Book extract: Holiday Heart by Margarita García Robayo translated by Charlotte Coombe

BOOK EXTRACT: HOLIDAY HEART Margarita García Robayo's exploration of race, class and the American Dream

Unusual diagnosis forms the heart of this timely exploration of race, class and the American Dream

Holiday heart, instead of sentimental love discovered on vacation, describes a faltering organ, overloaded from excess consumption: a heart at risk. In Margarita Garcia Robayo’s brilliantly observant, often sardonically pitched novel, the heart provides both a metaphor for the deterioration of the marriage of Lucia and Pablo, affluent Colombians who have made their lives and raised their children in the US, and the material fact of Pablo's diagnosis: the catalyst for the holiday on which Lucia takes her children.

Stephen Hough/Lucy Crowe, Anna Tilbrook, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review - the end of the beginning

HOUGH/CROWE, TILBROOK, WIGMORE HALL ONLINE/BBC RADIO 3 The end of the beginning

Comfort and joy as live performance returns to top chamber music venue - at a distance

After a devastating drought, even a light shower can feel like something of a miracle. Under normal circumstances, a 60 minute lunchtime piano recital from the Wigmore Hall would represent wholly unremarkable business as usual for BBC Radio 3.

Moyra Davey: Index Cards review – fragments of the artist

★ MOYRA DAVEY: INDEX CARDS Fragments of the artist

An itinerant set of essays on the making of a distinctive style

Moyra Davey’s biographical note, included in Fitzcarraldo Editions’ copy of Index Cards, describes “a New York-based artist whose work comprises the fields of photography, film and writing.” It is a useful aperture into the Toronto-born artist’s varied oeuvre, and to the book itself.

Single: Bob Dylan - Murder Most Foul

★★★★★ BOB DYLAN - MURDER MOST FOUL A taste of the apocalypse

A taste of the apocalypse

A combination of chopped-up newsreel and fever dream, “Murder Most Foul” is Bob Dylan’s most striking piece of work in years. This is the author of “Desolation Row” populating a 17-minute song with a lifetime of remembered cultural fragments, zooming out and panning back and forth from the single pivotal event of the Kennedy assassination, plucking references out of the heavy air.

Album: Sufjan Stevens &. Lowell Brams - Aporia

SUFJAN STEVENS &. LOWELL BRAMS - APORIA Magical story-telling in sound

Magical story-telling in sound

Sufjan Stevens is an immensely creative musician – a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and composer. His work ranges from sophisticated dreamy pop that has influenced many, not least Bon Iver to grandiose and sometimes disturbing soundscapes. He grew up with a kind and passionate step-father, Lowell Brams, who inspired in Sufjan a wide-ranging musical curiosity, which is reflected in the stylistic variety of his work.

Nathalie Léger: The White Dress review – masterfully introverted

★★★★ NATHALIE LEGER: THE WHITE DRESS Masterfully introverted

A novel where personal and public histories are tightly knit

Nathalie Léger’s The White Dress brings personal and public tragedy together in a narrative as absorbingly melancholic as its subject is shocking. The story described by Léger’s narrator – a scarcely fictional version of herself – is of the performance artist Pippa Bacca who, in 2008, set out on a symbolic journey from Milan to Jerusalem clad in a white wedding dress, hitchhiking her way through cities and countryside. Bacca was never to reach her destination.

Feel Good, Channel 4 and Netflix review - a fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mild

★★★ FEEL GOOD A fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mild

Mae Martin’s dramedy about addiction is honest and enjoyable — but is it that funny?

“I am not intense.” That declaration arrives early in Feel Good, the new Channel 4 and Netflix romantic comedy fronted by comedian Mae Martin, who plays a fictionalised version of herself. Over Mae’s shoulder, we see a literal trash fire. She’s lit up the evidence of a past drug addiction. It smoulders in the background while she smoulders in the front.

Dark Waters review - an ominous drama with plenty of backbone, but not enough flesh

★★★ DARK WATERS Ominous drama with plenty of backbone, but not enough flesh

Mark Ruffalo stars as a remarkable American hero in the latest whistleblower flick

Watching Dark Waters, the latest film from director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far from Heaven), I kept thinking — what’s the opposite of a love letter? The film is based on the work of Rob Bilott, a real-life lawyer who uncovered a corruption scandal so toxic that it was literally poisoning us. Dark Waters stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, and it functions as a dignified takedown of DuPont: the chemical giant responsible for the poison.