'Immaculately curated' exhibition shows another side to the artist 

L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) will forever be associated with the "industrial cityscapes" he painted of his native Lancashire, said William Cook in The Critic. The artist spent most of his life in Pendlebury in Greater Manchester, where he was born, raised, worked as a rent collector – and produced his depictions of "dark satanic mills and smoking chimney stacks". But from the 1930s until his death, he spent his summer holidays in Berwick-upon-Tweed, an "unfashionable seaside town" far removed from the "bright lights" of resorts such as Blackpool. Here, "far from the stress and bustle of his daily life", he made a number of "enigmatic" seaside paintings that, unlike his urban scenes, were mostly "bereft of human life".

This exhibition features more than 20 paintings, pastels and drawings; it explores Lowry's connections to Berwick and his little-understood seascapes, revealing "an entirely different side" to his work. It's an "intriguing" show that tells us much about "the inner life of this introverted artist".

His "love of the sea" went back to family holidays on the Lancashire coast and days out with his mother to Lytham St Annes, said Laura Gascoigne in The Spectator: an early painting, "Yachts at Lytham" (which isn't in this show), was apparently the only picture for which his mother, who disapproved of her son's industrial scenes, "ever expressed admiration". This show begins on a jolly note: in "July, the Seaside" (1943), "the familiar painter of matchstick men is at work, observing families at play like a traveller from another planet", capturing "a compendium of beach activities – swings, sandcastles, puppet shows, donkey rides" with a deadpan comedy.

Also charming is a "doodle" the artist scrawled on the notepaper of Berwick's Castle Hotel and gave to its receptionist. Most of his seascapes, however, "are a different kettle of fish": the "atmospheric" pastel "Yachts" (1920) conjures "the haze of a muggy English day" from a "tangled mass of opalescent strokes"; the impasto touches of 1960's "Spittal Sands, Berwick", meanwhile, suggest shapes in the distance "viewed through eyes screwed up against the glare".

After his mother's death, Lowry saw the sea as "a mirror to his loneliness", said Samuel Reilly in The Daily Telegraph. The ships that appear in his seascapes are "strangely crewless", less human creations than "elemental omens". Gradually, his palette is "pared back" to achieve an atmospheric effect not dissimilar to the haar, the thick sea fog seen on the northeast coast.

"The Sea", a particularly "astonishing" work of 1963, has the horizon "all but hazed out", the blue-grey crests of the waves threatening "to roll out" from the canvas and envelop the viewer. More peculiar still is 1966's "Self-Portrait as a Pillar in the Sea", in which Lowry depicts himself as "a single, inescapably phallic stack", buffeted by the waves, "a lonely, yearning man, claiming kinship with the sea". It's a highlight of a "small but immaculately curated" exhibition that is "as refreshing as a dunk in the North Sea".

Granary Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. Until 13 October

by Halle Butler  

Halle Butler made her name writing novels about the precarious lives of millennials, said Caleb Klaces in The Guardian. Her latest book follows a similar pattern. It's about a thirtysomething woman called Moddie who, following a break-up, leaves her "potentially fulfilling" job at an arts charity in Chicago and moves back to the "university town where she grew up". There, she reconnects with old friends, gets awkwardly drunk at social gatherings, and dwells on her failed relationship and her feeling of having achieved little in life.

Yes, this is the latest "sad girl" novel, said Robbie Millen in The Times. Popularised by the likes of Ottessa Moshfegh and Naoise Dolan, it's a genre that by now feels somewhat clichéd. While Butler's example contains all the usual ingredients – right down to the obligatory "masturbation scenes" – this is a sad girl novel that's "actually funny". From the absurdity of a student art installation to the "self-deceptions of therapy-talk", Butler excels at skewering the "delusions and flaws of America's creative class". "Banal Nightmare" is "bang on the money".

Actor dubbed 'the most handsome man in the world'

Alain Delon, who has died aged 88, "was one of the most prominent and magnetic French actors of the post-war era", said The Daily Telegraph. "His dazzling good looks and his lack of formal training sometimes led people to underestimate his talents as an actor, yet there were few better equipped to portray enigmatic and morally corrupted youth." His breakthrough came with René Clément's "Plein Soleil" (1960), an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Playing the killer Tom Ripley called for "an actor capable of conveying unusual levels of amorality, bravado and self-love". Delon was the "right man" for the job. He became a global star: "with his piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones and delinquent vitality", he was described by Time magazine as "the most handsome man in the world". 

Alain Delon was born in Sceaux, a middle-class suburb south of Paris, to Fabien, who ran a local cinema, and Édith. The couple divorced when he was four, said The Guardian, and he was brought up by foster parents, until they died in a car accident. Delon moved back to live with his mother and – after being expelled from several schools – was, at 14, "unhappily apprenticed" to her new husband, a pork butcher. At 17, he joined the armed forces, and served as a parachutist during the First Indochina War at the siege of Dien Bien Phu. During his four years in the forces, Delon spent 11 months in prison, and was dishonourably discharged in 1956. On his return to Paris, he lived in Pigalle, the red-light district, where, he said: "I lived off my looks, supported by ladies of the quartier." In 1957, he attended the Cannes film festival where he immediately attracted job offers. In his first film, "Quand la femme s'en mêle" (1957), he played a hitman – "the sort of role he perfected in later films" – and was soon "touted as France's answer to James Dean". 

Luchino Visconti cast Delon in three films, culminating in "The Leopard" (1963), in which he played "the dashing and cynical Tancredi", opposite Claudia Cardinale. His other leading ladies included Monica Vitti, Brigitte Bardot and, in the 1964 English-language film "The Yellow Rolls-Royce", Shirley MacLaine. In 1968's "artily erotic" "The Girl on a Motorcycle", Delon played Marianne Faithfull's lover, "unzipping her leather gear with his teeth". In 1964, he had married Nathalie Barthélémy, who made her screen debut in Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samouraï" (1967), in which Delon gave a masterclass as "an expressionless hired killer".

The following year, he found himself at the centre of a major scandal, when his bodyguard Stevan Markovic was found shot dead in a rubbish dump. The police arrested Delon's friend François Marcantoni, a Corsican gangster. The suggestion was that Markovic "had been blackmailing Delon and that Marcantoni had shut him up", said The Times. Although no one was ever prosecuted, "L'Affaire Markovic" was never forgotten and "thereafter a whiff of sulphur clung to Delon". 

By this time, Delon was France's biggest star, appearing in hits such as the thriller "La Piscine" (1969) opposite Romy Schneider and the 1970 gangster movie "Borsalino", one of France's most successful films. Delon continued to act long after his heyday, usually playing tough guys, to considerably less acclaim. In 1984, he made waves when he declared support for the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. "He's a friend," Delon said. "He is the only one who is honest." He officially gave up acting in 1997, after a series of critical maulings, and lived on a large estate outside Paris and later, in Switzerland. Delon is survived by a son from his first marriage and two children from his relationship with the model Rosalie van Breemen. The Velvet Underground singer Nico claimed that she bore him a son, Ari, though Delon denied it.