This month, Tom Robinson of Gloucester Road Books shares new releases he’s particularly excited about…
A note from the team: “Our primary aim is that the shop be a fascinating place to explore. We have a significant focus on titles published by small independent presses. There are lots of really brilliant small publishers putting out incredibly exciting books, and we want to help get these out into the world.”
Visit the website for more details on book launches, talks and other events at the shop. gloucesterroadbooks.com; @gloucester_rd_books; 184 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, BS7 8NU.
Open Monday and Tuesday 9.30am-5pm; and Wednesday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm
Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg, published by Tinder Press
It feels cliché to call a book Fight Club for women, but Twigg somehow manages to take a premise that could easily feel tired and trope-y and create something that feels fresh and engaging. The narrative flits between past and present, as a current version of our protagonist, Iris, tries to reckon with the events that transpired in the place she’d hoped to find refuge. She becomes drawn to a women’s commune in the secluded downs, the solidarity and simplicity of life there at first intoxicating and intriguing her, even as the present-day narrative repeatedly reminds the reader of the darkness she is headed towards.
The City Changes Its Face by Eimear McBride, published by Faber & Faber
McBride’s fragmented, phantasmagorical writing style has captivated me since I first discovered her, and her new work is no different. It’s impossible not to completely inhabit Eily’s mind, her thoughts half-formed and unravelling. The action is sparse, instead the reader is immersed in contemplation of the unspooling of a relationship as characters wash a plate or make a sandwich. This is a novel is about the unspoken, as we are returned to Stephen and Eily of The Lesser Bohemians, to watch as the freneticity of early passion is eroded into domesticity and small deprecations.
Wild Ground by Emily Usher, published by Serpent’s Tail
Race, class, trauma and addiction intersect to obstruct and complicate the already fraught experience of first love, in this dual timeline novel set in a small Yorkshire town. Having lived for a time in Leeds myself, I found myself identifying with the emphasis attached to the landscape of Yorkshire – the wild moors juxtaposed with the parochial pubs, Danny’s aptitude for botany and affinity with nature a salve and a safety against the people who treat him as an outsider. There were times when I wanted to shake the protagonist, Neef, frustrated by her self-absorption and the obtuse naivety of Danny’s experience of their world, buffered by her own racial privilege, an excellent literary device evoking reflection on how we can other even those we feel closest to.
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing, published by Picador
Olivia Laing is a firm favourite of both staff and customers here, with books that are generous, insightful and full of empathy. In their latest book, which is out in paperback early this month, these qualities are directed toward a subject that is of huge personal significance. For the last five years, Laing has been restoring a walled garden in Suffolk. This incredible project has led in turn to an investigation of the relationship between gardens and our ideas of Utopia. Those of us who read The Lonely City will recognise this as a classic Laing impulse – to write at the point where culture, ideas and personal experience collide.
Spanish Beauty by Esther Garcia Llovet, published by Foundry Editions
From exciting new indie press Foundry Editions comes this bracing crime narrative that reads like noir with a touch of sunstroke. Set in Benidorm, populated with day-drunk English, threatening Russians and despondent locals, everyone is a caricature in this strange, and somehow still stylish novel. The narrative unspools in fits, interspersed with the stagnant textures of resort life in a place caught between a fantasy and an ungodly hangover.
