The wife and times of Jesus
POPULAR
THE BOOK OF LONGINGS by Sue Monk Kidd
(Tinder Press £20, 432pp) THIS brilliant novel, by the bestselling author of The Secret Life Of Bees, imagines that Jesus had a wife: brainy, rebellious and resourceful Ana.
Fascinated by the silenced women of the Old Testament, Ana writes secret stories about them. She wants to be a scholar but her powerful Galilee family want to force her into marriage with a rich and horrible man.
Dressed up and dragged to the Temple, her eyes meet those of a charismatic stranger. Ana renounces all to live with You-Know-Who and her grumpy in-laws; exile and tragedy follow.
It’s the story we all know, but from a new angle, with all the familiar characters brought to vivid life.
I loved the hugely evil Herod, the bold reworking of Judas as a freedom fighter and the charismatic Messiah with the flashing smile. Brava!
COME AGAIN by Robert Webb
(Canongate £16.99, 304 pp)
TIME-SLIP novels and plots revisiting the 1990s student experience are both things at the moment. This debut by the well-known comedian and Peep Show actor ingeniously combines both.
Gritty Londoner Kate is studying English at York when dishy, posh Luke walks into the bar. Shazam! But the story doesn’t start here, it starts 28 years later, when Luke has died of a brain tumour.
Kate’s reeling from day to day with the help of the vodka shelf at the off-licence when she finds herself suddenly back in the past.
But as she’s armed with all her present knowledge, she aims to save her husband from his future death.
Splendidly bleak, fabulously Nineties and enjoyable.
YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN FUN AROUND HERE by Frances Macken
(Oneworld £14.99, 288pp) FOR our self-isolating times, what more appropriate title? We’re in Glenbruff, a remote Irish village.
Narrator Katie has been friends with manipulative
Evelyn since childhood. Evelyn is determined to be a star but the real potential star is dancer Pamela, who arrives one day from Dublin and then mysteriously disappears.
Has she been murdered, and if so, by whom?
This atmospheric debut looks like a rural Irish coming-ofage novel, but it’s cleverer, darker, more unreliable.
Which character can you trust? There will be parallels to Sally Rooney but it most reminded me of Jon McGregor’s groundbreaking lost-girl story Reservoir 13.