A missing child (the eponymous Lanny); a traumatised village; and a strange, chorus-like narration. Max Porter’s Lanny has rather a lot in common with Jon McGregor’s 2017 Costa-winning Reservoir 13, and like that book, it’s ultimately more a story of our fraught and fragile relationship to the countryside than it is a novel of plot and resolution. But the resemblance isn’t immediately obvious, because first of all Lanny feels like a Max Porter novel – or at any rate, it will do to those who read his lauded but flawed 2015 debut Grief is the Thing with Feathers.
In his new book Porter retains what was strong about its predecessor, and ditches most of the weaker parts. Like Grief, Lanny has an enticing seam of magic realism. Its central figure is Dead Papa Toothwort, a Green Man-esque manifestation who seems to have been alive as long as the village has existed, and who shifts shape as he stalks his grounds. As he stalks, he listens to the chatter of the inhabitants:
Content from our partners
