You are a book club member mulling over possible choices for books to read? To aid and abet you, RTÉ TEN presents summaries of the eight shortlisted authors' works of fiction for this year's Folio Prize, the winner of which will be announced on March 23 in London.
Nora Webster - Colm Tóibín Publisher Penguin/Viking
1960s Co Wexford and Nora Webster is living with her two young sons in a small town on the east coast of Ireland. The love of her life, Maurice, has just died and so she must work out how to forge a new life for herself. Nora must also learn how to give her sons a future as she tries to hold onto the past.
10:04 Ben Lerrner Publisher Granta
In the past year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. Now, in a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
All Our Puny Sorrows - Miriam Toews Publisher Faber & Faber
Elf and Yoli are two smart, loving sisters. Elf is a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married, but he she wants to die. Yoli is divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men and she wants to keep her older sister alive. When Elf's latest suicide attempt leaves her hospitalised weeks before her world tour, Yoli is forced to confront the impossible question of whether it is better to let a loved one go.
Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill Publisher Granta
According to its publishers, Dept. of Speculation navigates the jagged edges of a modern marriage to tell a story that is darkly funny, surprising and wise. They used to be young, brave, and giddy with hopes for their future. They got married, had a child, and skated through all the small calamities of family life. But then, slowly, quietly something changes. As the years rush by, fears creep in and doubts accumulate until finally their life as they know it cracks apart and they find themselves forced to reassess what they have lost, what is left, and what they want now.
Dust - Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor Publisher Granta
Kenya, 2007. Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His sister, Ajany, and their father bring his body back home, to a crumbling colonial house in northern Kenya. But the peace they seek is hard to find: the murder has stirred deeply buried memories of colonial violence, of the killing-sprees of the Mau Mau uprising, and the shocking political assassination of Tom Mboya in 1969. When a young Englishman appears, searching for his missing father, another story, of love, or at least a connection, begins.
Family Life - Akhil Sharma Publisher Faber & Faber
Eight year old Ajay spends his afternoons playing cricket in the streets of Delhi with his brother Birju, who is four years older. They are about to leave for a new life in America, one where, on arrival, he must rely on his big brother to face off classroom bullies. Birju is the repository of the family's hopes, studying for the exams that will mean entry to the Bronx High School of Science. When a terrible accident shatters that dream, the family splinters.
How to Be Both - Ali Smith Publisher Hamish Hamilton
According to Man Booker Prize site (for which prize this book was also short-listed) Smith’s tour-de-force is a novel about art's versatility, “a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions.” The cast of characters includes a renaissance artist of the 1460, and, wait for it, the child of a child of the 1960s. In short, two tales of love and injustice twist into Smith’s playful yarn.
Outline - Rachel Cusk Publisher Faber & Faber
The narrator of Outline is a woman whose name is mentioned but once in the novel, so that it doesn't really matter what her name is, there is a stealthy sense of anonymity about her. Her destination is Athens where she will give a creative writing course in English. On the flight out from London, she meets an older Greek man who tells her the fascinating story of his life, his wives, his family. In Greece, she meets a motley crew of different characters, all of whom seem vaguely unhinged and all of whom unhinge the narrator until she feels herself the mere outline of the title.
