Ha ha ha. That’s the sound of the crafty laugh I do, just after I’ve read a really good debut novel. I turn the final page, close the book, and immediately begin to strategise my campaign to tell anyone I like or respect that they should also read it immediately. One) because it’s nice to share. Two) because it makes me look erudite and sophisticated. Much as I love her, bragging about having read Elizabeth Strout’s seventh novel doesn’t make me look edgy or ahead of the pulse. There is, undeniably, a smugness about spotting a great talent first. It makes me feel very self-satisfied. Oh, and I enjoy the books as well.
Which is good for me right now, because all of the energy in the world of publishing is decisively behind debuts. This autumn, there are new novels coming from prolific, prize-winning big hitters like Ian McEwan, Elizabeth Strout, Kate Atkinson, Barbara Kingsolver and Maggie O’Farrell. But the buzz so far this year has been around books by new talents. Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry, the endearing story of a headstrong female scientist turned TV cook in the 1950s, has been in the Sunday Times Bestseller list for months. Joanna Quinn’s The Whalebone Theatre, a Cazalet-esque English country house novel, also went straight into the bestseller list after rave reviews.
