FICTION IN TRANSLATION

Review

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld – review

Ten of the best new books in translation

This article is more than 5 years old

A remarkable debut novel about a Dutch farm girl and her strict Christian family is unflinching and disturbing

Holly Williams

Sun 22 Mar 2020 

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan review / A bracing, witty debut

 

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan review – a bracing, witty debut

The young Irish writer’s first novel is dry and sharp in its observation of twentysomething expat lives

‘The book of the summer … Kept me rapt until the final page‘ THE TIMES

‘A sharp, smart, witty modern love story. I loved it‘ David Nicholls

Holly Williams

Monday 6 April 2020

I

’m sorry. I really am. I know it’s frustrating that any new young female writer must find themselves compared to Sally Rooney. But I’m going to just get it out of the way, for Naoise Dolan is Irish, in her mid-20s, and her debut was previewed in literary magazine The Stinging Fly while Rooney edited it. But on this occasion, it’s more than just a question of biography: Dolan’s writing does genuinely occupy similar territory. There’s a certain dry, almost deadpan quality in her observation of the lives of her twentysomething characters – the complications of attraction, and the gap between what’s felt and what’s spoken; calmly articulated self-loathing, and precise capturing of class differences – that both authors nail down dead.

So lucky us, really. Exciting Times is a fun, snappy read – ordinarily, I’d say its short chapters could be torn through on your commute, but it’ll brighten lockdown too.

Naoise Dolan

Ava is a 21-year-old who leaves Ireland, where she’s convinced everyone hates her, to become a teacher of English as a foreign language in Hong Kong. Despite the chip on her shoulder, she falls in with Julian, an Eton-educated English banker who she enjoys being with because they (supposedly) aren’t that interested in each other: “It wasn’t like normal friendships where I worried if the other person still liked me.” She moves into his swanky apartment, rent-free, and they have sex. “I enjoyed his money and he enjoyed how easily impressed I was by it.”