Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’d not long read Dani Shapiro’s memoir of discovering that her beloved father was not her biological parent, when I spotted her new novel on NetGalley. Identity and family are the overriding themes running through Inheritance and the latter is to the fore in Signal Fires which follows the Shenkmans and the Wilfs who live …
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro: Secrets, lies and the damage done Read More »
I’m not sure how I’ve managed to miss Laird Hunt’s fiction before now – he’s written six novels besides The Evening Road. I remember Neverhome being published but somehow failed to get around to reading it, something I’ll be putting right very shortly. Set in 1920s Indiana, Hunt’s odyssey follows two women through a searing …
The Evening Road by Laird Hunt: A long dark night Read More »
Sometimes you come across a debut so striking that it leaves you wondering how the author’s second novel can possibly match it. It’s already happened to me once this year with Jennifer Down’s compassionate, clear-eyed and lovely Our Magic Hour. Emily Ruskovich’s Idaho is very different but equally impressive, both in its writing and its …
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich: Imagining the unimaginable Read More »
The Girls is another one of those novels about which there’s been a good deal of brouhaha – lots of Twitter love and advance anticipation for months – but like The Nest and The Essex Serpent, similarly lauded to the skies, it succeeds in living up to all that hype. I’m going to have to …
The Girls by Emma Cline: Time for girls to become women Read More »
When I think of Baltimore two things come to mind: Anne Tyler and The Wire, polar opposites in terms of subject matter but both supreme exemplars of their particular form of entertainment. The Wire tackles the gritty problems dogging Baltimore city – drugs, racial inequality, corruption – while Tyler specialises in nuanced portraits of family …
A Spool of Blue Thread: Anne Tyler’s twentieth novel, and counting… Read More »
Xiaolu Guo’s ambitious new novel is neither easy to read nor to write about. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of a love story, chock-full of well-aimed barbs fired at Chinese politics past and present, and it takes some getting into but don’t let that put you off – it’s well worth the effort, a book that …
I am China by Xiaolu Guo: A love story in fragments Read More »
Having read all but one of her novels I was looking forward to Meg Wolitzer’s new book. It has the kind of structure much beloved by film and TV writers – a group of young people form an enduring friendship which survives the buffeting of adulthood and all that the outside world throws at it …
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: More than lives up to its title Read More »
When a book arrives with a press release proclaiming its author to be the new Anne Tyler it sets off alarm bells. Tyler’s fans love her for her wryly witty observations on social manners. Her novels are filled with the kind of characters her readers recognise in themselves, their families and friends. It’s much to …
Things We Need by Jennifer Close: If you like Anne Tyler… Read More »