Difficult People by Catriona Wright

Paperback, read May 2019

I picked up this book intending to read a story every now and then, perhaps even take a few weeks with it, but Catriona’s stories are so gripping, immersive, and - strangely - deeply relatable that I finished it in just a few days. The characters in Difficult People are delightfully and disorientingly unique, difficult, and alienating, while also being completely plausible and believable: I ached for them, hated them, feared I might be them. The writing is clear, crisp, rhythmic, almost transparent; it feels as though there is none of the author there (in a skillful and deliberate way), which is kind of refreshing in literary fiction at this exact moment in time. I honestly can’t recommend this book enough; I feel there is absolutely something for everyone here.