Enter the Aardvark
Jessica Anthony
Doubleday, £12.99, pp192
What begins as a topical takedown of the American political system deepens into a hugely enjoyable romp through history – and all because of a stuffed aardvark. A closeted Republican congressman illegally takes possession of said animal and as we learn of the Victorian naturalist who originally found it, the two timelines pleasingly mirror each other, broadening into tales of forbidden love and career-ending scandal. Madcap and satirical without ever being flippant, Anthony’s novel is totally unrealistic yet completely truthful.
The Dutch House
Ann Patchett
Bloomsbury, £18.99, pp352
Ann Patchett just gets better and better. Her pitch-perfect eighth novel skewers family life in small-town, 20th-century Pennsylvania. Narrator Danny Conroy grows up in the titular house with an absent mother and distant father and as an evil stepmother makes her life-changing mark on his childhood, he ponders years later whether it’s possible to “see the past as it actually was”. With more than a nod to Henry James, The Dutch House is quietly devastating, often mysterious – andrather beautiful in its effortlessly readable melancholy.
Resistance
Tori Amos
Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99, pp272
Like extensive sleeve notes in a lavish box set, Tori Amos’s second book uses songs from her back catalogue – the lyrics are transcribed at the start of each chapter – as starting points for stories of “hope, change and courage”. So Resistance is less an explanation of what her songs were about than a reflection on what they mean to her now, resulting in a tale of politics, feminism and equality. There are a few too many discussions with her muses, but Resistance reinforces Amos’s position as one of pop’s more thoughtful songwriters.
• To order Enter the Aardvark, The Dutch House or Resistance go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
