Fiction
Murder by the Mississippi
When the mutilated corpse of a Ku Klux Klan member is discovered, the stability of an entire city is threatened in this tale of racial tension set beside the Mississippi
Remember, remember
The world that blossoms in this haunting novel about the importance of memory is in the aesthetic vein known as ‘mono no aware’, or ‘the pathos of things’
Stark realities
Lawyers, teachers, architects and engineers all enjoy sex behind the scenes at a Houston gay bar in a novel focusing on relationships among black urban men
Rising star
The second volume of Knausgaard’s trilogy serves as a prequel to the first, tracing the origins of Norway’s ominous new celestial body
The changing face of Ireland
A dead poet’s dangerous aura continues to haunt his daughter and 23-year old granddaughter in this story of an unhappy family set in rapidly changing Ireland
Public lies and secret truths
Smith’s sweeping historical novel spans slavery in Jamaica in the 1770s and the marathon trials of the Tichborne Claimant in London a century later
A fable for our times
When phylloxera destroys the vines on the Aoelian island of ‘S’, the inhabitants, forced to emigrate, blame the recently established prison colony
Cheerful meanderings: Caret, by Adam Mars-Jones, reviewed
Now established in Cambridge, John Cromer embarks on a whirlwind of small adventures, testing our patience, if not our sympathy, with his extensive digressions
Magic tricks
Five short stories with male narrators – including a seahorse and a vampire – revolve around masculinity’s contradictory demands and the wish to belong
Tangled threads
The painted-over figure of Baudelaire’s muse eventually emerging from Courbet’s great canvas provides one of many haunting images in this complex novel
Violence in the Valley
When a man with a machete infiltrates a local synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, the peace of one the ‘greenest, quietest, safest’ places in America is shattered
Other worlds, other lives
A scientist finds a way to access other realities and bequeaths the secret to her daughter. But a dangerous adversary is on the trail
Adventures in Greeneland
In skilfully told stories involving luck and changes of fortune, Osborne suggests that it’s not the hand you’re dealt that matters, but how you play it
From revolutionary Paris to the moon
Thirlwell’s protagonist Celine flees malicious gossip in revolutionary France to ponder on sisterly solidarity, patriarchal violence, motherhood, colonialism and slavery
The good stepmother
Jean entertains her young stepdaughter Leah with drawings and fairy stories – but the two grow sadly estranged in this haunting novel with its own fairy-tale similarities
Bizarre miniatures
With flying narrators and women whose hair drags on the floor, there’s something of Leonora Carrington’s weird visions about Williams’s short stories
Sinister siblings
A brother and sister are dispatched to a relative’s farm in Colorado, and grow up isolated, unfeeling and even estranged from each other
The perils of permissiveness
The erotic adventures of a teenager who finally meets her match became a succès de scandale in 1920, and will still raise eyebrows today
A cherry orchard, three sisters and a summer romance: Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett, reviewed
Alex Clark enjoys a poignant story centring on a cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother’s past love affair
Mother trouble: Commitment, by Mona Simpson, reviewed
Simpson writes from personal experience in this moving story of three children’s commitment to their mentally ill mother
Tabloid fever
A tabloid journalist desperate for a scoop pursues a young Irish mother whose daughter is rumoured to have killed a child. But is there any truth in the story?
Terrorists you might know or love: Brotherless Night, by V.V. Ganeshananthan, reviewed
When a Sri Lankan medical student finds her brothers joining the Tamil Tigers, she is caught in a tangle of commitments to family, friends, homeland and vocation
A born storyteller
Instead of swashbuckling, we get the Parisian art world, trout-fishing, unhappy couples and surrogate parenting – though the 20 stories for children are full of adventure
Love in idleness: The Four Corners of the Heart, by Françoise Sagan, reviewed
In an atmosphere of languid torpor on a French family estate, an unfortunate relationship develops between a son, a father and a mother-in-law
Friendless, but not unhappy
A retired librarian reflects on a childhood runaway adventure and a devastating romantic betrayal as he begins to forge new bonds in later life
