Contrary to expectation for a progressive young Londoner, and indeed for a modern fictional heroine, the narrator of Chloe Aridjis’s exquisitely original second novel, Asunder, lives deliberately quietly and obscurely. ‘I have always been more interested in being than becoming,’ explains Marie, a 33-year-old attendant at the National Gallery. ‘Ambition has never been high on…
Posted on 17th July 2013
Posted on 12th September 2011
Cross My Palm
“Life is like streaky bacon,” say the Romani gypsies in Sara Stockbridge’s breezy and brilliant Cross My Palm: “there is some fat, and then some lean, and you had better take them together.” This sensible creed often provides solace to our protagonist, seasoned young fortune-teller Rose, who from the age of 12 has been getting…
