Literary fiction
A TOPICAL TALE
‘Exit West’ by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99) A sci-fi premise – a portal allowing free passage from the world’s conflict zones to the affluent West – shines a light on the refugee crisis in this tale of young love.
CLEVER COMEDY
‘In Extremis’ by Tim Parks (Harvill Secker, €23.79) Farce and pathos mingle as an Englishman races from Holland to his ailing mother’s bedside. Potent storytelling and a generous cast of minor yet memorable characters (batty relatives, knitting-needlewielding strangers) make for a helter-skelter read that’s clever, comic and pulsing with humanity.
DEBUT DELIGHT
‘Darke’ by Rick Gekoski (Canongate, €21) The only beach you might find bibliophile Dr Jonathan Darke on would be a desert island. Just how this gleefully conjured misanthrope came to wall himself off from the world is the mystery at the heart of a singular first novel that evolves into a moving meditation on loss and redemption.
WAR-TORN
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber, €12.99) Winner of the 2016 Costa Award for Best Novel, Sebastian Barry’s book is set in mid-19th Century America during the Civil war and Indian war, narrated by Thomas McNulty an Irish emigrant who fled to the US to escape the Great Famine. The Costa judges called it ‘a miracle of a book – both epic and intimate – that manages to create space for love and safety in the noise and chaos of history’.
FEISTY HEROINE
‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore (Hutchinson, €19.60) Lizzie Fawkes is a heroine you won’t soon forget. Raised in radical circles in 18th-century England, she finds her marriage – and her safety – imperilled by revolution across the Channel. Part psychological thriller, part poetic exhumation of the past, it’s a fiery, firstrate historical novel from an author who’ll be much missed.
MUSICAL MUSE
‘White Tears’ by Hari Kunzru (Hamish Hamilton, €20.99) When music geek Seth listens to his recordings of New York City street sounds, he finds he’s mysteriously captured a song by a legendary Twenties blues artist. This rich novel embraces the Deep South, a murder and a wealthy family’s dark secret, while riffing on art and authenticity.
LAST WORDS
‘Let Go My Hand’ by Edward Docx (Picador, €17.99) A novel based around a road trip to Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia hub, may sound bleak but this tale of a man and his three sons is laced with champagne and dirty jokes. A darkly comic, deeply moving and thoroughly modern father-son love story.
BLURRED LINES
‘Conversations With Friends : A Novel’ by Sally Rooney (Faber&Faber, €12.74) Sally Rooney’s debut novel is a smart, sharp, seductive portrait of contemporary love and friendship and what happens when the two become blurred. Her protagonists Frances and Bobbi jump off the page and their coming of age in Dublin is alive with the pleasures and inhibitions of youth.
THE SEARCHER
‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne ( Transworld Publishers, €16.99) Cyril Avery, adopted at birth by a wellto-do Dublin couple spends his lifetime discovering his identity, his hinterland and his country. The story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of an ordinary Dubliner comes vividly and unforgettably alive.