To exhume and expel her woes, Louisa tries therapy. It is here that, in the book’s most powerful passages, the dark story of her past emerges. Central to the report is Victor, her ex-husband, who tore the family into physical and emotional shreds. Meanwhile, not yet ready to look backwards, Harry connects stumblingly with others – in an attempted affair, a new job, and a chance encounter with a young musician.

The aim of this novel, Lavell’s first, is clear. Through the resurrection of these old sorrows, overcoming the banality of their domestic life, these individuals stir from their emotional stasis. Louisa, particularly, is sympathetically drawn. But the exploratory narrative of Elsewhere in Success lacks tension. Despite the measured insight that Lavell draws upon to colour her protagonists’ reflections, the stakes for either of them of resolving their trauma – or not – are underplayed and unsustained. Other structural weaknesses, including bloodless secondary characters and long paragraphs of expository dialogue, may test readers’ commitment to these histories.

Ultimately, the absence of narrative tension denies this novel the urgency upon which a two-hander often relies. Instead, the storytelling has a gentler purpose and a more defeated sensibility, as does Louisa: ‘That’s all right. Don’t worry. It’s an old story. I just thought you should know.’