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“... In novels, a marriage is not only the place where comedy ends: it is also the place where tragedy begins. The wedding of Lil Roth, the opening act of Joanna Smith Rakoff’s A Fortunate Age, is followed by a lame attempt at spousal murder-by-scissors, a brief stay in a Manhattan mental institution, and Lil’s freak death after a bad case of flu. Lil hadn’t even planned to get married ...”

“... The word​ for ‘fox’ in medieval France was goupil – until a set of allegorical tales about a fox called Reynard became so popular that renard started to be used instead. The characterisation of foxes as wily had already been established by Aesop, but Reynard himself first appeared in the tenth-century poem Ecbasis Captivi (‘The Escape of the Captive’), and he returned in the 12th-century Ysengrimus ...”

“... attention to herself and her surroundings – to no particular end. The Life of the Mind, Christine Smallwood’s first novel, begins with Dorothy having a miscarriage, and charts her mental and physical state over the next six weeks. She has a boyfriend, Rog, who has no discernible influence on events or on her. The plot largely consists of a ...”

“... daughter was born, the sleepless first weeks arrived with the force of surprise.’ In Harper’s, Christine Smallwood recalls the aftermath of a traumatic birth, which left her ‘starving, stitched, bleeding, unable to walk’. Having babies is no doubt very interesting, but part of the point Heti is making is that not having babies can be interesting ...”