Shuttlecock is a very clever story that interweaves a family drama with a memoir written by the father of our narrator, Prentis. The father was a spy in WW2 but was captured near the end of the war. But was this all true or not? The author writes about how truth is sometimes elusive, especially when someone has the power to distort it or hide it away. Again, I loved the conversational structure ("The small mammal house at Regent's Park Zoo. I can recommend it") as Prentis tries to make sense of his relationship with his family and the mystery that is his father.
Sometimes you read a book where the story is great but the writing is ordinary. And sometimes it's the other way round. Quarantine definitely belongs to the latter. The seven characters who meet in the wilderness above Jericho are all superbly described. I particularly liked how Musa, the conman, was so excruciatingly bad. I liked how the story was told alternating between the main protagonists. But the plot itself is pretty boring, there are some interminable sections where a character tells a particularly dull story. "Five go on a Fast" as Enid Blyton would say, and that's it.
I enjoyed this very readable and well written book. Only Human is not quite up to the five stars I gave to Susie Boyt's The Small Hours but still very good. Marjorie is a sympathetic character, but does not always seem suitable for her role as a marriage counsellor, for reasons that gradually become apparent. We are drawn into her struggles to keep the relationship with her daughter that has been key to her life for many years. A short book in length but one that will resonate for a long time.
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