Most years there’s no doubt about what is my novel of the year. Last year it was John Williams’ Stoner (an oldie of course but new to most of us). This year it is Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely beside Ourselves. Writing about it is difficult because of its key plot twist but there’s plenty more. Fowler’s novel reads like a memoir, the protagonist’s voice pitch perfect: witty and often heartbreaking. Without giving anything away, the psychology of human nature could be said to be its theme and it is true both to scientific psychology and the subjective version that fiction has always traded in. It’s a book you will never forget and a book that starts or re-ignites countless debates about the human animal’s place in the world.
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