Mutual Admiration Society
Mo Moulton
Corsair, £20, pp384
One November evening in 1912, a group of new friends gathered over cocoa and toasted marshmallows at Somerville College, Oxford, to read aloud their literary efforts. One of the young women would go on to become a birth control advocate, another a popular historian. There was also Dorothy L Sayers, who was “serious and a little weird”. She suggested the Mutual Admiration Society as a name. Others would call them that anyway, so why not claim it for themselves? It’s an anecdote that crisply captures their spirit of defiant togetherness – one that would become vital to them in a world of grudging advancements in women’s rights. Slender though the society is as a topic, academic Mo Moulton has spun from its scattered archives a largely enjoyable anthem to friendship.
The Cheffe
Marie NDiaye (trans Jordan Stump)
MacLehose Press, £12.99, pp288
Let’s get the title out of the way first. “Cheffe”, we’re told in a footnote, is a relatively new word in French meaning, naturally, female chef. It’s also the only name by which the legendary restaurateur heroine of this whimsical novel goes. The narrator is as unreliable as they come, a younger male employee who fell in love with the Cheffe and whose reward was to be made her confidant. Now that she’s dead, he’s ready to tell her story, in part to thwart his nemesis, her ungrateful daughter. Throughout this rags-to-riches yarn, the Cheffe remains as mysterious as a secret ingredient, and it all ends up feeling a little like one of those foamy amuse-bouches: rich yet ultimately unsatisfying.
Impossible Owls: Essays from the Ends of the World
Brian Phillips
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £9.99, pp352 (paperback)
There’s no doubting this new author’s commitment to immersive journalism. Determined tTo follow the Iditarod, an epic Alaskan dog sled race whose conditions also make it the world’s least spectator-friendly sporting event, Phillips must first learn to fly a perilous two-seater bush plane on skis, just in case his pilot conks out mid-air. Somehow, they both make it to the finish line in one piece but, as in the rest of these appealing long-form essays, which take in sumo wrestling, Area 51 and our own royal family, the real drama here is psychic. As he muses, there’s an “unmanageable sadness” to life in Alaska. He tends to ham up his own jadedness, and his wisecracking style can feel a bit tired, but suchsoulful digressions make it all worthwhile.
• To order Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women, The Cheffe or Impossible Owls: Essays from the Ends of the World go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
