Fiction

The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal (Penguin Viking) De Waal’s second novel, following the awardwinning My Name is Leon, is also set in the Irish emigrant community in England. Mona lives alone, making clothes for bespoke dolls that are ordered to precise weight (the significance of this is revealed by and by). We tack back and forth from Mona’s early life in Wexford to 1970s Birmingham and her life now in a coastal town in southern England. While a terrible real-life event is pivotal to Mona’s story, it is really a study in loneliness and coping with grief, and how we measure out our time in this world. This is another quietly impressive work from an assured, empathetic writer.