CULTURE CLUB
BY MONICA HEISEY REALLY GOOD ACTUALLY
29-year-old Canadian Maggie is in the throes of divorce from her partner Jon, with whom she shared a cat, an apartment and a whole heap of hopes and dreams. Having married early, she is now divorcing just as her friends are starting to pair off and have children, yet she is determined to step off life’s treadmill gracefully and become a Surprisingly Young Divorcee™. However, as anyone who has been through a divorce will know, a conscious uncoupling is a rare event indeed. This is Heisey’s first novel and her career as a TV writer (including Schitt’s Creek ) is clearly in evidence. Maggie’s tone is brilliantly deadpan and painfully self-sardonic as she wrestles with the idea that her break-up might be a personal failing – or that her marriage was doomed from the outset and could never have been fixed. During the first year following her divorce, Maggie takes tentative steps back into life and the dating pool with some success and some nightmares, while her cluster of close friends surround her with support, despite Maggie’s trauma-based bad behaviour. It is the nocturnal wondering that is so particularly brilliantly depicted, especially the chapters listing Maggie’s search history as she hunts for late-night meaning in the glowing rectangle of her phone. Really Good Actually is a funny, quick-witted, sensationally well-observed book about modern divorce and breaking down while breaking up.
BY AYÒBÁMI ADÉBÁYÒ A SPELL OF GOOD THINGS
This superb, sweeping family epic is set in modern Nigeria and follows the interwoven, yet very disparate lives of two children from opposite sides of the tracks. Newly qualified doctor Wúràolá is in the first year of life in medicine – she is her family’s pride and joy, and on the cusp of marriage to her childhood sweetheart Kúnlé. Yet his sudden and unpredictable mood changes are starting to make her pause for thought. On the other side of the narrative is Eniolá, whose despondent father is in the grip of depression after being made redundant. Eniolá, his sister Bùsólá and
his mother must work out how to pay the bills. His attendance at school is uncertain and he assists the local tailor in the hope of scraping together for the fees. Wúràolá and Eniolá both have their own hopes and dreams, but political machinations and power-hungry individuals unexpectedly shape their destinies. Before long, their lives are enmeshed in a tangled fashion. Breathtaking in scope and brilliantly descriptive; a powerful novel about family, love, the pursuit of happiness and the unseen ways our choices affect the lives of others around us.
Breathtaking in scope, brilliantly descriptive; a powerful novel
WITH ACCLAIM This pick comes from the author of the Women’s Prize and Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted novel, Stay With Me
28 MARCH 2023 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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