Absorbing, sharply funny and thoroughly satisfying: The best Literary Fiction out now –
AS IF by Isabel Waidner (Hamish Hamilton £16.99, 192pp)
Cult author Waidner has, over the course of four novels focusing on working-class, queer and British identity, become something of an underground national treasure.
This outing is a more sober, grounded affair than fans might be used to (Waidner’s prize-winning and riotously inventive Sterling Karat Gold featured a unicorn and a ‘micro-dragon’, among other things).
Here, two scraping-by actors who bear a striking similarity to each other end up swapping roles both personally and professionally. Expressing one’s existential crises in words is, one of our heroes reflects, a lot harder than it might seem.
But as we disappear deeper down this novel’s grimly farcical rabbit hole, Waidner does a pretty good job of conveying her characters’ struggles through modern life.
THE IRISH GOODBYE by Heather Aimee O’Neill (Mantle £16.99, 288pp)
Set over a snowy Thanksgiving break, this classic family drama sees the three thirtysomething Ryan sisters gather at their elderly parents’ home on Long Island.
The crumbling coastal house isn’t just a metaphor for family relations; its dilapidation is also the result of an expensive civil lawsuit.
Twenty-five years ago, the sisters had a brother, Topher, whose reckless behaviour resulted in the death of another boy, Daniel.
Topher’s subsequent suicide is among many subjects the family now avoid, but there are new secrets too: Maggie is nervously preparing to introduce her girlfriend to her Irish Catholic mother, but an indiscretion has put both her relationship and career in jeopardy.
Middle sister Alice is horrified to find herself pregnant again, and Cait, the high-flying eldest, carries guilt for the events of the past, as well as a recently reignited torch for Daniel’s brother.
Absorbing, sharply funny and thoroughly satisfying.
TRIP by Amie Barrodale (Jonathan Cape £16.99, 304pp)
Trip by name, trip by nature: Barrodale extracts maximum mileage from her title in this wild, hallucinatory ride.
To start, there’s the work trip that takes video producer Sandra to Nepal for an academic conference on consciousness after death.
Then there’s the fatal misstep that kills her – although, as you might expect, that’s just the start of her story, which continues from the limbo-like bardo in which she finds herself.
Meanwhile, her autistic son – named, what else? Trip has absconded from the clinic to which Sandra guiltily had him admitted, and is now hitchhiking into the heart of a hurricane with a relapsing alcoholic.
Peppered with references to The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, it’s ultimately a story about a mother’s love for her unique offspring.