Much is expected of Lenny Abrahamson's film adaptation of Emma Donoghue's novel Room, which can only help prospects for the author's forthcoming novel, The Wonder, due in September. There's also new novels from Neil Jordan, Eimear McBride and Lionel Shriver to look forward to.
1 The Wonder, Emma Donoghue
The film adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel, Room, staring Brie Larson and William H. Macy is tipped for Golden Globe and indeed, more to the point, Oscar success in a few weeks time. Such enticing prospects can only help when the Irish author’s next novel, The Wonder, appears in September. Set in 1850s rural Ireland, it's a story of "love pitted against evil in its many masks and of a child’s murder threatening to occur in slow motion before our eyes". Anna is the girl who has stopped eating but mysteriously remains alive, and Lib is the English nurse charged with determining whether Anna is a fraud. As Anna begins to deteriorate Lib finds herself responsible not just for the care of a child who appears to subsist on air and faith alone, but for her very survival. Room was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. The new novel is due from Picador in September.
2 this is the ritual, Rob Doyle
Rob Doyle’s darkly visceral debut novel, Here are The Young Men won the young Dublin writer many fans, and his admirers include the noted fiction writers Colm Tóibín and Kevin Barry. Now arrives Doyle's first book of short stories, which, we gather, are pretty upfront in their depiction of sexual relations. So we get a young man in a dark depression wandering around an industrial park in Dublin where he meets a vagrant preaching a dangerous ideology. A woman on the run from a break-up takes part in an unusual sleep experiment. Or there's the man obsessed with Nietzsche who clings desperately to his girlfriend's red shoes. Locales for Doyle's dark materials include a rented room, a darkened apartment, a hitchhiker's patch of roadside and a Barcelona nightclub. Published by Bloomsbury this month.
3 Above the Waterfall, Ron Rash
He may be a New York Times bestselling author in his native land, but Ron Rash is sadly underrated around these parts. Rash has written some particularly great short stories, and a number of well-received novels. His latest novel is set - as is most, if not all of his work - in Appalachia, contemporary Appalachia in this case. Les is a long-time sheriff just three-weeks from retirement, who has to handle the abuse of crystal meth and his own duplicity in the small town in which he serves. He is drawn to the park ranger Becky by a shared love for the beauty of their corner of rural North Carolina. However, trouble starts when an elderly local is accused of poisoning a trout stream, and Les and Becky find themselves seriously tested. Published by Canongate in May.
4 The Drowned Detective, Neil Jordan
In Jordan's first novel since 2011, Jonathan is a private investigator in an eastern European city, consumed by his work and dealing with his failing marriage. Approached one day by an elderly couple, he is presented with a faded photograph of their daughter, missing for nearly two decades. Troubled by the image of the little girl, who was the same age when she vanished as his own daughter is now, the detective is compelled to find her. One night, as he walks across a bridge in the city, he encounters a young woman who suddenly leaps into the water below. On impulse, Jonathan jumps in after her and finds himself drawn unwittingly into her story. Due from Bloomsbury in February.
5 Gull, Glenn Patterson
Patterson’s 352-page fictionalised account of the development of the Delorean gull-wing car recalls one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland when a factory in West Belfast began to produce a luxury sports car with gull-wing doors. Huge subsidies were provided by the British government and the first car rolled off the line during the hunger strikes of 1981. John DeLorean was a brilliant engineer and a charismatic entrepreneur but, crucially, he was also a world-class conman. Published by Head of Zeus this month.
6 Thus Bad Begins, Javier Marías
As a young man, Juan de Vere takes a job with Eduardo Muriel who is a famous film director, while Muriel's wife Beatriz `finds solace in other beds', to put it mildly, as the publishers do. Dr Jorge Van Vechten is a family friend who is implicated in unsavoury rumours that Muriel cannot bear to pursue himself. So he asks Juan to investigate them instead, but Juan uncovers questions which his employer has not asked and would rather not answer. The Madrid-based writer’s most recent novel The Infatuations won him many fans in this country, both in book clubs and among individual readers. Due from Hamish Hamilton, February.
7 Hot Milk, Deborah Levy
A mother and daughter arrive in a small Spanish fishing village, the mother suffering from mysterious paralysis. Trapped by the oppressive desert heat, and searching for a cure to what may possibly be her mother’s psychosomatic condition, the daughter Sofia is obliged to confront a difficult relationship with her mother. The novel is said to examine both “female rage and sexuality.” Levy’s superb novel, Swimming Home, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2012 as well as the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize. Levy is also the author of a collection of short stories, Black Vodka (2013), which was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
8 The Mandibles, Lionel Shriver
New novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin centres on three generations of The Mandible family as a fiscal crisis hits the America of 2029. The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune when the 97-year-old patriarch of the family passes away But things don't work out as planned - Avery is petulant that she can’t buy olive oil, while her sister Florence is forced to absorb strays into her increasingly cramped household. Described by its publishers as a “scabrously funny glimpse into the decline that may await the United States all too soon.” Incidentally, Schriver's new tale appears to bear some similarity to Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's debut, The Nest, due in March. In that equally-anticipated novel, a modest legacy had been intended by a deceased father to be a bit of a help out to his children. However, the Plumb siblings have watched the value of the `nest' rise dramatically along with the stock market. But a recent car crash involving an errant son now threatens the moolah. The Plumbs had, of course, been counting on the money to solve a number of financial problems.
9 Selection Day, Aravind Adiga
Adiga’s The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize in 2008 and the critic A. N. Wilson has dubbed him `the most exciting novelist writing in English today'. In his forthcoming 329-page novel, Adiga's 14-year-old protagonist Manju excels at cricket, although he is not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he hates his domineering and cricket-obsessed father and admires his brilliantly talented brother. When Manju begins to get to know Radha's great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything changes and Manju must deal with challenges to his sense of identity. Due from Picador in May.
10 The Lesser Bohemians, Eimear McBride
McBride spent a decade touting her first book, the prize-winning A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, while her second novel took her eight years to write. The Lesser Bohemians explores the relationship between an 18-year-old Irish drama student and the older actor she meets in mid-1990s North London. Set in a series of bedsits and squats, the book is described as “a story about love and innocence, joy and discovery". A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing won the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year while the stage adaptation won three awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. The Lesser Bohemians is published by Faber in September.
Paddy Kehoe
