Use the Words You Have by Kimberly Campanello (Somesuch, £9.99)
Written in Ardmore but set in Brittany, Kimberly Campanello’s lyrical debut novel attempts to untangle what it is to write autobiographically. She flits between perspectives, narrating “both reflexively and steaming ahead from the I”. Essentially the story of a holiday romance between characters K and M, the novel isn’t unique in plot, but shines in its habit of unpicking words and metaphor. As K navigates the experience of falling in love in a foreign tongue, Campanello meditates on how we can break language barriers and, eventually, language itself. Use the Words You Have is effervescent, unfurling like a prose poem; considering that Campanello is first and foremost a poet, we might expect her to have crafted an even more formally experimental novel. Emily Formstone
A Shot of Hope: Stories of Quiet Resilience by John Travers (Orpen Press, €15.99)
John Travers, described in a foreword to the book as “narrator extraordinaire of the human condition”, has chosen a befitting title. From maternity wards to homeless outreach, a psychiatric institution in Ghana a women’s prison, and the preterm loss of his own infant, James, the Irish GP explores the many cases of resilience he has encountered and supported in his vocational medical career. The human capacity to heal and instinct to care are the vital bedfellows that propel the remarkable stories, and Travers’s compassionate prose will reassure those who have felt undervalued by the medical system. When online news might suggest avarice as the primary motivator of human behaviour, the glimpse of humanity afforded by this book proves a powerful shot of hope. Brigid O’Dea
Fish Tales by Nettie Jones (Virago, £16.99)
Writer Kevin Power recently bemoaned the trend of “ingratiation” in modern fiction, where “novelists are constantly soliciting our approval”. Fear not ingratiation with this republication of the rambunctious 1980s novel – the last book acquired for publication by Toni Morrison before her death. The scene-setting epilogue features a nude woman pleasuring herself on the street before spitting in her husband’s face. From here, we go on to meet the cast of splendidly distasteful and spiritually ugly characters who occupy the world of the hedonistic Hustler, Lewis. In downtown New York, we are invited into her bohemian lifestyle where sex, violence, extravagance and destitution make for seductive (and destructive) bedfellows. Jones’ ruthlessly pacy “Valium and alcohol-saturated” prose is something to behold. Brigid O’Dea
