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Strange noises from upstairs

Trapped abroad during lockdown, a lackadaisical reviewer is spurred to investigate the mysterious noises coming from the floor above his hotel suite

25 February 2023

9:00 AM

25 February 2023

9:00 AM

Hotel Milano Tim Parks

Harvill Secker, pp.240, 18.99

The global disruption of 2020-21 posed a special challenge to novelists. As a subject it seems irresistible; but how to find order and pattern in a series of seemingly blank, eventless days? Stuck in the pandemic doldrums, Tim Parks’s elderly narrator at least has memories of the past and a richly stocked mind to call upon when lockdown bites.

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