Loss
Sister, where are you? – Clover Stroud mourns her beloved sibling
‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for…
Sisters under the skin: Han Kang’s The White Book reviewed
Before the narrator of The White Book is born, her mother has another child; two months premature, the baby dies…
All at sea — trying hard to stay afloat
‘This happens to other people.’ The Guardian journalist Decca Aitkenhead says she had heard the phrase countless times, interviewing the…
Julie Myerson captures the sorrow that surpasses all understanding
As its title suggests, Julie Myerson’s tenth novel is about stoppage: the kind that happens when one suffers a loss…
A fairytale return for Graham Swift
The opening of Graham Swift’s new novel clearly signals his intent. ‘Once upon a time’ tells us that this will…
The perfect big bang that opens this book was too good to be true
Houses, as any plumber will testify, do sometimes blow up in gas explosions, destroying their contents and inhabitants, but would…
You’ll never look at dried pasta in the same way again
A calculated ordinariness unites the protagonists in Graham Swift’s new collection of short stories. In each of these mini fictions,…
