By Muhammed Hashim 
Lives of the Wives by Carmela Ciuraru outlines the tempestuous relationships and careers of five literary couples: Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia, Kenneth Tynan and Elaine Dundy, Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal. I knew a bit about Kingsley Amis and Roald Dahl already, but very little about the others, and the brief portraits in ‘Lives of the Wives’ provide a solid overview of their careers. As a group biography though, I think there needed to be a more central hook that linked the couples more coherently together, or at least some analysis that’s a little more groundbreaking than the revelation that creativity and ego usually put strain on marriages.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is the Irish novelist’s fourth novel and one of the most anticipated books of the year in literary fiction. It tells the story of two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, whose father has recently died. Ivan is a socially awkward chess prodigy in his early twenties who falls in love with a divorced woman called Margaret who is 13 years older than him. Peter is a successful lawyer in his thirties who is juggling a messy relationship with college student Naomi, as well as his ex-partner Sylvia. Rooney explores her trademark theme of class status within romantic relationships with wisdom and wit in her longest novel yet. It’s hard to ignore the marketing hype that surrounds Rooney’s work these days, but I think her precise and coolly perceptive prose is a pleasure to read and it’s encouraging to see the 2017 winner of the Young Writer of the Year Award develop her career so successfully.
A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet is the third and final book in the Inspector Georges Gorski trilogy following The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau and The Accident on the A35. Set in the sleepy French town of Saint Louis, Gorski investigates a case where a woman suspects her son of plotting to kill her. As with his stand-alone novels His Bloody Project and Case Study, Burnet plays with the ambiguity of “discovered” source material with the trilogy supposedly written by Raymond Brunet who appears to be a mysterious character in his own right with the afterword revealing far more than the story itself. Burnet also defies the usual genre conventions of a thriller with a slow pace and the absence of a neat conclusion, which sounds frustrating but works well as a clever piece of meta-fiction.
Steeple Chasing by Peter Ross is just as fascinating as A Tomb With a View which I read earlier this year. Following his tour of graveyards, Ross explored Britain’s churches and cathedrals during and after lockdown, as a secular observer of their history, both architectural and social. From a remote monastery in Aberdeenshire to St Paul’s Cathedral in central London, Ross seeks out some interesting and often quirky stories about a variety of churches across the country, but the book is really about the communities who support them. The post-lockdown context of his travels allows Ross to explore the role of churches in establishing and maintaining human connection at a time when they were forced to close for several months amid a long-term decline in congregation numbers. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about bat conservation and the work of the Churches Conservation Trust which highlighted how many churches are kept open by small numbers of volunteers who are often elderly. I hadn’t expected ‘Steeple Chasing’ to be a state-of-the-nation book, but Ross’s eye for detail and sensitivity towards his subject is moving and highly engaging.