Our recommendations this month …
If you read one book this month, make it Gwendoline Riley’s captivating THE PALM HOUSE (Atlantic, €17). She tells the story of Putnam and Laura’s friendship through vivid vignettes. One shocking scenario from Laura’s teenage years is as devastating and searing as anything by Annie Ernaux, while Putnam’s fade into grief and displacement at work is painfully relatable. This is a book to savour and re-read. There is simply no one better at capturing the subtleties of complicated mother-daughter relationships. Riley’s writing is utterly exquisite.
Another overpowering mother dominates SUCKERFISH (Dialogue Books, €24) by Ashani Lewis, winner of both the Somerset Maugham Award and the Betty Trask Prize for her debut, Winter Animals (the paperback is out this August). What do we owe our parents, asks Lewis, as she explores heritage, belonging and the legacy of a demanding mother.
One of the best things I’ve read so far this year is Danielle McLaughlin’s RITUALS (The Stinging Fly, €15). This slender novella, set in Cork, can be summarised as “Joan takes in a lodger”. But it’s so much more. Joan is an awkward character, someone who has developed obsessive habits to cope with life. When she rents out a room to a young student, her carefully controlled world changes. The dynamic between Joan and her lodger is very funny and gently poignant, with a tone that reminded me of Ronan Hession’s lovely Leonard and Hungry Paul. Subtle and kind, Rituals is refreshing, too, with its messy, unconventional middle-aged protagonist.
GO GENTLE (W&N, €16.99) by Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (which was made into a movie starring Cate Blanchett) is a snappy, sassy story of a divorcée living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It brings Dylan Thomas’ famous words to life, as Adora resists the beige of midlife, with her “gorgeous, shallow” teenage daughter Viv along for the ride. It’s a pleasure to join her rage against the dying of the light.
Manhattan also stars in OVER THE WATER: ESSAYS ON ISLANDS (Daunt Books, €13.99). We want to read anything and everything Megan Nolan writes, and here the Waterford-born novelist wanders Manhattan alone, sharing a fresh new take on the city she’s currently living in. Also included is an essay by Sinéad Gleeson on the power of the word island in literature and art.
There are many of us who read everything Deborah Levy writes, too. Devotees will be delighted to get hold of MY YEAR IN PARIS WITH GERTRUDE STEIN (Penguin Books, €23.75). It’s both a portrait of the influential Stein and a fictional story, as Levy’s narrator heads to the Left Bank to explore the godmother of modernism and mentor to everyone from F Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway to Picasso. An enticing prospect ideally to be read with a coffee by the Seine.
Other recommendations for April include HUNGRY (Hatchette Books Ireland, €17.99), the new memoir from acclaimed writer Katriona O’Sullivan, and THE GREAT GOOD PLACES (Canongate, €22), a collection of memoir, essays and short fiction from literary giant Margaret Drabble. Sally Rooney speaks for many writers when she says: “I have learned so much from Margaret Drabble’s work.”
