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The Palm House
Edmund Putnam, days away from the end of his 50th year, finds that his solitary life is about to change. The magazine to which he has given his best decades faces closure, and Edmund will likely lose his job this coming Monday morning. But before this fateful prospect can arrive there are others, no less a date, and a birthday.
Putnam's great friend, Laura, worries for him. She is a decade or so younger, employed by the same magazine but with the prospect of escape; she has been offered the opportunity to leave the country and work abroad. But can she bear to take it?
Meanwhile Putnam's father, Martin, has found a new lease of life. He has fallen in love with a waitress at a local cafe, and decided to rescue her from her brutish husband.
Unfolding over the course of a single weekend, as these three drifters assess their fates and their futures, THE PALM HOUSE reads between the lines of modern life in a country slipping back into its past, and presents Gwendoline Riley at her heartfelt, bravura best.
Putnam's great friend, Laura, worries for him. She is a decade or so younger, employed by the same magazine but with the prospect of escape; she has been offered the opportunity to leave the country and work abroad. But can she bear to take it?
Meanwhile Putnam's father, Martin, has found a new lease of life. He has fallen in love with a waitress at a local cafe, and decided to rescue her from her brutish husband.
Unfolding over the course of a single weekend, as these three drifters assess their fates and their futures, THE PALM HOUSE reads between the lines of modern life in a country slipping back into its past, and presents Gwendoline Riley at her heartfelt, bravura best.
154 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 2, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 545 reviews
August 4, 2026
Longlisted for Booker prize 2026
Book 1/13
I had no intention to read this year Booker Longlist. However, after seeing the actual titles, here I am, finishing the 1st book from the list. Probably, not the best choice to start with. Will I read all the list? Most likely not, but I will try to get to as many as I can. Why this change of mind? I am not sure, probably because it seems to be an innovative and interesting list. Also, most of the books on it are short, something I very much prefer nowadays.
I will start my review with the following disclaimer. I listened to The Palm House at the same time I was reading the last 200 pages of The Twins Trilogy by Agota Kristof, a novel which went straight to my favourites shelf. It was very hard not to compare them, and unfortunately for this title, it did not come out well. It was barely ok, the only upside I could find was that it was short and the audiobook narrator had a nice accent.
What was it about? Some guy quits his job in editing and the narrator, who is his friend tries to make him feel better. Not before she starts remembering some apparently random encounters and events from her past. I know I am being fastidious about this (if you read the book you would know why I chose this word), but it is what it is.
I do not know what I should have learned and felt after reading this life vignettes? Should have I been in awe of the sophisticated conversations and of the characters? Should the writing have felt smart? I do not know, all I felt was detachment and total indifference.
Also, one think that irked me was the not so casual way the author introduced vegetarianism as the only way and how it implied that one person got sick because he was eating meat. Yeah, that was probably the only moment this book got any reaction from me.
Book 1/13
I had no intention to read this year Booker Longlist. However, after seeing the actual titles, here I am, finishing the 1st book from the list. Probably, not the best choice to start with. Will I read all the list? Most likely not, but I will try to get to as many as I can. Why this change of mind? I am not sure, probably because it seems to be an innovative and interesting list. Also, most of the books on it are short, something I very much prefer nowadays.
I will start my review with the following disclaimer. I listened to The Palm House at the same time I was reading the last 200 pages of The Twins Trilogy by Agota Kristof, a novel which went straight to my favourites shelf. It was very hard not to compare them, and unfortunately for this title, it did not come out well. It was barely ok, the only upside I could find was that it was short and the audiobook narrator had a nice accent.
What was it about? Some guy quits his job in editing and the narrator, who is his friend tries to make him feel better. Not before she starts remembering some apparently random encounters and events from her past. I know I am being fastidious about this (if you read the book you would know why I chose this word), but it is what it is.
I do not know what I should have learned and felt after reading this life vignettes? Should have I been in awe of the sophisticated conversations and of the characters? Should the writing have felt smart? I do not know, all I felt was detachment and total indifference.
Also, one think that irked me was the not so casual way the author introduced vegetarianism as the only way and how it implied that one person got sick because he was eating meat. Yeah, that was probably the only moment this book got any reaction from me.
May 28, 2026
Disappointing. The novel tries very hard to sound intellectual, sophisticated and refined, but for me it lacked real depth or emotional weight.
The writing reminded me of James Salter’s in the sense that it focuses heavily on conversations and atmosphere, yet it never truly shines.
The characters were all unlikable.
Veganism and vegetarianism were mentioned as if they automatically made one more enlightened or superior. Instead of adding meaning to the story, those details often felt self-congratulatory and pretentious.
What in the name of all the food gods is a 'vegan sausage roll' anyway? 🙄
Someone the characters know is diagnosed with a disease and during their conversation one of them questions the cause of the illness saying that she (the ill person) was even a vegetarian. What? 😣
Sentences such as "He had a cold, smooth voice, like a heavy pair of scissors cutting rich fabric." and "I assessed my hangover. It wasn't too bad. I felt a bit like a blown egg." were the cherries on top! 🤯🤕
For me it felt the novel was more concerned with appearing intelligent and tasteful than with saying anything meaningful.
The writing reminded me of James Salter’s in the sense that it focuses heavily on conversations and atmosphere, yet it never truly shines.
The characters were all unlikable.
Veganism and vegetarianism were mentioned as if they automatically made one more enlightened or superior. Instead of adding meaning to the story, those details often felt self-congratulatory and pretentious.
What in the name of all the food gods is a 'vegan sausage roll' anyway? 🙄
Someone the characters know is diagnosed with a disease and during their conversation one of them questions the cause of the illness saying that she (the ill person) was even a vegetarian. What? 😣
Sentences such as "He had a cold, smooth voice, like a heavy pair of scissors cutting rich fabric." and "I assessed my hangover. It wasn't too bad. I felt a bit like a blown egg." were the cherries on top! 🤯🤕
For me it felt the novel was more concerned with appearing intelligent and tasteful than with saying anything meaningful.
August 4, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
This is a plotless novel. The fact that the conflict shown in the first part resolves in the fifth was just a forced way to make a novel out of whatever this is. Every part shows Laura, the protagonist, having conversations that feel like negotiations with different men at different times in her life. One is a long-time friend who now has a midlife crisis (Edmund Putman is the only one who is present in the other parts), the second is a celebrity whom teenage Laura idolizes, the third is an established actor with whom she has an arrangement, the fourth is an acquaintance who lets her stay in one of his spare rooms when she is changing houses.
Gwendoline Riley's prose takes some getting used to. It is so restrained, because she wants to tell us so little. She found a way to make even the dialogue distant and unengaging, by starting another paragraph even if it's the same character speaking. It all makes sense to a point, for the kind of character Laura is around men. She is basically in control at all times and always searching to find a way to keep them at a distance, even if they believe something else.
The problem when there isn't a plot to follow is that the new episodes the author proposes must deliver, and The Palm House peaked at part 2. The ending basically tells us that the big scene that will explain everything about Laura won't come for at least some months, maybe years, after this book ends. It's a choice. I can admire it or criticize it, but that doesn't change the fact that the second half was meh.
This is a plotless novel. The fact that the conflict shown in the first part resolves in the fifth was just a forced way to make a novel out of whatever this is. Every part shows Laura, the protagonist, having conversations that feel like negotiations with different men at different times in her life. One is a long-time friend who now has a midlife crisis (Edmund Putman is the only one who is present in the other parts), the second is a celebrity whom teenage Laura idolizes, the third is an established actor with whom she has an arrangement, the fourth is an acquaintance who lets her stay in one of his spare rooms when she is changing houses.
Gwendoline Riley's prose takes some getting used to. It is so restrained, because she wants to tell us so little. She found a way to make even the dialogue distant and unengaging, by starting another paragraph even if it's the same character speaking. It all makes sense to a point, for the kind of character Laura is around men. She is basically in control at all times and always searching to find a way to keep them at a distance, even if they believe something else.
The problem when there isn't a plot to follow is that the new episodes the author proposes must deliver, and The Palm House peaked at part 2. The ending basically tells us that the big scene that will explain everything about Laura won't come for at least some months, maybe years, after this book ends. It's a choice. I can admire it or criticize it, but that doesn't change the fact that the second half was meh.
May 26, 2026
Friendship between a man and a woman, especially an older, hetero man and younger, hetero woman, is something I’ve rarely seen explored in fiction – unless their friendship morphs into romance and/or exploitation. But the enduring bond between Laura Miller approaching forty and Edmund Putnam approaching fifty, is front and centre in Gwendoline Riley’s beautifully-observed novel. Laura and Putnam’s relationship isn’t flawless but it’s a welcome refuge from a challenging, sometimes menacing world. With a deliberate nod to Our Mutual Friend, Riley’s opening plays on that contrast. It’s 2017, Laura and Putnam are having drinks in a riverside pub near London Bridge. Outside murky, polluted skies reflect ongoing climate change. But retreating deep inside, Laura and Putnam can focus on each other, sharing a packet of crisps, split open in, what was, a commonplace ritual of communion. In scenes inspired by Cusk’s Outline, Laura adopts the role of listener as Putnam recites a litany of grievances.
With minimal brush strokes Riley establishes Putnam’s history: ongoing devotion to the arts; a difficult time at a “rough” school with few friends. 25 years at Sequence magazine, one of a tight-knit group of like-minded people. For Putnam this pub’s a potent reminder – personal memory sites are prominent throughout for Putnam, and for Laura, adding a wistful, Proustian flavour to Riley’s narrative. Once-familiar London landscapes have radically altered since Putnam’s youth, now he’s facing seismic change. Sequence has a new editor, a brash “company man” nicknamed “Shove”; he’s moved over from a sports title with plans to shake things up. Shove’s rumoured to be based on Stephen “Stig of the Dump” Abell controversial former editor of the Times Literary Supplement or TLS. Abell arrived from red-top tabloid The Sun – where he gained notoriety supporting an exceptionally provocative, anti-migrant piece by right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins. Riley’s written for the TLS, her ex-husband also worked there. But whatever the sources, Riley’s depiction of events at Sequence forms a persuasive portrait of a rampantly commercialised publishing industry. Now Putnam’s abruptly quit, falling back on an inheritance after his dad’s recent death.
Riley’s narrative’s fragmented, restlessly shifting around in time in keeping with the workings of memory. Laura thinks back to childhood in the Wirral with her grandmother and divorced mother. Their distant, benign neglect left her introverted and self-conscious. At 15 a crush on minor celeb Chris Patrick promised longed-for affection. It became a classically abusive grooming scenario with Patrick a kind of larger-than-life “Russell Brand” figure. Patrick poses Laura like a doll, films them in bed together then sends her off with an STI to remember him by. It’s a chilling episode made more so by Riley’s matter-of-fact delivery influenced by Annie Ernaux’s The Happening. Laura meets Putnam when she’s studying in London. Their bond a constant countering precarity, they’re united by uneasy nostalgia and disillusionment; hyperaware chance can alter the course of a life – from the people they meet to Laura’s unexpected inheritance, just enough for a small flat.
Riley wanted to write about a community of “frightened people” branching out to include the Sequence crowd – Laura’s an honorary member at their gatherings. Some of this tracks back to Riley’s fascination with the houseboat community in Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore clinging to a semblance of an ordered, civilised life despite all odds. But Riley’s characters seem more resilient, managing to carve out spaces of sanctuary, however uncertain. Putnam’s casually-named Cat also gestures to Fitzgerald’s indomitable Stripey – Riley considers cats essential to human happiness and there’s a reverence for animals underlying her story glimpsed in Laura’s vegan beliefs. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, it seemed very different from previous more introspective novels. But it slowly won me over, it’s an impressively intricate piece, incredibly disciplined. A convincing, relatable slice of contemporary life. Riley manages to address weighty issues in an admirably subtle way: capitalism, relentless commodification, the strategies needed to navigate everyday perils against a backdrop of looming climate change. Riley’s minor characters don’t exactly rival Dickens’s but they’re striking too: eccentric, deftly drawn, for Laura, and to a lesser extent Putnam, dangerously mercurial.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador for an ARC
With minimal brush strokes Riley establishes Putnam’s history: ongoing devotion to the arts; a difficult time at a “rough” school with few friends. 25 years at Sequence magazine, one of a tight-knit group of like-minded people. For Putnam this pub’s a potent reminder – personal memory sites are prominent throughout for Putnam, and for Laura, adding a wistful, Proustian flavour to Riley’s narrative. Once-familiar London landscapes have radically altered since Putnam’s youth, now he’s facing seismic change. Sequence has a new editor, a brash “company man” nicknamed “Shove”; he’s moved over from a sports title with plans to shake things up. Shove’s rumoured to be based on Stephen “Stig of the Dump” Abell controversial former editor of the Times Literary Supplement or TLS. Abell arrived from red-top tabloid The Sun – where he gained notoriety supporting an exceptionally provocative, anti-migrant piece by right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins. Riley’s written for the TLS, her ex-husband also worked there. But whatever the sources, Riley’s depiction of events at Sequence forms a persuasive portrait of a rampantly commercialised publishing industry. Now Putnam’s abruptly quit, falling back on an inheritance after his dad’s recent death.
Riley’s narrative’s fragmented, restlessly shifting around in time in keeping with the workings of memory. Laura thinks back to childhood in the Wirral with her grandmother and divorced mother. Their distant, benign neglect left her introverted and self-conscious. At 15 a crush on minor celeb Chris Patrick promised longed-for affection. It became a classically abusive grooming scenario with Patrick a kind of larger-than-life “Russell Brand” figure. Patrick poses Laura like a doll, films them in bed together then sends her off with an STI to remember him by. It’s a chilling episode made more so by Riley’s matter-of-fact delivery influenced by Annie Ernaux’s The Happening. Laura meets Putnam when she’s studying in London. Their bond a constant countering precarity, they’re united by uneasy nostalgia and disillusionment; hyperaware chance can alter the course of a life – from the people they meet to Laura’s unexpected inheritance, just enough for a small flat.
Riley wanted to write about a community of “frightened people” branching out to include the Sequence crowd – Laura’s an honorary member at their gatherings. Some of this tracks back to Riley’s fascination with the houseboat community in Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore clinging to a semblance of an ordered, civilised life despite all odds. But Riley’s characters seem more resilient, managing to carve out spaces of sanctuary, however uncertain. Putnam’s casually-named Cat also gestures to Fitzgerald’s indomitable Stripey – Riley considers cats essential to human happiness and there’s a reverence for animals underlying her story glimpsed in Laura’s vegan beliefs. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, it seemed very different from previous more introspective novels. But it slowly won me over, it’s an impressively intricate piece, incredibly disciplined. A convincing, relatable slice of contemporary life. Riley manages to address weighty issues in an admirably subtle way: capitalism, relentless commodification, the strategies needed to navigate everyday perils against a backdrop of looming climate change. Riley’s minor characters don’t exactly rival Dickens’s but they’re striking too: eccentric, deftly drawn, for Laura, and to a lesser extent Putnam, dangerously mercurial.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador for an ARC
August 14, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
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 (Riley has said that she had Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore in mind, as a small community threatented by change) and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), with 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 judges' commendation
‘Most chilling story ever told: our literary magazine has got a new editor, and he’s coming in with some big ideas. A note-perfect portrait not only of certain rarefied London intellectual spaces, but also of the people who actually bring their own bloodstreams, histories, tastes, families, first loves, and lonelinesses to them, to make up that impersonal thing we think of as the Establishment. Who, in these places, has power, and how is that power wielded? Are we fated never to get a word in, to remain always a little hungry, a little thirsty – and did we really choose this path because we love literature? Told in a series of thrown spotlights, in some of the best dialogue this side of Henry Green, The Palm House is minimalist, precise, and indelible.’
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 (Riley has said that she had Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore in mind, as a small community threatented by change) and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), with 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 judges' commendation
‘Most chilling story ever told: our literary magazine has got a new editor, and he’s coming in with some big ideas. A note-perfect portrait not only of certain rarefied London intellectual spaces, but also of the people who actually bring their own bloodstreams, histories, tastes, families, first loves, and lonelinesses to them, to make up that impersonal thing we think of as the Establishment. Who, in these places, has power, and how is that power wielded? Are we fated never to get a word in, to remain always a little hungry, a little thirsty – and did we really choose this path because we love literature? Told in a series of thrown spotlights, in some of the best dialogue this side of Henry Green, The Palm House is minimalist, precise, and indelible.’
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
August 13, 2026
Booker Longlist #4
3.5, rounded down.
Only the second Riley for me to have read (First Love being the other), and I fared better with this one - but was still left a bit dissatisfied; in the immortal words of Peggy Lee: 'Is that all there is?' Had it not just been Booker-nommed, I MIGHT have felt more generous.
My main issue was the fact that a lot of this is so UK-centric that a lot of the references didn't resonate for me at all, such that I had to keep looking up items - for example, the section dealing with a comic named Chris Patrick sent me scurrying online to see if this was someone real who I just hadn't heard of - or a fictional character (turns out the latter!).
Much of this was congenially readable and fast-paced, and I appreciated Riley's deft ability with dialogue and characterization, but I'm not quite sure I got the point - is this just a 'the way we live now' sort of tome? It WAS refreshing to see a book in which a long-term relationship between people of opposing genders does NOT need to end in romance and is still satisfying.
Also, it bugs me when a title doesn't really jibe with the story - yes, the Kew Garden palm house gets a very brief passing reference - but then so do bin bags and vegan sausage rolls, which could have served just as well as a meaningless title (... but if someone from the UK can clue me in on a relevance I'm NOT getting, feel free!).
3.5, rounded down.
Only the second Riley for me to have read (First Love being the other), and I fared better with this one - but was still left a bit dissatisfied; in the immortal words of Peggy Lee: 'Is that all there is?' Had it not just been Booker-nommed, I MIGHT have felt more generous.
My main issue was the fact that a lot of this is so UK-centric that a lot of the references didn't resonate for me at all, such that I had to keep looking up items - for example, the section dealing with a comic named Chris Patrick sent me scurrying online to see if this was someone real who I just hadn't heard of - or a fictional character (turns out the latter!).
Much of this was congenially readable and fast-paced, and I appreciated Riley's deft ability with dialogue and characterization, but I'm not quite sure I got the point - is this just a 'the way we live now' sort of tome? It WAS refreshing to see a book in which a long-term relationship between people of opposing genders does NOT need to end in romance and is still satisfying.
Also, it bugs me when a title doesn't really jibe with the story - yes, the Kew Garden palm house gets a very brief passing reference - but then so do bin bags and vegan sausage rolls, which could have served just as well as a meaningless title (... but if someone from the UK can clue me in on a relevance I'm NOT getting, feel free!).
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.
August 2, 2026
Booker Longlist 2026
I bought this weeks before the longlist was announced!
I was a Gwendoline Riley virgin until The Palm House, so forgive me if I haven’t fully understood her through the fog of my instant adoration. What I do grok about this British author is that she is understated and yet forensic in her use of prose. Like a play, characters come on and off or in and out of the various settings. Conversational approach wins here. The author trusts us and doesn’t waste time on exposition. Structure is intrinsic to the story.
The Palm House itself is only mentioned once—I knew it was familiar! But when the narrative revealed Kew Gardens, snap! I went to my photos of 2018 and there it was. I have been pondering its broader meaning in context since I had that self-discovery.
Within the Kew Gardens metaphor is the shielded enclosure (for the oldest potted plant in history). There’s a sense of a fragile protection, or an isolated one—its strength depends on it being scrupulously and gingerly tended to, not taking risks, a containment, a restrained life. It blooms under guard. In Riley’s novel, I see the two main protagonists—writers and platonic friends Laura Miller (40) and Edmund Putnam (49) as withholding—not to each other, as their friendship is so flawlessly portrayed by Riley and comfortable to read—but withholding to themselves. Past trauma has caused them to repress emotions, and safety is their main concern.
They both worked for a highbrow literary history magazine called Sequence. Impeccable name that fits into the structure of the narrative, which is sequential, and a lot happens offstage but not bestowed onstage.
The Sequence customers are lifers, loyal to the magazine. A new editor, “Shove,” takes over and decides that this British periodical needs to go corporate and mimic The New Yorker. Putnam cannot get over it and quits, but he is obsessed with the whole matter and has difficulty moving forward. Every social outing with Laura is hampered by his constant whingeing about the debasement of Sequence. The reader can’t help but agree that Shove made a bad decision, but Putnam is stuck; the narrative so aptly conveys his “insistent, cloying ruefulness.”
I won’t enumerate the storyline—there isn’t an overarching plot. Themes touch on self-imposed emotional and psychological hardship —safety instead of liberty, a bitterness from a fanatical self-absorption. With Laura, a past violation has had its effect-- her mother failed to attend to her, a narcissist who never should have tried to raise a child. That left Laura vulnerable, but I wanted so much for her to be happy. She doesn’t wallow so ostentatiously as Putnam.
I think that the more Riley I read, the better informed I will be about her style. I was immediately attracted to the oblique voice but precise prose. How to be both oblique and exacting? She just does it.
And PS on page 41, Riley uses the term “bovarism,” which I’d never heard of, and instantly apprehended! Bovarism rules in Putnam’s character. Laura is more unambiguous to dissect and harder to heal. Thank you joe evans on Tik Tok, wherever you are, for recommending this book.
I bought this weeks before the longlist was announced!
I was a Gwendoline Riley virgin until The Palm House, so forgive me if I haven’t fully understood her through the fog of my instant adoration. What I do grok about this British author is that she is understated and yet forensic in her use of prose. Like a play, characters come on and off or in and out of the various settings. Conversational approach wins here. The author trusts us and doesn’t waste time on exposition. Structure is intrinsic to the story.
The Palm House itself is only mentioned once—I knew it was familiar! But when the narrative revealed Kew Gardens, snap! I went to my photos of 2018 and there it was. I have been pondering its broader meaning in context since I had that self-discovery.
Within the Kew Gardens metaphor is the shielded enclosure (for the oldest potted plant in history). There’s a sense of a fragile protection, or an isolated one—its strength depends on it being scrupulously and gingerly tended to, not taking risks, a containment, a restrained life. It blooms under guard. In Riley’s novel, I see the two main protagonists—writers and platonic friends Laura Miller (40) and Edmund Putnam (49) as withholding—not to each other, as their friendship is so flawlessly portrayed by Riley and comfortable to read—but withholding to themselves. Past trauma has caused them to repress emotions, and safety is their main concern.
They both worked for a highbrow literary history magazine called Sequence. Impeccable name that fits into the structure of the narrative, which is sequential, and a lot happens offstage but not bestowed onstage.
The Sequence customers are lifers, loyal to the magazine. A new editor, “Shove,” takes over and decides that this British periodical needs to go corporate and mimic The New Yorker. Putnam cannot get over it and quits, but he is obsessed with the whole matter and has difficulty moving forward. Every social outing with Laura is hampered by his constant whingeing about the debasement of Sequence. The reader can’t help but agree that Shove made a bad decision, but Putnam is stuck; the narrative so aptly conveys his “insistent, cloying ruefulness.”
I won’t enumerate the storyline—there isn’t an overarching plot. Themes touch on self-imposed emotional and psychological hardship —safety instead of liberty, a bitterness from a fanatical self-absorption. With Laura, a past violation has had its effect-- her mother failed to attend to her, a narcissist who never should have tried to raise a child. That left Laura vulnerable, but I wanted so much for her to be happy. She doesn’t wallow so ostentatiously as Putnam.
I think that the more Riley I read, the better informed I will be about her style. I was immediately attracted to the oblique voice but precise prose. How to be both oblique and exacting? She just does it.
And PS on page 41, Riley uses the term “bovarism,” which I’d never heard of, and instantly apprehended! Bovarism rules in Putnam’s character. Laura is more unambiguous to dissect and harder to heal. Thank you joe evans on Tik Tok, wherever you are, for recommending this book.
August 11, 2026
I am surprised by how easily I was drawn into the world of these characters. Nothing earth-shattering or unusual happens. There are no grand surprises; no compelling intrigue is afoot. However, it is a remarkably fluid and genuine slice-of-life trip through the very specific quotidian concerns of Laura and Edmund.
Things are presented mostly through dialogue. Internal monologue fills in when conversation falters or when a character is solo. And all of it is incredibly well-written.
I may not remember many of the details in just a few months' time, but the ambience of this novel is likely to stick around much longer.
Things are presented mostly through dialogue. Internal monologue fills in when conversation falters or when a character is solo. And all of it is incredibly well-written.
I may not remember many of the details in just a few months' time, but the ambience of this novel is likely to stick around much longer.
Read
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.
June 28, 2026
I’ve been a fan of Riley for a while now. I love her realistic dialogue, her wit, her focus on relationships, and her commitment to the mundane. This was as good as anything she’s written.
August 6, 2026
My third read from this year's Booker Prize longlist. I'm left feeling like the book passed me by before I could really invest in it — the passivity of the protagonist in combination with the episodic storytelling puts the reader at an arm's length from the events of the novel. While not inherently a bad thing, it does leave me with little impression beyond being nicely written.
The bulk of the novel happens in the periphery, and there's something unapologetically mundane and ordinary about these characters. Nothing they face feels particularly novel or unique; just the mere realities of getting older. Perhaps I've grown jaded from the number of plotless, character-driven stories I've been reading lately, but this landed directly in the middle for me. A completely inoffensive, well-written book without much staying power.
Very sparse, short, and one of the few books I correctly anticipated to make this year's longlist. I think in the context of the entire longlist its inclusion makes a little more sense, though I can imagine this will be one of the lesser loved titles. For a book that is likely to be polarizing, I find myself very middling on it.
---
I bought a copy and it was slightly damaged and I'm mildly devastated about it, but I'm being so brave <3
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
The bulk of the novel happens in the periphery, and there's something unapologetically mundane and ordinary about these characters. Nothing they face feels particularly novel or unique; just the mere realities of getting older. Perhaps I've grown jaded from the number of plotless, character-driven stories I've been reading lately, but this landed directly in the middle for me. A completely inoffensive, well-written book without much staying power.
Very sparse, short, and one of the few books I correctly anticipated to make this year's longlist. I think in the context of the entire longlist its inclusion makes a little more sense, though I can imagine this will be one of the lesser loved titles. For a book that is likely to be polarizing, I find myself very middling on it.
---
I bought a copy and it was slightly damaged and I'm mildly devastated about it, but I'm being so brave <3
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
May 12, 2026
So either I'm crazy, or everyone else is crazy. I read this book after seeing Sarah Jessica Parker rave about it on Instagram. Being a Booker Prize judge, I figured she had good taste. I was wrong.
I didn't enjoy the manner in which this book was written. It took slice of life to an extreme by giving very little actual substance or background to attach to the characters. The reader is a fly on the wall, given intermittent and thin context to barely piece together what's going on, who each character is, and why it's important. It assumes that the reader cares a lot about the characters and wants to unpack every single bit of dialogue for latent meaning, but frankly, I don't want to do that for the length of an entire book. Don't get me wrong, I like some ambiguity in my books, and I don't like when everything is spelled out for me like I'm a child. But when each sentence is ripe for dissection, and I need to sit and think about every page for 5 min to understand what's happened, I'm not enjoying myself. I'm confused and uninterested. I was very close to DNFing, and I honestly should have.
What I will say is that I did enjoy the portions where Laura explored her relationship with her mother. Those were compelling and nuanced vignettes. Her relationship with Putnam and his adventure in kamikaze-ing his life was what originally enticed me to start reading. I love books about complex and imperfect friendship dynamics. Ultimately, it didn't provide a substantive exploration into anyone's dynamics.
I didn't enjoy the manner in which this book was written. It took slice of life to an extreme by giving very little actual substance or background to attach to the characters. The reader is a fly on the wall, given intermittent and thin context to barely piece together what's going on, who each character is, and why it's important. It assumes that the reader cares a lot about the characters and wants to unpack every single bit of dialogue for latent meaning, but frankly, I don't want to do that for the length of an entire book. Don't get me wrong, I like some ambiguity in my books, and I don't like when everything is spelled out for me like I'm a child. But when each sentence is ripe for dissection, and I need to sit and think about every page for 5 min to understand what's happened, I'm not enjoying myself. I'm confused and uninterested. I was very close to DNFing, and I honestly should have.
What I will say is that I did enjoy the portions where Laura explored her relationship with her mother. Those were compelling and nuanced vignettes. Her relationship with Putnam and his adventure in kamikaze-ing his life was what originally enticed me to start reading. I love books about complex and imperfect friendship dynamics. Ultimately, it didn't provide a substantive exploration into anyone's dynamics.
July 30, 2026
This is the first book I have read from the newly announced Booker Longlist which contains 13 English novels published in the 2025 /26 eligibility window. I found it to be quite interesting and complex particularly in the character development.
The story is presented by a first person, female narrator and includes many different characters, both friends, family, and work acquaintances.
Laura the narrator is a writer in the story which somewhat details the change of editors on a literary magazine plus other characters in her London lifestyle.
The most outstanding characteristic to me was how well she developed each character, both major and minor. They all seemed to be very realistically portrayed in all their differences and somewhat strange characteristics. This seemed much more important than plot development in the book and I am still puzzling over some of their actions. I look forward to seeing what other readers think about this book and suspect there will be many different ideas as to whether it should be selected for the shortlist. Now to read the others and beginning to decide my six favorites!
The story is presented by a first person, female narrator and includes many different characters, both friends, family, and work acquaintances.
Laura the narrator is a writer in the story which somewhat details the change of editors on a literary magazine plus other characters in her London lifestyle.
The most outstanding characteristic to me was how well she developed each character, both major and minor. They all seemed to be very realistically portrayed in all their differences and somewhat strange characteristics. This seemed much more important than plot development in the book and I am still puzzling over some of their actions. I look forward to seeing what other readers think about this book and suspect there will be many different ideas as to whether it should be selected for the shortlist. Now to read the others and beginning to decide my six favorites!
August 6, 2026
Like last year’s horrendous Flesh, this is a novel built from clipped conversations, remembered relationships, and acute observations; the difference is that Riley constructs a consciousness you actually enjoy spending pages with. However, I’m not sure why she is telling this story. I don’t feel I’ve quite encountered something in it that justifies becoming a novel.
Well observed, often beautifully written, but I’m not convinced why I should think about these people once I close the book.
Well observed, often beautifully written, but I’m not convinced why I should think about these people once I close the book.
June 8, 2026
4.5
My first Riley won’t be my last. Her knife-sharp dialogue paired with some really unique conversational structure was a delight. I’m a big fan of middle-age quiet-crises and nobody does moody melancholy better than the Brits.
“Never mind carrying a cross, it felt at times as if Putnam had decided to wear a coffin when he came out for a drink. It was as if he were wearing this coffin and daring us all to say something about it. I imagined a coffin propped up near our table and Putnam occasionally bashing open the lid to shout,
‘Don’t mind me!’
‘Don’t mind me in my coffin, will you?’”
My first Riley won’t be my last. Her knife-sharp dialogue paired with some really unique conversational structure was a delight. I’m a big fan of middle-age quiet-crises and nobody does moody melancholy better than the Brits.
“Never mind carrying a cross, it felt at times as if Putnam had decided to wear a coffin when he came out for a drink. It was as if he were wearing this coffin and daring us all to say something about it. I imagined a coffin propped up near our table and Putnam occasionally bashing open the lid to shout,
‘Don’t mind me!’
‘Don’t mind me in my coffin, will you?’”
August 14, 2026
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026
My seventh book from this year's longlist is probably the hardest to rate. There are strong parts, mostly where the narrator Laura describes her platonic friendship with journalist (Edmund) Putnam, who has resigned his long-standing job at a London magazine after a young editor comes in with silly ideas. The writing throughout is sharp, but for me the sections on other parts of Laura's life and back story were not always as strong, and the whole didn't quite coalesce into a coherent narrative. I wouldn't begrudge this book a place on the shortlist, but I don't expect it to make my top six. The Palm House of the title only gets a brief passing mention.
My seventh book from this year's longlist is probably the hardest to rate. There are strong parts, mostly where the narrator Laura describes her platonic friendship with journalist (Edmund) Putnam, who has resigned his long-standing job at a London magazine after a young editor comes in with silly ideas. The writing throughout is sharp, but for me the sections on other parts of Laura's life and back story were not always as strong, and the whole didn't quite coalesce into a coherent narrative. I wouldn't begrudge this book a place on the shortlist, but I don't expect it to make my top six. The Palm House of the title only gets a brief passing mention.
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.
August 3, 2026
Lowkey disappointing. I wasn’t convinced or interested in anything to do with Putnam and his storyline. As a whole, this novel felt a bit aimless. MY PHANTOMS was eons better.
Review to come
Review to come
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.
August 13, 2026
4.5
The Palm House has ricocheted into the top of my Booker 2026 rankings. I love being utterly surprised by a new (to me) author, especially one that I harboured suspicions would serve up artfully styled plotless ramblings.
I mean, this is not exactly a book with a plot either, but it has dialogue-heavy vignettes, and they are superb. I cannot disagree with the Guardian when they say she has a “phenomenal ear for dialogue and is a “laureate of disconnection”.
The reader has to work to piece some things together, but it repays this effort. Apparently insufferable parents are a Riley trademark, and the ones here are indeed delightfully dreadful. But there are many characters you can love to hate in this; of particular note is a central set piece involving a comedian (I could think of a few this could be based upon) that builds so cleverly into something horrific it’s a genius bit of writing.
Could I have wished for more plot? Maybe insofar as I wanted to stay with these characters, to know them more fully ... it just ends conversationally in a pub where it started, with a feeling you only understand fragments of these lives, but maybe that's as it should be.
Quotes that tickled me :
He would literally travel around on his chair, propelling himself from desk to desk as if the room were a screen and he himself a restive cursor.
Her hair was back-combed and piled up into a great frowsy frizzy, intellectual bush-tower.
The Palm House has ricocheted into the top of my Booker 2026 rankings. I love being utterly surprised by a new (to me) author, especially one that I harboured suspicions would serve up artfully styled plotless ramblings.
I mean, this is not exactly a book with a plot either, but it has dialogue-heavy vignettes, and they are superb. I cannot disagree with the Guardian when they say she has a “phenomenal ear for dialogue and is a “laureate of disconnection”.
The reader has to work to piece some things together, but it repays this effort. Apparently insufferable parents are a Riley trademark, and the ones here are indeed delightfully dreadful. But there are many characters you can love to hate in this; of particular note is a central set piece involving a comedian (I could think of a few this could be based upon) that builds so cleverly into something horrific it’s a genius bit of writing.
Could I have wished for more plot? Maybe insofar as I wanted to stay with these characters, to know them more fully ... it just ends conversationally in a pub where it started, with a feeling you only understand fragments of these lives, but maybe that's as it should be.
Quotes that tickled me :
He would literally travel around on his chair, propelling himself from desk to desk as if the room were a screen and he himself a restive cursor.
Her hair was back-combed and piled up into a great frowsy frizzy, intellectual bush-tower.
August 4, 2026
This is a low-key novel about a long-term friendship between two magazine colleagues, Laura Miller and Ed Putnam. In 2017, corporate appoints a new executive, a man portrayed as thinking he knows more than he does, who wants to remake the magazine into a London version of the New Yorker. Putnam dislikes the new direction and leaves after 25 years. The novel then moves back through Laura's history, an unsettling encounter with a sleazeball when she was a teen, glimpses of family life with her mother, and pieces of Putnam's past, before returning to the fate of the magazine.
Riley works in a deliberately quiet register, the accumulation of small, undramatic detail meant to reveal a life at close range. I can see what she is doing but here the characters never became people I cared about, and the fragments didn't come together for me. It is another book on this year's Booker Longlist that left me puzzled as to how it got there. It is competent and controlled, and readers who love Riley's restraint may find more in it than I did.
Riley works in a deliberately quiet register, the accumulation of small, undramatic detail meant to reveal a life at close range. I can see what she is doing but here the characters never became people I cared about, and the fragments didn't come together for me. It is another book on this year's Booker Longlist that left me puzzled as to how it got there. It is competent and controlled, and readers who love Riley's restraint may find more in it than I did.
June 13, 2026
Bit meandering, but I loved the breezy, anecdotal style and the pitch perfect dialogue that made me chuckle quite a bit. Really enjoyed.
May 21, 2026
This was my first Gwendoline Riley novel and I admired the precision and focus of her writing style.
August 8, 2026
And this is the thing about life: every time you think you’ve got it all figured out, something comes along and shows you that you know absolutely nothing.
Here I was thinking that great dialogue was one of the most effective ways of fleshing out a character, only to discover that, despite her incredible ear for dialogue, Gwendoline Riley’s characters never really seemed to leave the spectrum of… well, the spectrum. I read, and I read, and I read, only to reach the final page having absolutely no idea what she was trying to show or accomplish with this novel (?).
Gosh, who am I kidding when I don’t even know why this is called The Palm House. Sure, there’s a mention of the Palm House at Kew Gardens, but as far as I can tell, it has no direct or relevant connection whatsoever with anyone or anything in it.
I can see quite a few people accusing Sarah Jessica Parker of leading them astray by recommending the book on Instagram, but what they seem to forget is that she’s just a human being with her own preferences and life experiences. The same applies to the Booker judges, and to every single one of us on here.
I shouldn’t even have to say this because it’s common sense, but seeing as common sense has been dead and buried for some time now—especially since 2020—here I am, defending Sarah Jessica Parker. 😂
See how we never know what the future will bring? Aha.
Anyway, Gwendoline Riley can clearly write, and despite this book being packed with memorable scenes and that extraordinary dialogue, the whole thing never really came together for me.
Still, I’m intrigued enough to give the author another chance. We’ll see.
Here I was thinking that great dialogue was one of the most effective ways of fleshing out a character, only to discover that, despite her incredible ear for dialogue, Gwendoline Riley’s characters never really seemed to leave the spectrum of… well, the spectrum. I read, and I read, and I read, only to reach the final page having absolutely no idea what she was trying to show or accomplish with this novel (?).
Gosh, who am I kidding when I don’t even know why this is called The Palm House. Sure, there’s a mention of the Palm House at Kew Gardens, but as far as I can tell, it has no direct or relevant connection whatsoever with anyone or anything in it.
I can see quite a few people accusing Sarah Jessica Parker of leading them astray by recommending the book on Instagram, but what they seem to forget is that she’s just a human being with her own preferences and life experiences. The same applies to the Booker judges, and to every single one of us on here.
I shouldn’t even have to say this because it’s common sense, but seeing as common sense has been dead and buried for some time now—especially since 2020—here I am, defending Sarah Jessica Parker. 😂
See how we never know what the future will bring? Aha.
Anyway, Gwendoline Riley can clearly write, and despite this book being packed with memorable scenes and that extraordinary dialogue, the whole thing never really came together for me.
Still, I’m intrigued enough to give the author another chance. We’ll see.
Read
July 29, 2026i genuinely don't know what to make of this but i love gwendoline riley
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.
June 4, 2026
I love the way Gwendoline Riley writes. I can’t say this was at all what I expected. But I loved it, and really loved Putnam and Laura and seeing tiny glimpses of their family, friends, and coworkers that come and go in their lives. And Riley really nails complex mother / daughter relationships with a lot of love and humor. I wanted to hear more from Putnam, my only semi-complaint. But I still give it 5 stars.
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