The Strangers by Naomi Alderman

This aptly titled novel might be Naomi Alderman’s strangest book yet – a work of fiction about a writer called Naomi Alderman who, after her mother’s death, discovers an odd new species in her parents’ garden. The first image ever taken of this creature is captured on a camera she set up in the garden for her father to watch the foxes. It is about the size of a badger and flat-faced, with a long trunk-like nose:

It was a mammal, going by the nipples, womb and ovaries. Its fur was thick, soft and waterproof. Its eyes were perhaps a little unusual, with a secondary inner eyelid whose purpose could not be determined. Its four feet were padded and it had three toes on each foot, each one with a long, sharp claw.

After the image is posted online, people decide to call it a ‘mimmoth’, as in a baby elephant or ‘mini mammoth’. Mimmoths soon start to proliferate in Britain and in areas where they appeared, it seems that the birth rate rises, without anyone being able to work out where they came from or why this happened.

All In by Claire Powell

Claire Powell’s first novel, At the Table (2022), delineated a year in the life of the Maguire family from south London – a separating couple and their adult children – with each chapter revolving around a meal. This was done so cleverly that not only did it not seem gimmicky, it was not even immediately obvious. The book won many plaudits, including from Philip Hensher and Marian Keyes. All In is even better. 

Jo and Dave are about to go on a trip with Dave’s investment broker brother, Teddy, Teddy’s girlfriend, Kayla, and Dave and Teddy’s father, Alan. The brothers’ mother, Val, has recently died. The holiday has been paid for by Teddy, much to Dave’s discomfort.

Jo and Dave’s marriage is at crisis point after a round of unsuccessful IVF, and she is haunted by the insistent refrain: ‘It’s over.’ She watches Dave as he waters plants one evening with noise-cancelling earphones on: ‘At one time in her life it might’ve intrigued Jo to know what was going on in Dave’s mind. She was quite jealous at the beginning, always fearful he fancied someone else, that he might leave her for a colleague or an ex. Now – 19 years in – she found she didn’t care.’

Good Good Loving by Yvvette Edwards

Ellen is at the end of her life and is frankly waiting to die while her extended family surrounds her, discussing her shortcomings:

“It felt very unfair to be so completely mentally alert while she was lying there on her hospital bed trying to await a peaceful passing. Her hearing was perfectly intact, and as a consequence she was forced to endure the never-ending discussions about the mass of her failings.”

This is the first novel from Yvvette Edwards for a decade. Her debut, A Cupboard Full of Coats (2011), longlisted for the Booker, was inspired by a friend showing her a newspaper cutting about her former partner being convicted of the murder of his next girlfriend. The Mother (2016) was about a woman whose son is murdered. The violence in this latest novel, however, is largely of the emotional kind.

Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer

Claire and Eliot have been happily married for nearly four decades. They live in a quiet town in Connecticut and take idyllic-sounding holidays in Maine. When she was diagnosed with cancer eight years ago, he retired to care for her. And yet, as Some Bright Nowhere begins and Claire decides with her oncologist that further treatment is futile, instead of seeking the solace of her seemingly devoted husband, she asks him to leave. She wants to be cared for by her friends Holly and Michelle.

Ann Packer has said that her latest novel was inspired by a true story: “It blew my mind that you could just expel your spouse because they weren’t exactly right for the job, whatever that was going to be.”

Claire’s decision seems to have been influenced by the example of a friend, Susan, who, when she was told she had only months to live, was cared for by her sisters, daughters and friends — including Claire. Claire explains to her husband: “It’s wanting A . . . rather than not wanting B.”

Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray

Madeleine Gray’s first novel Green Dot (2023) was a witty account of a messy office affair whose fans included Nigella Lawson and Gillian Anderson. Her follow up, Chosen Family, is an altogether more expansive book. She has said described it as “the result of years of thinking obsessively about two things for a long time. First, why is it that every queer person I know (including me) has a story about having an intense friendship breakup in high school that years later they realise was probably their queer root? […] Two, why do more people not choose to have children with their platonic best friends? Surely raising a child with someone you trust implicitly and don’t have sex with makes more sense than the other way round?”

The novel is set in Sydney and has a dual timeline, spanning 18 years between the school days of Eve and Nell to their adulthood and becoming parents. In 2006, Nell “does not enjoy being twelve years old. Adults around her are always telling her that she’s too smart for her age. Nell often finds it difficult to tell these adults that they are too old to be so stupid.”

On Friendship by Andrew O'Hagan

When I interviewed Andrew O’Hagan ten years ago about his Booker longlisted novel The Illuminations, the most striking thing that he said was:

Friendship is more important than almost anything. I always thought it was a sort ofdeliverance, having a good friend, that they would bring a generosity and an unprejudiced eye to your ambition, your hopes and your thoughts in a way that family can’t always do. I mean what is family but a lovable collection of prejudices, some in your favour and some not?

Although I agreed with him, I was intrigued that someone who was both a parent and a sibling would feel this way.