This time I finished a novel by Sara Baume, which sounds like I deserve a pat on the back, as if I’ve taken a bullet so none of you need read A Line Made By Walking, but in actuality is an indication of how much I loved this novel. It’s so good I’m even half compelled to give her debut another crack.

While it took me nearly five days to finish A Line Made By Walking – a long time, at least for me, for a 300-page book – that’s not because I found it a chore. Rather I was sick for a couple of days and this isn’t the sort of novel you can read while your thoughts are centred on your bowel movements (not that any of you needed to know that). The point is, I was never not fully engaged in Frankie’s daily communion with her thoughts. If it isn’t already clear from my carefully slap-dashed observations above Frankie is someone who thinks a great deal, about art, about the world, about her own mental health. This is a novel that belies plot for a narrative that evokes isolation and loneliness and the struggle to express yourself when your musings are a mix of sharply observed truths about the world – Frankie’s insights are very quotable – and a confused mess of paranoia and insecurity. In amongst all this, and the real highlight of the book, are Frankie’s many references to artworks mostly installations that (a) were educational – I googled a bunch of them – and (b) acted as a calming influence on Frankie, focussing her on the now. I could probably make a banal and obvious statement about art and mental health and how the two are linked but I think Sara Baume does that fine enough.

You should certainly read this wonderful, articulate, eclectic and intimate novel. I won’t be forgetting Frankie in a hurry.