A chilling childhood
Growing up in New England, in a town simmering with menace, Ruthie suffers the agonies of parental neglect
Adrift in Berlin: Sojourn, by Amit Chaudhuri, reviewed
Feelings of dislocation are at the heart of Amit Chaudhuri’s award-winning novels. Friend of My Youth (2017) followed a writer’s…
Beware the woke misogynist
The #MeToo movement isn’t all it seems. More than three years after countless sexual abuse allegations shook the world, the…
An unsentimental Hungarian education: Abigail, by Magda Szabó, reviewed
Although widely read in her native Hungary, Magda Szabó, who died in 2007, did not gain international acclaim until the…
A sinister feeling hangs over Sarah Moss’s claustrophobic sixth novel
Sarah Moss’s concise, claustrophobic sixth novel concerns the perils of family life. The narrator Silvie is a frustrated 17-year-old on…
Shades of the Mitfords: After the Party, by Cressida Connolly, reviewed
At the beginning of After the Party, Phyllis Forrester tells us she was in prison. While inside, her hair turned…
Happy Little Bluebirds, by Louise Levene, reviewed
In 1940, the British Security Coordination sent an agent with an assistant to a Hollywood film studio to help promote…
