LITERARY FICTION
THE LAST WHITE MAN by Mohsin Hamid
(Hamish Hamilton £12.99, 192 pp)
‘ONE morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.’ So begins Booker-nominated (in 2007, for The Reluctant Fundamentalist) Mohsin Hamid’s electrifying reimagining of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which sees the white inhabitants of an unnamed American town — and, we infer, the nation as a whole — change race.
To begin with, gym trainer Anders hides away, not least from his terminally ill father and his yoga teacher girlfriend Oona, whose own mother embraces online conspiracies as an explanation for a situation she (literally) can’t stomach. But as more and more people become brown, unrest and violence give way to a profound awakening and recalibration.
The immense ambition of Hamid’s tale is contained within less than 200 pages and, masterfully, plays out in the most intimate of domestic arenas as it charts the relationship between Oona, Anders and their deeply flawed but loving parents. The result is note-perfect, moving and unexpectedly beautiful.
UNDERCURRENT by Barney Norris
(Doubleday £16.99, 272 pp) THIS lyrical, yearning, elegiac fourth novel by the acclaimed author of Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain begins with a chance encounter at a wedding: thirtysomething Ed hasn’t seen Amy since he rescued her as a child from drowning.
In short order, Ed ends his drifting relationship with girlfriend Juliet and the star-crossed pair get together — but that splashy (if you will) premise is actually the prologue to a rather sober tale.
Essentially a series of meditations on the metaphorical tides that shape our lives — and the homes we build to anchor us — the narrative then rewinds back a century to tell the history of the family sheep farm that Ed’s mother is intent on bequeathing him.
Amy’s role in all of this never exceeds the functional, and while Ed’s existential crisis is at times affecting — his lostness often feels painfully true — the largely unvarying tone does become rather emotionally wearing, and I found myself wishing that Norris would lighten up at least a little.
WALK by James Rice
(Hodder £18.99, 384 pp) BENEFITS call-centre handler Benny and would-be artist Ste are walking Offa’s Dyke as a tribute to Benny’s recently deceased dad.
More used to sitting in the pub rehashing the same stale conversational ground, in the wild they grapple with pitching tents, negotiating livestock and managing (sometimes) bodily functions.
Everything of importance — love, death, art, the substance of their taciturn, love-hate acquaintance itself — has been relegated to a postscript, an idea that becomes the book’s USP as Ste reflects, in increasingly lengthy footnotes, on all of the above.
The twist? As soon becomes apparent, Ste’s interjections and attempts to set the record of their friendship straight are posthumous.
Rice’s second novel seems heartfelt, but increasingly the light metafictionality and some Max Porter-like novelty typography feel like stand- ins for both plot and narrative energy. And, like the protagonist’s own, mine sadly ran out some way before the end of the trek.