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The Palm House
From the Women's Prize Shortlisted author of First Love
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.
Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.
Laura has her own a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.
A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility.
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.
Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.
Laura has her own a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.
A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility.
209 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 2, 2026
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March 15, 2026
I did look into that, when I got in. I looked at prices for Paris and for Amsterdam. It was an easy thing to talk myself out of, though, when there was still so much I hadn’t seen in London. Putnam and I kept meaning to go to the Cabinet War Rooms. He often said, too, that I should go with him and his father one weekend to visit the ancient cycads in the Kew Gardens Palm House
The Palm House is Gwendoline Riley’s seventh novel and one that while it doesn’t really stretch the boundaries of her work, adds to an impressive oeuvre.
The first person narrator here is Laura, who as often with Riley’s narrators is too busy dissecting the life of her friends and her parents to analyse her own, which emerges in various vignettes, leaving that exercise to the reader. In my review of First Love I said: "It is both a difficulty with but also a strength of the novel, that it is quite hard to piece together Neve’s life, house moves and relationships, but that it also doesn't really matter," which I commented in my review of could be ported over simply by substituting Aislinn for Neve, and here the same would work for Laura.
The novel opens, although not dated, in October 2017 and the dust red skies over London from the Storm Ophelia sand storm, but this is rather a backdrop to the narrator’s conversation with her closest friend, Putnam (clearly his preferred sobriquet rather than Ed or Edward), aged 49 and older than Laura. Putnam has worked at a cultural magazine, Sequence, for 25 years, almost his entire career. Some months earlier a new editor was appointed by the publishing firm that owns the publication, after the death of the long-standing previous editor, and his desire to inject some modern approaches to the rather traditional, 50+ year old magazine (his vision is ‘a sort of London version of the New Yorker’) have gone down badly with the staff, and indeed with the loyal readership (‘of course we want to bring them along if we can’ retorts the new editor), and Putnam has resigned.
The narrator also introduces us to her rather quirky mother (a Riley staple) and the contrast to Putnam is striking:
I once tried to describe my mother's particular way of talking to Putnam. I was trying to nail down something about the mixture of hyperbole and deprecation, about a world where sod's law was the natural law. Putnam, it turned out, was the wrong person to deliberate with.
'Northern,' he said.
'Eh?'
'The word you're looking for is Northern.'
'Everything's a laff,' he said. 'Nothing's to be taken seriously. Nothing's worthy of the slightest bit of respect. Or thought. Nothing can be sat with for even one second. Instead we get this annihilating flippancy. I'm sorry, Laura, I loathe it. It's everything I've fought against for my whole life.'
And she also covers, inter Alia, her absent father, and her brief relationship with a rakish actor, one who indeed seemed to be acting in real-life the part of a rakish actor.
But the novel’s real power is in the portrayal of Laura and Putnam’s friendship as well as their self-limiting view that they don’t deserve anything more, their life confined to a small circle of friends and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), Laura’s rejection (see the opening quote) of a friend’s suggestion that she might eg try a holiday, even a brief city break, rather telling (and they don’t even make it out to Kew and the Palm House).
For now, my new habit was to look around the Tate during my lunch hour. I crossed the river at Vauxhall Bridge. There was the knock-knock sound of my boots on Milbank, the sudden wind, the large leaves cart-wheeling along the promenade.
After work, if I wanted to think about the future, I might have a drink in one of those dark-wood, etched-glass Victorian pubs near Pimlico, sitting on a wobbling stool by the wall.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
The Palm House is Gwendoline Riley’s seventh novel and one that while it doesn’t really stretch the boundaries of her work, adds to an impressive oeuvre.
The first person narrator here is Laura, who as often with Riley’s narrators is too busy dissecting the life of her friends and her parents to analyse her own, which emerges in various vignettes, leaving that exercise to the reader. In my review of First Love I said: "It is both a difficulty with but also a strength of the novel, that it is quite hard to piece together Neve’s life, house moves and relationships, but that it also doesn't really matter," which I commented in my review of could be ported over simply by substituting Aislinn for Neve, and here the same would work for Laura.
The novel opens, although not dated, in October 2017 and the dust red skies over London from the Storm Ophelia sand storm, but this is rather a backdrop to the narrator’s conversation with her closest friend, Putnam (clearly his preferred sobriquet rather than Ed or Edward), aged 49 and older than Laura. Putnam has worked at a cultural magazine, Sequence, for 25 years, almost his entire career. Some months earlier a new editor was appointed by the publishing firm that owns the publication, after the death of the long-standing previous editor, and his desire to inject some modern approaches to the rather traditional, 50+ year old magazine (his vision is ‘a sort of London version of the New Yorker’) have gone down badly with the staff, and indeed with the loyal readership (‘of course we want to bring them along if we can’ retorts the new editor), and Putnam has resigned.
The narrator also introduces us to her rather quirky mother (a Riley staple) and the contrast to Putnam is striking:
I once tried to describe my mother's particular way of talking to Putnam. I was trying to nail down something about the mixture of hyperbole and deprecation, about a world where sod's law was the natural law. Putnam, it turned out, was the wrong person to deliberate with.
'Northern,' he said.
'Eh?'
'The word you're looking for is Northern.'
'Everything's a laff,' he said. 'Nothing's to be taken seriously. Nothing's worthy of the slightest bit of respect. Or thought. Nothing can be sat with for even one second. Instead we get this annihilating flippancy. I'm sorry, Laura, I loathe it. It's everything I've fought against for my whole life.'
And she also covers, inter Alia, her absent father, and her brief relationship with a rakish actor, one who indeed seemed to be acting in real-life the part of a rakish actor.
But the novel’s real power is in the portrayal of Laura and Putnam’s friendship as well as their self-limiting view that they don’t deserve anything more, their life confined to a small circle of friends and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), Laura’s rejection (see the opening quote) of a friend’s suggestion that she might eg try a holiday, even a brief city break, rather telling (and they don’t even make it out to Kew and the Palm House).
For now, my new habit was to look around the Tate during my lunch hour. I crossed the river at Vauxhall Bridge. There was the knock-knock sound of my boots on Milbank, the sudden wind, the large leaves cart-wheeling along the promenade.
After work, if I wanted to think about the future, I might have a drink in one of those dark-wood, etched-glass Victorian pubs near Pimlico, sitting on a wobbling stool by the wall.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
May 10, 2026
Oh she's doing a caricature of a British comedian. Great, how am I going to figure out who this is? You know it's going to be some guy from the 80s that no one in North America has ever heard of––oh wait lol it's russell brand
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Palm House is only the second novel that I've read by Gwendoline Riley. It is a much more passive and thoughtful novel than My Phantoms. For me it was missing impact in a lot of areas but if you read it as a look at the lives of ordinary people growing older and coming to terms with inevitable changes then it does exactly what I should. I think, after the beginning when dealing with Laura's chaotic (and often dangerous) childhood, I expected more surprises.
However we follow the course of Laura's life working for Sequence, a publication which caters to "young fogeys" and where she becomes friends with Putnam whose nose is put out of joint following the arrival of a new editor who wants to shake things up.
The Palm House is a gentle novel with its characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they try to find careers and homes where they can be happy - or at least live without mould and caterpillars.
I enjoyed it to a point even if it felt much more disjointed than "Phantoms". I still need to read more by this author. Her prose is exquisite.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Picador for the digital review copy.
However we follow the course of Laura's life working for Sequence, a publication which caters to "young fogeys" and where she becomes friends with Putnam whose nose is put out of joint following the arrival of a new editor who wants to shake things up.
The Palm House is a gentle novel with its characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they try to find careers and homes where they can be happy - or at least live without mould and caterpillars.
I enjoyed it to a point even if it felt much more disjointed than "Phantoms". I still need to read more by this author. Her prose is exquisite.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Picador for the digital review copy.
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April 29, 2026Riley is a master prose stylist. Her work is dark, perceptive, ultimately focused in realism. In all her books, especially this one, she doesn’t tell you who the characters are - she shows you who they are through their dialogue and actions. She understands her characters to their core. The prose is also deceptively simple. There’s so much bubbling under the surface if you pause and take the time to think about how she is presenting information to you. This is why she is one of my favourite authors and why her works always have a lasting impact on me. The Palm House was no exception. As I finished the last page I was like, hmmm… but then little details of the text could not escape me as I further analyzed the narrator and her relationships within the novel. I found that the relationships she examines to be interesting, complicated, and new to what she has done before, but also very familiar.
This is worth the read for anyone who has read Riley before, but I still think her best work is found in My Phantoms and First Love and where readers should first start if they are unfamiliar with her work.
This is worth the read for anyone who has read Riley before, but I still think her best work is found in My Phantoms and First Love and where readers should first start if they are unfamiliar with her work.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Palm House, the latest novel by Gwendoline Riley, is another striking slice of contemporary life, of a woman - this time Laura Miller - with a complex relationship with her mother and of her friendship with an older man, Edward Putnam (just Putnam to his friends). He is a long term writer with a magazine, Sequence, but about to be shoved out by a new, younger editor. Laura is also adrift in her own way, and the friendship between these two souls forms the backbone of this novel.
I have long admired Riley's fiction - I came onboard with her debut Cold Water in 2002 - and have read everything she has published since. The Palm House treads her familiar themes, but never feels like a repition. From the beautiful opening sentences, Riley grips in a way few manage; she has a sharp eye, and a scapel-sharp style of prose that gets right to the beating heart of her characters. If you've not read her before, this is a great place to start. If you've liked her previous works, this one will be a treat.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
I have long admired Riley's fiction - I came onboard with her debut Cold Water in 2002 - and have read everything she has published since. The Palm House treads her familiar themes, but never feels like a repition. From the beautiful opening sentences, Riley grips in a way few manage; she has a sharp eye, and a scapel-sharp style of prose that gets right to the beating heart of her characters. If you've not read her before, this is a great place to start. If you've liked her previous works, this one will be a treat.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
April 21, 2026
James Wood, a critic I like, said of Riley: “We truly see her characters, in their descriptive nakedness, alive and horridly vivid.” True. There’s something skinless about Riley’s writing of her characters’ emotional states. She expresses *feeling* so well. In her sharp, carefully textured, and beautifully paced sentences, Riley gives the impression of a cold eye holding things up and exposing them in the sun’s bright glare. It can feel merciless. It’s thrilling.
Actually, Riley’s previous novel My Phantoms was even more severe in this regard, though that made sense considering the relationships in that book. The Palm House is less bleak, but it still hits its target; it’s still full of clean punches and crisp slaps. I just love her writing—her control. Her ear for speech is uncommonly good. I feel safe in her hands.
This is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far. Very addictive. I’m generally a slow reader, but this was so supple and nimble that I simply breezed through it.
On the strength of just two books, Riley has become one of my favourite contemporary novelists. I’m more eager than ever now to read First Love.
Actually, Riley’s previous novel My Phantoms was even more severe in this regard, though that made sense considering the relationships in that book. The Palm House is less bleak, but it still hits its target; it’s still full of clean punches and crisp slaps. I just love her writing—her control. Her ear for speech is uncommonly good. I feel safe in her hands.
This is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far. Very addictive. I’m generally a slow reader, but this was so supple and nimble that I simply breezed through it.
On the strength of just two books, Riley has become one of my favourite contemporary novelists. I’m more eager than ever now to read First Love.
Want to Read
April 25, 2026I bought a copy and it was slightly damaged and I'm mildly devastated about it, but I'm being so brave <3
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April 8, 2026
Somehow this story of two London friends - Laura and Edmund - was too convoluted, two cold to make me invested in any of the characters. Sad, considering how much I'd enjoyed Gwendoline Riley's previous books.
May 10, 2026
v v good ok clearly i need to get on my gwen riley shit
April 7, 2026
I was in pub with Laura and Putnam. We had a good time.
March 7, 2026
Brilliant slices of life, with magnificently captured dialogue. Not really a novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 9, 2025
gwendoline riley cuts so close to the bone. utter excellence.
May 13, 2026
Very reminiscent of Barbara Pym to me in its quiet humor, subtle commentary on aging, innate Britishness, and peripheral and primarily platonic relationships.
One thing I notice about Riley's novels is her specific talent towards writing such real feeling characters, so real at times they contribute heavily to their own unlikability.
I would still claim My Phantoms as her best work, but I did enjoy this one more than First Love, her other most known novel. It ultimately works decently well as
an equally quirky and solemn slice of life novel that
comments on the common introspective struggles of life.
One thing I notice about Riley's novels is her specific talent towards writing such real feeling characters, so real at times they contribute heavily to their own unlikability.
I would still claim My Phantoms as her best work, but I did enjoy this one more than First Love, her other most known novel. It ultimately works decently well as
an equally quirky and solemn slice of life novel that
comments on the common introspective struggles of life.
April 22, 2026
This was really good. Definitely a book you should read in a day/as fast as possible (it's not that long). Not as good as My Phantoms, it doesn't have the same tight focus. The theme seems to be 'dealing with shitty men' but with absolutely no self pity or moralising. Also getting older, middle age, dealing with the past. She is so, so good at dialogue and dark humour. Just such brilliant character details. Like the father lifting up her armpit and asking the uncle to smell it while saying, 'Is it just me, or is that a pretty ripe smell?' Just BRILLIANTLY character revealing. And I liked how it had a happy ending. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.
April 7, 2026
I really love her writing but this one didn’t deliver the sucker punch of my phantoms (the best book ever). although I really enjoyed it, I guess I didn’t get why this story in particular had to be told.
April 29, 2026
At the time of writing I haven’t actually finished reading this book, but I’m in a fairly foul and wound-up mood at the moment, so let’s try an experiment. If you’re reading this, it means I’ve made it through the last 53 pages and they haven’t changed my mind.
*
I read this book over three days in a haze of indifference. Even by the standards of anecdotal realism this is downright trivial stuff: thin, unpressured, and becalmed. I know we live in an age of runaway praise inflation, but reading the backflap of this book makes me feel like the cuckoos have taken over. Are you telling me that this really “confirms Riley’s position among the finest novelists working today”? I’m supposed to believe that this “confirms Riley as one of Britain’s best?” Are you seriously telling me that “nobody writes better?” Get a fucking grip, because this sort of hyperbole just embarrasses all of us. Look, it’s all perfectly well-balanced and lean, but come on. Make it make sense.
Still, all power to her for winning the Windham–Campbell Prize. A hundred and fifty big ones is a life-changing amount of money to a writer of literary fiction in these illiterate, shitbox times.
*
I read this book over three days in a haze of indifference. Even by the standards of anecdotal realism this is downright trivial stuff: thin, unpressured, and becalmed. I know we live in an age of runaway praise inflation, but reading the backflap of this book makes me feel like the cuckoos have taken over. Are you telling me that this really “confirms Riley’s position among the finest novelists working today”? I’m supposed to believe that this “confirms Riley as one of Britain’s best?” Are you seriously telling me that “nobody writes better?” Get a fucking grip, because this sort of hyperbole just embarrasses all of us. Look, it’s all perfectly well-balanced and lean, but come on. Make it make sense.
Still, all power to her for winning the Windham–Campbell Prize. A hundred and fifty big ones is a life-changing amount of money to a writer of literary fiction in these illiterate, shitbox times.
May 9, 2026
A reviewer admired the author’s “darkly gleaming sentences”, and I fully agree. Laura’s past and inner world completely drew me in, whereas I found Putnam’s storyline less compelling and was always wanting to return to Laura.
January 23, 2026
Read it for the sentences because they are crisp, concise revelations of character and plot. That might make it sound too cool or detached but there is a wizardry at work in the writing which allows you to care and engage with the story and the characters. There is also something about this writer's work which presents a puzzle that keeps you reading. I really recommend reading Gwendoline Riley's books and this is an excellent place to start. I will miss Laura and Putnam for the rest of the week and will think of them from time to time.
Thanks to Netgalley for ARC.
Thanks to Netgalley for ARC.
May 6, 2026
She’s such an intriguing writer but at the same time sort of hostile or alienating to read? I liked this quite a lot. The dialogue is so good. The story seems to be about security, in a way, everyone is always just one minor thing away from being tipped over the edge of insecurity into loneliness or homelessness. There’s a dark edge to everything. It is quite a Londony book in that way. I was so grateful for where she lets the light in, mostly through the relationship with Putnam (I *love* Putnam, I also want him for a friend). What else is there than friendship and trust and the pleasure of collegiality. None of which is possible without safety, first, having a home that’s safe from predators… I thought a lot about the book Brian I also read this year. And that Muriel Spark book about the ‘pissoir du texte’ (I think it’s A Far Cry from Kensington).
May 11, 2026
This book follows a woman, Laura, and her relationship with a man, Putman, who is fraught with existential thoughts. We also get carried into Laura's relationship with her mother, grandmother, and a couple random men. The book feels like it wanders without much structure, into thoughts and places with no real rhyme or reason. I enjoyed the writing style, and even the content, but do find myself questioning what the point of it all was. Which, seems to be the point in and of itself. Sometimes books like this, with little to no plot, really hit for me, and sometimes they fall flat. I didn't hate this book, but I also cannot say I loved it. It read passively, and without any real mark left- I probably wont think about it much hereafter, but who knows.
May 7, 2026
One of those books for which a star system is particularly inadequate. Carefully describes a constellation of relationships (especially between men and women) in a pocket of literary/artistic London, with the center of gravity being the friendship between the narrator, roughly 40 year old Laura, and the decade or so older Putnam. Very little happens in a traditional plotty sense; it’s slice-of-life for precisely rendered people in a precisely rendered set of places, with immaculate dialogue and a brisk prose style that makes it hard to put down, if you’re into it. Not going to be for everyone, but it was very much for me.
April 5, 2026
Very gentle addition to Riley’s collection of deceptively miniature masterpieces. I know it’s hilarious that any of her novels could be spoiled - we read her for the sheer beauty of the prose and her snappy dialogue. And yet, I did love that Riley’s narrator ends up happy, as happy as they ever get- what a supremely confident ending in its total understatement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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May 7, 2026The good: gorgeous, gorgeous writing, astute observations about parents and friends and careers and ennui.
The bad: I would have liked a little more focus. Maybe this is a matter of the disconnect between the description on the back and the actual contents, but I was a little surprised by what was and wasn’t actually the subject of this book.
Overall, I need to noodle on it a bit more. But I want to read her other work because boy can she write.
The bad: I would have liked a little more focus. Maybe this is a matter of the disconnect between the description on the back and the actual contents, but I was a little surprised by what was and wasn’t actually the subject of this book.
Overall, I need to noodle on it a bit more. But I want to read her other work because boy can she write.
March 20, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this advance copy.
Gentle and thoughtful, this novel is like a set of short stories guiding through the experiences that make a person.
It doesn’t follow a timeline or plot but is more about the mood, smoothly moving through the characters’ past and checking into the present day in beats.
Laura, the protagonist, remained quite mysterious to me, shown through these moments in her life.
In points the feeling is lonely and cruel, others showing the strength of a long term friendship and the difficulty of reading people’s feelings.
There was also the strong sense of negative economic change in society - that a standard wage cannot buy a home, that an egotistical bigwig can take a top job they don’t care about, throw their weight around and crush a community.
I’ve read each of Gwendoline’s previous books and can’t wait to she what she does next.
Gentle and thoughtful, this novel is like a set of short stories guiding through the experiences that make a person.
It doesn’t follow a timeline or plot but is more about the mood, smoothly moving through the characters’ past and checking into the present day in beats.
Laura, the protagonist, remained quite mysterious to me, shown through these moments in her life.
In points the feeling is lonely and cruel, others showing the strength of a long term friendship and the difficulty of reading people’s feelings.
There was also the strong sense of negative economic change in society - that a standard wage cannot buy a home, that an egotistical bigwig can take a top job they don’t care about, throw their weight around and crush a community.
I’ve read each of Gwendoline’s previous books and can’t wait to she what she does next.
April 24, 2026
Gwendoline Riley is one of my new favorite writers. She has a remarkable gift for painting vivid characters, even minor, one-scene wonders, via their gestures, their affectations, their actual social status vs. the status they're performing for the world.
It's a pleasure to spend time, however brief, with her prose.
Please, people, try out a real novel for a change. It's embarrassing to see the low score and readership numbers on a site called Goodreads. The Palm House is half as long—and several times as good—as any of the 4 or 5 books Freida McFadden willwrite type in 2026 alone.
It's a pleasure to spend time, however brief, with her prose.
Please, people, try out a real novel for a change. It's embarrassing to see the low score and readership numbers on a site called Goodreads. The Palm House is half as long—and several times as good—as any of the 4 or 5 books Freida McFadden will
March 10, 2026
This was the book equivalent of eating at a Michelin starred restaurant.
The few hours spent reading this is such a great experience from start to finish that you just have to admire what you have in front of you.
But beyond the sentence level I’m not sure what went into this book or what it was trying to say, but that didn’t feel like the point.
I will go back and read her back catalogue after this, and reread this in the future to better digest it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for the arc
The few hours spent reading this is such a great experience from start to finish that you just have to admire what you have in front of you.
But beyond the sentence level I’m not sure what went into this book or what it was trying to say, but that didn’t feel like the point.
I will go back and read her back catalogue after this, and reread this in the future to better digest it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for the arc
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In the office, meanwhile, I heard Putnam was being fantastic: keeping everyone else’s spirits up, protecting what he could. Containment was the policy. The mediocrity of Shove was ever-ready and rapacious but Vik and Putnam, Katherine told me, were running interference in editorial meetings, and had a nice line, too, in steamrollering: there could be no argument about the pieces the staff wanted to run.
In Books of My Life set of questions in the Guardian earlier this year, Saba Sams (possibly one of the hottest properties in the UK literary fiction scene) said in response to the prompt “The Writer Who changed my mind” : “Gwendoline Riley, for repeatedly writing claustrophobic novels from the perspective of an enigmatic female protagonist. I internalised at some point that writers were supposed to leap from book to book showing off their huge range, but I find Riley’s approach far braver and more compelling.”
And that perfectly captures I think the sense of this author with her very distinctive approach to novels (even if I believe the author – whose approach to interviews/book signings seems in keeping with her novels - does not agree with some of the characterisations).
I have read her two previous novels (her 5th and 6th I believe): “First Love” (2017) which was almost universally recognised on book prize shortlists (Women’s Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, Goldsmiths Prize, Dylan Thomas Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Prize); “My Phantoms” (2021) which was almost universally recognised on book of the year reviews (with only a Folio Prize shortlisting); and now this her 7th “The Palm House” ubiquitous this time for its appearance on 2026 previews.
I would characterise her recent approach as: short novels written in non-linear fragments; a first party female narrator (the New Statesmen has previously said the narrators appear to age across her books in line with the author); us learning about that narrator through two sources – firstly incidents from their past (Riley is far more interested in what lead to the person we see today than in actually exploring present day actions or especially their future prospects), and secondly their observations of others (albeit not to Cusk “annihilated perspective sense”); a forensic level of observations – one area that Riley repeatedly comes back to in interviews, and which she deploys in her writing via her narrators, is her ability to observe and capture on paper verbal tics/mannerisms/ways of being in the world – often invisible to the actual person; and from that a focus on flaws – one of her favourite words I have seen in interviews about both her previous books is about people being incorrigible; dysfunctional family dynamics and particularly difficult mothers.
And notwithstanding that Riley has slightly changed her focus here: perhaps her most London based novel (in particular South London in and around Tolley Street – an area that for me – due to London Bridge station - is the welcome gateway to my City work as well as the even more welcome exit at the day’s end from the London grime to the Surrey Hills); one where she has specifically drawn on the writing of Penelope Fitzgerald to present a very English collective around a common goal; thematically the exploration of accommodation in the literal form of rooms/housing extending to accommodation of ones quirks within a group ………….. all of the characteristic approaches I mention feature here in my view.
Anchored in late 2017, the main character and first party narrator is Laura Miller – and the centre of the novel is her friendship (going back to university days at the UCL) with Edmund Putnam.
Edmund is a long standing cultural editor at Sequence, a 50+ year magazine with elements of the Spectator, New Statesman and TLS (as an aside Riley was previously married to a TLS editor) once seen as something of an young-fogey magazine (Ken Barlow being portrayed once as a fan in Corrie), then a little more politically engaged but now subject to a corporate make over from an owner-imposed editor who Edmund hates and who does not seem to understand the magazine’s strengths. He is also dealing with the death of his father
For Laura we learn more of her past – her (of course) difficult relationship with a mother at once overbearing and neglectful (one the more seedy parts of the novel has a 16 year old Laura being groomed by a TV and stage comedian with her mother’s apparent disinterest), her various houses and the people she encounters which include an over the top actor and a TV producer; some other incidents from her childhood (which are part autobiographical) and so on.
I have to say that I did not entirely think this was Riley at her finest: the actor we are told “was so actorly, he seemed at times to be acting the part of an actor”; in a novel which features office politics and has an overbearing un self-aware boss we get a reference to Laura’s father being unable to watch The Office as it was too close to his corporate life; in what I would call sitcom style a character is given an unlikely surname – Halfpenny – just so he can be given a nickname – Shove. And all of these seemed a little too uncharacteristically unsubtle for me.
But its one which will I think satisfy her many fans and may well give her more prize listing this year.
My thanks to Picador for an ARC via NetGalley
March 9, 2026
Dnf.
Not for me.
Odd style and then a teenage girl being groomed and abused by a TV comedian twice her age. I don’t want to read about that.
Not for me.
Odd style and then a teenage girl being groomed and abused by a TV comedian twice her age. I don’t want to read about that.
May 14, 2026
Gwendoline Riley has written seven novels, won several literary prizes, and in 2026 she received the Windham-Campbell Prize for her body of work - worth $175, 000. These are considerable achievements and they illustrate the high regard in which she is held in the literary world.
This is the first novel of hers I've read and I approached it with some trepidation, mostly because of the plaudits her work has received from the cognoscenti and in case I didn't get what all the fuss was about. (It wouldn't be the first time: come forward Sarah Perry and Ali Smith).
I read it virtually at one sitting - more because of the propulsively pellucid prose than because I became invested in the lives of the characters and wanted to know what was going to happen to them.
In fact, nothing much does happen to them, as their lives revolve around a literary journal which has newly fallen in the hands of a young upstart determined to drag it into the modern world, much against the desires and instincts of Laura, Putnam and a variety of other characters.
I found myself rather skating over the lives of these people and focusing, instead, on the language and the dialogues. The repartee is clever, but it's as though all the characters are speaking with one voice. Which I suppose they are, really, because its Riley's voice and she doesn't try to hide its knowing cleverness.
One thing I noticed in particular: it's very hard to find a single example of Riley using any word other than 'said' to denote that someone has just made a remark. I can't think that this isn't intentional, as it's so very obvious and Riley is so very deliberate.
Why does she do this? Anyone who's ever tried writing fiction will be acquainted with the temptation to spice up the text by embellishing the 'saids', with sighed, sniggered, announced, laughed and so on. There are myriad possibilities and every single one of them is rejected by Riley, in favour of 'said'.
This had two effects on me, in conflict with one another. The first was that I found myself focusing on what was being said rather than how it was said. Perhaps that's Riley's intention, and a sound one it is too. Moreover, I liked being left to make up my own mind about the 'how' rather than be instructed by the novelist.
The other effect was that I began to look obsessively to see if Riley was ever going to come up with an alternative to 'said', and this had the counter-effect of drawing my attention away from what was being said by the protagonists.
Nor does the 'said' issue end there. For Riley is also in the habit of giving us a volley of successive 'saids' even when what's being said is said by the same person, one remark after another.
Here's an example:
'Or maybe not,' he said, .scratching his smooth cheek. 'You can work in peace. You don't want someone up your nose all the time, do you?'
'Probably a bonus for you if I'm not there,' he said, laughing.
'Pretty good deal really, isn't it? he said. 'And no centipedes,' he said, again.
Each of these remarks could have been collected under one 'said'. I wonder why they're not? Perhaps Riley is trying to capture the disjunctive nature of (some?) real conversation. Or maybe it's a way of conveying the desultory nature of some conversation.
I really don't know. But I imagine it's the kind of thing English Literature students think about (if there are any courses left in UK universities for them to study), and given the speed with which Riley's star is on the rise I'm sure she'll be on the syllabus - if she's not already.
Oh, and one other thing. Laura's mother takes Spanish lessons. 'Estoy solo esta vez', she says at one point. Three possibilities. First, that this is incorrect. As a woman, she should say, 'Estoy sola esta vez'. Is this mistake a neat indication by Riley that Laura's mother is a beginner and therefore likely to make this kind of error (one easily made by those whose first language doesn't include gendered agreement, I can vouch)?
On the next page, though, the mother correctly says, 'Soy vegana'. So which is it? Riley illustrating the rapid advance of her mother's linguistic skills? Or the random way in which beginner Spanish learners get the gender agreement right (it's a 50-50 chance after all)? Or Riley not checking the correct Spanish in the first example?
Or - the third possibility - that this is the use in English of 'solo', as in 'I'm going/doing it alone'. In which case the word should have been distinguished in the phrase by being non-italicised.
Lord, I'm such a pedant.
This is the first novel of hers I've read and I approached it with some trepidation, mostly because of the plaudits her work has received from the cognoscenti and in case I didn't get what all the fuss was about. (It wouldn't be the first time: come forward Sarah Perry and Ali Smith).
I read it virtually at one sitting - more because of the propulsively pellucid prose than because I became invested in the lives of the characters and wanted to know what was going to happen to them.
In fact, nothing much does happen to them, as their lives revolve around a literary journal which has newly fallen in the hands of a young upstart determined to drag it into the modern world, much against the desires and instincts of Laura, Putnam and a variety of other characters.
I found myself rather skating over the lives of these people and focusing, instead, on the language and the dialogues. The repartee is clever, but it's as though all the characters are speaking with one voice. Which I suppose they are, really, because its Riley's voice and she doesn't try to hide its knowing cleverness.
One thing I noticed in particular: it's very hard to find a single example of Riley using any word other than 'said' to denote that someone has just made a remark. I can't think that this isn't intentional, as it's so very obvious and Riley is so very deliberate.
Why does she do this? Anyone who's ever tried writing fiction will be acquainted with the temptation to spice up the text by embellishing the 'saids', with sighed, sniggered, announced, laughed and so on. There are myriad possibilities and every single one of them is rejected by Riley, in favour of 'said'.
This had two effects on me, in conflict with one another. The first was that I found myself focusing on what was being said rather than how it was said. Perhaps that's Riley's intention, and a sound one it is too. Moreover, I liked being left to make up my own mind about the 'how' rather than be instructed by the novelist.
The other effect was that I began to look obsessively to see if Riley was ever going to come up with an alternative to 'said', and this had the counter-effect of drawing my attention away from what was being said by the protagonists.
Nor does the 'said' issue end there. For Riley is also in the habit of giving us a volley of successive 'saids' even when what's being said is said by the same person, one remark after another.
Here's an example:
'Or maybe not,' he said, .scratching his smooth cheek. 'You can work in peace. You don't want someone up your nose all the time, do you?'
'Probably a bonus for you if I'm not there,' he said, laughing.
'Pretty good deal really, isn't it? he said. 'And no centipedes,' he said, again.
Each of these remarks could have been collected under one 'said'. I wonder why they're not? Perhaps Riley is trying to capture the disjunctive nature of (some?) real conversation. Or maybe it's a way of conveying the desultory nature of some conversation.
I really don't know. But I imagine it's the kind of thing English Literature students think about (if there are any courses left in UK universities for them to study), and given the speed with which Riley's star is on the rise I'm sure she'll be on the syllabus - if she's not already.
Oh, and one other thing. Laura's mother takes Spanish lessons. 'Estoy solo esta vez', she says at one point. Three possibilities. First, that this is incorrect. As a woman, she should say, 'Estoy sola esta vez'. Is this mistake a neat indication by Riley that Laura's mother is a beginner and therefore likely to make this kind of error (one easily made by those whose first language doesn't include gendered agreement, I can vouch)?
On the next page, though, the mother correctly says, 'Soy vegana'. So which is it? Riley illustrating the rapid advance of her mother's linguistic skills? Or the random way in which beginner Spanish learners get the gender agreement right (it's a 50-50 chance after all)? Or Riley not checking the correct Spanish in the first example?
Or - the third possibility - that this is the use in English of 'solo', as in 'I'm going/doing it alone'. In which case the word should have been distinguished in the phrase by being non-italicised.
Lord, I'm such a pedant.
Read
April 24, 2026Thanks to NYRB or the gifted copy
If you’ve read either of Riley’s US releases, The Palm House may surprise you.
While First Love was a prickly, claustrophobic study of domestic power, and My Phantoms was a razor-sharp, devastating inventory of family resentment, The Palm House is a much quieter, more observational work that presents the cruelty of the past with a gentle, startlingly unsentimental clarity.
Don’t get me wrong, some of what we’ve found in her previous works is in here, that complex (understatement) mother-daughter relationship, an older man (this time a friend), and Riley’s mastery of dialogue, but the vibes are completely different. This is more melancholic and passive. Through a set of vignettes, we see flashes of Laura's history presented as simple, undeniable facts. Instead of building toward a dramatic climax or neatly packaged healing, Riley just shows us the damage and asks us to observe the guarded, emotionally distant adult who survived it. This is really a sneaky way of me saying that not much happens here while so much is happening.
We see Laura, almost 40, finally reach a form of stability - she has a job, she’s managed to buy a small flat - but she remains deeply, almost aggressively, passive. She is a watchful, quiet presence who simply absorbed the cruelty of her youth, whether from her mother, her father or the gross, older comedian who took advantage of her as a teenager. Detached is the perfect word for both Laura and Riley’s storytelling. We see this mirrored in Laura’s older friend, Edmund. Pushed out of a decades-long career, he is watching the London he knew disappear, seeing families and coworkers priced out of the very neighborhoods his working-class parents once afforded. Even the recent death of his father, whom he cared for, is something he skirts around. It’s just another form of avoiding trauma, of refusing to confront the damage.
This is exactly the kind of book I love, the kind where the quiet, ordinary lives of everyday people are elevated simply by being written about with this much clarity. It just felt true.
-------------------
I keep thinking about the title and how it reflects the illusion of preservation in Laura's and Edmund’s lives, the question of whether true stability or just being trapped, and the way both people and institutions inflate their own importance.
A gentler, melancholic departure from Riley’s usual sharp friction.
A quiet, deeply unsentimental look at mid-life, memory, and the ghosts we've learned to live with.
If you’ve read either of Riley’s US releases, The Palm House may surprise you.
While First Love was a prickly, claustrophobic study of domestic power, and My Phantoms was a razor-sharp, devastating inventory of family resentment, The Palm House is a much quieter, more observational work that presents the cruelty of the past with a gentle, startlingly unsentimental clarity.
Don’t get me wrong, some of what we’ve found in her previous works is in here, that complex (understatement) mother-daughter relationship, an older man (this time a friend), and Riley’s mastery of dialogue, but the vibes are completely different. This is more melancholic and passive. Through a set of vignettes, we see flashes of Laura's history presented as simple, undeniable facts. Instead of building toward a dramatic climax or neatly packaged healing, Riley just shows us the damage and asks us to observe the guarded, emotionally distant adult who survived it. This is really a sneaky way of me saying that not much happens here while so much is happening.
We see Laura, almost 40, finally reach a form of stability - she has a job, she’s managed to buy a small flat - but she remains deeply, almost aggressively, passive. She is a watchful, quiet presence who simply absorbed the cruelty of her youth, whether from her mother, her father or the gross, older comedian who took advantage of her as a teenager. Detached is the perfect word for both Laura and Riley’s storytelling. We see this mirrored in Laura’s older friend, Edmund. Pushed out of a decades-long career, he is watching the London he knew disappear, seeing families and coworkers priced out of the very neighborhoods his working-class parents once afforded. Even the recent death of his father, whom he cared for, is something he skirts around. It’s just another form of avoiding trauma, of refusing to confront the damage.
This is exactly the kind of book I love, the kind where the quiet, ordinary lives of everyday people are elevated simply by being written about with this much clarity. It just felt true.
-------------------
I keep thinking about the title and how it reflects the illusion of preservation in Laura's and Edmund’s lives, the question of whether true stability or just being trapped, and the way both people and institutions inflate their own importance.
A gentler, melancholic departure from Riley’s usual sharp friction.
A quiet, deeply unsentimental look at mid-life, memory, and the ghosts we've learned to live with.
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