A choice of first novels | 5 November 2008

A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz
Pollard, by Laura Beatty Chatto & Windus
Inside the Whale, by Jennie Rooney Chatto & Windus
Slaughterhouse Heart, by Afsaneh Knight Doubleday

AFraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz, was one of two debut novels on the Booker shortlist — and is, one could argue, a more distinguished offering than the other debutant, which won. A rambling and hilarious tale about perpetual failure, it takes the form of an immense anecdote from a father, Martin Dean, to his son, Jasper. Martin has lived his life in the shadow of his brother, Terry, Australia’s most notorious (and oddly popular) criminal. Terry began life as a sports star, but soon diverted his energies into less innocent pursuits, eventually becoming a modern-day Ned Kelly.

Martin, meanwhile, cannot avoid doing the wrong thing, in spite of his best intentions. Whether he is setting up a ‘suggestions box’ in his town (which quickly becomes an outlet for anonymous, scornful notes towards the Dean family, before being blown up), or trying to woo the girl of his dreams (who, of course, prefers Terry), Martin endures a life of effort followed by calamity. Toltz is a skilful ironist with exquisite timing, and although the novel is, in its 700-plus pages, occasionally garrulous to excess, A Fraction of the Whole is a penetratingly intelligent human comedy by a talented new writer.

Laura Beatty’s novel, Pollard, is set in the enclosed — and rarely described — world of the homeless, and features a protagonist who resides in a similarly enclosed world of nature. Anne is an odd child, ungainly and vacant, given to staring from her window. Her family ridicules her until one day, while in her teens, she runs off to live in the nearby woods.