The Fall Guy by James Lasdun
Modern life is impossibly difficult for some people. Matthew is an unsuccessful chef and food-blogger, just about to turn 40. Charlie, his rich cousin, is a banker with a social conscience who has invited Matthew to spend the summer at his gorgeous house in the mountains. Matthew is increasingly worried about his lack of “meatspace” — how he occupies the real world as opposed to the virtual. He thinks he is not in love with Charlie’s wife, the beautiful and mysterious Chloe. However, he is obsessed with her, and when he starts to dig into her private life he finds the flaw that will smash the golden bowl. Lasdun darts into the past to explain the uneasiness and resentment seething just beneath the surface of the cousins’ relationship. When Matthew and Charlie were boys, Matthew’s father disgracefully disappeared and Charlie stopped being his cousin’s friend; how far has Matthew’s psyche been warped by this ancient rejection? And who has been set up as the “fall guy”? Lust, lies and good old revenge propel this novel to its far-fetched, but entertaining climax.
Jonathan Cape, 265pp, £12.99
Montpelier Parade by Karl Geary
The poor old Irish — are any of them happy? Not if you judge them by their fiction. Here is a first novel by an Irish writer, set in Ireland’s recent past. You won’t be astonished to learn that it is nothing like Right Ho, Jeeves. Montpelier Parade is a full-blown tearjerking tragedy about two lonely souls, from opposite sides of Dublin society, who fall in love. Sonny is a working-class teenager, Vera is posh and verging on middle age. She lives on Montpelier Parade, a grand Georgian terrace. They meet when Sonny and his deadbeat father do some work in her garden. Sonny is fascinated by the woman and her lifestyle — she lives alone among books and paintings. While he is spying on her, Sonny sees Vera taking an overdose. He saves her life and this is the beginning of their touching romance. Geary is an actor and screenwriter, and this book is rather obviously determined to be a movie — you know the sort, all Oscars and blubbing. I look forward to catching it on Boxing Day television in about five years’ time.
Vintage, 233pp, £12.99
The Blot by Jonathan Lethem
Alexander Bruno (sometimes known as Bruno Alexander) is a professional gambler whose only game is backgammon. He flits around an international twilight world of private clubs and casinos like a decaying James Bond; we meet him in Berlin, on his way to a game with a super-rich challenger. Bruno has just been in Singapore, where he found a “friend” from his miserable childhood in Berkeley, California, and lost his luck. He blames the bad luck on the blot — the black shape that is growing in the middle of his vision. It turns out to be caused by meningioma, a tumour that affects the nervous system, so rare that only one person in the world can treat it. The problem is that it will cost a fortune and force Bruno to return to America. For some reason his schoolfriend, the slobbish but wealthy Keith, insists on paying the bills and bringing him home with only the tuxedo he stands up in. What does Keith want in return? The fun of this novel lies in Lethem’s intelligence, and his balancing act between reality, surrealism and rather bitchy comedy.
Jonathan Cape, 288pp, £16.99