Daffodils have started to appear and it feels as though we are finally emerging from what has been a particularly gloomy and chilly winter. We can’t promise you blue skies and cherry blossom from now on in, but below are the new titles currently giving us life, from a landmark record of queer existence to a cautionary novel about the perils of having a cleaner.
There’s also a new book from the brilliant Malaysian novelist Tash Aw — the first in a planned quartet — and a new novel from the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah. One of Britain’s foremost writers, and a driver of the revival in nature writing, Robert Macfarlane, has a new book out, his first since 2019’s spooky Underland. As we emerge from the “indoor months” these are the perfect books to persuade us straight back inside again to the sofa.
This may be the previously Booker-longlisted Tash Aw’s best book yet. Tantalisingly, it’s also the first in a planned quartet. Jay is a young, somewhat directionless man overshadowed by his sisters in what appears to be Malaysia. It’s unclear exactly when it’s set — people own mobile phones but it appears to be a time of economic upheaval. He travels with his parents and siblings to the south of the country to claim the farm that his father has inherited. It is run by the father’s illegitimate half-brother, Jack, whose son Chuan befriends Jay. The relationship between the two boys becomes sexual in a way that feels both surprising and entirely natural. Let’s hope the rest of the series can equal this mesmerising start.
Abdulrazak Gurnah was the Nobel Prize winner for literature in 2021 and this is his first novel since. It centres on three young people growing up in 1990s Zanzibar, Gurnah’s homeland. One of them is tempted into a betrayal that will change their lives forever.
This new title from Robert Macfarlane is considered by many in the know to be the non-fiction publication of the year. Its premise is that rivers are not simply for human use but living beings in themselves. Macfarlane ranges from Ecuador to Quebec to the chalk stream a mile from his own home.
It would be hard not to love a book with this title and, happily, Elizabeth Lovatt has done it proud. It is partly a memoir about her own realisation that she is gay (she writes a list of signs that include “Penises look weird (do all women think this?)”. She also takes the logbooks from calls made to a lesbian helpline between 1993 and 1998 as inspiration for writing her own versions — this sidesteps the ethics of publishing calls to an anonymous service while giving us an insight into queer life at the time. Lovatt has striven to be inclusive and this is a warm, thoughtful book.
Alice is a part-time cleaner who has contempt for her clients, “taking underwear at random. I liked to imagine their tuts […] or looking with increased panic for those lucky leopard-print briefs”. Tom is different — although they have never met, she has cleaned his flat every Wednesday morning for a year and quickly become fixated. Studying photos of him left around his home, she decides his eyes are the exact same shade as his velvet sofa. There is no way this can end well. This is a novel best read in an intoxicating, headlong rush.
