Deliciously dysfunctional families in this week’s literary fiction: PRESTIGE DRAMA by
PRESTIGE DRAMA by Seamas O’Reilly (Fleet £14.99, 192pp)
O’REilLy’s memoir, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, was a smash-hit in Ireland a few years ago: an account of growing up in a family of 11 at the end of the Troubles.
That bloody period of history is also the contested subject of O’Reilly’s first novel, set in the present but revolving around the making of a lavish, Derry- based American TV series about the 1970s’ darkest days.
Diarmuid is the show’s blocked screenwriter, but scripts aren’t the only thing missing: the city is abuzz when A-list actress Monica Logue goes AWOL too.
The slender central mystery feels like an aside: it’s the voices of the local bit-part players who narrate that make this such an entertaining read.
Furious, cynical, satirical and opportunistic, they consistently challenge the platitudes and cliches in which their recent past is now packaged.
A SENSE OF OCCASION by Brodie Crellin (Jonathan Cape £16.99, 320pp)
This hotly tipped debut is bookended by two car journeys a few days apart. It begins with moneyed twentysomething would-be playwright Jude returning to England from Italy for her aunt Mary’s funeral, and ends with Patch, Jude’s poor-relation cousin and Mary’s long-suffering daughter, driving off into the distance.
Ostensibly not a lot happens in between, although what does occur is both shocking and seismic as already fluid sexual boundaries blur further between the pair.
Trigger warning dispensed, this is a cracking read, unapologetic in its transgression: a dark domestic comedy of kinks and class, neuroses and not-so-passive aggression.
Its characters range from the generally dysfunctional (put-upon permanent outsider Patch) to the gleefully poisonous (coked-up Jude and her toxic mother), and while the final stages lose some momentum, it’s a wickedly sharp and impressive first outing for those with the stomach.
At Sea is available now
AT SEA by Y. M. Abdel-Magied (Canongate £16.99, 240pp)
Sudanese-born Abdel- Magied, a former mechanical engineer, writes whereof she knows in this tale of hubris and negligence.
The plot arc is simple, a countdown to an at-sea tragedy based on the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 and resulted in the worst oil spill in US history.
Our protagonist is Zainab, a highly experienced driller drafted onto the Clarissa Clyde rig at short notice with a single, ominous instruction: ‘Make sure everyone gets out alive.’
Surviving at sea, however, is part of Zainab’s skill-set: she’s used to contorting herself to achieve acceptance as a hijab-wearing woman in an unashamedly bigoted environment.
A tragic personal backstory feels somewhat sketched in; the novel is at its best evoking the unrelenting tension accompanying Zainab’s work.