Welcome to Insider Reading, where the booksellers of Mr B’s give you the lowdown on new and future releases. We are very lucky as booksellers to get to read books ahead of publication.
So here is a behind-the-scenes peek into what some of our booksellers are already raving about for the months ahead…
The Strangers is a blistering combination of grief memoir and wild fiction. Naomi Alderman doesn’t shy away from the darker facts of death and loss, allowing herself dwell on harrowing bodily details as she describes her mother’s decline into ill health, and her own distressing battles to carry a pregnancy to term. This dance macabre between death and life is at the heart of Alderman’s story.
Life here is represented by the ‘mimmoths’: small, badger-sized creatures with proboscis like mammoths, which carry the spores of mysterious, world-healing, environment-restoring fungi. The Alderman of the story finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue when Iain Frinton, a cagey government worker, seeks her out to try and help him understand the effect the mimmoths are having on the human population, which are largely positive with one crucial exception: that wherever a mimmoth has been killed, the birth rate drastically declines in the immediate vicinity. Alderman details the way in which humanity at large responds to the mimmoths, with some accepting their mysterious arrival and healing powers with gratitude, while others call for a cull and drench themselves and their gardens in fungicide to try and stop the spread of the ‘miracle threads’ mycelium that clean the ground of pollution and cause triffid-like plant growth. The mimmoths are able to evade capture with supernatural psychological tactics that can cause hallucinations.
Ultimately, the book invites us to consider that perhaps we get to choose how we respond to things. We get to find hope and love instead of fear and destruction. Alderman learns from the mimmoths that alternate possibilities, different lives, are never very far from real, that they exist just beyond our perception. – Ronnie
Patrick DeWitt is back! Patrick’s books have long been favourites of the team at Mr B’s, from his Booker-shortlisted The Sisters Brothers, through Undermajordomo Minor, to French Exit. So of course I snaffled the proof of his new novel, Dodge City, the second it dropped through the letterbox.
It’s 1967 and Lee Clark is a young working class guy, grafting away as a mechanic in California after dropping out of college. When a Vietnam draft notice lands on his doormat he mulls over what to do about it, finally landing on a fanciful scheme to dodge the draft by running over the border to Canada. With no money to his name, he hatches a plan: apply for a job driving a flashy Jaguar across the country for a vehicle delivery service. And while he’s at it, he might as well visit the various eccentric members of his family along the way to say goodbye.
Funny yet tender, intimate yet sweeping, this road trip novel for the ages is vintage DeWitt. – Tom M
Poignant, funny, and incredibly relevant, Malavika Kannan’s adult debut is a stunning coming-of-age novel for these modern (and indeed, unprecedented) times.
When Rishi is accepted into Stanford, she’s ready to begin her life anew. No longer trapped in her claustrophobic and conservative Florida hometown, and no longer under the watchful eye of her strict Indian parents, Rishi is finally free to explore her queer identity, meet likeminded people, and become entangled in platonic and romantic relationships to her heart’s content. It’s exactly the kind of real-world experience she needs if she wants to become a writer. But when a global pandemic suddenly puts an end to her newfound freedom, Rishi is desperate to keep moving forwards – she cannot go back to the way things were before.
In Unprecedented Times, Kannan perfectly captures the all-too-relatable feeling of being young and having your first taste of independence snatched away from you by circumstances beyond your (or anyone’s) control. Rishi is a compelling, imperfect, and familiar narrator, voicing the disillusionment, anger, and terror of young adulthood in the current socio-political and environmental climate, but also the timeless experiences of first love and heartbreak, of all consuming friendship, and of being caught between two cultural identities. – Nethmi
Emily Ruskovich’s new short story collection, Nightjar, somehow manages to feel more like five novellas. Connected by their setting (the Pacific Northwest, mostly Idaho), each piece looks at a small family, their relationship with one another, and the nature around them.
If this were one of our three-word reviews, my choices would be: haunting, isolated, and family. Luckily I have a few more words, because these would not do justice to how beautifully crafted the stories are. Ruskovich’s 2019 novel Idaho, which won her the International Dublin literary award, is one I still think about today – but its plot didn’t quite win me over. Nightjar, on the other hand, gives us just enough of a peek into the lives of the characters and their arcs, while also leaving us with emotional resolution and psychological depth. Each of the stories uses nature (birds, woods, and lakes appear across the collection) to illuminate realisations about humanity and the characters.
Due to their settings, the stories in Nightjar have a gothic American feel to them, the characters isolated and lonely in their own ways. The writing is not dissimilar to that of Alice Munro, Tiffany McDaniel, and Emma Cline. In the first story, which is undoubtedly the best, a young mother realises that the life she thought she had in rural Idaho is not at all what it seems. In the third story, Round Pond, a woman finds out the truth of her mother’s death – and how, years later, she had rewritten the narrative without meaning to. In the story Owl, which is an award-winning piece that inspired Ruskovich to put this book together, a man in the late 19th century takes to the forest after his wife goes missing.
I listened to this collection, and would highly recommend it – especially the first story, Victor’s Room – both as a book and audiobook. It’s the first contemporary piece I have read in a while that felt exciting, and I believe that Ruskovich’s writing has the potential to secure her a place in the canon of great American writers. – Kate
Heartbroken after the death of her fighter-pilot fiancé, Juliet is sent to stay with her sister at Samphire House. But when she discovers the body of a local girl washed up on the beach, past mysteries come flooding back. Under the darkening skies of wartime England, Juliet is thrown together with a handsome stranger. Can she find the courage to confront her deepest fears, right a terrible injustice and risk falling in love once more, even as the world burns around her?
Cut Him Out in Little Stars was fantastic. I loved every single second of it, and it seemed to tick every box for a superb YA novel. I was completely invested in the characters and absolutely loved how twisty and compelling the mystery was.
This is definitely the year of yearning, and there is nothing better than a love story about two star-crossed lovers trying to find their way through wartime Britain. Add in secrets, mystery, danger and a gorgeous slow-burn clean romance, and I was utterly sold. One of the best Young Adult books I have come across for a long time. Well done, Lucy Strange! – Becky