Time Out

Smith (Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence) renders this psychological horror novella with such a light touch that readers won’t see the scares coming before it’s too late. On Christmas Day, a man has a fight with his wife; on Boxing Day, he wakes up to find that she and their young daughter have vanished. Unsettled by the strange quiet, he slowly realizes that he is the only person left in his city, and maybe the world. There’s no internet, no TV broadcasts, and within a day or two, no pets or wild creatures either; just the narrator, alone, coming to understand how delicate the balance of his whole world is, and how close to the edge of destroying it forever he has come without even noticing. Smith’s choice to tell this parable through tight first-person narration highlights the fundamental self-absorption of his protagonist, a man who is so inside his own head it almost doesn’t matter that there is a whole world outside of it. From a deceptively simple personal growth arc, Smith spins a haunting narrative that will have readers rushing to call their loved ones. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown U.K. (Apr.)