The idea of leaving carries a seductive charge: an implicit dare to abandon your old life and begin afresh. City-dwellers Anna and Luke, the protagonists of Amanda Lohrey's timely new book, feel something is missing. Worn down by doubt and pollution, …

‘Gothic' is a shady word. It has lent itself to everything from fonts and architecture to subcultures and fiction. It doesn't so much prescribe a genre as suggest a mood: gloomy, uneasy, brooding. This is the tenor of Disquiet, Julia Leigh's aptly titled …