In brief: Nothing to See Here; One of Them; Big Sky – review
Nothing to See Here
Kevin Wilson
Text, £10.99, pp288
Lillian is 28 and in a dead-end job. Years ago, she was a scholarship student at an elite boarding school but was wrongly expelled when her privileged best friend Madison was caught with drugs. Now Madison is married to a US senator and has two problem stepchildren who spontaneously combust whenever they get angry or upset. Madison employs Lillian as the children’s guardian for the summer and the trio of outsiders discover they have much in common. Funny, surreal and tender, Nothing to See Here portrays an unconventional, dysfunctional family in need of repair.
One of Them: From Albert Square to Parliament Square
Michael Cashman
Bloomsbury, £18.99, pp432
Cashman’s memoir tells the actor’s story from his East End childhood to his life peerage. Alongside tales of his early stardom as Oliver in the West End, and the infamous gay kiss in EastEnders that caused outrage in the tabloids, Cashman details his campaigning for LGBT rights: his fight to end clause 28, his role as an MEP and his seat in the House of Lords. Recollections of his early life and emerging sexuality make for poignant reading, not least an episode of sexual abuse when he was a boy. But the book is also a heartfelt testament to his long relationship with partner, Paul Cottingham, who died in 2014.
Big Sky
Kate Atkinson
Black Swan, £8.99, pp512 (paperback)
Atkinson’s fifth Jackson Brodie crime novel tackles European sex trafficking. Brodie, a retired police officer turned private investigator, now shares custody of his 13-year-old son, and Atkinson writes perceptively about the relationship between them. The main plot, about a Yorkshire paedophile ring, is dark and disturbing, but Atkinson brings wry comic touches to the story as she both playfully inhabits and deftly subverts the crime genre.
• To order Nothing to See Here, One of Them or Big Sky go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
