India, Nov. 12 -- Douglas Stuart's new novel John of John is about men who cannot seem to talk to each other - a father and son whose "conversation was always censored, missing the things they couldn't talk about," and old lovers who cannot speak of love. It's set in the rugged Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, a chain of over a hundred islands off the west coast of Scotland. And these men - father, son, lover, friend - are "islands within islands. within islands, within islands."

It's set in the Nineties but that sense of isolation reminded me of the pandemic. It can be frustrating reading about loneliness, or rather, aloneness - but this is a highly enjoyable novel to read, the setting feels sometimes otherworldly, the descriptions...