You Be Mother by Meg Mason
Meg Mason’s Sorrow And Bliss captivated readers utterly, as they got to know its devastatingly funny, difficult, endearing and complex protagonist, Martha, as she dealt with her unnamed lifelong mental illness in the aftermath of the breakup of her eight-year marriage. It was a runaway hit, acclaimed to the skies by every reader and reviewer who fell in love with Mason’s ravishingly beautiful writing, her intimately drawn characters, and the light handling of dark material, which only lent it the more poignancy. We are, then, excited to read You Be Mother, which was actually Mason’s debut, written in 2017. It tells the story of Abi, a young woman who longs for a proper family. When she falls pregnant by an Australian backpacker, she immediately packs up her life in London to join him in Sydney – only to discover that she feels just as alone there as she did back home. Until, that is, she befriends her older neighbour, Phyllida. The only problem? The small lie she told on the first day they met. Buy it.
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
The No 1 Sunday Times and New York Times Yellowface is a razor-sharp, darkly funny, zeitgeisty thriller set in the world of contemporary publishing. When Athena Liu, a literary darling who has just signed a deal with Netflix, dies in a freak accident, frenemy and ‘nobody’, June Heyward steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it under the name Juniper Song. How far will she go to protect her secret – and the success she thinks she’s owed? Pandora Sykes calls it ‘a riot.’ Buy it.
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Soon to be turned into a major TV series, The List is a tale for our times. Ola Olajide is a high-profile journalist at Womxxn magazine. She and her fiancé Michael are widely regarded through social networks as ‘couple goals’ – until, that is, the day they both wake up to the same message: ‘Oh my god, have you seem The List?’ The List, it turns out, is an anonymous account posting allegations on social media – and Michael’s name is on it. Harpers Bazaar calls it ‘a blistering examination of the messy, knotted, contradictory intersection of social media and our private lives.’ Buy it.
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
A Pulitzer finalist, I Have Some Questions For You tells the story of Bodie Kane, a successful film professor and podcaster who has willingly left her unhappy school days behind her – including all the rife speculation surrounding the murder of her schoolmate, Thalia Keith, and the questionable conviction of the school’s athletic coach, Omar Evans. But when Bodie is invited back to her school to teach a two-week course, she is drawn inexorably back into the case. The New Yorker writes, ‘Makkai, though, approaches [memories] as a writer curious about psychology. She deftly explores how remembrance can melt into reverie, especially in speculative sections that attempt to reconstruct the scene of Thalia's death. And she nails, too, what it's like to remember . . . beautifully evokes the layered, full-body immersion that occurs when you return to a familiar place, and the weird gravity of an institution like Granby, whose students are transient but whose structures endure... It's the perfect crime.’ Buy it.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Imaginative retellings are very much in vogue in modern literature, many of them delving back into the stories of the ancient world to find the universal truths and questions that have preoccupied humanity for millennia. Fewer reworkings have, however, looked to the Victorian era. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead demonstrates that this, too, offers a rich seam when drawn this beautifully. Covered in prize and awards, (it scooped the Pulitzer and the Women’s For Fiction – twice), the former calls it, ‘a masterful recasting of David Copperfield, narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse-and his efforts to conquer them.’ Demon is born to a single mother in a trailer in Appalachian Mountains of Virginia where poverty and addiction in the midst of an opioid crisis are, simply, the way of life. They say, ‘For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.’ Buy it.
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
A multi-million copy bestseller, Garmus’ Lessons In Chemistry is the winner of the Goodreads Choice Best Debut Novel award. It tells the story of Elizabeth Zott who, as part of an all-male team at Hastings Research Institute in the 1960s, is forced to resign thanks to her colleagues’ unreconstructed view of ‘equality’. She reluctantly takes up the role of host of a cookery show, via which she offers viewers scientific and rational commentary, and thus inspires a nation of housewives to challenge societal expectations of them. Buy it.
By Nancy Alsop
July 2023
