Liar
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
Pushkin Press, £12.99, pp288
Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen has justifiably won plaudits for her two previous novels, Waking Lions and One Night, Markovitch. In Liar, Nofar, a socially awkward, unhappy teenage girl, inadvertently accuses a faded talent show star of sexually assaulting her. The police procedures and press furore create a momentum of their own and Nofar finds herself trapped in an ever greater web of deceit. Gundar-Goshen skilfully explores various dynamics of power – sexual, coercive, authoritative, familial – and portrays with great compassion and insight the humiliation, loneliness and rage of society’s outsiders. A perceptive and exquisitely observed novel, Liar should win Gundar-Goshen a wide international readership.
How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong
Elizabeth Day
Fourth Estate, £12.99, pp352
Elizabeth Day’s memoir, based on her successful podcast of the same name, tackles difficulties with friendships, relationships, work and family. The most successful chapters delve into the breakdown of her marriage, her unsuccessful attempts at IVF and her belief that the challenges we face ultimately lead to greater happiness and success: “What does it mean to fail? I think all it means is that we’re living life to its fullest.”
The Long Forgotten
David Whitehouse
Picador, £8.99, pp304
In London, a lonely call centre worker, Dove, is plagued by someone else’s memories. Delving into them, he encounters the story of Peter Manyweathers, a cleaner in New York in the 1980s whose passion for rare flowers took him on a journey around the world and through a sequence of tragedies. As Dove retraces Manyweathers’s footsteps, he uncovers both the story of the other man’s life and clues to his own identity. Interspersed with the tale of an unexplained plane crash, Whitehouse’s third novel is a highly imaginative and original story about memory, inheritance and belonging.
• To order Liar, How to Fail or The Long Forgotten go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
