Upstate

by James Wood

What a nervy burden it is to review a novel by a famed literary critic. Wood is the English-born, American-based critic of The New Yorker. His novel, like his life, straddles northern England and the US, and is set across six wintry days in upstate New York. Alan Querry, a property developer, has flown there with one daughter to visit another. Helen, a record company executive, arranges the trip because she is worried about Vanessa, who teaches philosophy. Van, who has been mentally fragile before, recently broke her arm in a mysterious fall. Is she OK or not? And is her new younger lover good for her? Wood's insightful novel is short but deep, possessing the openness of a short story. His characters have lived before you meet them, with a troubled childhood for the 'girls' thanks to an acrimonious divorce and the early death of their mother; and they live on after the last page. The writing is beautiful, the location snow-crunchingly real, and a vague note of menace thrums as Querry is momentarily born again in the company of his grown-up children. A clear-eyed novel about family, and a quietly engrossing read.

Asymmetry

by Lisa Halliday

Asymmetry is Halliday's debut novel and is structured in two seemingly unconnected novellas, followed by a shorter interview which points to the link between them. If it is indeed detail that 'brings fiction to life', as famous older writer Ezra Blazer tells a creative writing student within the work, then Halliday has succeeded brilliantly, whether she is writing the story of the relationship between Ezra and young editor Alice, or the first-person narrative of Iraqi-American economist Amar who has been detained at Heathrow airport. Imbalances of power are a theme throughout the book, which contains a number of instances of characters being questioned, whether by a doctor, jury official, immigration officer or the presenter of Desert Island Discs, and thus the novel asks its own questions about who we are answerable to, and through whose eyes we see the story. Quite brilliant.

House Of Beauty

by Melba Escobar

Melba Escobar writes for newspapers in Colombia and his is her first book to be published in English. An upmarket beauty salon in Bogota links recently-arrived beauty therapist Karen to a cast of characters who cross age, race and social boundaries. It's a great premise: the intimacy of the treatment cubicle leading to revelations about the death of a schoolgirl, and there are promising moments, as when Karen massages the grieving mother of teenager Sabrina, and in the gradual seduction of a new customer, psychoanalyst Claire, by this 'land of women with dainty manners'. However, there are also disorientating jumps between narrat ors and over-long chunks of background information. Crucial plot points are glanced over or reported only in passing, and the novel's surprise ending, with its strong message about access to justice for the poor and powerless, feels rushed and unsupported.

Running On Empty

by S E Durrant

Children's fiction has often addressed difficult living situations, using death or war as a backdrop to propel young protagonists into adventure. S.E. Durrant, a Leicestershire-based Scot, dipped her toe into this genre with her 2016 debut Little Bits Of Sky, which focused on two siblings stuck in the care system. Her follow-up, Running On Empty, follows 11-year-old AJ, a boy who dreams of running as fast as his hero, Usain Bolt, but whose close and loving family unit is threatened when his grandfather dies. AJ's parents have learning difficulties, but despite his claims that, "I don't look after them. We look after each other," his desire to excel clashes with his determination to prevent social services noticing anything is wrong at home. In direct first-person prose, without lecturing or patronising, Durrant joins a canon that includes Jacqueline Wilson, Jeff Kinney and RJ Palacio in capturing the crippling classroom embarrassment of poverty and social status, in a way that younger readers can recognise.