Monique Roffey’s latest novel, which won this year’s Costa Prize, is an entertaining, “shape-shifting” work that “drags mermaids into the modern day”, said Jade Cuttle in The Times.
On a fictional Caribbean island, a dark-skinned mermaid named Aycayia is fished out of the sea by a group of drunken holiday-makers, who proceed to string her upside down, “stub cigarettes on her stomach and tweak her nipples”. But a spliff-smoking local fisherman named David comes to her rescue: he carts her back to his house in a wheelbarrow, and the pair begin an unlikely romance.
What makes this “bittersweet” novel really sing is the inclusion of “pin-sharp detail from the real world”, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer. Aycayia finds her tail rotting – and so learns to walk in a pair of David’s old Adidas. Her nostrils bleed “all kind of molluscs and tiny crabs”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In the end, behind the “magic-realist shenanigans”, this is an “archetypal story” of a “disruptive outsider” in a small community. It’s a story that shows, as one character puts it, that womanhood is a “dangerous business”.
Peepal Tree Press 190pp £9.99; The Week bookshop £7.99
The Week bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
-
Friendship: 'bromance' comedy starring Paul Rudd and Tim RobinsonThe Week Recommends 'Lampooning and embracing' middle-aged male loneliness, this film is 'enjoyable and funny'
-
The Count of Monte Cristo review: 'indecently spectacular' adaptationThe Week Recommends Dumas's classic 19th-century novel is once again given new life in this 'fast-moving' film
-
Death of England: Closing Time review – 'bold, brash reflection on racism'The Week Recommends The final part of this trilogy deftly explores rising political tensions across the country
-
Sing Sing review: prison drama bursts with 'charm, energy and optimism'The Week Recommends Colman Domingo plays a real-life prisoner in a performance likely to be an Oscars shoo-in
-
Kaos review: comic retelling of Greek mythology starring Jeff GoldblumThe Week Recommends The new series captures audiences as it 'never takes itself too seriously'
-
Blink Twice review: a 'stylish and savage' black comedy thrillerThe Week Recommends Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie stun in this film on the hedonistic rich directed by Zoë Kravitz
-
Shifters review: 'beautiful' new romantic comedy offers 'bittersweet tenderness'The Week Recommends The 'inventive, emotionally astute writing' leaves audiences gripped throughout
-
How to do F1: British Grand Prix 2025The Week Recommends One of the biggest events of the motorsports calendar is back and better than ever
