The Behaviour of Moths
By Poppy Adams
Virago £12.99, 320 pages
FT bookshop price: £10.39

If you were to slice open a cocoon in midwinter, all you’d find is a creamy liquid. What was once the caterpillar will eventually reconstitute itself, come spring, as the moth. Clive Stone, one of the characters in Poppy Adams’ striking debut novel, calls the viscous contents of the cocoon “pupal soup”.