The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley (Booker Prize 2026 longlist)

I’ve read two of the books on the Booker Prize longlist this year, and I’m starting to hope that this year, they got it right. For too many years, I’ve set aside book after book in utter disappointment. But this time, I read, voraciously, The Palm Hotel. (And, how much did I love Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout? A lot!)

The Palm House is deceptively effortless. Gwendolyn Riley writes as if she were sitting next to you, telling you a story you will not soon tire of listening to. For it resonates, somehow, with your own life. You’ve actually experienced some of the things she is telling you, often with a very subtle, overlying sense of humor.

Laura’s friend, Putnam, leaves his job at Sequence even though he’s only 49. His father had died six weeks earlier, and a new editor, only thirty years of age, has come: Simon Halfpenny who goes by Shove. He wants to make Sequence resemble the New Yorker. There are too many changes for Putnam; surely he needs a break.

Riley navigates us through the lives of those who work at Sequence, Laura and Putnam’s parents, but most importantly, Laura and Putnam themselves. Their interactions with life around them, their response to ordinary things, was endlessly fascinating to me.

I, too, have worked at a job where someone grossly incompetent has replaced a strong leader. The office’s mockery of Shove had me in smiling in commiseration, although sadly, it did not have the same effect on Putnam:

When, for instance, somebody at the pub asked, “How’s old Halfwit?” or “How’s Shouty?” (this from Shouty Bumcrack, a name Katherine had come up with when Shove first arrived, and everyone had got to know that part of him, whether they wanted to or not, due to the way he wore his jeans), Putnam couldn’t just wince and say, Oh don’t ask. He had to make a point of looking affronted.

Putnam is a sensitive guy. He is sad, actually, and from this vantage point he makes many piercing observations:

“The see-saw of life just tips, doesn’t it?” he said. “And then it is downhill all the way.”

and…

“He (Shove) didn’t have any interest,” Putnam said. “We knew he had no knowledge. But no curiosity, either. Loudly enthusiastic, but without a scrap of interest.”

Don’t think I am saying this book is only portraying sorrow. Rather, read it for the humor, and the hope, and the hazards of life we all experience. I am deeply moved, as I close the last page, and grateful to find it in consideration for the Booker Prize this year. May it advance far beyond the list of thirteen.