Fray: The haunting and mysterious new literary suspense novel of 2023, for fans of bestsellers THE LONEY and PINE

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Chris has run for 30 years, sometimes quickly, sometimes competitively, but always to constructively manage his own mental health. This certainly isn’t a book for everyone due to the experimental nature of the writing, however I absolutely loved it. An unnamed protagonist suffers a double bereavement when their mother dies and their father goes missing in the Scottish Highlands, distracted with grief at the death of his wife. I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up Fray at Brome Lake Books; it seems to be a mystery with an appealing cover, and an Alan Cumming blurb the conjures up Masterpiece Classics.

As a lifelong runner, do you think you’ve sort of been using running as a kind of preventative medicine?There is a striving throughout the book to deal with personal demons and come out of them with a peace of mind.

Runner's World participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. DNF - this started with a lot of potential and I genuinely didn't mind the experimental format, but the level of repetition in each of the segments made this a huge challenge to read- particularly with the main perspective. He records times and weather conditions precisely, then describes experiments whose purpose is unclear.His son, the narrator, discovers hundreds of loose pages strewn around the cottage, that give an idea of the father's fragile mental health, for example, he believes his wife to be still alive. Unfortunately, it conveyed that in the first 40 pages or so, and the rest of the story did little but take away from its strength. I just about stuck with it, and was ultimately disappointed by it, though by its experimental nature I can respect Carse's boldness. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The Scottish highlands play their part perfectly and help create an equally intense but beautiful backdrop that brings despair and hope in equal measure.