April 30 2026, 21:30

The Palm House

Author: Gwendoline Riley

First published: 2026

Laura Miller has been friends with Edmund Putnam since university, and Putnam has worked for the same magazine, Sequence, most of his working life. A new editor arrives and upsets the established dynamics, leading to Putnam handing in his resignation. Laura naturally falls into her role of appeasing Putnam’s increasingly miserable and angry moods, leading her to reflect on how she came to be where she is in her life.

Laura remembers the humiliations of her family growing up, and her rocky relationships with various narcissistic men, including a truly horrible semi-famous standup comedian, and later a desperate-for-attention theatre actor. Laura’s mother is cut from the same cloth as the mother in Riley’s last book, My Phantoms, which was brilliant, but so unpleasant in the mother-daughter dynamic that I was glad to finish it.

The Palm House is a gentler read than that, more amusing and whimsical in places, but still isn’t afraid to go for the jugular. The dialogue is exquisitely structured to feel both natural and layered with the complexities of interpersonal relationships. Riley’s knack for finding the telling detail is exemplary.

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