Happy New Year! Although, as I write these words, there’s nothing particularly happy about it. Perhaps by the time these previewed titles are published we will have reached the sunlit uplands. If not, we can at least escape into a good book.
For April contains some astonishing writing: a new novel from Jon McGregor, Lean Fall Stand (4th Estate), about a man recovering the power of language; Jessie Greengrass’ stunning second novel The High House(Swift Press), set against a background of creeping, devastating climate change; and the latest from Gwendoline Riley, My Phantoms (Granta), exploring a caustic bond between mother and daughter. Elsewhere in literary fiction, the short story is in rude health with a new collection from Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular (Harvill Secker), and the first collection from Louise Kennedy, twice-shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Bloomsbury).
Dreamtime
by Venetia Welby
With planes grounded owing to global climate meltdown, Sol and her friend Kit must travel across poisoned oceans for one last chance for Sol to connect with her absentee father, a US marine stationed in Okinawa. From the author of Mother of Darkness.
Quartet Books, £12.00, 29th April 2021, 9780704374836