Greg Marnier is a Yale- and Oxford-educated historian, an academic drifter who, wanting to rejuvenate both his professional and private life, is lured back to the US by his old college friend Robert James, funding a starting-from-scratch-in-America project in Detroit. James is looking for people to move into the newly christened Jamestown and contribute to its revitalisation. Pioneer and pilgrim metaphors abound: “You don’t have to live like this. There’s a better way to live. This voice has called people to America for over four hundred years.” Although decidedly earnest and sometimes more like reportage than a novel – not least because of the vast cast of characters – Markovits’s seventh work of fiction is a considered examination of tense race relations, warning us that communities are delicate ecosystems that shouldn’t be tampered with, even by those with the best of intentions.

You Don’t Have to Live Like This is published by Faber (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £11.99