Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Whether we ascribe the cause to the ubiquity of internet porn, the artificiality of computer dating or the illusion of infinite choice, finding a suitable life partner seems more fraught now than it\u2019s ever been. The only upside is that all this interpersonal trauma and uncertainty continues to inspire scintillating literary fiction.\u00a0According to the latest crop of young female novelists, the problem lies squarely with males. Hero, in the novel of the same name by Katie Buckley, is young, beautiful (as she candidly admits) and ferociously smart. She\u2019s slept with 108 men, been in love with a handful and is weighing up whether to marry the chef boyfriend who has just proposed. They are compatible, in love, and family and friends all approve \u2014 so why does the decision feel so impossible?Over the course of seven days, Hero, a budding writer, addresses her thoughts and doubts directly to him, detailing sexual experiences, past relationships and conversations with similarly wronged female friends. Hero is weighed down by the archetypes of witches, selkies, mermaids and sirens who are punished in myth for their independence. The fairytale princesses, whose lives are a blank beyond \u201chappily ever after\u201d, are no help to her either.\u00a0Hero, thoroughly solipsistic, makes no attempt to delve into the inner lives of the hapless males she excoriates. \u201cI can\u2019t stop writing about you,\u201d she admits, \u201cbecause even when it seems like it\u2019s about you, it\u2019s about me.\u201d With its plotless snapshots of female rage, Hero (Tinder Press \u00a316.99) is a fierce and thrillingly subversive read.In contrast Alice, in Emma Van Straaten\u2019s This Immaculate Body (Fleet \u00a316.99), knows exactly what she wants. Tom is the perfect, sensitive lover, and they are destined to be together for ever. She knows him intimately, has delved deep into his habits and preferences and, unperturbed by his occasional messiness, loves cleaning up after him. There is only one problem \u2014 they have never met. She is his cleaner, and beyond the five stars and tip he apportions every week on the agency website, he barely knows that Alice exists.\u00a0While Alice writes about Tom as though he\u2019s a deity (\u201cHe\u201d and \u201cHim\u201d always capitalised), her own self-loathing is profound. At her best she has intelligence and a caustic wit, despising the girls at her other job \u201cwho talk about Lizzo as though she\u2019s Simone de Beauvoir\u201d. But as her obsession takes hold and a meeting is forced, rationality and restraint dissolves. This portrait of a relentless stalker makes her more pitiable than frightening; at least until an unexpected ending reveals just how far Alice will go to merge her identity with the one she adores.Mair\u00e9ad, toiling backstage in a theatre in London\u2019s West End, also gets close to the material reality of her love object, in this case the leading man in Uncle Vanya. Elaine Garvey\u2019s The Wardrobe Department (Canongate \u00a316.99) is filled with eyelet-popping detail about the sheer effort it takes to maintain, clean and repair, day after day, the costumes in a major show. Washing undies, sewing gloves, racing to the cobblers and dry cleaners and endlessly sourcing stockings (Soho\u2019s sex shops are the cheapest option) are regular tasks. The producer is vile, there are backstage sex pests to avoid, and as well as being overworked and under-appreciated, Mair\u00e9ad feels stigmatised for her Irishness. So alert to insensitivity is she that she blames one cock-up on accidentally glimpsing the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside Parliament. But a brief recall to the hometown she fled reminds her that she feels just as adrift and angry there. Whether she\u2019s detailing the drama of an Irish funeral or the panic of a backstage emergency, Garvey\u2019s control of tone and voice is faultless.\u00a0Seth Insua\u2019s Human, Animal (Verve Books, \u00a310.99) also displays impressive levels of detail, this time about the operation of a dairy farm, where the cows have names and personalities but are treated with a lack of sentimentality necessary to running a business. George and his elder son muck in, but younger son Tom is a problem, holed up in his bedroom, secretly wearing make up and chatting to men online. When he falls for Luke, leader of a group of animal rights activists, love and family are hurled into opposition and Tom\u2019s very identity feels threatened. The characterisation is so adept that a plot which could seem contrived never fails to convince.\u00a0James Alistair Henry\u2019s Pagans (Moonflower \u00a316.99) imagines a simpler, more brutal modern Britain. Unconquered by the Normans, it\u2019s filled with warring tribes: tattooed, axe-wielding Saxons, mysterious Picts and mystical Celts. Two cops, male and female, Celt and Saxon, must join forces to find a ritualistic killer whose victims are nailed to trees in imitation of an esoteric new cult. Henry\u2019s mash-up of fantasy and crime genres is inventive, enjoyably nasty and frequently very funny.\u00a0Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Caf\u00e9 and follow FT Weekend on Instagram and\u00a0X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Whether we ascribe the cause to the ubiquity of internet porn, the artificiality of computer dating or the illusion of infinite choice, finding a suitable life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-182007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182009,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182007\/revisions\/182009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}