![]() ![]() ![]() This is not so much a review, then, as metareview: a review of reviews. Let’s not wade out into unmanageably deep waters, here. What are reviews of novels for? What is the state of contemporary book reviewing? These are largish questions, which I hope to answer in suggestive, rather than definitive, ways. Hence, our experiment: not merely to review the novel, but to review, in a sense, both the novel and its reviews-to widen the context of our reflections, if possible. A straightforward review, my editor agreed, now seemed sort of pointless. It had already been assessed-summarised, dissected, praised-in almost every possible venue. Acts of Desperation was three months old. I would locate the book, I airily told my editor, in the context of the Female Millennial Novel: Sally Rooney, Louise O’Neill, Louise Nealon, Lauren Oyler, Ottessa Moshfegh, Naoise Dolan, Ling Ma, et. This piece was originally intended as a more or less straightforward review of Megan Nolan’s debut novel Acts of Desperation-the usual 1500-odd words on the book’s merits and demerits (mainly merits, in this case), its contexts, its nature. Okay, we’re going to try an informal experiment here. ![]()
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