Landfall, By Helen Gordon

It is not so much what happens in this debut that counts – an art reviewer at a trendy magazine that looks like it's going under seems to be going under herself.

What makes it a quietly impressive read is its unstrained literary quality, with its pensiveness and its sudden flashes of humour.

Alice is grappling with her age (over 30 is perceived as old!) and the long-ago disappearance of her sister.

Though her trajectory resembles Gordon's (a one-time journalist at a trendy magazine) it never succumbs to solipsism.

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