In Real Life by Chris Killen

In Real Life opens with a pro-con list devoid of positives. Killen's second novel quickly starts to resemble something similar. Here's Paul, a lazily assembled meta-author type. He's a bet-hedge, a vehicle for Killen's writerly inadequacies. The pair name-check Jonathan Franzen throughout. Paul and his fellow protagonists, Ian and Lauren, make Franzen characters seem like the sort of people you'd want to get midweek cocktails with. Paul in particular is so loathsome you start to side with him against the in-real-life author who so callously birthed him.

Whereas Killen's central trio are cloying and insipid, his bit parts represent something more malign. First there's Jamaal, an angry second-generation Somali youth with a bad work ethic and a dodgy record. Lauren wonders whether he might be pissed off, what with 'the shitty state of his country.' She Wikipedias Somalia then, like Killen, quickly loses interest. Then there's the largely mute, alluring, noodle-eating Dalisay. She's dispatched back to the Philippines before you can wipe the grimace from your face. Oh, and there's a cancer reveal 30 pages from the end. Then two characters are in love because they exchanged a handful of emails ten years ago. The last six words will make you squirm. By that point it'll be a familiar reflex. [Angus Sutherland]