The premise that love and art are the only things that make life worthwhile pulses beautifully through this novel and its two protagonists, spanning decades of their obsession with both, and each other. The tragedy is they are not sufficient alone for a relationship to survive to the exclusion of everything else (namely capitalism, which always has a place at the table), but they remain essential and enduring. Nowhere is this better evoked than here.
Think John Williams’s Stoner but with art instead of literature and stuffed with more memorable characters. In Raveheart, Graeme Armstrong confronts the twin promises of utopia and madness in a time before the internet’s colonisation of the mind, when people still dared to dream and lived to party. This book made me want to call some heads, rent a farmhouse, get a sound system and neck several pills.
In fact, I might just do that. Finally, another one for creatures of the night in all their disparate glory. Overnight by Dan Richards is more than a tribute to the people (and other critters) who operate in the hours of darkness to ensure we have everything we need – it’s a discourse on the very nature of night-time itself, and its essential relationship to our humanity.
This is a beautifully written work of startling brilliance, astonishing the reader page after page. Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). To support the Guardian, buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com.
Delivery charges may apply. I am reading The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson. My only regret is not saving this book until my late summer beach vacation, because this book is best read with sand betwixt your toes.
The story follows a group of lifelong friends in their thirties in their Massachusetts home town as they navigate marriage, parenthood, and careers. A newcomer from New York City arrives to work on what she hopes will be her big break as a writer and becomes irrevocably interwoven in the group’s complicated dynamics. It’s funny, sharp, and has me wondering as a child-free woman if many parents are self-medicating with weed on a regular basis to get through the day.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
