6 days ago
Hard-hitting Debuts to start this summer: The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne, Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie, Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne (Fleet £20, 416pp)
I raced through this multi- generational, magical realist story about the Devil trying to get back into the good books of the Almighty using members of a black family.
Yetunde is the first to be visited by the Devil, when she wakes up surrounded by dead bodies on a slave ship from Africa towards a hellish life in captivity in America.
The Devil offers Yetunde salvation in return for an eternal bargain, which forms the basis for the various stories of eight generations of Yetunde's family over the next century and a half.
At pivotal moments, each protagonist is visited by the Devil and offered a desperate choice. From slavery through to modern racism, each generation's pain incorporates that of the previous. Compelling.
Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie (The Borough Press £16.99, 320pp)
Narrator Sophie is a junior culture writer for a national newspaper covering the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
It's business as usual with lots of parties and little sleep until Sophie's theatre critic colleague and festival flatmate, Alex Lyons, becomes embroiled in a scandal.
Alex is known for his one-star, brutal reviews and dashes off an eviscerating takedown of comedian Hayley's one-woman show. Alex then meets Hayley in a bar and sleeps with her, barely considering the words about to hit the newsstand.
Hayley channels her rage into a new show about what a disgusting person Alex is. It's a smash hit, and the aftermath is life-ruining for Alex.
Beautifully written and brilliant on trolling, nepotism and misogyny. I loved it.
Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin (Summit Books £16.99, 320pp)
Protagonist Smith is a black, queer, handsome Stanford graduate.
His elegant existence is destroyed when he is caught taking cocaine outside a fashionable nightspot. His family and wealthy friends are horrified when he is pulled into the court system.
Since Smith's best friend Elle – the daughter of a famous soul singer – was recently found dead, people have been cutting him some slack around his drunken bad behaviour, but an arrest is a step too far for his parents.
Smith learns the hard way that although his class protects him from certain things, his race often creates harsher consequences.
Gripping.
