Art imitates life and the novels of 2021 confirm just how true this is. Writers, like everyone else, found themselves confined this year and the result is the recurring leitmotif of family, pervading almost every fiction genre from crime to coming-of-age novels, from historical fiction right through to dystopia. Here are some examples from the leading titles of the new year.
January
Billy O Callaghan s Life Sentences (Jonathan Cape) is a family saga sweeping from famine Ireland right through to the 1980s. The Push (Penguin) by Ashley Audrain is a psychological thriller about a mother who believes her daughter to be bad, with shades ofWe Need to Talk About Kevin.