Blake Morrison’s 2010 novel The Last Weekend starts out as a carefree catch-up between two couples at a country house on a sunny bank holiday. When the narrative homes in and centres on the two men, storm clouds gather. Past differences and petty rivalries rear their ugly heads, souring the atmosphere and threatening the friendship. ‘You know how it is with friends,’ the book’s narrator says at the outset, ‘the closer you get, the less you see them for what they are.’

Eight years on and Morrison’s latest novel, The Executor, also revolves around two male friends and examines that same distortion. This time the main players are friends with less calculated agendas. The tension comes not from backbiting and score-settling, but arise from a range of literary sources: lost-and-found manuscripts,