He invites her to visit him on a secluded island in Maine. Christine leaves her tour to confront this suddenly elderly man daubing his last masterworks by the ocean. Though quietly seething until its end, Pham’s second act is less taut than the first.

Still, Discipline is an impressively disturbing story, unpacking self-abnegation, dread, ambition and longing.

Discipline by Larissa Pham is out now (Profile Books, £16.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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