Book review: A Weekend In New York, by Benjamin Markovits

Full confession: I was on the panel that named Benjamin Markovits as one of the Granta Best Of Young British Novelists, mostly – on my part – for his remarkable trilogy of novels about Lord Byron, but also books like The Syme Papers and Playing Days. Fuller confession: as a critic, whenever a new novel comes out by an author to whom you have given an accolade, there is a degree of terror. What if it’s not any good, and you are revealed as a cretin for promoting them? Fullest confession: normally, it would take me less than 24 hours to read a novel of 350-ish pages. This took me three days.