From a groundbreaking work of trans fiction to a languid account of love in 1970s Melbourne, these are the books to keep you entertained over the next couple of weeks 📚
There is a lot of early hype around Jonathan Escoffery’s debut, already published in the US and out in the UK in early January, and with good reason. Perched between short story collection and novel,centres around a Jamaican family who, like Escoffery’s own family, relocate to Miami in the mid-1970s. Flitting between perspectives, the stories inmake up a fascinating study of ‘identity’ both as it’s constructed and enforced in wider society, and within the family itself.
Escoffery is particularly good on the gulf that can emerge between generations split across cultures; what it means to be the one who ‘assimilates’, and the gatekeeping that can play out on both sides. In an interview with, Escoffery spoke of the contradictions of his parents’ generation – “Simultaneously wanting you to be Jamaican and also telling you you’re not Jamaican.
This spiky, funny and exceptionally smart novel follows 29-year-old Maria Griffiths as she steals her newly-ex girlfriend’s car in the aftermath of their long overdue breakup, stocks up on heroin and heads for Nevada. Binnie’s refusal to dumb down or to seek “validation from cis people” means she is able to capture the messiness and contradictions of gender and transitioning.
I didn’t love the ending of this book – in a way I felt disappointed by it – but I always appreciate a novel that I can feel in dialogue with. As Nettel said in her interview with : “It is not the place of literature to provide answers but to ask the right questions and to invite readers to reflect.” On the horizon from Fitzcarraldo, I’m also excited about Polly Barton’s
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