Lean Fall Stand - Jon McGregor

 ‘When an Antarctic research expedition goes wrong, the consequences are far-reaching -  for the men involved and for their families back home

Robert ‘Doc’ Wright, a veteran of Antarctic field work, hold the clues to what happened, but he is no longer able to communicate them. While Anna, his wife, navigates the sharp contours of her new life as a carer, Robert is forced to learn a whole new way to be in the world.’

With this new story from Jon McGregor he continues to add to his impressive oeuvre of delicate, almost understated fictions that deal with so many human conditions, with grace and dignity. This deceptive volume, Lean Fall Stand opens with what seems as if it might be some kind of adventure story. The Lean sequence fools us into thinking we’re in for a protracted, subzero, survival story. It’s both exciting and interesting to read. The hallmarks of McGregors economy of language where he uses as few words as possible to say as much as he possibly can draws the reader in, anticipating more. But in fact that section takes up a bare 80 pages of the novel as a whole. And when you reach the second Fall section you begin to realise that the novel is going off at a completely different tangent. And yet that opening section sticks to the rest of the novel like glue synthesising the readers and the characters in the story. Clever. 

I’m unwilling to give too much away for I felt that another of the book’s strengths was for the reader to chance upon the unexpected. But crucial to the story is Robert’s struggles with language. How do you express yourself and explain the complexities of a pivotal event when your language is limited? I thought the book was examining how it is to have your life turned upside down so that just a mere act of surviving a day is a challenge. And so you have this incredible paradox of one person surviving in the Antarctic and surviving an ordinary, unremarkable day. Alongside that is how one event cannot only turn a suffering individual’s life upside down but those around him or her. The characters of Robert and Anna were so acutely expressed; the fragility of their existences so beautifully described.

I imagine that the author did some protracted and perceptive research to be able to write some of the Fall and Stand sequences so palpably and convincingly. And somehow I saw the frangibility of life in the snow and ice as a metaphor for the tenuousness of Robert’s situation. 

I’ve always admired how McGregor can take some seemingly bleak and unrelenting situations and  extract some redemption from them. Part of that is his prose style which is so controlled and considered, that as a reader you believe that absolutely nothing has been omitted. His ability to characterise  possesses that economy that gives us everything we need to know without overdoing it but also without underdoing it. We are allowed to actually get to know a character as we might a real person. I found my feelings towards Robert changed throughout the sections. And I liked him a lot better by the end of the book than I did at the beginning. And whilst Robert and Anna might dominate his characters the rest of the “cast“ are almost lovingly created and  depicted ensuring that the reader engages with them and roots for them in the challenging world that, through no fault of their own, they find themselves in.

Quite a unique story, unpredictable but thoroughly engaging. My thanks to Matt Clacher at 4th Estate books for my gifted proof. 

Animal - Lisa Taddeo

 

This is an emotionally brutal, searingly angry tale of trauma, survival, revenge  and, I guess,  a desire for female empowerment. I was bemused by the titular ’animal’  because this isn’t how most animals behave, excluding humans of course, but I felt ultimately it was more to do with the basic, animal, primeval instinct for survival at all costs.

It’s hard to warm to Joan until you are furnished with the facts and details of her life which fill you with horror. Only then do you begin to understand why she does what she does, and is who she is. And how hard it can be for others to interpret what someone else has been through and understand what effect trauma has on an individual, mentally.

‘I drove myself out of New York City where a man shot himself in front of me. He was a gluttonous man and when his blood came out it looked like the blood of a pig.

That's a cruel thing to think, I know. He did it in a restaurant where I was having dinner with another man, another married man.

Do you see how this is going? But I wasn't always that way.

I am depraved. I hope you like me.

MEET JOAN: SUMMER 2021’

As blurbs go that’s pretty minimal but it’s enough surely to whet your appetite? A set of paradoxes to intrigue a reader. Yet they subtly offer clues. Somehow you know it’s going to be an uncomfortable, harrowing read. So if you’re looking for some rom-com, chick-lit, then run away now for this will bend the framework of your comfort zone irrevocably out of shape.

There’s an element of mystery to the narrative, the key to Joan lies in seeking the answers to her unanswered questions. There are subtle hints that probably lead the astute reader to the correct conclusions regarding identity and relationships. Obliquely nestling within the narrative  are considerations of nature versus nurture. And the question of whether to understand trauma you have to have suffered trauma went through my mind. And from there, of course, individual understanding of trauma may differ. Such is the introspection of the human animal that there may be many who might aver that their behaviour would differ widely from that of Joan’s. But trauma doesn’t come with an instruction manual or novels like these would not be written.

Alongside experiencing individual trauma and dealing with it are broader observations on a male dominated society and gender attitudes towards sex. It’s book probably destined to provoke many discussions because it deals with uncomfortable  subjects head on. So it’s not a book to entertain, it’s a book to make you think. Life can be uncomfortable. Dreadful things happen and people have to deal with them and continue their lives. Creativity can offer us a lens into different states. However for all its ferocity there is a redemption in the conclusion. It’s a well written, well paced narrative  of nuanced substance.

My thanks to Georgina Moore at Midas PR for a gifted proof.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt - Natsuko Imamura translated by Lucy North

There is something about the Japanese writing style that always seems slightly off centre, slightly surreal. I find it in Ishiguro and Murakami so I was not surprised to find it here. It is by no means a bad thing! There is something hypnotic about such narratives that drive the reader on, floundering in an almost abstract world. Lucy North’s translation allows little to be lost. And yet there was one powerful sequence where the titular woman is engaging with some children that reminded me of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant which seems very English!  It’s consummate story telling, nuanced and enigmatic to the end.

Thematically I guess it’s a story of obsession and voyeurism beginning innocently enough but gathering a darker momentum as the story progresses. It is told from one person’s point of view completely (the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan) so there is often the nagging sense of questioning perspectives and accuracies, something I find fascinating. The reader is encouraged to question our purple skirted lady’s normality (another interesting device is the constant referral to the Woman in the Purple Skirt using initial capitals as if that were her name)  by our narrator, referred to in the same manner, who may not be quite as stable as she would have us believe?! But the author skilfully uses the story to explore wider issues of the female condition, hierarchies and power struggles in the work environment together with issues of loneliness and vulnerability.

Perhaps  the most revealing paragraphs in the book as to the ultimate motivation of our lady with the yellow cardigan are these;

‘Unfortunately, no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. That’s the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt.’

‘When the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan goes out walking in the shopping district, nobody pays the slightest bit of attention. But when the Woman in the Purple Skirt goes out, it’s impossible not to pay attention. Nobody could ignore her. ‘

It’s a short book but it’s well paced and easy to read with a deal of humour amongst the darkness. In one sense not much happens! It’s an everyday life story of people dealing with their problems about money and employment, relationships and routines.  Yet it’s open ended and leaves the reader with many questions, and a sense of doubt as to whether one’s interpretations of events is correct? It’s really quite unnerving. One is left with an almost fable like or fairy tale sense of the story of these two women. A most enjoyable reading experience!

The Nocturnals - Aleksandra Rychlicka

 

Possibly one of the more unusual fictions I’ve read in recent months. I had a sense of being in a Salvador Dali painting! But I also found it most refreshing to see a challenging of convention.

’In the secret community of sleepless tenants on the mysterious Estate, new arrival Liv soon realises that escape is impossible, not just from the past but from the building itself. The Nocturnals is a noir mystery, daring and visceral, when nothing is what it seems.’
Thus runs the Amazon blurb……

The significance of the insomniac characters fuels the sustained theme surrounding, sleep, night, risk of dreaming. There is a dreamlike quality to the narrative and to the writing. Events and the bare bones of everyday occurrences seem distorted, off  balance as if the reader is viewing it all through a cracked lens. It’s unsettling yet compelling. And it seems the residents of the Estate feel a similar way,

‘This exclusive address feels like a facade. The residents don’t seem to really live here; they all dwell among the empty, hostile walls that refused to be claimed. Even Maro’s situation appears tentative. After all these years, it still looks like he’s crashing here.’

Maro presents as a ‘main’ character possibly because he seems to have been there the longest, although that is my interpretation! The characters seem afraid to sleep, afraid of what might fundamentally change when they wake. They are not especially likeable characters. I felt the reader was encouraged to view them objectively, unsympathetically rather than engage in any way. It’s almost as if the writer were manipulating the readers’ emotions and responses. The Estate, too, is a character. It feels like it drives the situations whilst also standing back and watching as events unfold.

‘It is the Estate’s right granted to its residents; to decline any responsibility for past actions.’

And that is a clue to the book's ultimate intention, maybe, to ponder past and memories and how they relate to the present if not the future. For if you don’t sleep you are forever in the present…..

It’s certainly a book to make you think, not to everyone’s taste I imagine, but the writing is almost mesmeric, hypnotic even, a collections of images and metaphors that brand themselves into your brain, certainly a novel that is out of the ordinary.

My thanks to Librarything for a gifted copy.

The River Between Us - Liz Fenwick - Blog Tour

 ‘Following the breakdown of her marriage, Theo has bought a tumbledown cottage on the banks of the river Tamar which divides Cornwall and Devon. The peace and tranquillity of Boatman’s Cottage, nestled by the water, is just what she needs to heal.
Yet soon after her arrival, Theo discovers a stash of hidden letters tied with a ribbon, untouched for more than a century. The letters – sent from the battlefields of France during WW1 – tell of a young servant from the nearby manor house, Abbotswood, and his love for a woman he was destined to lose.
As she begins to bring Boatman’s Cottage and its gardens back to life, Theo pieces together a story of star-crossed lovers played out against the river, while finding her own new path to happiness.
The River Between Us beautifully explores the mystery and secrets of a long-forgotten love affair, and will be loved by fans of Kate Morton.’

This book attracted my attention because the summary suggests it  ‘will be loved by fans of Kate Morton’ . Since I am a fan of Kate Morton I thought I might like to see if that accolade could be justified!

It’s a ‘big house’ story and it’s set in Cornwall which always brings Daphne Du Maurier to mind. With a dual time chronology we yo yo between present day and the cusp of WW1 and beyond. In a sense it’s a tried and tested premise - chance finding of some old letters opening up mysteries and secrets of forgotten love. But it works. It’s entertaining and immersive. Escapism at its best. The historical research is detailed and convincing and the reader is drawn back to a different era.

The metaphor of the river endures throughout and the concept of division on several levels and becomes more poignant as the story unfolds. It is a story of duality;  people, times and places. The characters are accessible, none of them perfect which makes them more real and you find yourself questioning their actions and reactions at times. But you’re always rooting for those elusive happy endings.

In both time frames lives are tangled and require unravelling to gain full effect. And I felt the book offered entertaining escapism. But I can imagine people on their ‘staycations’ devouring this book on, hopefully, sunny beaches and on leafy, woodland picnics.

dem - William Melvin Kelley

I am in awe of William Melvin Kelley. I feel excited when I have a new work to experience and a certain sense of loss when I’ve finished it! He’s permanently on my ‘reread ’ list.

I’ve just finished dem and something that struck me is how Kelly skilfully sustains a sense of continuity and commitment throughout his work. dem features Mitchell Pierce who Kelly readers might remember from the short story in Dancers on the Shore -  “The Servant Problem”. And we’re also reacquainted with Opal and Cooley. Not to mention Carlyle Bedlow who was also featured in Dancers on the Shore and is related to Wallace Bedlow who first appears in A Different Drummer!! Phew!

So all of that adds substance and understanding when you encounter these characters in a “new” work. It reinforces Kelly’s ability to raise awareness and consciousness to enduring issues of race in 60’s America and insist we confront these issues however uncomfortable they may be.

As displayed in A Different Drummer Kelly is master of satire, subtle and nuanced, and that’s one thing to be but he is also master of prose and dialogue so his narratives flow with a comfortable ease no matter how hard hitting his message and observations are. His style is so accessible and he allows his readers in and trusts them to reach the right conclusions from his work. There is no sense that he is preaching, or even that he has an axe to grind which make his works all the more powerful since he uses the art of story telling to make his points most forcefully.

dem begins with a dark occurrence for Mitchell and his wife Tam to experience. I had to re read several paragraphs because initially I just couldn’t believe what I’d read! There’s a sense of the absurd in it yet it also serves to illustrate the intrinsic arrogance of the protagonists. And the situation first introduced to us in the short story ‘The Servant Problem’ is further developed in dem to a powerful conclusion. As in A Different Drummer Kelly uses white people as his main protagonists. His understanding of mind sets and motivations display acute perception.

The novel progresses with an almost obsessive zeal on the part of Mitchell to achieve a certain outcome but ultimately reveals his sustained inadequacies and lack of understanding. I’d prefer not to give too much else away.

Whilst I’m not sure if dem reaches the perfection of A Different Drummer it is a powerful work and will leave you thinking long after the last full stop. Sometimes dubbed “the lost giant of American literature” Kelley will surely never be lost again and he will remain a giant not just of American literature but of literature, full stop.

My thanks to Elizabeth Masters and Ana McLaughlin of riverrun for a gifted copy.

The Good Neighbours - Nina Allan

There are some writers whose books you read and you know exactly what to expect. You know exactly what their style and their genres are. It’s very comfortable and very satisfying. But then you can get a writer whose very diversity is almost the opposite of that. Not that their books are uncomfortable or unsatisfying, no, no, no!  It actually makes the experience highly exciting with an enhanced level of anticipation. Nina Allan is one such a writer. Having read The Dollmaker I found her style to be “genre defiant“ and having just read The Good Neighbours she’s done nothing to alter my opinion! Interesting then that Google books want to place it in various genres - fairy tale, magical realism, visionary and metaphysical. Strange this desire we have to conveniently compartmentalise things. It’s all of those genres yet it’s none of them either. And it doesn’t matter. 

The story of a friendship cut dramatically short. The story of a friendship that endures beyond the tragic. The story of a person looking for answers. The person looking to the past to maybe to find the present, and in turn themselves. The person examining their memory with its flaws and its unreliability. A fusion between our contemporary world of realities and a whimsical, fey, parallel world that may have the answers we seek.

Brimming with the literary, cultural references conjuring images and atmospheres from pages past Nina Allan sends the willing reader to accompany Cath, the photographer/ record store employee back to the Isle of Bute where she spent time during her informative years. Using a camera as a metaphorical Sherlock Holmes type magnifying glass Cath photographs ‘murder houses’. 

But one such house is personal. For it is the house where her childhood friend, Shirley, was murdered by her own father. Not surprisingly, for it is an event from a couple of decades ago,  the house is now occupied by somebody else. And that gives another dynamic to the story.
I’m unwilling to give too much more away. I hope I haven’t given too much away already! But such a intriguing premise is safe in the hands of a story weaver like Nina Allan. Always one to keep the narrative interesting the predominantly present day narrative is interspersed with flashbacks from the past and imagined conversations. One of the most endearing aspects of the Dollmaker was the stories within a story technique used to such great effect in that book. It’s less of a feature here but Ms. Allan uses additional techniques to keep things interesting, informative and flowing. She manages to strike a balance between what might be seen as the mundane, ordinary lives but caught up in other worldly happenings.

I guess at the heart of the story is a flawed individual, somebody looking at the imagined and the real to reach some kind of redemption, make some kind of sense of their life. It’s rich vibrant prose full of mystery. Like me it may have you scuttling to google Victorian painter Richard Dadd and cause you to think more deeply about fairies than you may have done before. 

Cathy is a deep character. She presents as somebody desperate to find herself. Somebody easily hurt but quite tenacious, bordering on the obsessive maybe. As a reader I found myself willing her on. Wanting her to make the right choices and the right decisions, feeling perhaps that the reader could see her more clearly than she could see herself. 

For me anyway Nina Allan has done it again. Created a book of depth and imaginative diversity that gives you plenty to think about after you’ve finished reading it. And to revel and admire the skill and art of an instinctive story teller. 

My thanks to Ana McLaughlin at riverun for a gifted copy

Widowland - C.J.Carey Social Media Blast

  

This is a humdinger and no mistake. 1984 for the #metoo generation. Many dystopian novels focus on a stylised and imagined society, frequently futuristic. Widowland takes a situation, that those of us of a certain generation must surely have considered, and that is – where might we be if we had submitted to Germany rather than proceeded to World War II ? 

Widowland speaks of limits to literature and the construction of a hierarchy for females, doctrines of a regime called The Alliance, a paradox if ever there was one. It’s like Orwell meets Margaret Atwood with Mary Wollstonecraft making it a threesome. 

It’s a chilling tale with an air of unease and tension that builds slowly with an almost suffocating crescendo towards the end, heart in mouth stuff. It’s set in a world that’s drab and grey although there is the  sense that beyond this island’s shores something brighter beckons. 

Rose is a cleverly constructed character who seems to show the reader all of the pitfalls and risks of life in a rigid regime. She is interesting too because she does not present as overly rebellious or defiantly opposed to the regime she’s living under, in fact at times she seems colourless but she needs to for as the story progresses  she arrives almost organically at some obvious realisations. There was a sense at times that she didn’t automatically comprehend exactly how she thought and felt. It was as if acceptance was implicit. Somebody brainwashed and on a treadmill of life. What happens if you dare to step off that treadmill?

It’s a compelling narrative, desire to find out what happens runs alongside a disbelief and  incredulity for what might have been. And although it’s a fiction there’s almost a sense of panic being created, well for this reader certainly, because....... you just never know! 

It’s a crisp narrative with attention to detail, salient detail, some astute characterisations and a pace that drives the reader on. One of those books you don’t really want to put down for a second until you reach the end.

Names that fill your heart with chill appear to be flourishing, albeit ageing, when you thought they were all “dealt with“. I still get a shiver of intense consternation if I imagine the Gestapo and the SS conducting their business in good old London town. But there are other names that fill your heart with joy, namely some very strong female novelists like Jane Austin and Emily Brontë. Although what Rose has to do to the text of their seminal novels doesn’t bear thinking about.

This is an intelligent treatment of an alternate history which works on a number of levels and and I felt it was very much aimed at today’s woman. But I also wondered how generations, postwar generations, respond to a narrative such as this? I’ve come to it as an older reader whose father fought in the war and whose mother’s family were bombed out of London during the Blitz. The threats depicted here, from The Alliance, are very palpable given all than I’d heard from my parents and their friends about the behaviour of the Nazis.

But more broadly a novel like this warns us of the dangers of a hierarchical and totalitarian regime. And we need to be very afraid. I wonder what Rose might have made of this book if she were required to work on it? And I wonder how she would have “reorganised“ the text to satisfy The Alliance? 

My thanks to Milly Reid of Quercus Books for a gifted copy of this novel and opportunity to participate in the social media blast.

Volta - Nikki Dudley - Blog Tour

It’s not often I cry when I’m reading a crime/psychological thriller. Actually that’s a fib. Often doesn’t come into it. I’ve never cried reading one before! But I did here. There’s one really, genre transcending, moving moment. But there are moments a many in this thriller which won last year’s Virginia Prize for Fiction.

‘When Briony Campbell confesses to killing her boyfriend, a straightforward crime of passion soon turns into a baffling mystery. Haunted by demons from his past, lawyer S.J. Robin is assigned to the case. But as confusion - and the body count - rises, he's forced to question who is guilty and who is innocent. Can he see justice served and hold on to the woman he loves?’

It’s a story to make you think rather than taunt you with edge of the seat, white knuckle action although it’s not without some tense moments to say the least. The two main characters are flawed individuals -  flawed is maybe an understatement for at least one of them! The reader is treated to hints and snippets of what may or may not have happened in the past which has fuelled the present day lives of Briony and S.J. We are almost invited to be amateur psychologists as we are allowed to observe our two protagonists and form our opinions as realisation, like a drip feed, is offered to us throughout the progress of the narrative. I guess the clue is in the title - ‘volta’ - Italian for ‘turn’. I’ll say no more than that for fear of offering any spoilers. But it all makes for a substantial mystery.

I always find it interesting when a female writer presents with a main male character and seems to understand so perfectly how that character will react and interact in the book’s given situations. It demonstrates an encompassing perception of the human condition. I found myself warming to S.J. more than Briony. Their similar pasts, leaving them both damaged, had led them down divergent paths.

But for all that it is a mystery, a thriller, I found it multi themed even heading ‘chicklitwards’ in some sequences!  There is much about relationships on several levels, friendships, self perception, not necessarily accepting things at face value, so it’s a substantial work. The dynamics of relationships is subtly explored as S.J becomes involved with a friend’s sister who also happens to be a counsellor. It’s a multi narrative with S.J’s first person recounting and the other characters’ third person perspectives. It’s one of those stories where as a reader you think you’ve joined the dots but you’re never quite sure, that element of doubt runs through the fiction until the conclusion where it’s all tied up, not nicely exactly for it’s not all happy endings but you are not left with ends untied.

About the author.

Nikki studied for her BA and MA at Roehampton University. Her dissertations focused on changing her writing practices, experimentation and the long poem. She grew up in inner city London and attended state school in Camden. Nikki has been in love with words since she wrote short stories in her scrapbook at primary school and discovered what a metaphor was.

Interviews:
Interview: Alex Pearl's website
Feature: Roehampton site
Interview: My journey from student to novelist

Streetcake magazine and prize:
Nikki is Managing Editor of streetcake magazine, which she started with Trini Decombe in 2008. streetcake publishes an online issue every 2-3 months and in 2019, launched the streetcake experimental writing prize for 18-30 year olds, supported by the Arts Council England. The prizes include mentoring from published writers, personalised feedback and developmental support, publication and book bundles. 

My thanks to Nikki Dudley for a gifted copy and to Isabelle Kenyon at Fly On the Wall for a place upon the blog tour. 

The Startup Wife - Tahmima Anam

Obliquely satirical this was a joy to read. A witty, perceptive, sharp, smart firecracker of a novel that doesn’t lose pace for a second. I confess that as a blogger/reader who is, shall we say more mature than some, the world of IT isn’t something that I am specifically familiar with. I’m no technophobe but terms like “start-up“ and “algorithms“ were never part of the younger me’s vernacular. My formative years were spent during an age where there was no Internet and no social media and I appreciate that we are now enjoying generations who are born into that world. However I’m also aware of the fragile world of start-ups and how the flavour of the month one day is consigned to the garbage bin the next. It’s a potent reminder of how the concept of entrepreneurism  has escalated in our cyber times. 

So clearly this is a very contemporary and topical novel. Nevertheless there are some wider issues here;  the place of women in the workplace, in society, sexuality, race not to mention questions of morality and spirituality. 

 

'Meet Asha Ray.  

 

Brilliant coder and possessor of a Pi tattoo,  Asha is poised to revolutionise artificial intelligence when she is reunited with her high school crush, Cyrus Jones. 

Cyrus inspires Asha to write a new algorithm. Before she knows it, she's abandoned her PhD program, they've exchanged vows, and gone to work at an exclusive tech incubator called Utopia.

The platform creates a sensation, with millions of users seeking personalised rituals every day. Will Cyrus and Asha's marriage survive the pressures of sudden fame, or will she become overshadowed by the man everyone is calling the new messiah?

In this gripping, blistering novel, award-winning author Tahmima Anam takes on faith and the future with a gimlet eye and a deft touch. Come for the radical vision of human connection, stay for the wickedly funny feminist look at startup culture and modern partnership. Can technology  - with all its limits and possibilities - disrupt love?'

 And that's it in a nutshell! Between them Cyrus and Asher develop WAI, created, according to Cyrus, "to introduce a new kind of interaction with social media. Instead of being built around what people like it's built around the things that mean something to them."

 

But of course we wouldn't have a novel if things ran smoothly! Do love and business make good bedfellows? It's a book that is very easy to engage with. Asha is the dominant character for me and the one I was rooting for all along. After all it is her story. She is the tituar startup wife. Cyrus is charismatic but there were times when I would like to have throttled him. Jules? I just wanted to give him a great big hug! But when you have a book that evokes such feeling in you towards the characters you know these are excellent characterisations. 

It's a novel very much of our time. Particularly within the context of how connected our lives have become via mobile devices and the Internet etc. In some ways our online presence has become more important than our off-line presence. But issues regarding women in the workplace, balancing professional and personal lives endures whatever our social climate might be.

I think this author has touched upon a very pertinent part of our modern world. And I think this will resonate with many women whether they've been involved in startups or not. But, in spite of it serious intent, it's all been done in a very entertaining and witty way. I thoroughly enjoyed the read.

My thanks to Canongate books for a gifted proof copy.