‘Heart-rending and compulsive’: The new Literary Fiction you need to read – GUNK by Saba
GUNK by Saba Sams (Bloomsbury Circus £16.99, 240pp)
Sams’s debut story collection, Send Nudes, earned its then 26-year-old author a spot on Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list in 2023, so it’s gratifying that this, her sensitive first novel, delivers.
Gunk is the grungy Brighton nightclub where Jules works. She’s divorced from its man-child proprietor, Leon, but at 20-something longs for a baby. Which is where 19-year-old bartender Nim comes in.
The two are soon friends, and when Nim falls pregnant after a night with Leon, the equation seems obvious: she will just give the child over to Jules. But, as we know from a frame narrative, things don’t go to plan.
The plots unfolds with a simple inevitability that almost disguises Sams’s craft, although there’s no missing the brilliance of her scintillating turns of phrase. Imbued with an affecting authenticity of feeling, this is an involving exploration of life, love and family forged beyond labels by one of Gen Z’s sharpest observers.
THE NAMES by Florence Knapp (Phoenix £16.99, 352pp)
Publishers scrambled to sign up this debut – which also sparked huge auctions internationally – and it certainly boasts an attention-grabbing conceit.
In 1987, Cora goes to register her son’s name: Gordon, like his father and grandfather before him. But Cora’s seemingly kindly GP husband is in fact a violent abuser. Unwilling to saddle her son with such baggage, Cora weighs whether to risk rebelling.
What follows are three different narratives: one in which the child does indeed become Gordon; one in which he is christened Bear by his loving sister and one wherein Cora’s preferred name, Julian, wins out.
With the Life After Life-style narrative proceeding in seven-year leaps, it’s a pretext to explore how the lives of the trio play out in the long shadow of terrible trauma. Knapp doesn’t shy from emotional gut-punches, but her heart-rending and compulsive tale is ultimately life-affirming.
STEALING DAD by Sofka Zinovieff (Corsair £20, 304pp)
By the time 70-something Greek artist Alekos dies in London, he’s accumulated seven children. But plans for a big family funeral are thwarted by his sixth and final wife, who insists on being the only mourner.
Outraged, the far-flung siblings come together and – in the wake of an enlightening micro-dosing session – decide to steal their dad’s body and drive him to Scotland for a suitably theatrical send-off.
This is the loosest of quest narratives, the free-wheeling style and roving point of view fitting as the clan search for a shape for their grief.
I often felt like a bystander as the characters poured over their fractured past, but, if the stakes never felt particularly high, the warmth and sympathy between the bereaved radiates out to the reader.