You simply must read something by Jon McGregor. Full stop. If you like well-written contemporary literary fiction, McGregor’s work hits the spot.
“So Many Ways to Begin” is typical McGregor: calm, understated, stylish – yet without shirking away from tackling difficult subjects (here the long-term affects of adoption, mental illness/depression, infidelity). And yet he manages to maintain a pace and rhythm throughout, as well as finding innovative ways to relate his narrative; in “So Many Ways to Begin” he uses imagined physical things – photographs, letters, trinkets – as prompts.
My only quibble with “So Many Ways to Begin” is how one character – so obviously mentally unwell – seems to suddenly improve in order to facilitate the moving on to the main character’s denouement.
But I’m splitting hairs. You should just read “So Many Ways to Begin”…
Ian Gouge - Writer 