Tim Parks’s new novel works on two levels: as a collection of short stories and a book-length study of a marriage. Thomas and Mary have been a couple since university and Parks looks at their marriage from a variety of angles, each time adding a new layer, complicating our understanding of how their relationship works. He hops backwards and forwards in time, from their student days to old age. Some stories are longer and more detailed, some more like snapshots, windows fleetingly lit up at night. We see them through not just each other’s eyes, but the eyes of others: their children and parents, their friends, their lovers. There’s a long, affecting section exploring Thomas’s mother’s slow death from cancer, the different faces she wears for her children as her illness takes its toll.

Taken together it’s a poignant portrait, like stained glass; a rich picture made up of all the small stories that make up a marriage, that make up a life.

Thomas and Mary: A Love Story is published by Harvill Secker (£16.99). Click here to order a copy for £12.99