Patrick Skene-Catling

From New York to the New Hebrides

The best new first novels are variously set in New York, New Orleans and the New Hebrides

issue 02 June 2018

Publication of a debut novel is an experience comparable with the birth of a first child. Literary gestation is normally a longer process, and delivery of a book is more deeply fraught. Here is some evidence that the labour can be worthwhile.

Asymmetry (Granta, £14.99) by Lisa Halliday, a young American now living in Milan, is a lopsided triptych of admirable erudition and stylishness — in effect, two novellas and a short story: a Manhattan romance, an Iraqi reminiscence of the devastation of Baghdad, and a BBC interview on Desert Island Discs.

In the initial, most enjoyable episode, Alice, an assistant editor of a New York publishing house, would like to move to Europe to write. In the meantime, how-ever, as an attractive 25-year-old of advanced intelligence, she happily succumbs to the blandishments of a ‘much older’ man she recognises as Ezra Blazer, a novelist of international renown. He is charming, rich, generous and still virile.

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