2020 ended as a good year for the publishing industry, at least as far as book sales went. We may also have learned to appreciate our bookshops and literary festivals – vital elements of our cultural life that were absent for much of the painful year. The loss of these forums for finding new books caused publishers to delay the release of many titles until 2021. So we have a year of fiction ahead of us, meaning I will focusing here on books published in the first six months (with a short nod to autumn titles from Jonathan Franzen, Richard Powers, Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead and Sebastian Faulks’ new novel, Country of snow (Hutchinson), coming in September). I will leave the first novels to the New Viewer Reviewparticularly good feature.
First, I’m struck by the fact that two of the best American novels of the year are written by Brits. Tahmima Anam’s The Beginner (Canongate, June) is a brilliant and poignant portrayal of high-tech American frat-boy deception, and Jonathan Lee is quietly becoming one of the best young novelists on both sides of the Atlantic. His fourth book, The Great Depression (Granta, June), the extensive historical novel that is also a false mystery. As far as American novels go with real Americans, yes We run the high tide (Atlantic, February) by Vendela Vida, a humorous story about California, childhood and sadness. Also keep an eye out for The Will (Black Cat, March) by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the lyrical series for the first time won by Pulitzer, The Sympathizer.
I always thought that the Encore award – for the second best novel – is a really good thing. Debates are easy compared to the anxious crowd that continues but nonetheless 2021 holds a good grip on sophomore gems. For starters, Lisa Harding is quietly devastating Clear burning objects (Bloomsbury, March), which reminded me several times Shuggie Bain, a tight, neatly written picture of motherhood and loss. It’s hard to believe it’s only his second novel, but 13 years later The Raw Shark texts, Steven Hall will be back with another brilliant postmodern treat. Demon Maxwell (Canongate, February) is both full of European advanced theory – think Calvino and Eco – and it’s incredibly enjoyable.
Continuation of Fiona Mozley’s second novel blitz Stew teth (John Murray, March) another good read. In the first few pages, she moves from a snail escaping from a pot of escargots to Soho’s multi-century history before falling down to a predictive story about pimps and prostitutes, property and the future. Olivia Sudjic’s second novel, Applecross Road (Bloomsbury, January), carrying an echo of Deborah Levy and Rachel Cusk. It is a book about love and history, trauma and identity. Very elegant and hallucinogenic at Venetia Welby The dream (Quartet, April) is set in the near future in which we lost the battle against climate change. Finally, there is Francis Spufford, who has the first time, Golden racel, one of my favorite books of the last ten years. It is followed by another complete brewer. Eternal lights (Faber, February) is a masterpiece work – think of Kate Atkinson’s work Life after life and Paul Auster’s 4321. It’s about a bomb drop on London in 1944, about a parallel life, about the many possibilities.
This year, I have longed for a book of broad and fascinating imagination. Spufford’s masterpiece certainly scratched that itch. I did not read Kazuo Ishiguro Klara and the sun (Faber, March) still, but I feel it will be like a vision. Here’s a little more of the balm in a level 4 winter depth. Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth William Heinemann, January, reminded me of one of my favorite novels, the novels of Georges Perec Life: User Manual. Set in a tenement in Edinburgh, it leaps over decades to tell the story of the curse that haunts No. 10 Fort Luckenbooth and its strange occupants. Courttia Newland’s A time called River (Canongate, January) is a wide-ranging and wild piece of speculative fiction that asks what the world would be like if slavery and colonialism never existed. CJ Carey’s Bantrach (Quercus, June) is another piece of other clever and gripping history set in the postwar era of Edward VIII. Finally – and this may sound strange as a novel to escape the misery of 2020 – I like Christopher Wilson ‘s ribald but a real touch Hurdy Gurdy (Faber, January), Brother Diggory’s sexual story of how he suffers the victims of the plague in 14th-century England.
In translation, I read two Japanese magic novels. First, yes A secret castle in the mirror (Doubleday, April) by Mizuki Tsujimura (translated by Philip Gabriel). Part of Miyazaki’s fairy tale, part of a teenage romance, it’s weird and beautiful – think descendants The Bird-up Bird Chronicle and The Virgin Suicides. Maki Kashimada’s Going on a trip to the Land of the Dead (Europa Editions, April), translated by Haydn Trowell, asks if places are plagued by the days gone by. Charco Press publishes books that are relatively reliable. Now Julián Fuks, who Resistance it was a huge success a few years ago, returning with another complex novel by São Paolo, a family, hope and despair called Career. It has been translated again, remarkably, by the real Daniel Hahn. Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest, Where (Bloomsbury, April), was first made in Italian, something the author only learned a few years ago, and then translated into English. It gives a strange new texture to the work of this talented writer.
A few final books that we look forward to in a year with a lot to do. Niven Govinden’s Diary of a film (Dialogue, February), his sixth novel, his best yet. Smart, sexy and cinematic (in many senses), it is a love letter to Italy and filmed. Speaking of ekphrasis, Max Porter brings us Death of Francis Bacon (Faber, January), a luminous novel made up of seven illustrations depicted in prose that seek to blur the line between literature and visual art. I really liked it too The Lamplighters (Picador, March) by Emma Stonex – lighthouse keepers, ghosts, war widows. The story is very subtle and full of emotion. Marika Cobbold’s Air Hampstead Heath (Arcadia, April) a calmer relationship. Mystery and mourning for the death of old-fashioned journalism, is a book that will warm your heart. The same is, in the end, true of Gwendoline Riley My Ghost (Grant, April), about the relationship between a damaged girl and her horrible parents. Finally, superstar Jon McGregor returns with his fifth novel, Stand Fall Lean (4th Estate, April). It is a truly masterpiece: poised, multilayered and full of the most beautiful prose. If 2021 is as good as his novels, we have a lot to see.