Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson

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Dead Lucky

Inspired debut novel of addiction and confession

The most original debut we’ve read this year, Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson tells the story of twenty-something Jamie, a funeral embalmer leading a chaotic double life in a Manchester suburb. Although dedicated to his job and in love with his fabulous girlfriend, Rebecca, Jamie is harbouring a secret which threatens to capsize his life. Addicted to gambling, on the edge of financial ruin and under pressure from Rebecca to purchase their first home together, Jamie needs to pull off a major win. By turns darkly funny and affecting, Dead Lucky invites us into the mind of a young man, who unable to share his troubles with those who love him, tells them to the corpses on his embalming table instead.

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Strangers by Belle Burden

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Strangers by Belle Burden

The shock of abandonment

On the face it, the premise of Strangers by Belle Burden might repel some readers. A Waspy, privileged, New York woman is suddenly left by her successful, hedge fund husband. What’s new? you might think. That was my reaction too, however, as I started reading I was won over by Burden and her portrayal of grief, confusion and loneliness. Sure, millions of women around the world have been in a lot more dire straits than Burden, but the trauma of being abandoned is universal.

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The Writer's Room by Katie da Cunha Lewin

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The Writer’s Room

Reimagining writers’ spaces

When asked to conjure a mental image of writers at work, what do we see? Perhaps a book-lined study, tasteful art pieces, the writer toiling away at their desk, a solitary soul summoning the magic. The Writer’s Room by Katie da Cunha Lewin takes us on an absorbing and wide-ranging journey, beyond the rarified spaces of the preserved writer’s house and ‘exit through the gift shop’ vibe to the aspiring novelist typing into their phone on the bus to their day job, the harassed parent scribbling away between baby’s feeds, and the new writing spaces carved out by and for the 21st century writer.

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Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke

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Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes

Laughing through the tears

We’re devotees of the excellent Faber Editions series, dedicated to resurrecting radical novels of the 20th century. New to the list is an American gem, Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke. This distinctly offbeat 1950s-set drama is told through the eyes of Oliver, a young, gay Black man, who lives with his elderly aunt, Harriet, and her employer of thirty years , Mrs Etta Klein. In a tale that ranges from farce to tragedy (with lashings of rum), Oliver uncovers the truth behind a Klein family suicide, in the company of a sex-mad maid, a shady psychic, and his own beloved volume of Baudelaire’s poems.

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Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima

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Territory of Light

A quietly powerful story of separation

Our nameless narrator’s husband has just announced he is leaving her. Adrift with a three-year old daughter she attempts to rebuild a life, but 1970s Japan is an unforgiving place for divorced women and shame, sadness and responsibility weigh heavily on her. Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima is a strange little book; its quietly powerful, sparse language perfectly captures despair and isolation in the wake of separation.

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Your Life Without Me by James Meek

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Your Life Without Me

The space left by loss and assumptions unchallenged

Mr Burman is a middle-aged widower, still grieving the loss of his wife, Ada, in a car accident. By day he teaches English at a local high school, by night he grapples with the effects of his blood-pressure medication and worrying about his virtual estrangement from daughter, Leila. This low-key existence is shattered when one of Mr Burman’s ex-students, Raf, attempts to blow up St Paul’s cathedral. In Your Life Without Me by James Meek, we follow Mr Burman’s journey to London, where he is intent on visiting Raf in custody and uncovering the truth, in a richly metaphorical story of loss and the passage of time.

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Things - A Story of the Sixties

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Things: A Story of the Sixties

A material world

A 1965 cult read (reimagined for the 21st century by Vincenzo Latronico in his recent excellent novel, Perfection), Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec is a wry portrayal of post-war materialism. Chronicling the lives of a young Parisian couple, Jérôme and Sylvie, Perec shows us how they are served by their time and place in history. With the advent of mass advertising and the concept of ‘lifestyle’, a desire for stuff and more stuff has been ignited, yet Jéröme and Sylvie are determined not to join the 9 to 5 treadmill. They want to be free but are unaware that there’s always a price to pay.

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Lázár by Nelio Biedermann

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Lázár

Historical riches to rags

Literary sensation Lázár by Nelio Biedermann will be on many TBR lists this summer. His debut historical fiction novel has caused a stir far beyond Hungary, where it’s set, and is a good first stab from the 22-year-old author. It’s the riches to rags story of the aristocratic Lázár family living through the upheavals of the 21st century. Who doesn’t crave a sweeping historical fiction novel? And Biedermann succeeds – almost.

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Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh

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Permanence

An inventive and bittersweet tale of adulterous love

Clara and Francis are lovers, partners in a spectacularly ardent adultery. No strangers to the pleasure of an anonymous hotel room, they go to great lengths to conceal their affair from Francis’s wife and young daughter. One day, the hotel room they wake up in is unfamiliar to them both and they have no recollection of arriving there. In Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh, we’re spirited away to a paradisal parallel world of endless blue skies and aphrodisia, populated entirely by adulterers. Here, Clara and Francis can celebrate their love openly. Is this freedom at last or an uncanny case of be careful what you wish for?

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