Netflix and nonagenarians in the best Literary Fiction out this week: Look What You Made
Look What You Made me Do by John Lanchester (Faber £16.99, 304pp)
Look What You Made Me Do is available now
Kate Huddleston has been married to Jack for 30 years. He’s rich, sexy and their married life is one of kitchen islands, Audis and Ottolenghi- based arguments.
But the blissful banality of Kate’s life is upended when she wakes in the night to discover her husband dead. And it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
There’s a new Netflix show, Cheating, that everyone’s discussing, about a man having an affair with a younger woman. The script is filled with intimate details from Kate’s married life and she realises with horror the cheater is based on her late husband.
The novel is split between Kate’s story and Phoebe’s, the millennial scriptwriter behind Cheating, who becomes the object of Kate’s wrath.
The webs Lanchester weaves are like that of a slightly deranged spider, but on the whole it’s a highly enjoyable novel full of memorable characters and Machiavellian scheming.
Good Good Loving by Yvette Edwards (Virago £18.99, 288pp)
Ellen is on her deathbed and the only thing spoiling her peaceful departure is her family’s bedside chatter about her failings.
As death closes in, we go through Ellen’s life in reverse, starting on her deathbed and finishing 50 years earlier with the birth of her son.
There are moments of joy, but Ellen’s life has been one of toil. First, as an immigrant from Montserrat working seven days a week. Then as a wife, working to limit her husband Clyde’s rampant infidelity, though ‘even the world’s strongest braces could not keep Clyde’s trousers up’.
Ellen has given up most of her life to provide for her children. But they’re blind to her care and mostly see her as a scold. The dive into Ellen’s memories proves that far from being a villain, she has been the thankless heroine of her family’s lives.
Edwards’s astounding novel made me laugh and cry in equal measure. A wonderful book.
Still Talking by Lore Segal (Sort Of Books £9.99, 112pp)
Still Talking is available now
If you think nonagenarians natter about the Antiques Roadshow or sit around playing ‘who has the worst ailment’, then think again!
Segal’s posthumously published novella introduces us to a group of 90 year olds who while away their days chattering about philosophy, God and Proust.
The ladies in question are Upper West Side Manhattan intellectuals, who try to meet for a monthly lunch unless Covid, illness or one of their own deaths gets in the way.
As they discuss age and ailments with compassion and humour, Segal evokes the power of real friendship, which can stay strong even as bodies weaken. For example, to make senility fun, they start the ‘Great Forgetting Olympics’, competing to see who forgets the most names, dates etc.
Moving and sometimes hilarious, it reminds one to stay curious.