Clearly Riley is a gifted writer. But what she is writing about in The Palm House is not clear at all. At first the novel seems to be about the tribulations of a respected magazine called Sequence.

Gwendoline Riley excels at simile and imagery. Chatting to someone who suddenly changes the subject to a litany of his own misfortunes is “like falling through a trapdoor into a punishment cell”. The same character has “a face you might see on a storm swung pub sign: eyes agleam with ancient, pagan malice”. The sound of rain pattering on leaves is “like distant fireworks”, and trying to navigate by mobile phone “while my location dot roved and recoiled, confounded by the alleys and gulleys of Shad Thames” is like using a dowsing rod to search for water.

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