Pure Colour: A Novel

"I’m particularly excited about the February arrival of Pure Colour by Sheila Heti, surely the smartest, most erudite and exacting writer working today. I was riveted by her postmodern philosophical novel How Should a Person Be? , in which a character called Sheila (who is very like, but not an exact facsimile of, the author) holds long discussions with her friends, including a painter called Margaux (who is very like, but not an exact facsimile of, the Canadian artist Margaux Williamson ). And her daring meditation on whether to become a parent, Motherhood —much of which unfolds as a dialogue governed by the rolling of dice, using a technique borrowed from the I-Ching —must have prompted thousands, if not tens of thousands, of earnest debates. Both of those books are perhaps only nominally considered to be fiction, but Pure Colour has been billed by the publisher as “a galaxy of a novel” which combines realism with surrealistic elements (at one point, the protagonist’s father moves through her as a spirit, at another she becomes a leaf), and asks the reader to consider life and death, the nature of art, and the nature of… well, nature. Unmissable. Also of note: Booker Prize-winner Marlon James returns with the second novel in his bestselling fantasy Dark Star Trilogy, Moon Witch, Spider King (March 3); Lucy Foley ( The Hunting Party, The Guest List) returns with a new twisty, multi-perspective thriller The Paris Apartment (Feb 22 in the US, 3 March in the UK) ; while Sarah Moss’s slim Covid novel The Fell —out in the UK since November—will reach the US (1 March)."