EITHNE FARRY

THE PRIVATE JOYS OF NNENNA MALONEY by Okechukwu Nzelu

(Dialogue £16.99, 320 pp) every character in this tender, funny debut is floundering. Joanie Maloney is trying to be a good single parent to her almost 17-year- old daughter Nnenna, but finds herself unable to tell the truth about Nnenna’s absent father.

Nnenna loves her mother, but is striving for independence and struggling with questions about identity, secretly turning to her Nigerian roots for answers. Meanwhile, Joanie’s friend Jonathan, a gay, black man, is lonely, isolated, depressed and looking for love in all the wrong places.

the trio are by turns angry, stubborn, bewildered, optimistic and loving, as they attempt to negotiate the emotional conundrums and complications that life throws at them. Nzelu writes with compelling honesty, but he’s also gifted with a warm sense of humour.

THE CROSSED OUT NOTEBOOK by Nicolas Giacobone

(Corsair £14.99, 256 pp) PABLo, the unacknowledged author of two successful screenplays, has been imprisoned in the basement of the greatest Latin American film director of all time, Santiago Salvatierra, for five years.

tasked with writing a world- changing script, Pablo is cursed with a bamboozling bout of writer’s block.

his long, dimly lit days are punctuated with visits from irate megalomaniac Santiago, who has signed up famous names such as Meryl Streep, Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson to star in the unwritten movie, and whose approach to film-making is distinctly at odds with Pablo’s.

Pablo ponders his past lacklustre life, contemplating his creative touchstones — Beckett, Borges and the Beatles.

this offers vital clues to how the book reads: sometimes witty, sometimes bleak, a little repetitive and often boring.