Gilgamesh

I might have raved to you about The Golden Age, London's most recent novel and one of my favorite store recommendations. Gilgamesh, her first novel, is nearly as good, and clearly from the same brilliantly observant, humane writer, but it's a lonelier book. Set mostly in remote southwest Australia, like the original epic of Gilgamesh it's a story of great journeys and friendships, but friendships felt most strongly in their absence. Rarely have I read a book that makes so vivid the contingency of human connection and the intensity with which those connections can survive the separations to which they are inevitably prey.