Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun
Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke
Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp320
Novelisations of much-loved films are fraught with as much peril as movie adaptations of adored books, but Funke’s sensitive expansion of Del Toro’s dark fantasy is a delight. Juxtaposing 13-year-old Ofelia’s fairytale journey into a forest full of beasts and fairies with the horror of Franco’s fascist Spain, Funke layers and deepens the symbolism. It seems unlikely that many will come to the novel without some prior knowledge of one of the 21st-century’s best-loved films. But more than a spinoff, this is a beautiful companion piece and a reminder of the haunting importance of Del Toro’s initial vision.
Swan Song
Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Cornerstone, £12.99, pp480
Longlisted for this year’s women’s prize for fiction, Greenberg-Jephcott’s debut is fizzing with energy and ideas that spilled out of her fascination with Truman Capote’s fall from grace in the mid-70s. Impressively, she steers well clear of fashioning a writerly novel about writers; instead, this is as much about the six moneyed, beautiful, vulnerable and manipulated “Swans” who were very publicly betrayed by Capote’s exposure of their secrets and lives. With some wonderfully vivid descriptions of the Manhattan (and global) social scene, the novel has style and substance in spades. A complex, readable and original character study.
The Yellow Jersey
Peter Cossins
Vintage, £25, pp336
This July, it will be 100 years since probably the most iconic shirt in all sport was first worn: le maillot jaune, pulled on by the rider leading the Tour de France to enable fans to identify the cyclist defending first place. Cossins, who won a major award for his last cycling book, adeptly tells the stories behind the men in yellow over the past century, exploring the strange power and responsibility bestowed upon the wearer – often as much a curse as a blessing. Lavish photography sometimes makes it feel a little like a nice coffee table book, but said table will be all the better for it.
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