A handy veil

Would-be novelists used to be told that they should write about what they knew. That’s why, over the years, countless volumes have appeared that were at the very least semi-autobiographical.

These days, not everyone agrees with that advice. Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro called it the stupidest he had ever heard: ‘It encourages people to write a dull autobiography. It’s the reverse of firing the imagination and potential of writers.’ But it is advice that Caro Llewellyn, who has already written three works of non-fiction, including her Stella Prize-shortlisted memoir, Diving into Glass (2019), has embraced with enthusiasm in her first novel. She has written a book that is literary without really being what might be called a literary novel. While Love Unedited is firmly located in the world of writing and publishing, it is at heart a love story – two actually – and a mystery.