A late fling: Free Love, by Tessa Hadley, reviewed
Tessa Hadley is the queen of the portentous evening, the pregnant light and the carefully composed life unwittingly waiting to…
More penny dreadful than Dickensian: Lily, by Rose Tremain, reviewed
Rose Tremain’s 15th novel begins with a favoured schmaltzy image of high Victoriana: it is a night (if not dark…
A funny time to be Irish: The Rules of Revelation, by Lisa McInerney, reviewed
Lisa McInerney likes the rule of three. Three novels set in Cork structured around sex, drugs and rock’n’roll and, within…
Mommy issues: Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder, reviewed
This is a novel about ‘mommy issues’. Rachel is a Reform Jew, ‘more Chanel bag Jew than Torah Jew’, and…
A toast to brotherhood: Summer, by Ali Smith, reviewed
The concluding novel of Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet is a family affair. Her intergenerational group of seeming strangers from the…
More secrets from the Underground Railroad: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates reviewed
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s debut novel transports us to antebellum Virginia, when the tobacco wealth of years gone by is dwindling, due…
Rescuing the great British Cheddar
Gastronomy is one of the deepest forms of culture. If you’ve grown up in France you know this, to the…
Missive from a living fossil: Little Boy, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, reviewed
In his adopted city of San Francisco, the poet, publisher and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti is venerated to levels nearing those…
