BOOK OF THE WEEK
Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt
How do you write about a man – a writer – who was beloved by both you and the world?
In Ghost Stories, Siri Hustvedt recalls life with – and after – her husband Paul Auster, who died following complications from lung cancer in 2024 at the age of 77. Hustvedt and Auster had been married for 42 years. The book, writes our critic Erica Wagner, is “something of a diary, something of a meditation, something that allows a glimpse of Auster’s final and most personal work”.
Hustvedt shares “shards of recollection” of her decades with Auster, which were full of literary acclaim for the both of them, alongside “what it means when one half of a shared memory is devoured by death’s maw”. The result is a book that “deserves its place among the enduring accounts of sorrow and survival”.
WHAT TO READ NEXT
John of John by Douglas Stuart
If you, like me, were disappointed that Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart’s second novel, bore an awful lot of resemblance to his Booker prize-winning debut Shuggie Bain, fear not: his third book feels quite different.
John of John, the story of Cal, who is desperate to leave the suffocation of the deeply religious community in which he grew up, does still contain themes of “repressed sexuality, loneliness, strained son/parent relationships, the soul crushing impact of poverty”, writes Nicola Sturgeon.
But while Glasgow bore a heavy weight on Stuart’s first two novels, here we have a fresh setting: Harris, part of Scotland’s Western Isles, “a character in its own right”. This gives the novel a very different feel, as Stuart evokes the landscape, culture and traditions of the place, including everything from “the often stultifying influence of the church” to the “hand-to-mouth existence of rural life and the intricacies of crofting and tweed weaving”. All in all, Sturgeon claims, John of John “leaves Shuggie Bain in its shadow”.
The Given World by Melissa Harrison
“I didn’t want to write climate fiction,” says Melissa Harrison, the author of novels including All Among the Barley and the nature diary (and popular podcast) The Stubborn Light of Things, in her Observer interview with Stephanie Merritt. “People already know the arguments; they’re already scared – I don’t think writing a book that shows what could happen in the next 50 years is actually creating any kind of change, and it can risk being didactic.”
Instead, Harrison asserts that with her new novel, The Given World, an ensemble piece following the interconnected lives of characters living in the fictional village of Lower Eodham, “I’m more interested in bringing forward things that are in the background of people’s minds. One of the things art can do is to act like a kind of seismograph – it’s the pencil on the piece of paper that shows the movement of tectonic plates that everyone’s trying not to be aware of. The moment you’re trying to control the patterns, you’re no longer doing the job.”
ENDNOTES
Of all the political debates to have spun out in the UK over the last few years, that around Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill has been one of the most fraught. An unquestionably sensitive topic, it has split politicians across party lines, and drawn otherwise non-political thinkers into the conversation, which remains ongoing.
This week, Andrew Anthony reviews three new books arguing the case for and against the bill. What did reading them teach him? Here’s Andrew:
“Left to my own devices, my thoughts seldom turn to death. Such existential complacency becomes harder to maintain the older one gets, but it’s also a privilege. Many others don’t have a choice in the matter. In any case, the assisted dying debate didn’t initially grab my attention. If put on the spot, I would have said that I was broadly in favour, as long as there were appropriate protections and guidelines. Exactly what they should be and who should qualify for assistance were not issues that screamed out for my opinion.
“But these are vital questions that require serious thought and, ideally, compassionate and effective action. That isn’t easy when the two sides are vehemently opposed to each other’s position. My chief takeaway from reading up on the subject is that all interested parties should recognise that there are no perfect answers.”
Illustration by Charlotte Durance
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