I reviewed The Catchers, Xan Brooks's immersive tale of music-biz exploitation set in the 1920s Mississippi Delta, in the Literary Review

'Julia was my first love. It happened in the autumn of 1984'. I wasn't planning on posting any fiction on Substack, but here's the opening of a novella set forty years ago this month. Read The Angel's Reply (for free) here

I wrote about Entitlement, Rumaan Alam's (far superior) follow-up to his 2020 hit Leave the World Behind, in the Spectator

Here's my Substack essay for August. Doubling Up: The Treatment of Twins in Literature, Film & TV (first published in the TLS Jan 2022). Read it for free here

Join me and my brother, James Cook, at the Stroud Literary Festival on Saturday 9th November at 8pm, for readings and live music from his memoir, In Her Room. Tickets here

Here's my latest Substack piece. What Lies Beneath: an essay about chronic pain and performing the well body. Read it for free here

I wrote about Benjamin Myers' wonderfully entertaining, Scarborough-set new novel, Rare Singles, in the Literary Review