McGregor's Next

One had written earlier about one's admiration for Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. Well, he now has another novel out, entitled So Many Ways to Begin. In The Independent, Carol Birch says that it "abounds with echoes of the first novel," and though her enthusiasm isn't unreserved, she does go on to conclude that "...this is still a book about the search for some greater meaning in the strange dance of chance. Why are beginnings so important? McGregor leaves us thinking that perhaps they really aren't. As there are so many ways to begin and so many possible alternative branches at every notch on the tree, does it really matter? Perhaps. He is nothing if not ambiguous, and it's to his credit that he eschews the neat tying up of every loose end. Everything dangles, yet a kind of weary peace descends."