The Other Girl by Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions, £8.99)
Rather than seeing Ernaux’s books as separate texts, it’s perhaps more useful to think of them as aspects of the same, long work; that of recording the truth of her own existence. Her life, in its situational and temporal specificity, has become a masterful telling of life, generally (hence, Ernaux’s being awarded the Nobel in 2022). Her oeuvre is a kind of Synecdoche, France, only with less Philip Seymour Hoffman and more sex. The Other Girl, published in France in 2011, focuses on the existence of Ernaux’s sister, Ginette, who died of diphtheria at six, and whom Ernaux herself was conceived to replace. Herein, Ernaux considers questions of accident and fate, and the silences that live within families. A typically stunning addition, worth lingering over. Lucy Sweeney Byrne
Big Time by Jordan Prosser (Dead Ink Books, £10.99)
In the near future, the autocratic Federal Republic of Australia (FREA) has built a wall and cut Australia in half. Julian Ferryman saw it coming. In Prosser’s novel, Big Time, a drug, “F”, enables users like Ferryman to see the future. He’s returning to FREA with his band. It’s a question of how Ferryman will use F’s power to censoriously tour FREA. Fuelled by Prosser’s exuberant imagination, it’s a wild ride of vivid prophecies and outrageous coincidences. The pace is unrelenting even if Prosser’s prose is a little unwieldy at times. When he slows down, like in idler moments of life on the road, we really see a doomed world of ecological devastation and displaced communities. There’s a vision to fill you with dread. Liam Bishop
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Camarade by Theo Dorgan (Mercier Press, €16.99)
“All things considered, I wonder if shooting that policeman made me the man that I am?” The celebrated poet launches this philosophical thriller with the question that underpins it. Destiny, choice or chance, what are the forces that shape us? Told in a dual timeline, Dorgan has constructed a stylish character study that follows Joseph, an orphaned young Cork man, exiled to France. Fed on his grandfather’s stories of resistance and the flying column, Joseph finds comradeship in the causes of Paris 1968 student protests and the Algerian crisis. Our solitary protagonist is an outsider looking in, and an outsider looking back with legacy occupying his thoughts, grief his soul, and good men his company. Dorgan’s sophomore novel displays a breadth of vision, wisdom and authority of craft awarded to artists approaching the winter of life. Brigid O’Dea
