They play tennis together regularly, discuss each other’s love lives or lack thereof, and even have cutesy pet names for each other. When Weston proposes to Paige, she makes it clear that if they are to marry, Jillian has to go. Shriver’s new novella attacks, with her usual merciless clarity, the idea that straight men and women can ever be friends. Shriver, typically, does not shrink from depicting the pettiness and ugliness of the fallout following Paige’s ultimatum. • The Standing Chandelier by Lionel Shriver is published by HarperCollins (£9.99).

Source: The Guardian November 26, 2017 09:00 UTC