Books of the Year 2025 Part 1

TonyInterrupter by Nicola Barker

Nicolas Barker’s fourteenth novel (but her first since 2019) continues to give the impression that she writes exactly what she likes with little care for literary fashion – and, appropriately enough, it is a celebration of non-conformity which begins with the interruption of a jazz concert: “Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?” The interruption is filmed, as is the angry response of band member Sasha who labels the offender as a “small-town TonyInterrupter”, a sobriquet which soon becomes a viral hashtag. Art about authenticity has never been less serious since Wilde as the initial incident ricochets around various band and audience members in a prose style which is deliberately divergent to the point that even the author feels compelled to comment, “This is a dreadful waste of time. It’s silly.” Silly or not, Barker manages to make us care about her characters as we laugh at them.

The Lowlife by Alexander Baron

Alexander Baron’s The Lowlife, originally published in 1963, would have claim to be the rediscovery of the year if not for the fact that it has been rediscovered (more than once) before.  No matter – it well deserves its latest round of enthusiastic readers. Grounded by its incredible sense of place – London, towards the end of the fifties – its irregular protagonist, Harryboy, is the kind of character who might carry any novel, a chancer intent on not taking his chances, averse to settling down or standing still, whose natural instinct to avoid entanglement is unwillingly undermined by a child, the son of new neighbours in the building where he stays. The parents could not be more ordinary, a lonely father and unaffectionate mother.  Apparently proud to be a lowlife, Harry regards himself as such not for his carefree lifestyle but because of a wartime regret he cannot forget. A novel which refuses to die because it feels so alive.

The Fate of Mary Rose by Caroline Blackwood

Another rediscovered novel, though from the more recent 1981 (still over forty years ago!) is Caroline Blackwood’s The Fate of Mary Rose. Blackwood takes the trappings of a crime novel and twists it into something that is both difficult to look at yet impossible to take your eyes off. As is usually the case with this author, everyone is awful, from the narrator, Rowan, a historian with a predilection for using women, to his maniacally protective wife, Cressida, who, following a local murder, refuses to let her daughter (Mary Rose) out of her sight. Rather than her daughter’s safety, her obsession is with the murder itself as she insists Mary Rose memorises all the details and attends the funeral. Rowan meanwhile is aware of his wife’s deteriorating mental state but blind to any responsibility he might bear for it despite spending most of his time in London with his mistress. Most impressively, Blackwood manages a tour de force ending which will leave you gasping.

Dreaming of Dead People by Rosalind Belben

Anything Blackwood can do, Rosalind Belben can do darker. Where we might think we hear the former cackling wickedly in the background, Belben’s laughter is a more uncomfortable experience. Dreaming of Dead People was published two years earlier than The Fate of Mary Rose, the last of four novels she published in the 1970s. Written in six sections (“I visualized the arrangement of these chapters to echo the compartments of a biography”) the  novel reflects on a life at the midway point touching on Belben’s childlessness and her relationship with animals through a character called Lavinia. Belben is what one might refer to as an acquired taste, a moving section relating her relationship with a particular dog sitting alongside an extended essay on masturbation with an electric toothbrush. If that is not variety enough, one chapter is interspersed with middle-English songs. Behind all this, however, is a desire for unflinching truth from a writer who does genuinely seem fearless.

The Story of the Stone by James Kelman

James Kelman has the unusual distinction of being both a strong candidate for the UK’s greatest living writer and without a publisher in his own country. Luckily the small American publisher, PM Press, have stepped in, releasing a new novel, collections of essays and short stories, and a book of interviews in the last few years. This year saw the publication of The Story of the Stone which collects Kelman’s shortest stories, a genre he excels at. It contains 96 pieces ranging from four pages to less than a page (including perhaps his most famous short short story, ‘Acid’, which features as a footnote in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark). They demonstrate Kelman’s range of both style and subject matter for those who continue to think of him as a one-note writer. Anyone who appreciates the craft of writing should not be without this book, or, indeed, all of Kelman’s work.

From Scenes Like These by Gordon Williams

From Scenes Like These is another novel to have been rediscovered more than once and bears the distinction of having been shortlisted for the first Booker Prize in 1969. Unfortunately, its author Gordon Williams refused to stick to literary fiction, cowriting the Hazell books with Terry Venables when both football and crime fiction were much less fashionable. This, however, is a wonderful novel, exposing the harshness of both urban and rural life in 1950s Scotland. It also touches on contemporary concerns, however, as its central character, school-leaver fifteen-year-old Dunky Logan, wrestles with what it means to be a man. Its portrayal of misogynistic attitudes among the farm workers still has the power to shock, more so as we may fear they are not so outdated as we hope. Though not without the occasional moment of hope, it is a bleak work with little the way of redemption, A Catcher in the Rye for those who cannot afford therapy.

The Limit

The Limit is Rosalind Belbin’s third novel, originally published in 1974, only two years after her first novel, Bogies. Her rate of publication has since diminished considerably with only one novel in the eighties and one in the nineties; as her work has fallen out of print so too has her reputation, despite winning the James Tait Black Memorial Award for her 2007 novel, Our Horses in Egypt. Yet her sporadic publishing history is only one reason she remains relatively unknown. As Kirsty Gunn has pointed out:

“I think Belben may be the first contemporary writer in English since Muriel Spark I’ve come across who makes a virtue of being contrary for the sake of it—in Belben’s case, not wanting to be “good” in the sense of either creating smoothly comprehensible sentences in English nor making the subjects of her books necessarily appealing or easy for the reader to feel empathy.”

In The Limit, however, the smooth-running prose of Spark is replaced by something with uncomfortably sharp edges, as Paul Griffiths indicates in his introduction:

“Points of view (his, hers, third person) and tenses (past, present) are at once distinct and compacted.”

And so we have a novel which disconcerts the reader with both form and content. Centred on the death of an Englishwoman, Anna, cared for by her Italian husband, Ilario, as she approaches the end, the novel moves both back and forward from that moment.

“To her it seemed interminable: I have a job, my job is departure, I need to get on. I am not doing it well.”

Belbin does not shy away from Anna’s physical deterioration, the “utter ugliness of Anna.” She is compared to an “old skinny baboon,” or “as you’re so heavily whiskered, an orang-outang; a whale”, “her breasts little squabs, skin and gristle, flippers, deformities…” Belbin goes further, however, matching her grotesque physical state with her desire, Ilario “kissing her sickly flesh.” Her belly, swollen by a tumour, is likened to pregnancy – Ilario’s calls it “my pet balloon.” Above all, her ‘crutch’ is described again and again: “a putrid bog I poke at” and, later:

“Your cunt stuck like a pig’s throat, drenches our earthland in blood, pulsing torrents of it: and still, still the heart beats.”

Rather than simply an intent to shock, Belbin seeks to reveal the intensity of their love through Ilario’s acceptance of Anna’s physical condition – in fact, more than acceptance as there is almost a relish in the refusal to be disgusted. Of course, these sections are interspersed with others, including chapters on their relationship when they first meet. Belbin uses a series of chapter headings which reoccur – phrases from, according to a note, the Hamlyn Encyclopaedic World Dictionary. Those which tell of the early days of their love for each other are entitled ‘A Change Brought About by the Sea’ (Ilario is a sailor) and present a different Anna:

“Brown, she’d lain in the Caribbean sun, nose peeling, eye aching, a delightful weariness…”

The happiness of her relationship contrasts with an unhappy childhood (in chapters headed ‘The State of Time of Being a Child’). At one point we are told:

“…she intended to endure death as years ago she endured childhood.”

Her childhood consists of unaffectionate parents and moments of sudden violence: “My dog is killing a cat.” At a hunt she will be daubed in blood:

“…the Master shakes me by the hand tips up my chin as if to kiss me and dabs my cheeks with a bleeding stump.”

She runs away from home as a teenager and when she is brought back her dog is dead: “An eye for an eye.” What little joy she has had in her life comes from Ilario, and the desolate nature of what comes before (and the days in which she is dying) only enhances their depth of feeling. It is a love story that feels like the antithesis.

Clearly, The Limit is not for the faint-hearted – in fact, it often feels like Belbin is challenging the reader not to look away. Yet, unlike other novels where this might feel calculated only to shock, there is a definite sense that Belbin is capturing something of life which eludes most writers.