Stella Wong, Stem, reviewed by Ian Pople
An energetic and resonant collection of lyric poems and dramatic monologues Stella Wong | Stem | Princeton University Press: £14.99Reviewed by Ian Pople In her second collection, Stem, Wong offers a series of poems entitled, ‘Dramatic Monologue…’, followed by the names of several forgotten female composers. These forgotten female composers have tended to specialise in […]
Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake, reviewed by Georgina Parfitt
An unreliable narrator’s cry for help Rachel Kushner| Creation Lake | Jonathan Cape: £18.99 Reviewed by Georgina Parfitt My friend and I happened to be reading Creation Lake at the same time without knowing it. I mentioned it one day, withholding my thoughts, and my friend got excited: Oh, you too?, We hesitated. There are […]
John Ironmonger, The Wager and the Bear, reviewed by Paul Knowles and Samantha Cassells
A Cornish Ecothriller: two adversaries thrown together by a deadly climate wager John Ironmonger | The Wager and the Bear | Fly on the Wall Press: £11:99 Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Samantha Cassells John Ironmonger’s The Wager and the Bear is a hugely ambitious novel: mixing philosophy, politics and climate change together in an […]
Samantha Harvey, Orbital, reviewed by Paul Knowles and Edith Powell
A dizzying, stark, haunting reflection on humanity’s hubris from outer space. Samantha Harvey| Orbital| Jonthan Cape: £9.99Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Edith Powell Orbital by English writer Samantha Harvey is a lyrical reflection on what makes us human: our hopes, beliefs and fragilities. The narrative follows six astronauts from across the globe (Russia, Japan, Ireland, […]
Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep, Reviewed by Alexandria Mowrey
Lost and found are two sides of the same coin in this stirring tale of desire Yael van der Wouden | The Safekeep | Viking: £16:99 Reviewed by Alexandria Mowrey ‘They are not for touching. They are for keeping.’ These are the first words spoken by Isabel in Yael van der Wouden’s Booker-shortlisted (and debut) […]
Percival Everett, James, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Strange, barbed, inverted retelling of an American classic by a contemporary American giant Percival Everett | James | Pan Macmillan: £9.99Reviewed by Joseph Hunter I don’t know what to make of this novel. It’s hard to assess it. It’s hard for two reasons. 1) Percival Everett is a superb, distinguished, and significant writer. 2) This […]
Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional, Reviewed by Stuti Dhar Chowdhury
A narrative of life, death and the intrigue encompassing both. Charlotte Wood | Stone Yard Devotional | Sceptre: £16.99 Reviewed by: Stuti Dhar Chowdhury A novel which pulls you right in, and yet keeps you at a distance; Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional is a true delight to read, which explains its nomination for the […]
Duets: Stories | Scratch Books | reviewed by Paul Knowles
A new anthology produces bold, stunning, and innovative short fiction Duets: Stories | Scratch Books: £11.99Reviewed by Paul Knowles Tom Conaghan (the publisher of Scratch Books) has commissioned and released another daring and innovative anthology of short fiction: Duets. Duets follows in the wake of Scratch Book’s Reverse Engineering series. The Reverse Engineering series focused […]
Anne Michaels, Held, reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
An immaculate but disquieting narrative across time Anne Michaels | Held | Bloomsbury: £9.99Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh Novels – good ones at least – utterly submerge the reader in their concerns, their perspectives and their characters for the entire length of their span. This is because, as John Berger noted, “the story’s voice makes everything its own.” Held, […]
Modern Gothic | Fly On The Wall Press | Reviewed by Lindz McLeod
Six contemporary writers and their fresh takes on the typical themes of gothic fiction Modern Gothic | Fly On The Wall Press: £11.99Reviewed by Lindz McLeod An oft-touted facet of Gothic fiction is the narrative framing device of a tale within a tale, shown to advantage here in Michael Bird’s opener ‘A Glass House for […]
Camille Ralphs, After You Were, I Am, reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘In the beginning was the Word’: Camille Ralphs casts a spell. Camille Ralphs | After You Were, I Am | Faber & Faber: £12.99Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch The epigraph of Camille Ralphs’ debut collection is from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Discovered in Egypt in 1946, this consists of 114 logia attributed to Jesus, some […]
C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea, reviewed by Livi Michael
Reflections on presence and absence form the emotional core of this moving collection C.D. Rose | Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea | Melville House Publishing: £17.99 Reviewed by Livi Michael At the end of the fourth story in this collection, the main character reflects on ‘echoes and repetitions and endless form most beautiful’, which […]
A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia | Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘Selling England by the Pound’: A.C. Bevan finds a way to halt the slide A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia| Mica Press: £10Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch A.C. Bevan has found the perfect title for his well-plotted and immensely readable first collection – a critical, compassionate look at a cut-price world of unconvincing simulations and cheap substitutes, epic […]
Carl Phillips, Scattered Snows, To The North, reviewed by Ian Pople
Carl Phillips | Scattered Snows, To The North | Carcanet: £11.99Reviewed by Ian Pople Relatively hot on the heels of Carl Phillips’ Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, And Then the War, comes his new volume, Scattered Snows, To The North. Phillips’ new collection has just been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize in the UK. The volume’s […]
Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
Fantastical, genre-defying psychedelia delivered in exuberant prose Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Bloomsbury: £14Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh What is genre? For Alan Moore, ‘widely regarded as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics’ if dust-jacket biographies are to be believed, the answer to this question […]
Hanna Nordenhök, Caesaria, reviewed by Daniel Pope
The beautiful and grotesque Gothic tale of a young girl’s subjectivity under the medicalizing male gaze Hanna Nordenhök (trans. Saskia Vogel) | Caesaria | Héloïse Press: £10.95Reviewed by Daniel Pope In 19th-century Sweden, Caesaria, the first child born successfully from a c-section performed by Doctor Eldh, is kept in a mansion in the countryside as […]
Natalia Ginzburg, Family and Borghesia, reviewed by Livi Michael
Natalia Ginzburg | Family and Borghesia | New York Review of Books: £11.99Reviewed by Livi Michael In Family, the first of the two novellas in this volume, the two protagonists are not named for several pages. We are, however, offered lot of information about them, delivered in short, factual declarations. Much has been made of […]
Nicholas Pullen, The Black Hunger, reviewed by Thomas D. Lee
Pullen’s queer gothic horror story weaves carefully between the lines of history Nicholas Pullen | The Black Hunger | Orbit: £9.99Reviewed by Thomas D. Lee Earlier this year I was privileged enough to be sent a digital proof of Nicholas Pullen’s phenomenal debut The Black Hunger, a dark delight of a book in which the […]
Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter, Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells
Doomed Love, Broken Promises, and the Fatalistic Irish in Barry’s Gritty Western. Kevin Barry | The Heart in Winter | Canongate: £16.99Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells From the moment a drunken opium-riddled Tom Rourke stumbles out of a bar in Butte, Montana in 1891 — In The Heart in Winter’s opening pages […]
Kathryn Tann, Seaglass, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Kathryn Tann | Seaglass | Calon: £16.99Reviewed by Joseph Hunter Seaglass, the debut essay collection by Kathryn Tan, is best described as part memoir, part nature writing – and there is a great deal of beauty in Tann’s explorations of the crossover between these two things. The collection clearly owes something to the ongoing rise or […]
Uche Okonkwo, A Kind of Madness, reviewed by Usma Malik
Uche Okonkwo, A Kind of Madness, Tin House: $16.95 Reviewed by Usma Malik Uche Okonkwo, an award-winning short story writer, is a former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar and recipient of: a Steinbeck Fellowship, the George Bennett Fellowship (Phillips Exeter Academy), and an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. Set in contemporary Nigeria, Okonkwo’s debut short story collection A […]
Jemma Borg | Wilder | reviewed by Jack McKenna
Jemma Borg | Wilder | Pavillion Poetry: £9.99 In Wilder, Jemma Borg tackles existential pressures with a series of subtle and flexible eco-poetic experiments that display a range of impressive results. The opening poem is devoted to the sharp, spiny ‘Marsh thistle’. In asking ‘What part of a human soul is this thistle?’, the collection […]
Paul Henry | As If To Sing | reviewed by Jack McKenna
Paul Henry | As If To Sing | Seren Books: £9.99 Sorrowful songs flow from Paul Henry’s newest collection, As If To Sing. These are careful, melodious poems that learn to listen for the watery current that carries love and loss together in our everyday lives. The opening sonnet, ‘Tributary’, follows the speaker returning to where […]
David Constantine | Rivers of the Unspoilt World | reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
David Constantine | Rivers of The Unspoilt World | Comma Press: £8.99 Salford author David Constantine, the award winning poet (Queen’s Medal for Poetry 2020), short story writer, translator, and editor, returns with his haunting new collection, ‘Rivers of the Unspoilt World. Constantine’s sixth collection of short stories has a laser sharp focus on the importance […]
Reshma Ruia | Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness | reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
Reshma Ruia | Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness | Dahlia Publishing: £10.00 Reshma Ruia’s, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness is a quiet, contemplative short story collection that asks what happens to immigrants’ dreams in the age of globalisation. What is striking about Ruia’s debut short story collection is that all her characters are in a […]
Sally Rooney | Beautiful World, Where Are You | reviewed by Edward Heathman
Sally Rooney | Beautiful World, Where Are You? | Faber & Faber: £16.99 Sally Rooney, Ireland’s most recent literary sensation, certainly knows how to draw readers in with her latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You? Centring around the friendships between the two main characters and their partners, it offers a familiar portrait of millennials as they […]
Eduardo C. Corral | Guillotine | reviewed by Ian Pople
Eduardo C. Corral | Guillotine | Graywolf Press: $16.00 There is a sharp, tangy sense about Eduardo C. Corral’s poems. Sometimes that tang is almost literal; these poems are never shy about talking about the senses at their most acute. But that tangy quality is part of the Corral’s style, too. The poems are often organised in […]
Jane Hirshfield | Ledger | reviewed by Ian Pople
Jane Hirshfield | Ledger | Bloodaxe: £10.99 There is a quiet quality to much of Jane Hirshfield’s poetry which sits between the zen-like and the vatic. Hirshfield is not afraid to flirt with rhetoric, but manages to contextualise it with a neatly drawn reality. Ledger is Hirshfield’s sixth Bloodaxe volume in the UK and begins with a […]
Carolyn Forché | In the Lateness of the World | reviewed by Ian Pople
Carolyn Forché | In the Lateness of the World | Bloodaxe Books: £10.99 The blurb to Carolyn Forché’s first full collection for seventeen years suggests that the poems are ‘meditative’. That’s one way to describe them but it might not be the best. The fact that many of these poems are narratives either in the first person […]
Amy Woolard | Neck of the Woods | reviewed by Ian Pople
Amy Woolard Neck of the Woods, Alice James Books, $16.95 There’s a perky, feisty quality to the writing in Amy Woolard’s debut collection, Neck of the Woods. A glance at a few of the titles of the poems will give some of the overall flavour of the collection: ‘All Get Out’, ‘Girl Gets Sick of […]
Sarah Feldman | The Half-Life of Oracles | reviewed by Ian Pople
Sarah Feldman | The Half-Life of Oracles | Fitzhenry & Whiteside: C$15.00 The writer who takes on the oracular and the vatic is offering themselves up as a hostage to fortune. The subject matter may well take in the various versions of myth that are parts of certain types of education but not part of the education […]
London Gothic, by Nicholas Royle ( Confingo Press, £12.99), reviewed by Richard Clegg
London Gothic by Nicholas Royle ( Confingo Press, £12.99) As well as a novelist and film aficionado, Nicolas Royle is one of the foremost practitioners of the short story form. As editor and publisher of his own Nightjar publications, he has been a doughty champion of other writers, often well off the beaten track. The […]
Nikolai Leskov | Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories of Nikolai Leskov | reviewed by Livi Michael
Nikolai Leskov | Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories of Nikolai Leskov | New York Review of Books: £14.99 The New York Review Books has published a selection of the stories of one of Russia’s lesser known writers, Nikolai Leskov. This beautifully presented volume contains six lengthy stories or novellas, and an excellent introduction by Donald […]
Carrie Etter, The Shooting Gallery (Verve), reviewed by Ken Evans
In The Shooting Gallery, Carrie Etter uses a favourite form, the prose poem, to interrogate and illuminate the fatal attraction in a country with more guns than people. However, her way in is not outrage or despair, but to look through an artist’s eye, in a sequence of twelve ekphrastic poems, featuring images suggested by […]