Nathan Oates’ A Flaw In The Design has been likened to Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin in terms of the intense psychological journey on which it takes the reader, and this reader thinks it’s safe to say the comparison is more fact than hyperbole. When fast-paced thriller meets crafted literary fiction in this way, genre preference is irrelevant. There is no question about who will find this enthralling – the answer is everyone.
The mysterious death of Gil’s sister and high-flying brother-in-law flips his and his wife’s rather ordinary life on its head as they are charged with his nephew, a troubled 17-year-old called Matthew, whose dangerous behaviour with their daughter seven years prior resulted in family estrangement. Now, they have no choice but to welcome him into their family and hope for the best. But when Matthew signs up for Gil’s creative writing lectures and starts submitting alarming, graphic stories imagining parents’ death, Gil realises things will not be that simple. At what point is a story just a story?
It is a real pleasure to read prose so imaginative and gripping, which is simultaneously naturally tethered to real-world issues such as the complexity of class, family, and of the messiness in between.
A Flaw In The Design, Nathan Oates (Serpent’s Tail)
Price: £16.99. Info: here
words MEGAN THOMAS
Want more books?
The latest reviews, interviews, features and more, from Wales and beyond.