Fiction - The Wall by John Lanchester (Faber & Faber)
Reviewer: Donal O’Donoghue
Armed with one of the most concrete metaphors of these uneasy times, Lanchester, an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction, delivers an allegorical fable that is a warning about how the world may finally break itself while also offering a sliver of human hope.
It opens on the Wall, a vast fortification, some 10,000 kilometres in length, built to keep the Others out and manned by conscripts known as The Defenders, one of whom is the narrator, Joseph Kavanagh. We learn that the Wall runs the entire jagged length of the coastline of the UK and was built in the wake of a cataclysm known as The Change.
In this near-future, robots (bots) carry out utilitarian duties, there is also a slave class known as The Help, Defenders can get special privileges by becoming Breeders and the Elite run the whole totalitarian show. If the Others, who come by sea, successfully breach the wall, those defenders on duty pay for their ‘failure’ by being sent out to sea, thus becoming Others.
The prose is spare, sometimes poetic (the types of cold the Defenders experience on the wall) with shades of other literary dark futures including 1984, The Road and The Handmaid’s Tale. Yet The Wall has its own allegorical power, both a warning of the possible shape of things to come but also of the way things are now in certain lands and minds.
Thriller - The Suspect by Fiona Barton (Bantam Press)
Reviewer: Jess O’Sullivan
When two teenagers on a gap year in Thailand disappear, their worried families are pitched into the middle of every parent’s worst nightmare.
Barton effectively tells the story from end to beginning, as the girls hurtle naively towards their fate. This end as beginning means there is a little too much foreshadowing of events at times, but that is easy to overlook as the fast-paced narrative unravels. It is told using the many viewpoints of the players, out to discover the truth: the media pack, the police, the frantic families and even the girls themselves.
The true heart of this book lies in the stories and the character motivations, which are given the space to develop so we get emotionally invested. This book sits more comfortably in the crime drama genre than thriller, but it is a tense and smart whodunit all the same.
Previews
The Irish Bridesmaid’s Guide by Natasha Mac a’Bháird (O’Brien)
The happily married author (her pocket-sized guide book is dedicated to her bridesmaids) sets out her stall from the opening line: "First things first: what kind of bridesmaid are you, and what does the role involve?"
Fear not if your answer is along the lines of ‘haven’t got a clue’ as this slim volume will save the day. From ‘The Dress’ to ‘The Hen Party’ to ‘The Wedding Day’ this is the essential guide to the most important person in the wedding party (after the bride and groom that is).
The Capital by Robert Menasse (MacLehose)
Brussels, the ‘capital’ of Europe, is also the fulcrum of this timely novel (translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch), set on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the European Commission. To mark this anniversary, a major celebration is planned, with Auschwitz as its centrepiece.
Unfortunately the enthusiastic organiser has neglected to accommodate the views of the other EU institutions. Now there will be hell to pay in a bold satire about heroes, losers, terrorists and a wild pig chase.
To Kill the Truth by Sam Bourne (Quercus)
Following his best-selling blockbuster, To Kill the President, Bourne is back with another thumping tome trading on the political unrest that currently prevails in the US. Someone is destroying the evidence of history’s greatest crimes such as the Holocaust and black slavery.
Now, with Blacks Lives Matters protestors clashing with slavery deniers, and historians dying in mysterious circumstances, America is on the precipice of a new Civil War. Can former White House operative, Maggie Costello save the day?
