A Town Called Solace: ‘Will break your heart’ Graham Norton

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What I wasn’t expecting was to then see this novel long listed for the Booker Prize a short while after I requested it.

What do we learn about attitudes to the elderly from the conversations that Elizabeth and Martha have? It's beautifully written and so finely crafted; told in the kind of prose I most admire because it takes what appears to be complicated and makes it clear. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. Eight-year-old Clara, isolated by her distraught parents’ efforts to protect her from the truth, is grief-stricken and bewildered. The human condition yes, and the time spent understanding it’s nuance to be able to portray it through words, both those used and those left unsaid.Ishiguro makes the cut alongside some heavyweight names, from Richard Powers, chosen for the yet-to-be-published Bewilderment, about a widowed astrobiologist trying to raise his nine-year-old son, to Rachel Cusk, longlisted for Second Place, in which a woman invites an artist to visit the remote coastal region where she lives. With a psychology degree in hand from McGill University, Lawson took a trip to Britain and ended up accepting a job as an industrial psychologist.

As days turn into weeks, though, it seems less likely that either will come home, and one day Clara sees a strange man moving boxes around in Mrs. At night she messes up a new set of Rose's clothes on her bedroom floor, and each day keeps vigil by the window, convinced that: "If she failed to keep watch for her, Rose might not come home.Its subject matter makes it appropriate for all audiences, and it would make a great selection for book groups in particular. After her first novel, the article describes Mary Lawson as surprised by her success: "I really didn't know what I had done right. Mercilessly anatomising privilege, creativity and ambition, male-female relationships and lockdowns Covid-driven and emotional, Cusk is brutally funny and honest about shame, ego and our sense of self. A character driven mystery that explores boundaries and trust, the characters and their voices are superbly portrayed, they are like closeups, snapshots of little action, complex inner worlds, all of whom have been tilted in some way and are in the process of finding their upright, their wings even; yet there is a clear, interlinked story that ties them together keeping the reader engaged and the plot moving forward at a good pace.