The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley review – the laureate of bad relationships

Riley has always skewered cruelty with shattering exactitude. What’s new in this story of two old friends in London is the delicacy she brings to moments of tenderness In the opening pages of The Palm House, London is enveloped in a dust storm blown up from the Sahara. As old friends Laura and Putnam meet for a drink in a Southwark pub, a packet of crisps open between them, the occluded atmosphere renders the city unsettlingly strange: the sky is “dark yellow … like iodine”, while the picture...

By Clare Clark