Hardback by Viking, £16.99 (ebook £5.69)
Paul O’Rourke is your average affluent-but-alienated Manhattan dentist, a diehard Red Sox fan with a tragic childhood and a string of failed relationships behind him. The girls he is obsessed by turn out to be all too humanly imperfect and even the Red Sox ruin everything by winning the World Series, leaving him no sporting failure to enjoy agonising over. Though Paul professes nihilism, he is fascinated by religious faith. So when he starts to find himself being impersonated online by an obscure Old Testament sect that claims to have been whitewashed from history and whose guiding tenet is to doubt God, he is ripe for reluctant conversion. Having convincingly and entertainingly painted in the ambience and denizens of Paul’s dental practice – the sassy receptionist, the unflinchingly God-fearing hygienist, the inscrutable assistant – the second half of the novel details Paul’s dalliance with the sect and its promise of a spiritual home – a kibbutz-style community of sceptics based somewhere in Israel. As Paul broods on his failed romances and slowly starts to lose grip on reality, we wonder: will he stay or will he go? To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is a meditation of faith and unbelief, a 21st-century comedy of manners, and a powerful polemic on the benefits of oral hygiene. It is that rare thing: a very funny novel that makes you want to floss more.