Fox Fires Wyl Menmuir 9781784632335

A lost girl and a sprawling map of an unsettling city.

Wren Lithgow has followed her concert pianist mother around the cities of Europe for almost two decades. When they arrive in the mysterious city-state of O, where Wren was conceived during a time of civil war, she resolves to find man she believes is her father.

As the city closes in around her, Wren gives herself over to a place of which she understands nothing, but to which she feels a profound connection, in a story of the watchers and the watched, the ways in which we conceive of home and, finally, the possibility of living on our own terms.

Much as I enjoyed the author's debut, Booker-longlisted The Many, this tale has a more fluid and accomplished feel. There are similarities in the shadowy undercurrents, and the skill with which threads are woven together. Menmuir has spun a fascinating web that captured this reader's attention fully. I was left sated while still thinking through issues raised. A piercing, thought-provoking and highly recommended read.

I have a particular love for books like this, constructed with such care and meticulousness; each image overlapping and reflecting the ones before and after. Maps, patterns, paths; attempts to see and attempts to blind; revelations and occlusions - all combine to create something rich, original and powerful.

Menmuir evokes well an atmosphere of Stasi-like surveillance and paranoia. Although the novel is written in the third person, the pronoun 'I' suddenly appears, alarmingly, over halfway through, and we realise that Wren is being watched by a new narrator. The novel makes important points about identity and state bureaucracy - but how beguiling to do so through a haunting fairytale.

Fox Fires is a reading experience that feels like a dream. Author Wyl Menmuir is a wonderful writer and the story carries us along beautifully, but there's always a sense we're reaching for something just beyond our grasp, the way Wren is reaching for her father. Fox Fires is the follow up to the extraordinary Booker-longlisted debut novel The Many, a tough act to beat.This is a fascinating and worthy successor, and Menmuir is carving out a delicious niche for himself as the king of multiple layers of meaning.