The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken

Agatha Christie meets Wes Anderson

‘...one of the most important qualities for modern man, if that’s an actual concept, is mastering excess’

Oslo restaurant & grand Dame ‘The Hills’ becomes a microcosm in Faldbakken’s novel told through the eyes of the eponymous waiter. Chaos disturbs order with the arrival of a particularly enigmatic diner. 

Crisp linens & sharp rebuttals as Agatha Christie meets Wes Anderson 3

The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken (translated by Alice Menzies) published by Doubleday, 240 pages

Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine

Breathtaking acuity and startling illustration

'In February, when my mind was unclouded enough to appraise everything, I decided we would return to California'

A collection of six powerful graphic novellas each with a new protagonist dealing with their own truths. Most memorable is 'Hortisculpture' about one guy's pursuit of his tree art. Most moving is 'Translated' about one woman's journey home to California from Japan.

Adrian Tomine writes with breathtaking acuity and startling illustration.

Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine published by Macmillian USA, 128 pages

'Little' by Edward Carey

Grotesque and woeful in places, tender in others

'There is nothing more honest than wax. Everyone knows it. It can't lie'

An imagined biography of penniless Swiss orphan Marie Grosholtz who goes on to found Tussaud's waxworks museum.Carey moulds a feminist icon in Marie who believes in her own talents against profound hurdles.

Grotesque and woeful in places, tender on others.

Little by Edward Carey published by Gallic Books, 192 pages

69 by Ryu Murakami

Stylish and evocative roman a clef

A landmark 'roman a clef' from Ryu Murakami set in 1969 at a provincial high school far from Tokyo's counter culture scene.

Alain Delon films and Simon and Garfunkel songs fill the void until the students launch their own ideological revolution.

Murakami's prose is stylish and evocative of a time in Japan where new optimism clashed with conflicting traditional values.   

69 by Ryu Murakami published by Pushkin Press, 192 pages

The Lingering by SJI Holliday

You'll have nightmares about taking a bath

Early on in SJI Holliday’s new novel The Lingering an eerie and unsettling backdrop is established. Using classic thriller tropes; the remote county house, the secluded group of people and the sealed off set of rooms, Holliday sets up an alluring premise but is this suspense writing by numbers?

Holliday’s protaganists, ex-policeman Jack and Nurse Ali arrive at secluded Rosalind House to join a secretive sect who offer respite and relief from the outside world through meditation and positive thinking. Charismatic cult leader Smeaton is at the helm and long-term resident Angela agrees to show the new arrivals the ropes. Quite what led these people to each find themselves at Rosalind House only adds to the drama.

As we learn more about the site itself  the mystery thickens with Holliday throwing in a nearby village with suspicious locals, a tradition of witch-craft and folklore, and diary extracts from 1955 when the site was used as a psychiatric facility. 

The Lingering is well written with an expert eye for pace and plotting. Most successful is the structure which interrupts the narrative, told in turn from the perspectives of both Ali and Angela with the diary extracts from Dr Baldock which creates tension which builds up through its flashbacks to the old asylum. SJ Holliday sets out to achieve a lot in this creepy thriller with clear influences from Shirley Jackson to Agatha Christie but what it lacks in singularity it makes up for in combining recognisable elements to weave together a jolly good fireside yarn.

Beware, you’ll be having nightmares about taking a bath but some time.

The Lingering by SJI Holliday published by Orenda Books, 256 pages

The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton

Violent at times and tender at other

This is Australia at its bleakest. A boy on the run, a priest with a past and blisteringly hot salt-flats as a back drop. Tim Winton writes about desperation, isolation, faith and identity. 

Violent at times and tender at others this is raw storytelling.

The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton published by Picador, 228 pages

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Another novel about a white man with problems? Think again

The cover of Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer prize winning novel Less includes a suited man in free fall surrounded by loose pages of a manuscript. It’s a desperate scene conjuring images of the financial crash, of heroes falling from their lofty podiums and of celebrities exposed as frauds but is this just another novel about a white man with problems?

Less is part travelogue and part literary fiction concerning protagonist Arthur Less. Less is an erudite but second-rate writer who comes out of a long relationship with a celebrated poet and decides to travel as a means to work out what to do next with his life. Accepting invitations to literary festivals across the globe Less builds an itinerary of self-discovery knowingly designed to suit a gay man approaching the unknown territory of 50 years of age.

The novel is structured by the destinations on Less's global events calendar including France, Morocco, India and Japan to name a few. At each stop Less comes to terms with another anxiety whilst he plays out his journey of self-reflection. Yes, he’s self-obsessed and yes he’s self-serving but just when the story is about to descend into another middle aged white guy wallowing in his problems Andrew Sean Greer injects sharp wit and self-deprecating humour to make this as much an ode to middle aged masculinity as it is a modern gay self-help book.

In a particularly meta moment Less reflects on the glory of winning the Pultizer, ‘Pull it sir’, prize which Andrew Sean Greer went on to win for his own novel. Less himself would no doubt have approved. 

Arthur Less is a brilliant every-gay-man for a new generation who not only want to read the novel but want to follow his travels on Instagram. 

Less by Andres Sean Greer published by Lee Boudreaux Books

The Long Take by Robin Robertson

Silver screen tropes and movie icons

Long form prose poetry meets classic Hollywood noir in this Chandler inspired piece about a hack reporter on the rain drenched streets of LA and San Francisco. Robertson's prose is lushly cinematic as it plays with silver screen tropes and movie icons. 

The Long Take by Robin Robertson published by Picador Poetry, 256 pages

Normal People by Sally Rooney

'Boy meets girl' disrupted in a modern romance

Sally Rooney’s Man Booker nominated novel is a modern romance set largely in Dublin but beginning near Sligo with two teenagers, Connell and Marianne. The two get to know one another as Connell’s mum works as a cleaner in the mansion where Marianne lives with her distant mother and abusive brother. The pair form a secret relationship bound together by the discovery of sex.

Connell is smart, perceptive and firmly a part of the in-crowd whilst Marianne exists awkwardly on the fringes. The pair hardly acknowledge one another at school let alone admit to their relationship.

Later the pair both move to Trinity College in Dublin to study. Though Marianne is his constant, their relationship becomes increasingly on and off again as they navigate a new and uncertain social scene. This is where Rooney’s writing is at its most poignant capturing the everyday insecurities and self-doubt that many experience. For Connell the uncertainty of modern love is more pronounced as he struggles to fit in with the college social scene and finds relationships, with anyone other than Marianne, empty and wanting.

Amongst the many salient themes that Sally Rooney raises in the novel are mental health and social mobility but most successfully she captures Connell’s coming of age from determined and confident teenager in Sligo to hesitant and insecure student at Trinity College. In this respect the novel is as much bildungsroman as literary fiction.

Normal People is an effortless read in which the boy meets girl trope is disrupted for a world in which the boundaries of friendship and romance are blurred.

Normal People by Sally Rooney published by Faber and Faber, 288 pages

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

A clever novella that Challenges age and gender stereotypes

Along with ubiquitous vending machines, brightly lit convenience stores are a staple of Japanese urban landscapes. From snacks and drinks to umbrellas and crisp white shirts the likes of Hudson, Family Mart and 7 Eleven are always on hand to get you through the working day or to get you out of a fix.

Despite their functional esteem, working in a convenience store is not regarded as a viable or aspirational career. Consequently, employees are a transient bunch with a tenure of months rather than years. Convenience Store Woman is about an employee, Keiko, who bucks the trend by devoting years in service to her community. But is Keiko's loyal servitude masking something about her own life?

The key theme in the novel is around the value placed on service roles in Japan versus white collar career positions. Even her own family urge her to get a 'proper' job suggesting that she has needed therapy since a childhood incident that that left a black mark by her name.

Keiko wonders what life would be life if she does conform to the lifestyle expected of her. In an attempt to take control of her own life Keiko begins a relationship with Shiraha, a fellow convenience store worker, whom she agrees to live with but ultimately she struggles to resist the role of servitude that she is so proud to hold. At one point, having given up work, she finds herself rearranging products on the shelves to improve their appeal.

In Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata successfully flips the status on the ever-present sound of "Irasshaimase" which is what, in fact, keeps mega-cities like Tokyo working. This a clever novella that challenges gender and age stereotypes whilst shining a light on a society coming to terms with its own problems with over-work.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori published by Portobello Books, 176 pages

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

Read in one sitting but remember for much longer

Nick Drnaso made history this year when his novel Sabrina was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. As the first graphic novel to make the long-list Drnaso has broken the Man Booker mould in a work that pushes boundaries in storytelling and in style.

The story begins in Chicago with a young girl, Sabrina, cat sitting for a friend and chatting to her sister. The tone is suburban and quotidian with little indication of what's to come. Next we meet Teddy who arrives in Colorado to stay with his friend, Airman Calvin, whilst he recovers from a break up.

The pages that follow meticulously present a troubling story about a missing girl and the conspiracy theories that circulate virally online as the story breaks in the media. At all times the narrative is executed beautifully in the simple lines of Drnaso's illustrations that are beautifully expressive.

  

The medium allows for the awkward silences between Teddy and Calvin to really resonate. There are frames without any dialogue that linger with profound realism. Likewise the muted colour palette or pale pinks and beige effortlessly conveys the banality of strip-light life in Colorado.

Sabrina is a novel for 2018; with its themes of social media and 24hr news cycles Drnaso knows how to use existing social tension to tell a story. But its the theme of trust, and specifically who to trust. that makes this novel a story of our times.  

Drnaso is a huge talent that I suspect has a bucket full of stories in his head

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso published by Drawn and Quarterly, 204 pages

Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen

Pink flamingos in the Winter

A few chapters in to the latest Antti Tuomainen and you'll be forgiven for thinking you'd lost the plot. Palm Beach Finland concerns a visionary (read crazy) property developer attempting to recreate Palm Beach in chilly Finland. But that's not all, this dreamland then becomes central to a murder investigation. Jan Nymen is sent from the covert National Central Police to investigate amongst the plastic palm trees and rubber rings at the 'hottest beach in Finland'.

Palm Beach Finland is everything you'd expect from the writer of last year's The Man Who Died (2017), with Tuomaimen you get crime and caper all wrapped up in a decidedly Finnish packet. In this case a murder mystery novel with black humour as witty as pink flamingos in the winter.

Tuomainen has a distinctive style which David Hackston must work really hard to adapt into English, hats off to him. At times the surreal humour gets in the way of the narrative which is more driven by the unique setting that any any of the characters.That said Palm Beach Finland is a fun read for crime fiction fans looking for something to brighten their Autumn stacks.

For Tuomainen at his darkest try a different piece of Finnish Noir with The Mine (2015) but for now at least the bright cover art of Palm Beach Finland will cheer up your bedside table this October

Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen published by Orenda, 300 pages

The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada

So much human emotion in a highly stylised and succinct novella

Toshiki Okada's The End of the Moment we Had is a straight forward novella about two people who meet and experience a short lived yet hyper-intense relationship. But in this novella the narrative is only part of the experience as Okada's writing style, which combines elements from both fiction and theatre, steals the show. 

At the beginning of the novel we meet a group of six guys heading for a night out in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. They brag and banter with each other as they make their way into club but at a certain point the narrative locks onto one of the men in particular as he watches a performance in the club and then meets a girl.

Just when we're settled onto a single narrator Okada switches again though this time its to the girl. As the pair leave the club Okada establishes that this is a story about one couple amidst the teeming population of Tokyo.  

As news breaks of the US led air-strikes on Baghdad and the streets of Tokyo hum to the crowds of anti-war protests the couple retreat to a love hotel which becomes a home for their relationship to play out. Once the door to their room is closed they forget the world outside as the love hotel becomes a simulacrum for a world distilled down only to sex and conversation.

Just as the love hotel is an idiosyncratic Japanese concept so to is Okada's style of writing which covers so much story and so much human emotion in a highly stylised and succinct novella.  Another brilliant slice of Japanese fiction brought to the UK by Pushkin Press.   

The End of The Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada published by Pushkin Press, 128 pages

Trap by Lilja Sigurdardottir

Fiction that makes you late for work

Trap takes us right back to the action at the end of Lilja Sigurdottir's English language debut Snare only this time the noose is even tighter.

The novel begins with Sonia and her son Thomas in hiding in Florida. The pair must move from town to town so as not to leave any trace that her ex Adam might be able to track. Spending time with Thomas is wonderful but Sonia can feel the threat looming every day.  

Back in Iceland Agla tries to come to terms with the end of her relationship with Sonia whilst picking up the pieces of her shattered career following the banking collapse in which she played a major part.

As the story develops Sonia is inevitably drawn back into the trap that this time sees her carrying cocaine into Iceland via Greenland. As with Snare, the chapters are extremely short creating a fierce pace that makes the heart pound. This is fiction that makes you late for work. 

Sigardardottir writes escapist crime fiction that viscerally sets the heart and mind racing as you vicariously experience tension at the extremes of the human condition. Even characters in the novel read Nordic crime fiction before they go to sleep, is there any let up?

Characters are developed in this second installment, most notable Braggi who continues to cooperate with Sonja in order to raise funds to support his terminally ill wife

In Sonia, Lilja Sigurdardottir has created a contemporary LGBT hero who approaches life with the energy and nous to overcome any of the challenges that she face. Sonia knows who she is, what she wants and who she wants around her. Is anyone likely to stop her? Think again.

Trap by Lilja Sigardottir and translated by Quentin Bates published by Orenda, 225 pages

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

"The Mistake is coming to stay for a while"

By Nightfall was first published in 2010 after the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Hours. In this novel, Cunningham’s protagonist is successful 40 something New York art dealer Peter who lives a middle class metropolitan life with his wife Rebecca in an upmarket part of town. Peter’s life revolves around gallery openings and visits to wealthy clients who might just buy another piece for their ostentatious collections. But for Peter something is missing. Enter Rebecca’s younger, drug addict and Yale drop-out brother, Mizzie, "The Mistake is coming to stay for a while".

By Nightfall is, in many ways, a contemporary retelling of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice but to Michael Cunningham’s credit there is more to this novel than meets the eye. Cunningham builds on the trope of the uninvited guest to create a novel about ageing, about success and about letting go.

Just as von Aschenbach is captivated by the young Tadzio in the Lido of Venice, Peter is inexplicably drawn to Mizzie in a way that leads him to question everything in life around him. Is Peter’s affection paternalistic, an intense form of comradeship or is it something else? 

By Nightfall includes countless narrative and stylistic references to Mann’s work but Cunningham updates the idea with more grit and post millennial modernity. The novel is brilliantly structured and his New York society, more Rodin at The Met than pretzels on Broadway, is beautifully crafted. By Nightfall is a great read about the diversions that occur in life.

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham published by Fourth Estate, 256 pages

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

A bit less taming and a lot less shrew

Vinegar Girl is part of a project curated by Hogarth Press which sees modern writers retell and re-imagine some of Shakespeare's most popular work. In this case The Taming of the Shrew (1590) gets the Anne Tyler treatment in this novel which relocates the story from Padua to modern day Baltimore. 

Anne Tyler knows that audiences are more than familiar with the source material whether via Shakespeare's play itself or through myriad adaptations from Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate to the Hollywood romcom 10 Things I Hate About You. So, rather than retell the story Tyler deconstructs the elements and rebuilds the narrative for a contemporary audience with a more developed view of gender politics. 

The eponymous Vinegar Girl is  Kate Battista daughter of a scientist at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. When Dr Battista needs to find a way to extend the visa for his star student research assistant, Pyotr, he conceives of a plan to have him marry his daughter. This re-imagining of the courtship into a green card  marriage is believable, credible and Tyler-esque but results in a bit less taming and a lot less shrew  

Kate is headstrong, working as a teaching assistant she is frequently in trouble for speaking too honestly to the children in her care, but her demands are for the most part accepted by Pyotr which limits the humour and tension that Shakespeare creates between Petruchio and Katerina. Gone are the polarised gender roles that so defines The Taming of the Shrew. 

Though Kate's sister Bunny does appear in the story she plays a much reduced role to Shakespeare's Bianca which is an oversight as the novel could have retold the story with much greater depth. Vinegar Girl is an enjoyable read but best considered in its own right rather than as a retelling of The Taming of The Shrew for which it falls short. 

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler published by Hogarth, 272 pages

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

A brave and ambitious novel

Sophie Mackintosh holds no punches in her debut novel The Water Cure. Having won both The White Review's short story prize and the Virago/Stylist short story competition in 2016 for her first full length novel Mackintosh tackles the theme of patriarchy head on. 

The novel takes place on a fortified though dilapidated island where a father, know as King, raises his daughters safe from the toxic masculinity of the world outside. The girls are raised with the profound belief that any contact with men could kill them.

The dystopia of the world beyond the island is highlighted by the frequent arrivals of women who wash up on the coast of the island seeking help and salvation from the water cure itself. King and his wife, the girl's mother, maintain the safe haven of the island through an extreme form of ideological protectionism that is threatened only with the arrival of three shipwrecked men.

The narrative is told through the eyes of the three girls with each taking a chapter either individually or in pairs. Mackintosh writes with a macabre tone reminiscent of Angela Carter's short stories, indeed The Water Cure itself is a short novel punctuated by chapters from different perspectives.

Though the set up is original and highly compelling, detail around how the family found themselves on the island is scarce. At times the brevity of the prose creates chasms that leave you left to fill in the gaps yourself. Whether a deliberate attempt to emphasise the lack of answers that the girls find themselves in or the result of over editing is unclear.

The Water Cure is a brave and ambitious novel that is cements Sophie Mackintosh as a major new voice in British literature.  Possibly a Man Booker winner.

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh published by Hamish Hamilton, 256 pages

So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres

The awkward middle child

Louis de Bernieres has reached a particular point in his career that many writers simply never reach. Not only can he pour over enthusiastic reviews of his bestselling novels or meet spirited fans at literature festivals the world over but he can leverage his success self-referentially by including characters from his earlier work in new novels. This is both a crowd pleasing device that takes readers back to works such as Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994) and Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village (2009) but also works to feed the narrative with a richness that can only come from a seasoned storyteller.

De Bernieres's new novel So Much Life Left Over is the second part of a trilogy that began with The Dust that Falls from Dreams (2015) and explores the years following the First World War from the perspective of one particular family. The novel begins with the death of a baby which sets off a chain of events between Ceylon and at home in England. 

At its best So Much Life Left Over is Dickensian in scale with its multi-generational narrative and attention to period detail. But at times the story is annoyingly plodding and too aware of its own de Bernieresness. Rambling letters only serve to unnecessarily slow the pace which is otherwise full of compelling and likeable characters, some of which we know very well. But here's the rub, can a novel that deliberately refers to previous works really stand on its own? 

Have we reached peak de Bernieres? So Much Life Left Over may end up being the awkward middle child of a triumvirate bookended by better works.

So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres published by Vintage, 288 pages

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Daring, honest and authentic

There are moments in Man Booker nominee Ottessa Moshfegh's new novel that bring to mind some of Bret Easton Ellis's best work. 'Ambien plus Placidyl plus Theraflu. Solfoton plus Ambien plus Dimetapp'; as the unnamed protagonist in My Year of Rest and Relaxation meticulously lists the cocktail of pills she has taken to aid her sleep the grooming regime of fellow New Yorker Patrick Bateman is brought to mind. 

Moshfegh's decision not to name her protagonist means she becomes an every-woman for post Millennial New York at the time in and around the inauguration of President George W Bush. There are hints of Eileen in the relationship with Reva who, along with Whoopi Goldberg, is one of the few constants in a life lived in between drug induced comas. This is a novel that very much responds to the self help obsession over the last couple of decades.

Characters in the novel are few but brilliantly crafted. No less in the case of therapist Dr Tuttle, 'herself a piglety shade of pink' who casually enquires 'Do you have a family history of non-binary 

paradigms?

The narrative moves quickly and builds to a dramatic and unforgettable conclusion that changes everything. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is daring, honest and authentic.

My Year or Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh published by Jonathan Cape, 289 pages

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna

A comedy fable about one man's journey into the wilderness with a hare up his jumper

The Year of the Hare begins with the moment journalist Kaarlo Vatanen finds his life knocked off course by a young hare. As his car swerves to avoid the leveret on a quiet country road Vatanen is concerned that he has injured the animal and can't help himself stopping to find out.

Like Alice's White Rabbit the hare leads Vatanen on a picaresque adventure miles away from his structured professional life. The hare asks for little other than a ready supply of fresh leaves and protection from the oven, after all hare is skinned and eaten in rural Finland,  yet he offers Vatanen a mirror with which to view his own life.

The hare is a brilliant device which Paasilinna uses to create pace and to introduce new characters that drive the narrative on through various misadventures culminating in a chase over the border into the Soviet Union. The characters the pair meet along the way each in some way challenge Vatanen's perspective of the pretence that was the life he left behind.

The cover art on this new paperback edition perfectly captures the spirit of the novel. Though originally published in 1975 the story is a fresh as a daisy. The preface explains that the translation was slightly tweaked for the 7th edition in 2006 but at heart the structure and humour of the text remains unchanged. The novel has already been translated into 18 languages and appeared on the best-seller list at home in Finland and in France where a film adaptation was also produced.

This is the only book you'll read this year about one man's journey into the wilderness with a hare up his jumper. 

The  Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna and translated by Herbert Lomas published by Peter Owen, 144 pages

The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson

The nights are darker, the snow drifts deeper and the crimes more brutal

Ragnar Jonasson is a crime fiction tour de force. Whilst holding down a successful portfolio career (Jonasson works as a lawyer, a copyright lecturer and a translator) he managed to deliver Nordic Noir gold with his Dark Iceland series featuring Ari Thor. As translator of Agatha Christie's work into Icelandic he has a unique insight into the mind of a crime writer but over the past few year Jonasson has established his own distinct voice. 

The Darkness marks the first appearance in English of Jonasson's protagonist Hulda Hermannsdottir. Hulda is a retiring cop being given the final push by her unsympathetic boss who reluctantly lets her investigate one last case before she retires. At 64, Hulda is older that other crime fiction leads but she's wiser and her dreams and fears are richer than those of younger characters. The truth is, Hulda Hermannsdottir is pure crime fiction perfection and Jonasson knows just how to to write a high paced thriller around her final weeks on the force.

The Darkness finds Hermansdottir reopening a cold case concerning a young Russian asylum seeker who was found dead from a suspected suicide. Unhappy with the way the case was concluded Hermannsdottir lifts the lid on the story and finds a link to the case of another missing girl. As her investigation continues she anxiously considers her own future in retirement and her new friendship with Peter. Could he be what she needs to finally put to bed the ghosts of the past?

Jonasson takes the crime fiction tropes we recognise and administers them with a sharp injection of Icelandic chill. The nights are darker, the snow drifts deeper and the crimes more brutal.

Read The Darkness now before the follow up which is due for publication in 2019

  

The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson and translated by Victoria Cribb published by Michael Joseph, 336 pages

The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada

A original fable based in a near future dystopia

Yoko Tawada's recent work Memoirs of a Polar Bear is a unique novel narrated by three generations of one polar bear family. In The Last Children of Tokyo we're in more conventional hands, from a storytelling point of view, but Tawada's unique vision is just as strong.

The two protagonists, 100 year old retired author Yoshiro and his young grandson Mumei, represent the two extremes in Tawada's Neo-Japan. With the working aged population all working in agriculture in Okinawa, Tokyo is comprised of elderly but spirited morning joggers and fragile and sick youngsters. 

"Exposure to multiple health hazards from prolonged habitation"; Tawada's vision of Tokyo is bleak. Climate change, political isolationism, disease and economic regression have left society in dysfunctional place in which the old are having to care for their ill-equipped grandchildren. This is an interesting take on the issues facing an ageing society. Whilst contemporary Japan focuses on AI solutions to care for the elderly Tawada speculates that its the young who are ultimately weak and vulnerable.

Aside from the dystopian aspects some of Tawada's city vision could prove to be prescient. Whilst cars continue to choke the streets of Shibuya today it is more and more conceivable that we'll reach 'peak car' in the not too distant future.

Tawada's satire is sharp and inescapable and could be explored over far more pages than this novella. Would be great to read a graphic novel adaptation just as the cover art suggests.

The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada and translated by Margaret Mitsutani published by Portobello Books, 144 pages

Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna

An epic blend of biography and memoir

Room to Dream is a doorstop sized tome dedicated to the career of film maker, visual artist and auteur David Lynch. As you'd expect from the 'outsider's outsider' Room to Dream is about as far from conventional biography as can be. In Lynch's take on his own life he has writer Kristine McKenna forensically piece together the narrative based on interviews with over ninety of Lynch's family and colleagues. In between each of McKenna's chapters Lynch responds with his own take on the story at times in conflict and at other times grateful for McKenna's detail which Lynch himself fails to recall.

The result is an epic blend of biography and memoir which avoids the pitfalls of an unreliable narrator by allowing a 360 degree view of the story. 

David Lynch's career is a dazzling portfolio from the spotlight of Hollywood and the scrutiny of Cannes through to his discovery of transcendental meditation and patronage of Polish art festivals. Yet its his early years in mid-west mid-century America that offers more than a glimpse into some of the tropes that recur throughout his career from Blue Velvet through to Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. 

The book explores the team of long-term collaborators who form a close-knit community around Lynch from actors Laura Dern and Kyle McCloughlin to composer Angelo Badalamenti. Though Lynch is at times distant and unfaithful his collaborators consistently speak of a tenderness, a loyalty and an understanding that is unique. 

Room to Dream is a triumph in that it pulls together a body of work from a true auteur whose work is, often times, not properly understood until years after it was originally created. Regrettably, few film makers could survive today from such a string of commercially unsuccessful films yet Lynch managed to navigate a career on the very edges of the mainstream. 

Room to Dream offers front row seats on a journey into the life of one of the most creative minds of our lifetime.

Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna published by Canongate Books, 592 pages

Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito

What exactly did Maja do or not do?

Malin Persson Giolito's Storst av Allt won Best Swedish Crime Novel 2016, the Glass Key Award 2017 and the prestigious Prix du Polar European on 2018. Quicksand is the English version, translation duties falling to Rachel Willson-Broyles, published to much hype last year.

Persson Giolito's premise is both contemporary and prescient. Following a school shooting massacre the narrative follows teenager girl Maja who is tried in court for her involvement along with her now dead boyfriend Sebastian. If Nordic Noir traditionally lives on the rain drenched streets of Stockholm, Quicksand is more prep schools and ponies but that's not to say that Person Giolito goes soft on suspense. Maja makes an intriguing anti-hero but what exactly did she do or not do? 

The opening scenes are amongst the best in the book. The action begins with the massacre itself and a bloody school room with 5 dead bodies and one girl, Maja, still alive. Persson Giolito reveals only enough to lead into the story and holds back on the reveals until later. In contrast to most crime fiction Quicksand is Maja's story rather than that of the detective or lawyer.

With Swedish crime fiction being so perennially loved by readers across the globe Persson Giolito's approach marks a step change from the much loved format of Nordic Noir. The narrative unfolds in episodic mode with chapters that flip backwards and forwards in time. The cover artwork on the paperback looks as if the book has already been adapted for the small screen.

Persson Giolito's career as a lawyer ensures that the narrative is authentic and believable but at times becomes a little procedural. More time could have been spent in the build up to the court scenes, the parties with rich kid Sebastian for example, rather than with the prosecution itself. The problem with Quicksand is that the main character Maja is one dimensional and for the most part difficult to empathise with. The court room scenes present her as little more than a spoilt teen yet the story itself potentially has so much more to offer.

Crime fans will, no doubt, disagree. 

Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito (translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles) published by Simon & Schuster UK, 416 pages

New Boy: Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier

An arena in which the most base human emotions can be played out

Tracy Chevalier's latest novel New Boy is an ambitious retelling of Shakespeare's Othello with the narrative transported to a 1970's school playground. The source material Othello: The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice (1603) is one of the Bard's most frequently adapted plays; from the Orson Welles film-noir, to Rossini's opera all the way, perhaps, to Disney's Aladdin. So what can Chevalier bring to the table in this particular adaptation? 

Some of the themes in the original text (sexual tension and political posturing for example) are inevitably absent from this scholastic retelling. Instead Chevalier focuses on the universal themes of race and jealously both of which have specific potency today. Othello in New Boy is cast as 10 year old Ghanaian school boy Osei, or 'O', who moves to an all white school in 1970s Washington after his diplomat father is posted to the USA. Chevalier's Desdemona is Dee and Iago is recast as Ian.  

Although the names are similar characters in New Boy take on their own life as the story deals with being the outsider in society and about the way jealousy motivates the most extreme behaviours. In this way the playground setting is ideal as an arena in which the most base human emotions can be played out in a believable way.

In clever recognition of the genesis play, the narrative in the book is compressed into a single school day with 'acts' named 'morning recess' and 'after-school'. Less successfully, Desdemona'a pivotal handkerchief from the play is translated into Dee's strawberry covered pencil case in New Boy.

Whilst New Boy lacks some of the creativity of Margaret Atwood's retelling of The Tempest in Hag-seed it is, nevertheless, a compelling read especially for the young adult audience. 

New Boy: Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier published by Vintage, 192 pages

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

A story about survival and protecting the young

Megan Hunter's debut novel The End We Start From is a curious read somewhere between a novella and a prose poem. Though the themes are huge the narrative itself is brief in extremis - Hunter distills the text down to the bare minimum of words; even abstracting the characters names to single letters, but has she cut the story to thin?

The End We Start From follows one mother's first experience with childbirth against the backdrop of an apocalyptic flood which leads to mass evacuation from London to the North. This is a story of survival and of protecting the young which resonates with the refugee crisis that we see playing out in the news most days. The premise is interesting, the characters are well defined and some of the imagery conjured beautiful. 

But Hunter's writing style is almost like reading notes or a draft of a 'real' novel. The text appears in short staccato paragraphs that could be argued is prose poetry. The use of random creationist quotes scattered throughout the text also needs more development.

The ultimate compromise in Megan Hunter's extreme brevity is that we miss out on understanding the world that she has created. Some back story expansion would have made this a far more engaging novel that could easily have been three times as long. The End We Start From is certainly extraordinary but the idea deserves more time to grow.

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter published by Picador, 144 pages