The Great Stink
by Clare Clark
Penguin, £12.99, pp. 358, ISBN 0670915300
The Second Life of Samuel Tyne
by Esi Edugyan
Virago, £10.99, pp. 278, ISBN 1844081060
The Icarus Girl
by Helen Oyeyemi
Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 320, ISBN 0747575487
With an aversion to ghost stories I was surprised to find myself greatly moved by Strangers. Like the author, Taichi Yamada, Haidi is a scriptwriter. Orphaned as a child and divorced from his wife (‘the bond uniting us had become indifference,’ he notes with a professional writer’s economy), to save money he lives in his high-rise office, a deathly quiet place once emptied of its daytime inhabitants. The vacuity of endless ‘lighthearted promises and hollow assurances’ between media friends is matched only by his own sense of emptiness. Drifting between his desk and a beer, he is swift to pursue an emotional connection when it comes, even if it draws him out of the world of the living.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in