Simon Baker
Lost Souls
Self Help
By Edward Docx
Picador 523pp £16.99
Edward Docx’s second novel, Self Help, which appeared on this year’s Booker longlist, is about the Glovers, an Anglo-Russian family. Twins Gabriel and Isabella are thirty-two and, while intelligent, are trapped in unsatisfactory jobs. Isabella works in New York for a media agency, while Gabriel, based in London, edits Self-Help!, a fatuous magazine for the depressed. They are estranged from their father, Nicholas, a gifted, idle bully who inherited massively and now lives in Paris with his fine art and his catamite, Alessandro.
Following the death of their mother at her St Petersburg home, Gabriel and Isabella evaluate their lives. Isabella leaves both her job and her immature boyfriend and returns to England. Gabriel, involved in a triangular relationship and filled with hatred for Nicholas, is soon as depressed as the readership of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk