APPROVAL
John D Rutter
Saraband, £9.99
David Potter and his third wife Cici are hoping to adopt, and are going through the long bureaucratic process that assesses their suitability. Its stages include examining the applicants’ relationship history, work history, health, education and criminal records, and Rutter uses extracts from official guides to aspiring adopters to draw out relevant episodes from David’s past depicting his relationships with his ex-wives, parents and sisters, workmates and a childhood abuser. It’s a way of delving into a character’s life that’s both creative and concise, highlighting significant moments in David’s past (which might affect his parenting abilities) without reducing them to bullet-points, and Rutter’s focused approach is reflected in Approval’s modest page count. A worthy winner of last year’s NorthBound Book Award, it’s an emotionally engaging sequence of vignettes in which David’s discomfort at being scrutinised collides with the couple’s profound desire to become parents, and involved readers can’t resist reaching their own conclusions.
WAITING FOR THE WATERS TO RISE
Maryse Condé
World Editions, £12.99
Born in Mali but now living in Guadeloupe, lonely doctor Babakar Traoré is called to help Reinette, an undocumented Haitian immigrant, give birth. Reinette dies, and Babakar, who knows the pain of losing a wife and child, adopts the baby, naming her Anaïs. Following Reinette’s wishes, he flies to Haiti with her compatriot Movar to try to find Anaïs’s family, where they befriend Faoud, a Palestinian, and set off on their quest, trying to negotiate their way through the strange country around them. Though Babakar remains the central focus, we explore the backstories of his companions and the experiences of upheaval, migration and loss that bind the trio together, as Condé casts a jaundiced, satirical eye over the state into which Haiti has fallen. Translated from the French, it’s a rich and ambitious novel, rejoicing in diversity while drawing you into the lives of its displaced and uprooted characters.
SOMEWHERE BECOMING RAIN
Clive James
Picador, £9.99
Fittingly, given his lifelong admiration for Philip Larkin, compiling this book was one of the last things Clive James did. It collects his various writings on the poet across five decades, including reviews of Larkin’s own books and of works about him, like Tom Courtenay’s play Pretending to be Me, and even a couple of James’s own poetic tributes. In these pieces, he takes up arms against the poet’s detractors, particularly after the publication of his letters and two biographies had exposed some of his less admirable facets. The world is a poorer place for Clive James’s passing, and his genuine fascination and active engagement with Larkin’s poetry brings out his best qualities as a critic. Charting his evolving relationship with the work, this collection showcases his restless curiosity, erudite wit, a knack for approaching a subject from an offbeat, personal angle and the rhythmically mesmerising prose for which he was justly famed.
ALASTAIR MABBOTT
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