In 2009, the novelist Julie Myerson found herself at the centre of a media storm after publishing a non-fiction account of her eldest son’s addiction to marijuana, said Hephzibah Anderson in The Observer. The episode, she has said, drove her to a “kind of breakdown”, and she has never directly addressed it in her writing. Except that now, in a way, she has. This, her 11th novel – entitled Nonfiction – is all about “teenage drug addiction”. The narrator is a once “happily married” writer, who is looking back on her attempts to save her heroin-addicted daughter “from self-destruction”. Given her own backstory, Myerson is risking a lot with such a novel – but “the results are nothing less than incandescent”.
The title is confusing, and deliberately so, said Alex Peake-Tomkinson in The Spectator. This is Myerson’s “squarest attempt so far at autobiographical fiction”. Yet in other ways, it seems a typical work: she has always explored “her worst fears in her novels”. Although I hope she will “look beyond her own life” in future, I found this a “satisfyingly propulsive” read.
Subscribe to 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.
-
May 31 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include how much to pay for a pardon, medical advice from a brain worm, and a simple solution to the national debt.
-
5 costly cartoons about the national debtCartoons Political cartoonists take on the USA's financial hole, rare bipartisan agreement, and Donald Trump and Mike Johnson.
-
Green goddess salad recipeThe Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Green goddess salad recipe
The Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibitionThe Week Recommends Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are explored in show that remains 'remarkably compact'
-
6 well-preserved homes built in the 1930sFeature Featuring a restored 1934 colonial in Arizona and a cold-storage warehouse turned loft in New York City
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after lossThe Week Recommends Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons
-
Sirens: entertaining satire on the lives of the ultra-wealthy stars Julianne MooreThe Week Recommends This 'blackly comic affair' unfurls at a 'breakneck speed'
-
Mrs Warren's Profession: 'tour-de-force' from Imelda Staunton and daughter Bessie CarterThe Week Recommends Mother-daughter duo bring new life to George Bernard Shaw's morality play
-
Critics' choice: Steak houses that break from traditionFeature Eight hours of slow-roasting prime rib, a 41-ounce steak, and a former Catholic school chapel turned steakhouse
-
Tash Aw's 6 favorite books about forbidden loveFeature The Malaysian novelist recommends works by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and more
