Light Perpetual
FRANCIS SPUFFORD
(FABER & FABER, 336 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • tel 020 7799 4064

The only thing that connects Francis Spufford’s new novel with his last (which was also his first) is his overriding fascination with the oddness of people and their language. Golden Hill, published in 2016 and the winner of many prizes, was set in 1746 Manhattan and dealt with some very odd bods indeed.

By contrast, the five characters of Light Perpetual appear ordinary. Viewed over 60 years they are, ­variously, a bus conductor, a wife, her twin sister (a singer), a compositor and a ­developer. The characters are shown at five points in their lives: as schoolchildren in 1949, then in 1964, 1979, 1994 and 2009. Their oddness is twofold. First, they never existed at all, being ­casualties of a V2 rocket which hit a Woolworths store in south London’s New Cross in 1944, killing 168 people including 15 children aged under 11.