Literary Criticism

Everything that makes the novel worthwhile and engaging is here: warmth, wit, intelligence, love, death, high seriousness, low comedy, philosophy, subtle personal relationships and the complex interior life of human beings. For those of you unacquainted with the name, Sandro

Unconventional characters, uncertain paternity issues: Irving’s 15th novel retreads familiar ground, but is overlong and poorly edited This novel is not for those without readerly stamina. At 912 pages, you are going to have to love John Irving dearly, or

This is the kind of novel that mocks the give-it-10-pages, I-need-to-be-grabbed-because-life-is-too-short school of reading. Even those of the trust-the-artist, persevere-and-stand-fast persuasion should prepare to be tested. I confess: I was confused, bewildered, lost. I wrote down the names of the

  Written for The Guardian   Helon Habila’s fourth novel has it all – intelligence, tragedy, poetry, love, intimacy, compassion and a serious, soulful, arms-wide engagement with one of the most acute human concerns of our age: the refugee crisis.

Kunzru’s smart and thought-provoking sixth novel draws a line from German Romanticism to Trump and the alt-right   Written for The Guardian   The title of Hari Kunzru’s sixth novel is taken from the famous scene in The Matrix where

Written for The Guardian Adam Foulds is the real deal. He has previously won the Costa poetry award for his reimagining of the Kenyan Mau Mau uprising, The Broken Word, and been Man Booker-shortlisted for his 2009 novel about John

Written for the Guardian   English Monsters is exactly the right title for this dark, tender, troubling novel. The phrase comes from Shakespeare – “See you, my princes and my noble peers / These English monsters.” And it is spoken

Written for The Guardian: The best thing a reviewer can do when faced with a novel of this calibre and breadth is to urge you to read it for yourselves – especially if your taste is for deeply engaged and

Written for The Guardian   A Borgesian Maybe-Murder Mystery   Towards the end of this impressive and finely textured debut, there is a chapter entitled “What Happened to Carlos – Suspicions, Rumours, Links”. This is the only named chapter and it

For The Guardian: I once had a discussion with my first US editor, an old-school literary titan of 40 years’ experience, on the subject of overt existential angst in the novel. Her main message was that if you’re going to

Written for The Guardian:   My favourite interview with John Lennon was by “whispering” Bob Harris in 1975. Throughout, Harris is the opposite of incisive, but his warm, respectful, almost innocent presence seems to relax Lennon into being unusually open and collusive; sure, the

For The Guardian: This allegorical story of territory – alluding to the Roman invasion, the Vikings and Christianity – is a singular meditation on history, immigration and fellowship… Magnus Mills has a reputation for great originality. His first novel, The Restraint of

For The Guardian: The Sandman author’s new collection veers from masterful prose to embarrassing poetry… This is a new collection of 23 short stories and poems that will delight Gaiman’s army of fans. But what about new readers? Almost alone

Written for The Guardian:   In his latest novel, the ‘demon dog of American crime fiction’ has created an awe-inspiring vision of social, moral and human chaos in wartime LA… There is a little-known Austrian documentary about James Ellroy entitled The

For The Guardian A doubting Thomas kidnaps and interrogates significant people in his life in Dave Eggers’s ambitious, dialogue-only novel Dave Eggers is a one-man essay in the value and virtue of a life in writing in the 21st century. This

For The Guardian: The story of the impact of a woman’s suicide through anorexia on her brother and her father I was always going to like this novel. It is about Russia and Russian-ness and America and American-ness, about the

For The Guardian: The story of the impact of a woman’s suicide through anorexia on her brother and her father…   In his 1967 novel, Gargoyles, the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard has the following passage: “Why suicide? We search for reasons,

For The Guardian: This ‘romantic comedy’ set on the Sussex coast is dazzling… when Barker remembers to let the reader in on the fun I loved this book. I hated this book. I was amazed by it. I was bored

For The Guardian: The Man Booker-nominated author is overwhelmed by his own tortuous plot… I once had a wise old American editor who believed that the secret to becoming a great novelist lay in learning the lesson that a brilliant

  For The Guardian:   The story of two flawed-but-good men in a world of government corruption and cock-up – pure pleasure   John Le Carré is one of a handful of writers whose every book I buy. And I

For The Guardian: An engaging story of love and imprisonment in Peru is let down by its narrator Donna Tartt recently described the process of writing a novel as like “painting a large mural with a brush the size of