I’ve read two books from the first April preview instalment beginning with Solvej Balle’s International Booker Prize longlisted On The Calculation of Volume which is structured as a diary written by 
Tara, briefly in Paris for the antiquarian bookshop she runs with her husband. Nothing seems amiss until the following day begins to repeat itself. Each section is headed with the number of the current iteration of November 18th Tara’s living through as she records her experience – the daily recaps with an astonished Thomas, their mutual scientific investigations, her eventual avoidance of her husband as he carries out precisely the same actions as the day before. Tara and Thomas’s surprisingly easy acceptance of her ordeal is a bit of a stretch but, obviously, readers’ belief must be suspended from the first page. It’s a novel you’ll likely either enjoy or find infuriating. I was intrigued by the puzzle of what it might mean but I’m unlikely to continue with Balle’s series through its seven volumes. Review to follow…
Louise Hegarty’s playful, witty Fair Play is set over the annual murder mystery weekend Abigail arranges for her brother’s birthday. After this year’s crime is solved, their guests take themselves off to bed. Next morning, there’s no sign of Benjamin: his bedroom door is locked with no sound within. The group are horrified to discover that their friend and brother has died in the night aged only thirty-three. Hegarty’s novel starts with a straightforward narrative, establishing relationships, scattering a few red herrings before turning into a pastiche locked room mystery interspersed with Abigail’s struggles to accept her brother’s death. Quite a risky idea for any novel, let alone a debut, but, on the whole, it worked for me. Review shortly…
Set in early twentieth-century China, Yu Hua’s City of Fiction follows a man from the north of the country as he journeys south through arduous conditions looking for the mother of the child he carries with him after she abandoned them to make her own journey. ‘This is a story about vanished crafts and ancient customs, about violence, love, and friendship. Above all, it’s a story about change and about storytelling itself, full of vivid characters and surprising twists—an epic tale, as inexorable as time itself and as gripping as a classic adventure story’ says the blurb which sounds both promising and intriguing.
In Rozie Kelly’s Kingfisher a creative writing academic becomes so infatuated with his colleague that his safe, secure relationship with his beautiful partner, Michael, is threatened. He becomes obsessed by the poet who is everything he isn’t and has everything he wants then simultaneous illnesses disrupt his life and the tenuous reality he’s constructed. ‘This is a novel about grief, power and desire – and the tangles in between that make up a life’ says the blurb. I’m not entirely sure about this one but it sounds worth investigating.
I never got around to reading André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name but I like the sound of Room on the Sea which sees a hundred people awaiting jury selection in a scorching New York summer. A flirtation begins between two of them. Coffees in Manhattan cafes and gallery trips to Chelsea become something more serious as Paul and Catherine escape into a fantasy of an Italian holiday together knowing that if they allow their crush to develop into a full-blown affair both their lives will be upended. 
Staying briefly in Manhattan, where two strangers meet and spend the night together in José Daniel Alvior’s Seven Days in Tokyo. When Louie visits Landon in Tokyo they have a week to explore what may become something deeper than a fleeting passion, sharing meals and a bed, wandering through the streets of the city. ‘Breathtakingly tender, Seven Days in Tokyo is an astonishing debut about the intricacies of desire and a search for belonging. It is a lyrical, immersive portrait of how some things, however beautiful and profound, are destined to be as short-lived as the cherry blossoms’ says the blurb which sounds rather lovely.
That’s it for April’s first batch of new fiction. As ever, a click on a title will take you to a more detailed synopsis for any that take you fancy. Part two soon…
