LITERARY FICTION

FIRE SERMON by Jamie Quatro

(Picador £14.99) IN THIS hotly anticipated U. S. debut, a married writer and mother, Maggie, strikes up a fervent liaison with another middle-aged writer, James, also married with children.

High-minded emails about poetry and theology lead to a pivotal hotelroom hook-up during a conference.

Analysis of the repercussions is intercut with the backstory of Maggie’s marriage, in particular the sacrifices she makes for a husband whose libido is undimmed by parenthood.

The tone of the novel is selfconsciously intellectual and there’s something oh-so-solemn about how it wrings existential catastrophe out of a bit of extra-curricular sex.

But part of Fire Sermon’s undeniable power lies in how it is exactly the kind of story more often told from a man’s point of view — perhaps it’s missing the point to yearn for an iota of humour when fiction so rarely puts a woman’s midlife desire under the microscope in this way.

WOMAN AT SEA by Catherine Poulain

(Cape £14.99) CATHERINE POULAIN’S debut — about an illegal deckhand on an Alaskan trawler — is an appealing prospect, partly because literary fiction doesn’t often gets its hands dirty with the world of work.

As a vivid account of hard graft in treacherous conditions, it doesn’t let you down — the salt-stung pages practically reek of the cod that the 30-something narrator, Lili, spends her days gutting, as she wins over a gruff crew doubtful she can earn her keep.

There’s no plot to speak of, though, and as a character study the novel is somewhat wispy.

We’re told Lili has run away from France, but not why. The vagueness is far from illogical — in this milieu of hard-drinking drifters, no one asks too many questions — but it makes it hard to care when the novel stakes its emotional clout on whether Lili can settle down with a fellow sailor.

The dustjacket hints that Poulain has drawn on personal experience, but you can’t help feeling she’s left a gap where the real story lies.

I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH by Alicia Drake

(Picador £14.99) SET in Paris, this bittersweet coming-of-age story is narrated by 13-year-old schoolboy Paul, comforteating himself into obesity while his well-to-do parents wrangle over a divorce.

They don’t notice, because his mother has just had a baby with her feckless toyboy, while his father is too busy fretting about his own six-pack, eyeing the flirty messages forever pinging into his phone.

An unlikely shoulder to cry on arrives in the form of Paul’s more streetwise classmate Scarlett, lusted after by the other boys but nursing pain of her own — as Paul is late to understand.

Drake nails the plight of a protagonist caught between childhood and the alarming onset of adulthood, but also elicits a pang of sympathy for Paul’s shambolic parents, bruised by their own upbringings.

A dose of last-gasp tragedy perhaps takes the caperish plot too far, but it doesn’t muddy the shine of a very enjoyable first novel.