Zadie Smith’s ‘exuberant’ debut short story collection, Akin by Emma Donoghue and a timely novel from Jesse Ball, this week’s best new fiction
Grand Union
Zadie Smith Hamish Hamilton £20
Smith’s first short story collection packs in satire, sci-fi, social commentary and more.
It ranges from finessed showstoppers to rambunctious sketches, with an emotional terrain shaped by parenthood and middle age.
Geographically, ‘Sentimental Education’ is set in Cambridge, while ‘Miss Adele Amidst The Corsets’ unfolds in Smith’s adoptive New York City, as an ageing drag queen’s lingerie purchase becomes the focal point for cultural clashes.
An exuberant volume that’s bracing, thoughtful and frequently very funny.
Hephzibah Anderson
Akin
Emma Donoghue Picador £16.99
Elderly New York academic Noah Selvaggio is about to embark on a long-planned visit to his birthplace, Nice, when he’s suddenly left in charge of his nephew’s bolshie, streetwise 11-year-old son.
Together they explore the city in carnival time, and try to piece together the story behind a strange set of wartime photographs left by Noah’s mother. Was she a Resistance heroine, or a Nazi collaborator?
Donoghue’s novel gets off to a cracking start, then loses momentum as the action shifts to France. But the scenario is intriguing, and the finale touching.
Anthony Gardner
The Divers’ Game
Jesse Ball Granta £14.99
American writer Ball is known for his unsettling parables, and this latest posits a future society where refugees (‘quads’) are ghettoised, branded and have one thumb removed. Good citizens (‘pats’) carry canisters of deadly gas and may eliminate quads at will.
In loosely connected episodes, a pat teen gets lost among quads, a child prepares to be queen of a sadistic quad festival, and a missing boy sheds light on the title’s perilous ritual.
Ball can be preachy and unsubtle, but in showing how the young endure or enjoy his caste nastiness and sanctioned violence, he adds a chilling touch to a timely homily.
Jeffrey Burke