Web Only: What I'm Reading - September

IQ editor Claire Finlayson reveals ONE OF THE  bookS  currently restING on her bedside cabinet.

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams (Virago) had me tugged along from the outset with its atmosphere of slow-burning familial menace. Over the course of a weekend, two sisters – one emotionally stunted, one free-spirited – come back into each other’s orbit after a 47-year hiatus. The novel’s tension derives from this yawning gap in their relationship, and Adams drip-feeds the flashbacks with wonderfully measured teasing. I’m a sucker for the claustrophobia of first-person narratives. Here, Adams puts us in the analytical head of the slightly obsessive-compulsive, sister, so we receive the story through a fogged lens. Clever. It’s a dark and involving tale of how slippery a family’s  collective memory can be.