author’s note Smith tells his readers that the eponymous Sara is loosely based on one of the first women to be admitted to St Luke’s Guild in the 17th-century Netherlands, explaining that

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith: Art and fakery Read More »