LITERARY FICTION

NICOTINE by Nell Zink (4th Estate £14.99)

NELL ZINK’S name is usually uttered in the same breath as Jonathan Franzen’s, less because of any obvious similarities between their work than because Franzen was an early champion of the fiftysomething Virginian-born former construction worker. But while Franzen’s stock has dipped of late, Zink’s has been skyhigh since she first hit the shelves last year.

Her simultaneously published debut novels, The Wallcreeper and Mislaid, had critics scrabbling for outlandish similes in an attempt to sum up her singular talent, and Nicotine is another hilarious and generally blurb-defying display of off-the-wall firepower.

Its heroine appears to be unemployed business graduate Penny, the daughter of a South American mother and Jewish Shamanist father. But Penny’s sociopathic half-brother Matt also plays a major part, as do the smokers’-rights-defending inhabitants of the New Jersey squat in which Penny somehow finds herself.

Zink has enormous fun with her cast of clueless, horny, hippy activists, but she’s the real anarchic spirit.

This isn’t a neat novel — plot and perspective pinball gleefully — but it’s weirdly affecting, totally addictive and exhilaratingly unlike anything else you’ll read.

THE STORY OF A BRIEF MARRIAGE by Anuk Arudpragasam (Granta £12.99)

THE opening scene of this short, highly impressive Sri Lankan debut is uncompromisingly graphic: a refugee boy, his right arm ‘dissolved’ by shrapnel, is carried to a makeshift clinic where the remains of his limb are amputated while he is still conscious.

At his side is another young refugee, Dinesh, who is trapped in a camp with thousands of others between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers. It’s his job to dispose of body parts from the clinic, but psychic rather than physical trauma is the focus here — in the face of extreme suffering, emotion, too, must be cut off.

This is a breathtakingly intimate novel — as well as which one in which intimacy is a central theme — and Dinesh’s bleak plight unfolds in limpid prose, punctuated by searing images. After he agrees to marry a complete stranger, he is suddenly reborn, making subsequent shattering events even harder to bear.

Don’t let that put you off: Arudpragasam is aware above all of what fragile creatures we are, and writes of horrors with great compassion and delicacy.

THE CAROUSEL OF DESIRE by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (Europa Editions £14.99)

IN JOHN Lanchester’s novelturned-mini series Capital, the residents of one London street were perturbed to find themselves receiving a rather nasty note.

The missive that sets wheels in motion here seems, by contrast, harmless: an anonymous billet-doux.

Yet the inhabitants of Brussels’ exclusive Place d’Arezzo respond in very different ways: some with joy and relief, others with anger and fear. A priapic Eurocrat suspects one of his mistresses is going soft, a dramaqueen teen succumbs to hysterics and a Woody Allen-ish young fogey scents his wellmeaning mother’s handiwork.

A bestseller on the continent, the author has a sideline in translating comic operas, and this frequently funny 600-page doorstopper is surprisingly light on its feet.

Full of sensational revelations, sudden reversals of fortune and lots of sex, it’s also wrapped up with satisfying neatness — quite an accomplishment given the huge cast.

Plus there’s a copper-bottomed crowdpleasing message — while monogamy might not suit everyone, happiness lies in being true to oneself.