09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
In brief: May Our Joy Endure; The Future of the Novel; Literature for the People
Kev Lambert (translated by Donald Winkler)Pushkin Press, £18.99, pp320
Winner of the Prix Médicis, Lambert's sharp, provocative third novel embeds ever-timely themes – greed, hypocrisy and privilege – in a narrative that blends satire and lyricism, whimsy and voyeurism. At its centre is Céline Wachowski, a charismatic celebrity architect who's all too credibly flawed. You won't be able to look away as her latest project – developing a disused industrial complex on the outskirts of Montreal – turns into a career-threatening calamity, mired in controversy over indigenous land rights and anti-gentrification protests.
Simon OkotieMelville House, £9.99, pp144
Okotie offers a fresh and idiosyncratic take on that perennially fretted-over topic: the state of the novel. Conscientiously grounded in theoretical debate stretching back to the start of the 20th century, it's also arrestingly current, eyeing insights derived from cognitive literary studies and threats posed by generative AI. Throughout, the author's questing vitality makes space for lightheartedness, as he cheers on fiction writers prepared to experiment while offering personal insights born of his own novelistic failings. A bracing, positive read, it's recommended even – perhaps especially – to those whose own literary tastes tend to be more conventional.
Sarah HarknessPan, £12.99, pp496 (paperback)
The lives of the brothers who brought the likes of Thomas Hardy and Christina Rossetti to the Victorian masses make for illuminating stories themselves. The youngest of eight surviving children, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan were raised on a croft on the west coast of Scotland, leaving school early yet going on to found an international publishing house that thrives to this day. Their rags-to-riches ascent (within just two generations, they'd be able to claim a prime minister as one of their own) is brought to life with appropriate narrative flair and an appreciation for their shared curiosity as well as their galvanising moral purpose.
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