In many ways, I wish I'd read If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor's debut novel, before Reservoir 13, the book that first introduced me to McGregor's writing. If I had, then it would no doubt have blown me away, as it did many an astonished reviewer.
For McGregor, "remarkable things" are to be found everywhere; as in Reservoir 13, his focus is very much on the ostensibly mundane minutiae of life. Painting a portrait of a city street in masterful, sleek prose, he builds up a bigger picture of innumerable separate personal dramas - both joyous and painful - unfolding behind every front door.
In this instance, however, the narrator's bird's-eye view seems less sinister, obtrusive and voyeuristic, and the tragic events that animate the story come not at the beginning, gradually fading from view, but loom ever larger as the book moves towards its conclusion.
Nothing in this novel is more remarkable than the opening section, transcribing "the song of the city" at night in deceptively simple yet rapturous terms as it temporarily falls silent - though that's certainly not to say that what follows is a letdown. Far from it.
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