Chetna Maroo’s short tight début novel tells the story of an 11 year-old girl who has lost her mother, and the ways she, her sisters and father try to cope, especially through the unlikely medium of the game of squash.
Read MoreWilliam Wall’s latest novel, Empty Bed Blues, is the story of an Irishwoman whose life has been torn apart by her husband’s betrayals . A small town in Liguria in Northern Italy helps her see how she might live again.
Read MoreDeborah Levy’s new novel August Blue will give pleasure to all who enjoyed her superb three-book ‘living autobiography.’
Read MoreAlice Winn’s début novel In Memoriam is a fast-paced revisiting of the First World War in fiction, this time concentrating on a highly-charged erotic relationship between two schoolfriends, Ellwood and Gaunt.
Read MoreAn analysis of William Trevor’s short story, ‘The Piano Tuner’s Wives’, a masterpiece of fiction.
Read MoreClaire Keegan’s 2022 short story ‘So Late in the Day’ is further evidence of her excellence, and George Saunders talks about it brilliantly.
Read MoreA round-up of short reviews from the Fortnightly newsletter, from January to June 2023.
Read MoreKevin Curran’s new novel Youth captures four teenagers in contemporary Balbriggan, on the cusp of adulthood.
Read MoreBilly O’Callaghan’s new novel The Paper Man is a beautifully-crafted story of the now-forgotten Austrian footballing genius Matthias Sindelar and his young lover Rebekah, connecting Vienna in the 1930s and Cork City in the 30s and 80s.
Read MoreA discussion about Henry James’s masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady.
Read MoreAn annual round-up of short recommendations of books which I didn’t review fully.
Read MoreBernardine Evaristo’s autobiographical account traces her personal, sexual and creative journeys on the way to her recent artistic success and her ‘established and unswayable’ character.
Read MoreAshley Hickson-Lovence’s novel Your Show, an imagining of the career of the only black Premier League referee, Uriah Rennie, is a zippy and enjoyable read.
Read MoreIn his late 70s, Bernard MacLaverty has given us a marvellous collection of short stories of the highest quality, in the ironically-titled Blank Pages.
Read MoreToni Morrison only published one short story, ‘Recitatif’. It is now published for the first time in book form, with a brilliant introductory essay by Zadie Smith.
Read MoreThe most recent novel by the 2021 Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (2020), entirely justifies the Nobel Committee’s choice.
Read MoreClaire Keegan’s marvellous Small Things Like Us is a deeply moving portrait of a man’s life in mid-1980s Ireland, a superb follow-up to her masterpiece of a long short story, Foster.
Read MoreChimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story ‘Zikora’, published by Amazon Kindle in October 2020, is a pleasure.
Read MoreSara Baume has now written three lovely books, each characterised by carefulness, tenderness and a calm attention to the natural world. The latest is handiwork from Tramp Press, another book full of quiet pleasures.
Read MoreKatherine Mansfield’s brilliant short story ‘Daughters of the Late Colonel’ is distinguished by a lightness of touch, as she lets us into the minds of two sisters whose hectoring father has just died.
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