Meet Fabienne and Agnès, the heroines of The Book of Goose and a pair of adolescent, antisocial girls in 1950s rural France. The two best friends start a game of writing a booktogether, where Fabienne comes up with the story but only Agnès’ name is credited on the book. Their work becomes a bestseller and Agnès catapults to fame as a child prodigy, travelling to Paris and London, while Fabienne remains in their countryside town.

If your first impression is anything like mine, you’re probably thinking, ‘that sounds innocent enough’. Well, you would be very wrong. I was truly unprepared for what a perverse marvel this book turned out to be. Like many character-driven novels, a quick run-down of the plot can only go so far as to prepare you for the trove of meaning contained in Yiyun Li’s latest story. The Book of Goose is a tremendous psychological excavation of obsessive female friendship, the act of creation and what it means to be at odds with the world. Destructive co-dependency coupled with the ending of their childhoods lead Li’s two main characters on an inevitable trajectory of fate and tragedy, and I could not look away. There is such a rich, propulsive poignancy to the prose that makes this novel feel like something only Li could write. It retains the dry wit that I so enjoyed in her 2019 novel, Where Reasons End, but offers a more satisfying, well-rounded story where a second read will be just as rewarding as the first.

Fans of Elena Ferrante and Ottessa Moshfegh will enjoy what may just be Yiyun Li’s best work yet.

Tracy Hwang is from Readings Emporium.