PAPERBACKS
WINTER
Ali Smith (Penguin, £8.99)
The second of Smith’s seasonally-themed topical novels is a raw and angry response to current events, but for all its ferocity Winter is still intricate and allusive. Arthur fancies himself as a nature writer, but he basically makes stuff up and refuses to acknowledge that the subject might have a political dimension. His exasperated girlfriend leaves him and he pays a stranger, Lux, £1000 to impersonate her on a Christmas visit to his mother, the cold and prickly former businesswoman Sophia. Lux’s presence both reunites the family, bringing Sophia face to face after 30 years with her estranged sister Iris, a lifelong activist and Greenham Common veteran, and cracks open the ideological faultlines between them. The cultural and political clashes of the era of Brexit, Grenfell and Trump play out around a Christmas dinner table, but in Smith’s inimitable way, with a playful use of language, elements of the fantastic and the spirits of Dickens and Shakespeare looming over proceedings.
FRESH COMPLAINT
Jeffrey Eugenides (4th Estate, £8.99)
The Pulitzer-winning author of The Virgin Suicides presents a collection of ten short stories dating from 1989 to the present day, demonstrating that the novel may be his natural medium but he’s no slouch in the short form either. Including Air Mail, widely regarded as one of his finest moments, it’s a varied bunch, in which characters and themes later developed in Middlesex and The Marriage Plot make early appearances, alongside characters who, amongst other things, get married to provide someone else with a green card, seek genetically superior men to inseminate them or fail to realise that their love affair is actually a scheme to escape an arranged marriage. Financial concerns are a powerful motivator for Eugenides’ characters too, whether they’re striving to get ahead, defining their role in society by their income or simply want to live with some dignity. There’s an impressive range on show here, well-crafted and, all too rarely for contemporary short stories, well wrapped-up.
THE HOARDER
Jess Kidd (Canongate, £8.99)
Aside from his hoarding, widower Cathal Flood is known for being a belligerent, combative old man, and Maud Drennan is the first care worker who has been able to cope with him. But Maud is quite exceptional herself. Between making meals and clearing junk from his roomy Victorian house, she sees saints, striking up a particular rapport with Saint Dymphna. While cleaning, Maud comes across two mysterious old photographs with burnt-out faces, and when she discovers a room full of taxidermy and medical curios, begins to suspect that the old man may have been involved in the disappearance of a girl in 1985. The Hoarder feels at first like it’s going to be quite a light and funny novel, with some invigorating verbal sparring between Maud and Flood, but gothic shadows gradually encroach and events from Maud’s own past come back to haunt her. It’s all very well done, turning gripping and sinister while retaining that initially appealing streak of dark humour.
ALASTAIR MABBOTT
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