IN/HALF

It’s 25 years from now, and three friends who haven’t seen each other for years are turning 50. The world the trio live in is breaking down as our information age ends, to be replaced by bewildering, Kafkaesque landscapes where nothing is ever quite as it seems.

That said, the real-world problems of Slovenian debut novelist Jasmin B Frelih’s protagonists are wholly recognisable. Theatre director Evan is a junkie; famous poet Zoja has a stalker; and politician Kras, a former minister of war, sits amidst a dysfunctional family, with some of the dysfunction provided by Kras himself. Might a meeting between the three, to which the novel builds, offer them resolutions?

Of sorts, perhaps, but it’s worth bearing in mind that In/ Half isn’t a near-future tale as a genre writer might tackle it. Rather, it’s a slipstream literary novel that essentially borrows the tools of science fiction to explore how the uncertainties with which today’s millennials have to cope may impact on the lives they subsequently lead.

Whether it’s wholly successful is another matter. There’s a density to much of the prose that can become wearisome, yet this is still a novel that repays careful reading for some brilliant set-pieces, for its believably flawed characters, and for its bone-dry, even cynical, wit. Jonathan Wright