Change of Heart by Barbara Anderson (Jonathan Cape, £16.99).
IT takes an ambitious author to create a first-person narrator whose raison d'etre is to be trying.
Readers demand rewards for spending time with someone like Olly Perkins, the anti-hero of this novel but in here we have to look harder for the pay-off.
At 75, Olly is pedantic, pompous and does not do emotion.
He has a routine marriage to Hester but struggles to contain his frustration with their son, Copper.
After a heart episode, he looks again at his relationships and vows to try harder.
Anderson, who did not start writing until she was in her 60s, has a gift for one-liners.
When Copper remarries Hester asks Olly where their son's ex-wife is. "Probably throwing up in the powder room," he answers.
Katherine Haddon
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