We don’t have to resort to potboilers for summer …
Sun-filled, escapist and beautifully written is VILLA COCO by American novelist Andrew Sean Greer (Sceptre, €23.20), who won the Pulitzer Prize with Less. Here, he channels eccentric family novels in the vein of Gerald Durrell and Stella Gibbons. A young man takes a job as an assistant to a wealthy aristocrat in a crumbling mansion in the Tuscan countryside. A charming, sophisticated story.
Landing this month is the debut novel from Northern Irish actor Colin Morgan. THE BALLAD OF RONAN McCOY (HQ, €17) is the coming-of-age tale of two young boys, with themes of friendship, love and loss. In the aftermath of Adolescence, it seems that writers are looking to offer an alternative, less toxic take on boyhood.
Another example is the dazzling new Donal Ryan novel, WHERE ARE THE KINGS (Doubleday, €18), on the way in August. This story of a boy and his adoptive family has echoes of both Max Porter’s Lanny and Claire Keegan’s Foster. It’s incredibly beautiful and moving, pinned to the page by Ryan’s signature crystalline prose.
A new release from Tramp Press, THE STEPS (€16) is a debut novel from Juliano Zaffino. It’s a strange tale of five motherless children, with a gothic undertone. I found it self-conscious in places, with its fractured format and texture. But while the stepfather character is rather bland, the family is never less than intriguing.
John Williams’ Stoner (1965) was overlooked for many years, not becoming a bestseller until around 2013. Perhaps Mary Lavin is our equivalent. She too wrote about ordinary people living quiet lives – and is also quietly magnificent. Born in the US to Irish parents, Lavin lived in Co Meath for most of her life; it’s where most of her stories are set. Colm Tóibín’s selection of her short stories are collected in AN ARROW IN FLIGHT (Vintage Classics, €22). In Dublin 2, you’ll find the first public space in Ireland to be named after a woman writer: Mary Lavin Place.
Also overlooked, Scottish novelist Agnes Owens is celebrated, 100 years on, with reissues of works such as darkly witty A WORKING MOTHER (Polygon, €9.89), set in the Highlands in the 1950s, starring an unreliable, acidly sharp narrator trapped in a booze-filled marriage – and contriving her escape. Ali Smith describes it as having a “deadpan gothic quality”.
And Shirley Jackson, a writer admired by everyone from Donna Tartt to Stephen King, is also enjoying a resurgence. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Penguin Classics, €15.95) is an excellent spooky read. Ghostly and haunting, Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s SAID THE DEAD (Faber & Faber, €17), set in a derelict Victorian mental hospital, will give you shivers on the sunniest day.
Finally, like everyone else I’ve been reading YESTERYEAR (4th Estate, €17), Caro Claire Burke’s smart, vicious tradwifewith- a-twist tale. It’s a furious take on women’s roles and, by extension, society at large. It’s compelling, though its diverting premise gives way to a somewhat chaotic finale. Perhaps you have to be interested in in? uencer culture to care what happens to this delusional narrator, who struggles to exist when noone is watching. It’s a bookclub banker, though. Anne Hathaway is set to adapt it for TV.
OUR PERFECT STORM (Michael Joseph, €18) by Carley Fortune is the silliest book I’ve read in ages. I couldn’t put it down. Think Mills & Boon crossed with My Best Friend’s Wedding. Two childhood friends are thrown together when one is jilted just before their wedding. You know what’s going to happen from about page three, and the worshipful descriptions of the male lead (who literally has “Saint” in his name) are increasingly deranged: he has a “rugged intellectual vibe”, is perceptive, toned, tall, “horribly smart” and, naturally, has a “devilish grin”. Not to mention other assets: “Either his jeans are working for him or he’s been doing squats.” Oh yes, and he’s aenvironmental reporter. The heroine, meanwhile, has violet eyes. If you can cope with all this (and it’s a LOT), cancel everything while you gorge on 400 pages of candyfloss. I found myself wishing Saint George would be revealed as a serial killer, just for a curveball. Oh, and the whole whale backstory is as random as it sounds. It’s a horribly compulsive read – the Emily in Paris of books. And it’s destined for a billion beach bags. Destined for a billion beach bags. We’re betting on a movie, starring Dakota Johnson.
