Summer is here and Zed contributors are fully immersed. In this roundup, we set out with Dan Rubinstein on his paddleboard adventure and dive into Robert Macfarlane’s treatise on the rights of rivers. Edward St. Aubyn – of Patrick Melrose fame – is back with a witty new novel and one reviewer says S.A. Cosby’s latest is his best. And for all you aspiring writers out there, you’ll want to wade into agent Kate McKean’s guide to publishing.
S.A. Cosby, 2024. Photo: Sophie Bassouls/Getty Images
Hot Reads For the Summer
1Water Borne: A 1200-Mile Paddleboarding Pilgrimageby Dan RubinsteinHome Base: Ottawa
Author’s take: “Blue space has this capacity to connect people. It makes us feel good. It slows us down. And because of the dangers of water, we tend to watch out for one another when we’re around water. It helps people see one another as fellow human beings. And that’s something in short supply these days.”
Favourite lines: “Water covers more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface. It’s also about 60 per cent of the average human adult’s body weight. Water doesn’t just demarcate a decent portion of who and where we are; it’s the majority of who and where we are.”
Review: Canadian journalist Dan Rubinstein loves water. More precisely, he loves what time spent in the “blue space” – the aquatic counterpart to green space – does for himself and others he observes: emancipating mind and body, fostering camaraderie, promoting oneness with nature. Rubinstein would know. Over the course of 11 weeks in the summer of 2023, he went from Ottawa to New York City, stopping at many points in between via the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, Hudson and Niagara Rivers, Lake Ontario, the Erie Canal and beyond, completing a 1,200-mile circuit on an inflatable standup paddleboard. Alone. Along the way, while watching fish below and sky above, he pondered history, sociology, science and life itself, and from that unique perspective penned a book that is part travelogue, part memoir – and charming from stem to stern. Like Paul Theroux’s kayak adventures but more approachable – and decidedly less grouchy – Rubinstein’s journey ignites the imagination. And while readers may be loath to mimic his quest, it sure is fun riding side-saddle (side-paddle?) through waterways seldom explored outside a boat. —Kim Hughes
Home Base: Ottawa
Author’s take: “Blue space has this capacity to connect people. It makes us feel good. It slows us down. And because of the dangers of water, we tend to watch out for one another when we’re around water. It helps people see one another as fellow human beings. And that’s something in short supply these days.”
Favourite lines: “Water covers more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface. It’s also about 60 per cent of the average human adult’s body weight. Water doesn’t just demarcate a decent portion of who and where we are; it’s the majority of who and where we are.”
Review: Canadian journalist Dan Rubinstein loves water. More precisely, he loves what time spent in the “blue space” – the aquatic counterpart to green space – does for himself and others he observes: emancipating mind and body, fostering camaraderie, promoting oneness with nature. Rubinstein would know. Over the course of 11 weeks in the summer of 2023, he went from Ottawa to New York City, stopping at many points in between via the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, Hudson and Niagara Rivers, Lake Ontario, the Erie Canal and beyond, completing a 1,200-mile circuit on an inflatable standup paddleboard. Alone. Along the way, while watching fish below and sky above, he pondered history, sociology, science and life itself, and from that unique perspective penned a book that is part travelogue, part memoir – and charming from stem to stern. Like Paul Theroux’s kayak adventures but more approachable – and decidedly less grouchy – Rubinstein’s journey ignites the imagination. And while readers may be loath to mimic his quest, it sure is fun riding side-saddle (side-paddle?) through waterways seldom explored outside a boat. —Kim Hughes
2WHO KNEWby Barry DillerHome Base: New York City
Author’s take: “I wanted to tell the story. And I knew if I told the story, I had to tell the truth.”
Favourite lines: “Serendipity, my lifelong lodestar, had made its first appearance.”
Review: Barry Diller has led a technicolour life, and he candidly maps every inch of it in this dishy memoir. Even if Diller’s name isn’t familiar, his influential media work has reached you. Diller created the Movie of the Week at ABC. At Paramount Pictures, he oversaw classics including (but not limited to) Saturday Night Fever, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds and Grease. Later TV credits include The Simpsons and Married… with Children. Who Knew is no less blockbuster as Diller, 83, recounts the excruciating difficulty of being gay and high-profile in the mid-to-late 20th century before he swapped teams for his soulmate and now-wife Diane von Fürstenberg, she of the famous wrap dress. The memoir pulls no punches as Diller chronicles behind-the-scenes skirmishes with bold-face names like George Lucas (“a sanctimonious hypocrite”), wildly fruitful collaborations with John Travolta and Warren Beatty, as well as more personal details, such as how his affair with Johnny Carson’s stepson (who died of AIDS), his older brother’s cruelty, and his mother’s ambivalence, tinted his worldview. Salacious and searing, Who Knew offers an unparalleled window into Hollywood and the singular, often conflicted man who altered its course forever. —KH
Home Base: New York City
Author’s take: “I wanted to tell the story. And I knew if I told the story, I had to tell the truth.”
Favourite lines: “Serendipity, my lifelong lodestar, had made its first appearance.”
Review: Barry Diller has led a technicolour life, and he candidly maps every inch of it in this dishy memoir. Even if Diller’s name isn’t familiar, his influential media work has reached you. Diller created the Movie of the Week at ABC. At Paramount Pictures, he oversaw classics including (but not limited to) Saturday Night Fever, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds and Grease. Later TV credits include The Simpsons and Married… with Children. Who Knew is no less blockbuster as Diller, 83, recounts the excruciating difficulty of being gay and high-profile in the mid-to-late 20th century before he swapped teams for his soulmate and now-wife Diane von Fürstenberg, she of the famous wrap dress. The memoir pulls no punches as Diller chronicles behind-the-scenes skirmishes with bold-face names like George Lucas (“a sanctimonious hypocrite”), wildly fruitful collaborations with John Travolta and Warren Beatty, as well as more personal details, such as how his affair with Johnny Carson’s stepson (who died of AIDS), his older brother’s cruelty, and his mother’s ambivalence, tinted his worldview. Salacious and searing, Who Knew offers an unparalleled window into Hollywood and the singular, often conflicted man who altered its course forever. —KH
3IS A RIVER ALIVE?by Robert MacfarlaneHome Base: Cambridge, England
Author’s take: “At the heart of the book is the idea that rivers have lives, deaths and even rights. It asks readers to imagine rivers in these terms, and to see what consequences flow from that re-imagining. The book is a journey into the history, futures, places and possibilities of this ancient, urgent idea.”
Favourite lines: “It is normalized that a corporation, in the eyes of the law, is an entity with legal standing and a suite of rights, including the right to sue – but that a river who has flowed for thousands of years has no rights at all.”
Review: Robert Macfarlane has been aptly described as “a nature writer in the broadest sense,” having authored award-winning bestsellers on everything from the British wilderness (The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot) to its linguistic and literary terrain (Landmarks). He is very sharp and wholly committed to his endeavours. And when he dials down the ornate language and esoteric references, Macfarlane is also very persuasive in showing how Earth’s natural resplendence must be conceptually and legally reframed to be protected against destructive, cash-driven forces. Part environmental polemic and part travelogue, Is A River Alive? offers deep dives into three exquisite but endangered areas in Ecuador, India and Canada. Macfarlane’s journeys include passionate co-stars who bring each destination alive, often thrillingly so. And when he nails a turn of phrase – “The day burns itself down. Dusk furs the forest” – Macfarlane powerfully conjures our kaleidoscopic realms, illustrating all that is at stake. —KH
Home Base: Cambridge, England
Author’s take: “At the heart of the book is the idea that rivers have lives, deaths and even rights. It asks readers to imagine rivers in these terms, and to see what consequences flow from that re-imagining. The book is a journey into the history, futures, places and possibilities of this ancient, urgent idea.”
Favourite lines: “It is normalized that a corporation, in the eyes of the law, is an entity with legal standing and a suite of rights, including the right to sue – but that a river who has flowed for thousands of years has no rights at all.”
Review: Robert Macfarlane has been aptly described as “a nature writer in the broadest sense,” having authored award-winning bestsellers on everything from the British wilderness (The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot) to its linguistic and literary terrain (Landmarks). He is very sharp and wholly committed to his endeavours. And when he dials down the ornate language and esoteric references, Macfarlane is also very persuasive in showing how Earth’s natural resplendence must be conceptually and legally reframed to be protected against destructive, cash-driven forces. Part environmental polemic and part travelogue, Is A River Alive? offers deep dives into three exquisite but endangered areas in Ecuador, India and Canada. Macfarlane’s journeys include passionate co-stars who bring each destination alive, often thrillingly so. And when he nails a turn of phrase – “The day burns itself down. Dusk furs the forest” – Macfarlane powerfully conjures our kaleidoscopic realms, illustrating all that is at stake. —KH
4Never Flinchby Stephen KingHome Base: Maine & Florida
Author’s Take:
“Holly has become a part of my life. I’m always interested in what’s going on with her.”
Favourite Line: “Holly likes to believe the best of people, and does believe there’s good in just about everyone, but her time at Finders Keepers has also taught her that just about everyone has a shitty streak.”
Review:
By now, it’s clear: Stephen King has fallen in love with Holly Gibney. As he says in an NPR interview, “She just walked on in the first book she was in, Mr. Mercedes, and she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” As of this spring, with the publication of Never Flinch, Gibney has now appeared in seven King books, only one title away from matching the eight books featuring current appearance leader, Roland, the last gunslinger. (No, I’m not going to get into the many possible appearances of Randall Flagg in his various guises. Well, not here. That’s day-drinking talk.)
And King is not alone in that affection. When we first met Holly, she was a sheltered, awkward, shy character with a set of previously unremarked gifts, including keen observational skills and a knack for putting together clues and solving puzzles. Over the course of her appearances, Holly has grown and developed, finding a community, a calling and a respect for herself and her own disarming quirks. It’s been a wonderful journey to follow.
Never Flinch finds Holly on her own at the helm of Finders Keepers, the detective agency she started with Bill Hodges. Following her encounter with the cannibalistic retirees in 2023’s Holly, she is primarily working on the low-key bread-and-butter cases (insurance work, primarily) which keep such agencies afloat until she is asked to handle security for Kate McKay, a “radical” feminist who has been threatened and attacked while on a national tour. Meanwhile, a serial killer is taunting the police, promising he “will kill 13 innocents and 1 guilty” as punishment for the death of an innocent man. The two interweaving storylines are narratively compelling, but the real pleasure here is getting to spend more time with Holly; she’s one of King’s most fully-rounded, most achingly human characters, and one has the sense that she is really just coming into her own. —Robert Wiersema
Home Base: Maine & Florida
Author’s Take:
“Holly has become a part of my life. I’m always interested in what’s going on with her.”
Favourite Line: “Holly likes to believe the best of people, and does believe there’s good in just about everyone, but her time at Finders Keepers has also taught her that just about everyone has a shitty streak.”
Review:
By now, it’s clear: Stephen King has fallen in love with Holly Gibney. As he says in an NPR interview, “She just walked on in the first book she was in, Mr. Mercedes, and she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” As of this spring, with the publication of Never Flinch, Gibney has now appeared in seven King books, only one title away from matching the eight books featuring current appearance leader, Roland, the last gunslinger. (No, I’m not going to get into the many possible appearances of Randall Flagg in his various guises. Well, not here. That’s day-drinking talk.)
And King is not alone in that affection. When we first met Holly, she was a sheltered, awkward, shy character with a set of previously unremarked gifts, including keen observational skills and a knack for putting together clues and solving puzzles. Over the course of her appearances, Holly has grown and developed, finding a community, a calling and a respect for herself and her own disarming quirks. It’s been a wonderful journey to follow.
Never Flinch finds Holly on her own at the helm of Finders Keepers, the detective agency she started with Bill Hodges. Following her encounter with the cannibalistic retirees in 2023’s Holly, she is primarily working on the low-key bread-and-butter cases (insurance work, primarily) which keep such agencies afloat until she is asked to handle security for Kate McKay, a “radical” feminist who has been threatened and attacked while on a national tour. Meanwhile, a serial killer is taunting the police, promising he “will kill 13 innocents and 1 guilty” as punishment for the death of an innocent man. The two interweaving storylines are narratively compelling, but the real pleasure here is getting to spend more time with Holly; she’s one of King’s most fully-rounded, most achingly human characters, and one has the sense that she is really just coming into her own. —Robert Wiersema
5Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life by Kate McKeanHome Base: Brooklyn, New York
Author’s Take: “The point is to tell all the secrets! The secrets aren’t actually that secret, or interesting. The more people know about the publishing industry, the better they can navigate it, and the better books we get.”
Favourite Line: “Writing is a very solitary experience, but writers are never alone in how that writing feels. With this book, you’re not alone, either. So, is it normal? Yes. Whatever it is, someone’s probably experienced it too.”
Review:
Broadly speaking, many unpublished writers fall into two camps when it comes to the publication process and the publishing industry. The first camp believes that everything will be alright, that their book will find a home (perhaps by magic), it will sell three million copies (and spawn a blockbuster film franchise) and they will fill their new swimming pool with hundred dollar bills. The other camp has a virulent animosity toward the process and the industry, and will rage – with no prompting – against gatekeepers, stacked decks and nepotism. Neither of these perspectives, of course, are valid or helpful, but they both come from the same place: a lack of knowledge about how the industry works, and how it can work for them.
Kate McKean’s Write Through It is the guidebook these writers – honestly, all writers – have been waiting for. McKean has two sets of bona fides: first, and perhaps most importantly, she has spent the last two decades working as a literary agent, but, second, as she reveals in her introduction, she is also a struggling writer, with several unpublished manuscripts under her belt. The combination of these two viewpoints is key to the success of Write Through It: McKean knows how the publishing world looks from a writer’s perspective, and she is able to explain, clarify and comfort from the other side of the divide.
The book follows the process from the beginning: there’s a chapter on finishing your first draft, but McKean focuses on a nuts-and-bolts breakdown of what follows, from self-editing to finding an agent to reading a book contract to working with a publisher. Write Through It is an essential book for anyone seeking publication today; imagine it as the opportunity to sit down with an agent and ask her all the questions you might have about getting your book out into the world. —RW
Home Base: Brooklyn, New York
Author’s Take: “The point is to tell all the secrets! The secrets aren’t actually that secret, or interesting. The more people know about the publishing industry, the better they can navigate it, and the better books we get.”
Favourite Line: “Writing is a very solitary experience, but writers are never alone in how that writing feels. With this book, you’re not alone, either. So, is it normal? Yes. Whatever it is, someone’s probably experienced it too.”
Review:
Broadly speaking, many unpublished writers fall into two camps when it comes to the publication process and the publishing industry. The first camp believes that everything will be alright, that their book will find a home (perhaps by magic), it will sell three million copies (and spawn a blockbuster film franchise) and they will fill their new swimming pool with hundred dollar bills. The other camp has a virulent animosity toward the process and the industry, and will rage – with no prompting – against gatekeepers, stacked decks and nepotism. Neither of these perspectives, of course, are valid or helpful, but they both come from the same place: a lack of knowledge about how the industry works, and how it can work for them.
Kate McKean’s Write Through It is the guidebook these writers – honestly, all writers – have been waiting for. McKean has two sets of bona fides: first, and perhaps most importantly, she has spent the last two decades working as a literary agent, but, second, as she reveals in her introduction, she is also a struggling writer, with several unpublished manuscripts under her belt. The combination of these two viewpoints is key to the success of Write Through It: McKean knows how the publishing world looks from a writer’s perspective, and she is able to explain, clarify and comfort from the other side of the divide.
The book follows the process from the beginning: there’s a chapter on finishing your first draft, but McKean focuses on a nuts-and-bolts breakdown of what follows, from self-editing to finding an agent to reading a book contract to working with a publisher. Write Through It is an essential book for anyone seeking publication today; imagine it as the opportunity to sit down with an agent and ask her all the questions you might have about getting your book out into the world. —RW
6King of Ashesby S.A. CosbyHome Base: Gloucester, Virginia
Author’s Take: “Crime fiction is a wonderful prism to talk about things that are important, including the bonds of family, the relationships of siblings. You talk about poverty, race, masculinity, tragic and toxic masculinity. For me, crime fiction is the gospel of the dispossessed, so I use it as a way to talk about things that are important to me.”
Favourite Line: “This ain’t one of them plays Mama used to watch on DVD where the big brother rolls into town and fixes everything, then at the end we all have a big cookout.”
Review:
Holy hell.
Southern noir writer S.A. Cosby’s star has been on a sharp rise since the publication of his second novel, Blacktop Wasteland, in 2020. That novel was a bestseller, and won the Anthony (the Los Angeles Times Book Award) and the International Thriller Writers Award. His next two novels, Razorblade Tears (2021) and All the Sinners Bleed (2023) built on that success and solidified Cosby’s reputation as one of the finest American crime writers at work today. As impressive as those books are – and they are very impressive – they seem to pale in comparison to Cosby’s new book, King of Ashes.
Inspired by Shakespeare and The Godfather, it’s the story of the Carruthers family – or what’s left of it. The book begins with eldest son Roman, an Atlanta-based financial advisor with A-list clients and a certain moral flexibility, receiving a call from his sister Neveah. Their father is in a coma following a car accident. Roman returns home – to Jefferson Run, Virginia – where he learns that his father’s accident may not have been an accident and may be related to the fact that youngest sibling Dante is in over his head with the gang that controls their small Southern city. Roman – confident in his skills and his big-city ways – tries to help Dante, and finds himself violently swept up in the criminal demimonde, offering his financial prowess and the use of the family business: a crematorium, which Neveah grudgingly runs.
Complicating the situation is the unsolved disappearance of the siblings’ mother two decades earlier. The suspicion around Jefferson Run is that their father killed her, after discovering she was having an affair and disposed of her remains in the crematorium. As Dante and Roman fight to free themselves from the Black Baron Boys (headed by truly terrifying brothers Torrent and Tranquil), Neveah begins her own investigation into her mother’s disappearance.
The first three quarters of King of Ashes is a great read – a powerfully immersive crime thriller with propulsive action and frequent, often brutal violence (consider yourself warned). In its last quarter, though, Cosby and the novel find a higher gear, and King of Ashes becomes violently transcendent. With its final pages, it’s clear: S.A. Cosby isn’t just one of the best American crime writers at work today, he’s one of the finest contemporary American writers, sui generis, full stop. Yes, he’s that good. —RW
Home Base: Gloucester, Virginia
Author’s Take: “Crime fiction is a wonderful prism to talk about things that are important, including the bonds of family, the relationships of siblings. You talk about poverty, race, masculinity, tragic and toxic masculinity. For me, crime fiction is the gospel of the dispossessed, so I use it as a way to talk about things that are important to me.”
Favourite Line: “This ain’t one of them plays Mama used to watch on DVD where the big brother rolls into town and fixes everything, then at the end we all have a big cookout.”
Review:
Holy hell.
Southern noir writer S.A. Cosby’s star has been on a sharp rise since the publication of his second novel, Blacktop Wasteland, in 2020. That novel was a bestseller, and won the Anthony (the Los Angeles Times Book Award) and the International Thriller Writers Award. His next two novels, Razorblade Tears (2021) and All the Sinners Bleed (2023) built on that success and solidified Cosby’s reputation as one of the finest American crime writers at work today. As impressive as those books are – and they are very impressive – they seem to pale in comparison to Cosby’s new book, King of Ashes.
Inspired by Shakespeare and The Godfather, it’s the story of the Carruthers family – or what’s left of it. The book begins with eldest son Roman, an Atlanta-based financial advisor with A-list clients and a certain moral flexibility, receiving a call from his sister Neveah. Their father is in a coma following a car accident. Roman returns home – to Jefferson Run, Virginia – where he learns that his father’s accident may not have been an accident and may be related to the fact that youngest sibling Dante is in over his head with the gang that controls their small Southern city. Roman – confident in his skills and his big-city ways – tries to help Dante, and finds himself violently swept up in the criminal demimonde, offering his financial prowess and the use of the family business: a crematorium, which Neveah grudgingly runs.
Complicating the situation is the unsolved disappearance of the siblings’ mother two decades earlier. The suspicion around Jefferson Run is that their father killed her, after discovering she was having an affair and disposed of her remains in the crematorium. As Dante and Roman fight to free themselves from the Black Baron Boys (headed by truly terrifying brothers Torrent and Tranquil), Neveah begins her own investigation into her mother’s disappearance.
The first three quarters of King of Ashes is a great read – a powerfully immersive crime thriller with propulsive action and frequent, often brutal violence (consider yourself warned). In its last quarter, though, Cosby and the novel find a higher gear, and King of Ashes becomes violently transcendent. With its final pages, it’s clear: S.A. Cosby isn’t just one of the best American crime writers at work today, he’s one of the finest contemporary American writers, sui generis, full stop. Yes, he’s that good. —RW
7Parallel Linesby Edward St. AubynHome Base: London, England
Author’s Take: “It’s asking the question, metaphorically, whether all these things we divide, mind and body, and human and animal, whether they need to be divided. We live in such a divided society, we’re so at war with each other, within ourselves. What is the common ground? And that’s the metaphoric engine behind this book.”
Favourite Lines: “But a feeling is just a feeling. It is like the shadow of a cloud; we don’t have to pay so much attention to it.”
Review
Edward St. Aubyn’s latest tackles serious subjects without taking itself all that seriously. Here, the author – best known for his Patrick Melrose novels, which were turned into a TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch – explores mental health, world catastrophes and caregiver fatigue but through characters who keep themselves from succumbing to the direness of what’s at hand. The parallel players include a pair of twins separated at birth who accidentally find each other; a patient navigating a move out of the psych ward and back into society; a billionaire venture capitalist obsessed with (real life) light and space installation artist James Turrell; and a woman in the throes of experimental cancer treatments. With St. Aubyn’s witty, fast-paced way of tackling deep subjects with a light touch, the novel is akin to a substantially narrative pop song (the kind Dylan or Springsteen might write), which may be due to the fact that the author wrote it at Mick Jagger’s house (and then dedicated the novel to the Stones front man). St. Aubyn runs in these kinds of celebrity circles, Cumberbatch narrates his audio books, and his publicity tour includes a stop by his pal Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, where they recently discussed meeting at Lorne Michael’s 80th birthday party. The characters in Parallel Lines also make fascinating party guests. In fact, the climax takes place at a soiree where all the characters’ secret connections are to be revealed. Knowing it was coming, this reader had to put the book down and take a few breaths to prepare – it was exhilarating. One heads’ up before diving in: though it isn’t being marketed as a sequel, Parallel Lines does share the same characters – and advance their stories – as St. Aubyn’s last novel, Double Blind (2021) – which might be a good place to start. There were certainly times when it seemed like readers should know more about these characters’ backgrounds and dynamics than we actually do. —Shanda Deziel
Home Base: London, England
Author’s Take: “It’s asking the question, metaphorically, whether all these things we divide, mind and body, and human and animal, whether they need to be divided. We live in such a divided society, we’re so at war with each other, within ourselves. What is the common ground? And that’s the metaphoric engine behind this book.”
Favourite Lines: “But a feeling is just a feeling. It is like the shadow of a cloud; we don’t have to pay so much attention to it.”
Review
Edward St. Aubyn’s latest tackles serious subjects without taking itself all that seriously. Here, the author – best known for his Patrick Melrose novels, which were turned into a TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch – explores mental health, world catastrophes and caregiver fatigue but through characters who keep themselves from succumbing to the direness of what’s at hand. The parallel players include a pair of twins separated at birth who accidentally find each other; a patient navigating a move out of the psych ward and back into society; a billionaire venture capitalist obsessed with (real life) light and space installation artist James Turrell; and a woman in the throes of experimental cancer treatments. With St. Aubyn’s witty, fast-paced way of tackling deep subjects with a light touch, the novel is akin to a substantially narrative pop song (the kind Dylan or Springsteen might write), which may be due to the fact that the author wrote it at Mick Jagger’s house (and then dedicated the novel to the Stones front man). St. Aubyn runs in these kinds of celebrity circles, Cumberbatch narrates his audio books, and his publicity tour includes a stop by his pal Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, where they recently discussed meeting at Lorne Michael’s 80th birthday party. The characters in Parallel Lines also make fascinating party guests. In fact, the climax takes place at a soiree where all the characters’ secret connections are to be revealed. Knowing it was coming, this reader had to put the book down and take a few breaths to prepare – it was exhilarating. One heads’ up before diving in: though it isn’t being marketed as a sequel, Parallel Lines does share the same characters – and advance their stories – as St. Aubyn’s last novel, Double Blind (2021) – which might be a good place to start. There were certainly times when it seemed like readers should know more about these characters’ backgrounds and dynamics than we actually do. —Shanda Deziel
