In Extremis

An Englishman giving a lecture at a conference for physiotherapists in the Netherlands suddenly receives a message that, in London, his mother is dying. Cue a helter-skelter journey to her bedside, alternating between farce and pathos and peopled by a bewildering array of minor characters, from batty relatives to strangers with knitting needles. Nobody tells this sort of story better than Tim Parks, who has a gift, unrivalled among his contemporaries, for capturing the sheer rapidity with which unconnected trains of thought hurtle round and round in the human brain. The novel is a tour de force of high-voltage storytelling.

Max Davidson