A Sense of Occasion by Brodie Crellin review – a surprising and darkly funny debut

A dysfunctional family comes together for a funeral in this heartfelt, keenly observed novel Most of us come upon our family’s dysfunctions gradually, like a door that opens a little wider each year. This uncle, you find out, has had an affair; grandma has a hoarding problem. The cremation of the nuclear family illusion is a cornerstone of literature, especially when it’s hastened by one of those unavoidable core gatherings: weddings, births, funerals. But what happens when there was never a...

By Ella Fox-Martens