First novels. Two words often as unwelcome these days to publishers' ears as the much-maligned couplet of "short story". So many books. So little shelf space. To get attention, some first-time novelists try to create an arresting structure. Paul Heathorn's novel, Semi-Detached, is about a loopy young man, Liam, who covertly buys the adjoining house to his old friend, Will. So fascinated is Liam by Will's life that he secretly creates a "portal" door between the two houses, thence coming and going unknown to Will and wife Iman. Why did this remind me of Being John Malkovich ? Will narrates some of the chapters, from the other side of the fence, so to speak. Liam gets odder and Will gets duller. There's lots of typeface changes to indicate the shift in narrative and other tricksy stuff in the plot, but no amount of acrobatics disguise the fact that plain good writing is what's lacking in this first novel.
