Light Lifting

For a collection entitled Light Lifting (manual labour rather than, as I first thought, daylight), there's a lot of heavy in Alexander MacLeod's superb debut. MacLeod is fascinated by latent violence; his narrations skate with serene and leisurely grace across his characters' lives, but there is almost always a moment - often in the very last lines - when the ice breaks, and we plunge with dizzying speed into the cold, dark chaos that lies underneath.

'Like being inside and outside yourself at the same time', MacLeod's characters - a runner, a bricklayer, a car factory worker, a lifeguard, a school student with a delivery job - observe themselves in slow motion, giving us both felt experience and lives as spectacle. Time dilates and contracts, and nostalgia is a key theme: many stories reflect on the past (or even, in 'Wonder About Parents', the timescales of history).

Fans of Lorrie Moore will love him. The fine prose control, clipped sentences, formal experimentation, and admirable confidence in the reader's ability to follow into unfamiliar territory are all present. The collection is shot through with an intensely-felt physicality and honesty, and beautiful textured. You'll want to re-read it as soon as you finish.