BOOK OF THE WEEK

TRICK TO TIME

by Kit de Waal Viking, £12.99, ebook £7.99 ★★★★★ ALTHOUGH so much of Kit de Waal’s second novel is different from her acclaimed debut My Name Is Leon, her focus on the lives of working class people and her ability to paint characters in minute detail through the eyes of her main character, remains.

It is this which is likely to leave you sobbing by the last page, and many times before that.

Mona, a bright, ambitious young woman meets her future husband William on her first night in Birmingham. As the couple begin to find their feet and build a life for themselves, an IRA attack cleaves their world apart. Cut to the present and Mona, approaching her 60th birthday, is now a solitary individual. As the narrative flits from the 1970s to the present, Mona considers her childhood, the blissful time she spent with William and the events that tore them apart. Emotional and beautifully rendered.

gives an insight into the trials of attempting to get on with a 20-something life of flatsharing, friends, first jobs, dates and dancing while dodging bombs from the “thoroughly annoying” Luftwaffe.

Pearce is said to have been inspired by a collection of women’s magazines from the Forties, which might account for the mannered language used

NON-FICTION THE COST OF LIVING

by Deborah Levy Hamish Hamilton, £12.99, ebook £7.99 ★★★★★

ON the front cover of the hardback edition is a still image taken from Jean-Luc Godard’s

1962 film Vivre Sa

Vie – the story of a woman’s descent into prostitution. But anyone expecting a racy read from this respectable tale of life in North London as a middle-aged divorcee will be disappointed.

It suffers from two handicaps. The first is dullness. It is, as Levy herself points out, ‘Mostly about stamina’. The second is decorum. Levy will not, quite properly, offer up intimate details about the collapse of her marriage. So what are we left with? Idiosyncratic musings on feminism and grief.