THE BEST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO A CROISSANT By Pablo Tusset (Canongate, £10.99)
SUMMER OF THE CICADA By Will Napier (Jonathan Cape, £10.99)
Pablo Mirrales is the antithesis of a habitual hero. Overweight, spliff smoking, croissant guzzling, and addicted to philosophy chat rooms on the Internet, he may nonetheless be easier to identify with than your typical protagonist. Pablo is by all accounts the ‘black sheep’ of his wealthy Barcelona-based family. Happy to live in a grotty rented flat and spend his time in bars, he lets his brother ‘The First’ take care of the family business.
In fact, Pablo has detached himself as far as possible from his bourgeois upbringing, and is quite comfortable with being labelled a ‘failure’ by his parents. That is, until ‘The First’ disappears in suspicious circumstances and Pablo finds himself forced to hold the family and business together whilst trying to find his brother. ‘The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant’ starts off as a seemingly light-hearted comedy (reminiscent of the TV series ‘Spaced’) yet turns into a dark psychological thriller within chapters. However, the unravelling of the narrative is so clever and well paced that at no point does the story seem disjointed. Tusset’s writing is gripping and funny, even when things turn nasty for our anti-hero. This, his first offering, was a bestseller in his native Spain, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it –deservedly- enjoyed similar success in our parts.
'Summer of the Cicada' is also a first novel. That, however, is as far as the similarities go. Indeed, humour is not something that Napier indulges in, favouring instead a dark and gritty realism. The opening chapter is a graphic depiction of young Joseph Pullman being viciously beaten by his father. The scene is narrated by the boy himself, making it disturbing reading from the outset. And frankly, things only get worse. Napier’s style, and to some extent subject matter can be compared to that of Ian Banks and Irvine Welsh. Compelling as the story is, the unremitting violence and sadness can become grating and I found myself reaching for the first of this week’s books for some well needed cheering up.
Article comments
1 - Bennett Dawson
Great review. I'll be on the lookout for the book. Thanks!