The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio, translated by Mia Spangenberg, Penguin Classics (£14.99): This book completes the Finnish author Saisio's autofiction trilogy, following Lowest Common Denominator and Backlight. It covers her early adult life in the seventies, when she comes out as a lesbian and falls in love, centring on Havva, a committed communist in a relationship with a man who protests by urinating in her wealthy parents' private swimming pool.
Saisio is voted vice-president of a political theatre company, as she "has the skills to bring about revolution, specifically through theatre", despite makeshift productions such as the "napalm opera" Vietnam-a-Go-Go. The novel playfully alternates between third and first person, as Saisio recounts her memories and then analyses them in clear prose.
Short Circuit by Wolf Haas, translated by Jamie Bulloch (HarperVia, £20): This novel begins with Franz Escher, a puzzle enthusiast and "ruthless critic", who hires an electrician to repair his electricity and accidentally kills him. While waiting for the ambulance, Franz reads a novel about Elio, a man who helped send his own mafia family to prison and is now in witness protection, reading a novel about Franz Escher.
The two stories pursue each other, accelerating until they collide, and incorporate car alarm courtship, rival funeral speakers and multiple identities for many characters. Short Circuit recalls Christopher Priest's slipstream fiction and David Mitchell's playful experiments, presenting itself as an entertaining literary hall of mirrors.
