Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick de Witt

The blurb on the back of this book describes it, among other things, as ‘nervy’ and ’beautifully strange’. And it is. The story is rather like a fairytale, with all the elements of fairytale such as beautiful maidens, mad barons, pickpockets, supernatural visitors and castles. But it’s not a fairytale. It’s a story about a young man, an antihero of sorts, pale and vapid and pretty much clueless, who sets out from his home village and a fairly unloving mother to make a living as a servant in a castle. He falls in love. And as with all love stories, there are ups and downs, competitors, love lost, love recovered etc etc etc. The story is told in the emotionless tone of a fairytale character too, so we are not privy to the depth of thought and suffering and joy that you might get with a more usual novel about a young man. There’s no embellishment around incidents such as the death of one of the character – you walk into the room with our hero and so and so has died. End of commentary. It’s as if you are in another sort of world as you read. But there is definitely a sense of wonder about the whole thing, as our hero Lucy travels through his experiences to find his place in the world.

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

You don’t have to have read My Name is Lucy Barton to appreciate this marvellous collection of linked short stories, but it does add depth to your appreciation. These are not independent short stories; they are the stories of the people who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton, either as family or acquaintance or friend of an acquaintance. The characters sometimes appear in other people’s stories. And sometimes you learn that the situations they were in when their story finished have been resolved offstage, as it were, and you discover the endings of their story in someone else’s story. It’s a fascinating and brilliant technique. So while these stories are not so much plot driven as character driven, plot still has agency. This technique works beyond even the stories in this book, because the original Lucy Barton novel leaves so much unspoken, and you find yourself gathering more clues about her early life as you read this. So the dimension changes. It’s brilliant really. And as characters, these people just shine. They are so very real, such ordinary people with such ordinary lives and such normal problems. They are the sorts of problems, though, that people do not speak about – infidelity, perversion, incest, debilitating neglect and poverty, loneliness, envy and so forth. Strout tells their lives with kindness, empathy, understanding, sensitivity. She’s like the therapist listening and recording. She knows that most of them will not muster the strength to change their circumstances. This is one of the very best, most moving books I’ve read this year and even last. I will be going back to Lucy Barton.