Book news, reviews and recommendations
I snapped up Brandon Taylor’s new novel as soon as it appeared on NetGalley having very much enjoyed The Late Americans. Minor Black Figures spans a Manhattan summer following Wyeth, a black artist, and his relationship with Keating who he meets one night in a bar after visiting the opening of the latest glitzy identity […]
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor: Art for art’s sake Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. Susan Minot’s prose is characterised by the kind of quietly restrained precision which has long been my favourite
Blasts from the Past: Evening by Susan Minot (1999) Read More »
I went back and forth on whether to read Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs, partly the cover, partly the emphasis on humour, but I read a few reviews one of which emphatically told ditherers like me to get on with it. Cash’s novel follows the supremely dysfunctional Flynn family shortly after Catherine, frustrated with her life
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash: An enjoyable romp Read More »
I was looking for something reasonably untaxing when Erin Somers’s novel popped up on NetGalley. Set in gentrified smalltown America, The Ten Year Affair follows Cora, Sam and their families through a decade after they meet and instantly click at a baby group. She thought Eliot and Sam would get along. She could picture their
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers: Will they won’t they? Read More »
This is the fourth review of a Bryan Washington book I’ve posted here, beginning with Lot, his collection of short stories back in 2019. Palaver follows an unnamed mother and son over the few weeks she pays him an unexpected and unwelcome visit in Tokyo where he’s been living for over a decade. I think,
Palaver by Bryan Washington: Home is where the heart is Read More »
I wasn’t sure about reading Aja Gabel’s Lightbreakers: the premise was attractive, but the blurb suggested elements of SF/Fantasy that I might have trouble with, more my understanding than anything else. It follows Noah who’s been invited to take part in what is essentially a time travel experiment funded by a billionaire, and his wife,
Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel: ’A story of impossible things made possible’ Read More »
The blurb for Anika Jade Levy’s Flat Earth suggested an interesting contrast between two friends who meet at a liberal arts college – one looks set for success, the other adrift and unable to make anything stick. Set against the backdrop of the New York art world, Levy’s debut opens with Avery and Frances driving
Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy: A bleakly funny novella Read More »
I’d taken on too many titles for review when Andrew Porter’s The Imagined Life popped up on NetGalley but I couldn’t resist both its premise and that cover so jumped in. Porter’s novel sees a middle-aged man who’s been carrying the burden of his father’s disappearance since he was twelve years old, determined to get
The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter: ‘In the imagined life, so much is different’ Read More »
I liked the premise of Hal Ebbott’s debut and the starry endorsements from the likes of Miranda Cowley and Cate Lombardo suggested that it might appeal at a time when I was after a bit of quality easy reading. Beginning with a weekend when two wealthy New York couples celebrate a birthday in the country,
Among Friends by Hal Ebbott: A curate’s egg Read More »
I’m sucker for author endorsements from favourite writers. Eric Puchner’s Dream State comes with lots of them including Danielle Evans and Andrew Sean Greer, but it was Alice McDermott’s that swung it for me. It’s a doorstopper which takes its readers from wedding preparations in the late twentieth century through to the mid-twenty-first before coming
Dream State by Eric Puchner: ‘Marriage, the only adventure open to the cowardly’ Read More »
Jessica Soffer’s This Is a Love Story is an exploration of a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background. Knowing that she’s dying, Jane tells Abe she wants to remember their many decades together, the good times and the bad, many spent in their brownstone apartment
This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: ‘Don’t go’ Read More »