London Calling

Martha Schabas’s latest novel has a simple premise: After travelling to England for what turns out to be a disastrous audition, an actor in her late twenties meets a suave older man on a train, who offers her a place to stay in London in exchange for suspiciously mysterious “work.” Back home in Toronto, she decides to risk the life she knows for one she doesn’t. Leaving behind her husband (regretfully) and her mother (joyfully), she finds herself in a new city that quickly engulfs her in its seedy underworld. She may not be living well, but at least she feels alive.

In part, Schabas has recycled the set‑up from her first book. Published over a decade ago, Various Positions is another story about artists and the cost of artistry in which a young, neurotic woman falls for a sketchy yet intriguing older man. With My Face in the Light, she returns to a self-conscious...