‘”The purpose of fiction is to illustrate and illuminate.”‘

These words are uttered in conversation between two characters in the story that lends its name to the latest collection of short stories by A.M. Homes Days of Awe. In it, two writers have been invited to give talks at a conference on Genocide.

They go on:

‘”The point of fiction is to create a world others can inhabit, to illuminate and to tell a story and stir empathy and compassion […] Fiction helps us to comprehend the incomprehensible.”‘

The pair of writers get along well, they cover mutual ground, they have an affair and they fall out. A lifetime of feelings are explored in one weekend. One story.

Further purposes of fiction are loosely outlined in other stories too, although less explicitly described. When referring to a trip to Disneyland, for example, we can see the following mantra: ‘Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy,’ which could easily extend to thoughts on literature and its power.

In typical Homes style, she is unafraid of poking fun at American life. (We see this in her brilliant ‘May We Be Forgiven’ book!)  A plastic surgeon injects himself with filler just before lunch with family friends; someone explains that they ‘can’t breathe without air filters’; parents try to bribe their children to race around the supermarket to try and enliven the weekly food shop.

You don’t have to look far for humour to jump out from the pages of Days of Awe. It will tickle you until you give in. But then, rather deftly, it might make you feel bad for ever laughing at anything in the next story.

It’s a fantastic collection – one that will have make you reflect for long after you finish reading.

Days of Awe by A.M. Homes is published by Granta