Forthcoming Publications

11 SEPTEMBER

Review of House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk Literary Fiction What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it? The title of this spellbinding work, House of Day, House of Night, somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. Full Review

25 SEPTEMBER

Review of The Other Girl by Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator) Autobiography We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this. Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied. Full Review

9 OCTOBER

Review of Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett Literary Fiction Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, come over here and kiss me, it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment. Full Review

Review of The Tower by Thea Lenarduzzi Literary Fiction How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. Full Review

23 OCTOBER

Review of Vaim by Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) Literary Fiction All was strange... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current. Full Review

29 JANUARY

Review of Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman Literary Fiction It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous. Full Review