Saturday 20 July 2024

Here's my review of Austin Duffy's tremendously tense and unsettling Troubles novel, Cross, set at the time of the '94 ceasefire, in the Guardian



I reviewed Michael Deagler's consistently wise and funny debut novel, Early Sobrieties, in the Spectator



Wednesday 26 June 2024


Here's my Substack essay for flaming June. How I discovered the peerless fiction of Yasunari Kawabata in the most unlikely of places. Read it for free here




Friday 14 June 2024

Tom Lamont's debut novel, Going Home, is a moving investigation into what it means to be a father and a son. Here's my review in the TLS



Thursday 23 May 2024

This month's Substack is an essay about discovering (being saved by) Prince as a lonely teenager in the late 80s. Read Sometimes It Snows In May for free here










Friday 26 April 2024

Here's my Substack piece for April, a personal essay about my parents' divorce and growing up in the 1970s: The Art of Escapism - How James Bond Can Help you Survive a Parental Divorce. Read it for free here






Friday 19 April 2024

I reviewed Whale Fall, Elizabeth O' Connor's visceral, politically-engaged novel set on a remote island off the Welsh coast in 1938, for the Guardian