Josie Mitchell

Is sin​ an inescapable condition? Ruth, the narrator of Kate Riley’s first novel, has given this question much thought. When she asks forgiveness, she does so in the knowledge that she will ‘sin again immediately’. If she controls her sins of commission (lies, covetousness), she knows she will be undone by her innumerable sins of omission (withheld laughter, boredom). In...

Where would​ the gays be without the gaze? Mrs S starts with a shared look between the young matron and the headmaster’s wife, their eyes meeting across the drive of the girls’ boarding school where the older woman has just disciplined a gardener. When Mrs S turns, the matron, flushing, stands her ground: ‘Oh, she is vigilant, she knows she is not alone. I am discovered, I...

Early​ in Bryan Washington’s novel Family Meal, Cam, a young Black man, gets a notification on his phone while walking home from his bar job. A stranger has shared his location on a hook-up app; there’s no photograph of his face, just a dick pic, but Cam eventually finds him, sitting on a park bench in the dark. The guy asks if he has a condom, but Cam tells him not to worry....

Marie NDiaye​ ​ was born in 1967 and spent most of her childhood in the Paris banlieues. Raised by her French mother, she didn’t meet her Senegalese father until she was fifteen, and this disjointed parental dynamic makes its way into many of her books. Disapproving parents loom, are disappointed and disappointing. A mousy mother – needy, self-abnegating and trapped...