Ten top first novels

Nicholas Royle's seventh and most recent novel is First Novel.

One of his ten top first novels, as told to the Guardian:

The Horned Man by James Lasdun

Wait a minute, here's another amazing first novel set in New York. If you liked director Adrian Lyne's criminally underrated Jacob's Ladder, an alternately terrifying and moving story of a Vietnam vet caught between heaven and hell, you'll love The Horned Man. The clue is in the title. (Lasdun says he has never seen the movie and I believe him.)

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Horned Man is one of Brian DeLeeuw's five best debut novels of the decade [2000s].

--Marshal Zeringue