Books to Look Out For Out for in February 2023: Part Two

I’ve read just one of the titles in February’s second instalment but it may well be the one that scoops the most attention. I enjoyed both The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House so put up my hand for Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You which follows, Bodie, a misfit at the boarding school where she spent four years and where Thalia, briefly her roommate, was murdered, aged seventeen. By the time she’s invited to give a two-week class on podcasting at the school in 2018, Bodie’s convinced the wrong man has been convicted. There’s a great deal of sleuthing and discussion of court proceedings not to mention suspense but it was the characters’ backstories and details of boarding school life that I most enjoyed. It’s an absorbing, thought provoking novel underpinned with the theme of violence against women and society’s failure to address it.

Dizz Tate’s Brutes also takes her readers back to adolescence. In small town Florida, a gang of thirteen-year-old girls are fixated on the preacher’s daughter who suddenly disappears, leaving them desperate to know what has happened to her. What they discover is shocking. ‘Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the ‘we’ of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever’ says the blurb more than hinting at a dark read. It’s the endorsement of Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them a Good Time, that’s swung this one for me.

Sigrún Pálsdóttir’s History: A Mess sees a PhD student discovering that the author of the seventeenth-century diary she’s been transcribing for six months is a woman. Thrilled, she changes her entire thesis to reflect her belief that S. B. is the first professional British artist, refusing to face facts when it becomes increasingly clear she’s made a mistake. ‘As she goes to ever greater lengths to protect her work from the truth, she begins to lose her grip on her thesis, her life and then her sanity. What follows is a remarkable exploration of intellectual integrity and denial, and a poignant, funny portrait of academic ambition’ promises the blurb whetting my appetite nicely.

Douglas Bruton’s With or Without Angels sounds intriguing. It follows an ageing artist working on his final artwork as he deals with the memories it revives and begins to understand what he wishes to leave behind. ‘This hybrid and innovative short novel responds through fiction to ‘The New World’, the final artwork by the late artist Alan Smith – which is in turn a response to an eighteenth-century fresco, Giandomenico Tiepolo’s ‘Il Mondo Nuovo’. With sparkling, dreamlike prose, Bruton weaves a story around these artworks, arriving at both a profound exploration of the creative process and a timeless love story told in a new way’ say the publishers piquing my interest for something a little different.

Set in 1950s Australia, Jay Carmichael’s Marlo sees Christopher’s hopes dashed when he leaves his rural home for the city in the hope of a less repressive life. When he meets Morgan, the two men fall in love but are faced with the judgement of a rigid society bent on condemning their sexuality. ’Marlo takes us into the landscape of a relationship defined as much by what is said and shared as by what has to remain unsaid’ says the blurb. I suspect there’ll be no happy ending here.

February’s short story collection is Yuri Herrera’s Ten Planets – each story set in an imagined future, all very short. ‘This collection of stories, with a breadth that ranges from philosophical flights of fancy to the gritty detective story, leaves us with a sense of awe at our world and the worlds beyond our ken, while Herrera continues to develop his exploration of the mutability of borders, the wounds and legacy of colonial violence, and a deep love of storytelling in all its forms’ says the blurb. I’m not entirely sure about this one but Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World has stayed with me since 2015 when I reviewed it which is enough to make me give it a try.

That’s it for February’s new fiction. As ever, a click on a title will take you to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more, and if you’d like to catch up with part one it’s here. Paperbacks soon…