So, it’s a week since my positive Covid test and I am still testing positive and still feelin rotten, so my hopes of reviewing a few more novellas by the end of the month came to nothing.

Thank you all for your continued support of the challenge and for your lovely well wishes last week – cheered me up greatly!

Before getting sick, I was actually quite organised and had read quite a few novellas, but full reviews are just not happening at the minute, so here are a few flash reviews to give you an idea of the ones that got away…

the pumpkin eater by penelope mortimer

I was really impressed with this short dreamlike story featuring a woman disillusioned with marriage and family life. Strange, unsettling and shot through with dark humour, this felt like an inverted fairy-tale and I will definitely look out for more of Mortimer’s work.

the silence by don delillo

If you’ve never read DeLillo, don’t start here. Although The Silence is a brilliant distillation of the themes in his earlier, more substantial work, it’s not overly satisfying and reads like a modern day Waiting for Godot, as a group of well-heeled Manhattanites hole up in an apartment while technology fails across the world. I love DeLillo and I enjoyed some of this, but it’s not his best.

gratitude by delphine de vigan, translated by george miller

Gratitude is a small triumph and I sobbed my way through the final pages. Michka, an elderly woman, is battling asphasia while trying to come to terms with a childhood trauma which has defined her life. It’s a sad, but poignant exploration of connection, gratitude and independence and is beautifully done.

the name of the world by denis johnson

Johnson’s Train Dreams was my book of the year last year and while The Name of the World isn’t quite up there with that masterpiece, I still found a lot to like in this tale of a college professor who has never fully recovered from the death of his wife and child in a car accident. It is an oblique and introspective novella which explores how connection with other people is the only thing that will save us.

victory by james lasdun

Victory is actually two powerful novellas – Feathered Glory and Afternoon of a Faun – which both explore dark corners of the male psyche and how lives can be unsettled by memories of the past. Afternoon of a Faun is the better of the two, as it explores the fall-out of an historic accusation of rape on both the supposed victim and her supposed assailant. Lasdun balances an interesting and at times queasy ambivalence in both stories, leaving the reader very much in control.

You were never really here by jonathan ames

I would never have thought that hard-boiled crime writing could work within the format of a novella, but Jonathan Ames packs a lot into this brutal, blunt tale of Joe, a damaged ex-Marine who is now a man for hire, specialising in rescuing young girls kidnapped for sex trafficking. More of a character study than anything else, Ames manages to invest Joe in an attractive depth which powers the plot. My only complaint would be the shockingly abrupt ending which leaves the entire story hanging.

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I’ll be checking back in tomorrow with a round-up post and will hopefully be back to normal next week with a few outstanding reviews and my Top Reads from 2022.

Novellas in November novels in translation The 746 #NovNov22 delphine de vigan denis johnson don delillo James Lasdun jonathan ames novellas penelope mortimer