Deep Down: the 'intimate, emotional and witty' 2023 debut you don't want to miss

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There was potential for some interesting explorations on family dynamics, domestic violence and complicated grief, but that didn't happen here. Deep Down is a wonderfully astute and often hilarious look at sibling relationships, intimacy and family repression. It's valid that it all goes back to their upbringing and childhood but while we dug deeper, we didn't get to go broader.

This was quite an interesting read about a brother and sister coming to terms with the death of their abusive father. In one finely wrought section during a family holiday to Spain, 13-year-old Tom is privy to an awful altercation between his parents in the supermarket. Secondly, I think that the story could have used additional layers on top of the grief and resentment they were experiencing in the present day. While tempers escalate, all Tom wants are “ice creams in the shape of Sonic the Hedgehog … Not only do they look awesome but he imagines they probably turn your tongue and lips blue, which will be a lot of fun because he can lie on the ground and pretend that he’s died. Some of the feelings around loss were recognisable and easy to relate to, but this is different in a lot of ways because of their past.Woozily wandering between the arrondissements, the siblings dodge tourists and tiptoe around each other’s feelings, awaiting news of funeral plans. There are no histrionics here, nor any glib resolutions, but a superbly observed exploration of intimacy and its failings. The narrative voice is fluent and assured, with an eye for detail and original images: a cup of tea is “crunchy with limescale”; clearing up after one of their father’s rages is “rebuilding the set on which their performance of normal life takes place”. It should be a time to comfort each other, but there’s always been a distance to their relationship. Even so, they didn't spend that much time together and they were cordial the entire time so it felt like the tension was diluted.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Imogen handles complicated family dynamics and the unspoken things that come between us with remarkable sensitivity and insight, as well as perfect dark humour that is so much a part of navigating grief.

DEEP DOWN is a beautifully constructed and unnervingly assured debut which deeply moved and impressed me. I think if these lengthy descriptions of inane journeys had instead been used as deep dives into character psyches I would have felt more connected to Billie and Tom. A less assured novelist might have shied away from bringing a narrative with themes of concealment, sublimated emotion and repressed history to a head in a subterranean setting. It wrestles, too, with the timeless question of how to form one's own distinct adult identity in the shadow of a difficult parent. Millenials philosophising about mundane things while roaming around the streets of Paris and surviving on bread and water.

After their father’s sudden death in America, where he was living with his new wife, the pair come together. But those who have encountered loss will recognise how agonisingly apt the backdrop is here – a strange place of echoes, shadows and impenetrable darkness. I agree with one reviewer who said that the author is a 'human story- teller' but disagree that she is 'hilarious' as I didn't find much humour in the book. There is a LOT of description of movement from one place to another, which I find absolutely exhausting as a reader. And the novel is a serious and very accomplished examination of what it means to love and grieve for someone who might seem unlovable.Imogen West Knights reveals family silence and repression in a way which feels almost agonisingly true to life. A slow burn portrayal of how families can pull us apart but also how two siblings can find their way back to each other and to themselves. This perceptive account of the undercurrents that shape our family relationships and the ways in which they play out in adulthood had me gripped. Both are drifting, distant from each other and their mother, until this death shakes to the foundation the defences they have built over the years against the violence of their family history. Deep Down is something altogether darker; an examination of the legacy of abuse shot through with sharp wit and compassion.