The Wren, The Wren (Jonathan Cape) is Anne Enright at her lyrical, storytelling best. A portrait of a family living with the legacy, years after his death, of the abuse and neglect of their patriarch – a famous Irish poet who enjoys the adulation and indulgence that Ireland, to its credit, heaps upon its literary heroes. It’s a story of relationships, trauma, self-discovery and the healing powers of art and nature. I also loved In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster). She uses AI to reinvent the classic police procedural and produce an innovative – as well as gripping – crime novel.
The best novel I read this year was published in Denmark over the years 1898-1904, but only made it into English in 2010. Lucky Per by Henrik Pontoppidan (Everyman), a grand, clever, wrong-footing book, begins with an ambitious young provincial escaping his punitive religious background; reaching Copenhagen, he aims for luck and happiness, but mainly fame, via an innovative piece of maritime engineering (including a freeport), which – if it works – will bring sleepy Denmark into the modern age. Ibsen and Bergman might come to the reader’s mind as Per’s quest unfolds. Pontoppidan won the Nobel in 1917; another who should have had it by now is the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare. His latest, A Dictator Calls (Harvill Secker), turns on a three-minute phone call in 1934 between Stalin and Boris Pasternak. Thirteen different versions of the exchange exist: rich material for this ever-intriguing writer.
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