Water Shall Refuse Them - Lucie McKnight Hardy

This was one of those books that seemed to be popping up everywhere on social media. Not in an overhyped, over publicised way but in a genuinely interested way. What really clinched it for me was when the publishers retweeted a photo of Margaret Atwood with a copy of the book, complete with a bookmark, suggesting it was her current read. I thought to myself, if it’s good enough for Margaret Atwood it’s good enough for me! I bought a copy.

Fiction with a sense of place is one of the first things that popped into my head. The location, ostensibly a Welsh village but a sense of the remote, the homogenous, the secluded, gives the book its faintly uneasy, claustrophobic vibe that pervades the narrative the whole way thorough. The family in the story temporarily relocate to Wales in an attempt to come to terms with an overwhelming loss but it seems the opposite result is achieved. 

There is an profuse sense of sadness, for the book examines loss and grief and the affect it has on the survivors. The reader is offered the barest of details initially of the tragedy that has befallen Nif and her family. But like an onion the layers are peeled back to reveal the truth which is shocking. You may intuit an inkling of the final denouement but it’s almost too much to contemplate! Set in 1976, the  drought of that year seemed to me to be metaphorical, nomads in a desert searching for an oasis. Each character seemed to be locked into their own depleted world and searching for that elusive relief. But because of this no one seemed really to be able to reach out to each other and offer comfort. Instead they seemed to turn to third parties, to rituals, to find some solace, some meaning, some way to untangle their twisted and troubled thoughts.

It’s book of obsession, of searching for a belief system to get you though your troubled existence. It’s very unsettling to read. I found the instances of animal cruelty unpleasant, malicious, sadistic, I hope that’s not a spoiler, but I can see why they were necessary within the narrative. I had a sense of ‘Lord of the Flies’ with  basic, feral almost, behaviours certainly from the younger characters. and I suppose it is a coming of age story to a degree. 

It’s actually hard to categorise which is always a plus for me!! There’s a sense of folklore and mystery,  of subtle horror and the neo gothic, some spiritualism and new age ideologies. It’s well paced and quirky. But it’s not an uplifting book. Sometimes the reader gets a satisfaction from reaching the truth at the conclusion of a novel but here it serves to promote a sense of disquiet and impending doom.

This is apparently the author’s first book. I say apparently because the writing showed a maturity that you don’t always find in a debut novel. In many ways it’s a strange book where the reader can’t really engage with any of the characters yet it's compelling and remains with you for some time after. Not all writers can do that with a first book. That’s enough to firmly keep Lucie McKnight Hardy on my literary radar. 

Arguing With the Dead - Alex Nye

Originally part of the Nudge/New Books Magazine blog tour.

As soon as I saw ‘Mary Shelley’ mentioned in the book spec my interest was piqued, together with my customary, default, dubious mode when someone decides to write a fictionalised account of a notable person with whom I have an interest. It can go so wrong. Your own vision of that person can be exploded, the text can be peppered with what you perceive to be inaccuracies. It’s a gamble, I can tell you!! But it can go right. It can portray that person just as you imagine them to be, put the exact words in their mouths that you can hear them say. It can develop and enhance your interest and knowledge of that person and render them realer than they were before.

So, I hear you ask, did Alex Nye get it wrong? Or did she get it right? Well, my dear reader, for this reader anyway, she got it damn right!!! I think the real trick was that Ms. Nye seemed to get into the head of Mary Shelley so convincingly. For many people Frankenstein is the sum of Mary Shelley, and a celluloid vision at that. Perhaps they’ll acknowledge that she was married to Shelley the poet, but of course she was so much more and this delightful novel explores and exploits that and paints a full and vivid portrait of this fascinating woman.

The story begins with an older Mary living in Putney and starting to reminisce about her life. It sets the scene and offers us some fundamentals about Mary, not least her love of travel, and the natural world There are hints and suggestions that draw the readers attention back to the title, allusions to phantoms and we are also reminded of Shelley’s place as a gothic novelist by the mood conjured in these opening passages. She is editing and anthologising her late husband's oeuvre too so the reader is swiftly offered the necessary knowledge to support their reading and interpretation of the ensuing narrative. 

We return fleetingly to the older Mary in Putney but the bulk of the novel tells us the story of Mary’s life and loves, from young girl to mature woman. It would be a disservice to detail much more because it is an engrossing account of a somewhat unconventional life being lived in conventional times and all the hardships that can entail. The story concludes as it began, in Putney, in a vaguely supernatural, eerie atmosphere. 

Nye’s portrayal of Percy Shelley supports our, possibly cliched, view of the romantic poet, idealistic, fey, potentially unreliable. But she goes beyond our cliches to show the depth of Mary’s love for him, oh, how else could she possibly have put up with that optimistic enthusiasm of his?! But the depiction of the dynamic between these characters, and others in the book, serve to offer us an insight into Victorian feminism and what it meant in this times. For Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, supreme advocate of women rights. And I think what Nye does, too, is to obliquely show the subtle conflict Mary endured between remaining true to feminist principles yet desiring the ‘respectability’ of marriage with the father of her children. 

The writing is crisp and smooth and doesn’t falter. It’s as if there's something waiting around every corner for the reader so you read on willing everything to work out okay for Mary. Whether it does or not I refuse to say!! If you enjoy historical fiction, if you enjoy gothic fiction, if you’ve simply an interest in feminism and the part historical forces play in shaping our current world you could do a lot worse than read this book. 

One of the marks of good historical fiction for me is that my desire to find out more is fuelled. Arguing With the Dead did that for me and I want to read Frankenstein again feeling that I know a little more of the amazing woman who wrote it. I want to revisit Shelley’s poetry and Byron’s even. Will I find clues and corroborations? Does it matter? Arguing with the Dead is as complete a portrait of Mary Shelley as you’re likely to find within the fiction genre. 

Do Not Feed the Bear - Rachel Elliott

Wow, this book knocked me sideways. I wasn’t expecting it. I had no expectations in fact. But this book could have been written just for me. It's not just a book I read and reviewed . It's a book that read and reviewed me. It’s quirky, it’s compassionate and it understands people, well, it understood me!! If you want a convenient theme I guess it’s about grief and guilt but that doesn’t do it justice. It’s about kindness and fulfilling your potential - if you are able. It’s about people; raw and transparent. Heart wrenching especially if you recognise the depth of emotion behind their actions and reactions. It’s a book about synchronicity, right time, right place or wrong time and wrong place. The links between all of these seemingly disparate people in a fictional St. Ives is quite beautifully done with no hint of contrivance. 

I guess it’s also a book about how some singular, yet flawed people find each other and are offered the opportunity to understand each other. It explores vulnerability and perceived inadequacies. And above all it explores love, in its purest sense, and what it does to us, when we have it, when we lose it and when we plain just don't know what to do with it. 

The structure of the book works seamlessly with some intriguing chapter headings and the voices of all the ‘cast’ given even voicings. You think that dear, sweet Sydney is the main character and I guess she is but as you read you find that everyone is important and it’s not about how much ‘book time’ they’re given, it’s quality not quantity. They all have their demons to grapple with. 

The ‘Do Not Feed the Bear’ of the title is a poignant metaphor that Sydney explores artistically and shows us the depth of her understanding of Ruth and their relationship. And relationships are key in this book, parent ,child, sibling, lover, friend, stranger, young and older. The entire gamut is run. The author’s perception is faultless.

The book is peppered with salient observations and quotable maxims that had me laughing, crying and just shaking my head in disbelief at this writers ability to hit the nail on the head. 

Like these, for example:

‘Dusty Springfield is to music what Patricia Highsmith is to fiction.’

‘Feedback is a term for unwanted sound distortion.’

‘Without hope, all we have is nostalgia.’

‘Every moment in a person’s life is interesting if you find out how they see it.’ 

I was reminded too of Fritz Perl’s Gestalt Prayer with these words,

‘I’m okay and what is happening in this moment is okay.’

The characterisations are little short of perfect as this writer demonstrates an ability to see a whole person and lays them bare with their faults and their virtues, characters  of honesty and vulnerability.

The narrative style is easy. It flows like Sydney's free running but with humour and compassion. If there's one word to express sympathy and empathy as a fused attribute I don't know what it is but this book is it. And I'm not going to try and summarise what happens in the book because that wouldn't necessarily tell you what the book is about. Just read it. 

In one fell swoop this book has subjectively made it’s way to my top read of the year so far. It’s one of those books that speaks to you if you let it. I’m not even sure if I can truly objectively say it’s well written, well characterised, blah blah blah, it doesn’t matter. When a book grabs me like this my critical faculties all but desert me and I lapse into superlatives.  This book reached me and it stays with me and I was moved to tears several times by the truths contained within its covers. 

And I must apologise for I don’t even think I can find enough words to express what I feel about this book. Thank you Rachel Elliott for writing it. Thank you Jenni Leech and Tinder Press for entrusting me with a proof of this wonderful story. 

Mom’s Perfect Boyfriend - Crystal Hemmingway

I’m chuckling to myself even as I type the title. It couldn’t be further removed from the type of books I normally request and read. But I do believe that to grow and develop as a reviewer variety is essential. I also think it is of value to voluntarily step out of a perceived comfort zone. I also believe in not just giving second chances but third and fourth chances too! I could state that I don’t like chic lit and romantic fiction. Yet this book looks like it is exactly that. And I’d be a fibber if I said it wasn’t. However it is injected with an acceptable dose of quirk and I will come off my literary high horse and say that there was much to enjoy in the story.

The entire tale is told through email, journals, and instant messaging platform called Boople with a parallel modern retelling of a well known fairy story. So it is likely to resonate with today’s social media, internet generation. But it’s not so hooked to the technology vibe that it loses touch with the crucial positive feature of the story and that is its humanity. 

Crystal’s mum is lonely and on her own and relies heavily on her daughter which puts a strain on Crystal’s relationship. The mother is a resourceful woman hatching all manner of schemes. After a situation that sees Crystal moving back in with her mum we see her trying to extricate herself from the all encompassing demands of her mother by seizing an opportunity to utilise an android as suitable boyfriend material for her mother. I can picture some of you shaking your heads! But shake them some more for the author asserts that it is a true story!

What the book does is highlight the sometimes complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. It’s competently written with a narrative that moves. The various devices used work well and there’s a balance. It’s not all email or all diary narrative, its balanced and mixed nicely. It’s amusing. It’s a little predictable. It is enjoyable as a light, undemanding read. And if you’ve a mum in a comparable situation you may well see a little of yourselves in the story. 

My thanks to Librarything for a copy of this book. 

Fake Like Me - Barbara Bourland

‘Regardless of medium, I believe absolutely that any work of art needs to make you feel something…’

If we can expand that to writing then Barbara Bourland’s Fake Like Me does just that. But there’s also something about participating in a buddy read that makes you feel you know the book more thoroughly than if you read it solo with no discussion. I’m sure that’s not really the case, it just feels so. But after having enjoyed a Quercus Books buddy read for Barbara Bourlands’s art themed thriller I feel I know the book inside out!

It’s a multi layered book. There is the basic story featuring an unnamed narrator who is an artist, bordering on obsession with another artist, Carey Logan. When Logan commits suicide our protagonist is thrust into a cycle of events that lead to an unnerving and unexpected conclusion. Then there is an erudite and knowledgeable, almost philosophical discourse on the nature of art exploring its fundamental aims and questioning its morality from the creative and economic perspectives. Also the actual processes of creating works of art are described in palpable detail that enable the reader to visualise from a word palette the pieces created by our fictional artists and gasp at the sheer physical effort invested in such works. The referenced real artists had many of us scuttling off to google these hitherto unknown names hungry to delve deeper into abstract expressionism in an effort to greedily try and grasp something more from this magnetic tale of the creative force that drives some people to behave in a less than exemplary manner. The final denouement in this story is unexpected and something of a masterstroke. It all but takes your breath away as you start to comprehend the extent of what has taken place. But I'm in  'strictly no spoilers' mode so, finger on lip. In our buddy read we were all guessing and surmising, nibbling at the truths but not quite seeing the complete picture (no pun intended).

Our anonymous narrator is creating a sequence of paintings named after the virtues - prudence, humility, chastity, modesty, temperance, purity and obedience and the sections are named accordingly. Yet the content of those sections tend to offer the opposite behaviours described! It’s a delicious piece of irony. There’s been something of a journey before our heroine reaches the stage where she can be free to create. 

Bourland's style and delivery becomes DuMaurierish at times with echoes of Rebecca, offering an homage to that seminal novel of a main character whose death dominates the story. And there’s a Gatsbyish feel to some of the extravagant party sequences. But to suggest that Bourland possess anything other than a style of her own would be a disservice. The prose is substantial and relevant, economic without losing momentum or essential narrative.

Many of the characters are intentionally ambiguous with that unsettling sense that several of them are not entirely who they purport to be. Max and Charles had our buddy readers divided. It seems that our ‘Everywoman’ narrator is the only character with whom we feel we're getting the real deal. In fact her ‘speech’ at a dinner party regarding the nature of her art and her creative spirit and the total of her being that is required to create is absolutely wonderful, a mission statement that many an artist would be proud to claim as their own. I’m just one step away from quoting it in full!! But I’ll content myself with her concluding sentence, ‘I make things that are emotional. And it’s all I am.’ It's powerful and moving.

She’s more pithy maxims to offer, for example, ’That’s the thing about being cynical. Sometimes you get to be right.’and  'If I took the time to measure the distance of the fall, I'd never jump.'

It’s a fascinating decision to leave a main character nameless. You might think it would prove difficult to engage with her, that we would struggle with her identity but the Bard was on the ball, ‘What’s in a name, a rose by any other name….’ etc etc. and with her trademark pink hair we don’t need a name. We're with her, for her, rooting for her, hurting for her.

There are some arresting distinctions within the book. Several worlds are brought together, the contrast between Pine City and the lofts of New York City, the wider art world and a more homogenous art scene with parties and gallery shows, and trying to synthesis it all is our heroine caught in the maelstrom  of these colliding worlds. 

The title of the book is one of those delicious plays on words for the interpretation is diverse and drives us to ask who or what is fake? It’s the pivot upon which the novel balances delicately tantalising its reader with considerations of what really constitutes ‘fake’. And ultimately it's broader than you might think. Am I talking in riddles? You need to read the book to see what I mean!

The last few months has seen a plethora of art themed novels. I am thinking of Tom Rachman’s The Italian Painter, Maria Hummel’s Still Lives, Nicola Upson's ‘Stanley and Elsie, Elizabeth MacNeal’s The Doll Factory with its PRB references, Paul Tudor Owen's The Weighing of the Heart', and Quercus are republishing Elizabeth Lowry’s magnificent The Bellini Madonna later this year. It’s clearly a theme occupying the minds of many novelists. Fake Like Me can proudly take its place up there with the best of them. 

My thanks to Quercus Books for a copy of the book and an opportunity to spend a pleasant hour on Monday evenings exchanging views and opinions with fellow readers and bloggers about a book that will continue to occupy our thoughts in the weeks to come.

This Mortal Boy - Fiona Kidman

Fiona Kidman is a much lauded author in her native New Zealand but she isn’t a name to immediately spring off everyone’s lips beyond her antipodean homeland. Maybe this is the book to change that?

I read Songs from the Violet Cafe several years ago and enjoyed her style of balancing the simple with the complex, seamlessly, and encouraging readers to think beyond the immediate.

This Mortal Boy is based on a true story and is controversial since it deals with the death penalty ostensibly but further it touches on prejudice and racism and asks us to question the nature of justice and the judicial system.  I don’t think it can be a spoiler since the knowledge is widely available on the Internet but Albert ‘Paddy’ Black was the second to last man to be hanged in New Zealand. He was only 20.

Kidman’s book tells the story of Albert from his beginnings in Belfast and his desire, ironically,  for a better life in New Zealand which results in him being dubbed the Juke Box killer after an unfortunate encounter with a less than exemplary young man who chose to go by the name of a character from a Mickey Spillane novel.  However nothing is simple and what might appear initially to be an uncomplicated murder/punishment scenario is far from it. Firstly the complexities of the case itself, regardless of any additional considerations, pose questions and doubts as to just how straightforward this crime actually is. Secondly these unfortunate circumstances were played out against a backdrop of concern over the morality and behaviours of the young in Auckland and New Zealand at that time in the 1950’s. Thirdly, Black was not a native New Zealander, he was an Irish immigrant, a ‘Paddy’, ‘not one of ours’, and that simple phrase conjures a depth of prejudice and racism that sees the dice loaded before the poor boy ever gets to the courtroom. Finally was the justice system beyond reproach?  Could all the witnesses’ testimonies be accepted as accurate and truthful? A crucial witness, himself in jail for an unrelated crime, is not allowed to testify. His testimony could have changed the course of the eventual outcome for Black. 

Powerful stuff, huh? You bet. And Fiona Kidman does an impressive job of weaving these strands all together in a fictionalised account. For all that it’s true, it is readable as a novel, and her portrayal of Black arouses our sympathy and liking for this young man, who seems to have a song for every occasion! But this is a verifiable story, this really happened. The portrayal of his parents, too, adds texture to our emotions as we share a mother’s agony of being able to do so little or go to her son’s side in his hour of need. Of course, with a fictionalised account you can be carried along, especially with such a strongly written narrative as this, believing every word to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So the reader is given the task, a judge and jury task maybe, of deciding what the real facts are and whether the characters depicted in the novel are true to life. But you only have to take a look at the depth of research undertaken by the author at the end of the book to get an glimpse of how thorough she’s been, add to that fact that Albert’s daughter, born after his death, gave assistance. You only have to do a cursory Google and sift through some of the newspaper articles to see the same facts appear again and again. 

I very much got the sense from the book that Black was a scapegoat. Wrong place, wrong time, kinda thing. Of course the fact that he did commit a crime and someone died subsequently cannot be ignored but maybe if Albert hadn’t been Irish and the moral climate of the country hadn’t been on high alert he might not have suffered the fate he did. Fiona Kidman is currently campaigning for Black’s sentence to be commuted to manslaughter. 

My thanks to Gallic Press for a copy of this powerful story.

The Electric Hotel -Dominic Smith

In this homage to the silent silver screen Dominic Smith has fused a detailed factual history of early cinema with a love story and a war story that spans several decades and several countries. It’s a must for the movie buffs as Smith lovingly depicts the passion with which early filmmakers honed their craft and the stumbling blocks that impeded their progress. Who knew Edison insisted on such a monopoly of this new, moving picture craze?!

Moving effectively from present to past Claude Ballard is our main protagonist, aged as the story begins, but still with a zeal for capturing the world through his lenses. He is approached by film graduate student, Martin Embry, interested in Claude’s career. The two strike up an harmonious understanding and Martin offers to restore some of the ancient reels of film.

This proves to be the catalyst for the unleashing of Claude’s memories and the bulk of the book goes into intricate detail of Claude’s progress from humble beginnings as a photographic apprentice at an asylum where he photographed still shots of the inmates’ behaviour to silent film cinematographer, whose crowning masterpiece, The Electric Hotel, was vetoed by an influential competitor causing bankruptcy, to war photographer. I’m risking giving too much away if I continue so I’ll stop right here!!

Interspersed with the cinema story is a love story, bittersweet, but offering a welcome human element that works in parallel with the film story. It illustrates the dedication to creativity  and the effect that creativity may have on personal lives. 

It’s a work of historical fiction, painstaking research must have gone into the writing, particularly of the cinema history . It’s also a love story on several levels. The love and passion for the dramatic and cinematic arts and romantic love that may or may not run smoothly and a wider love of humanity.

 I did struggle to get into the book initially. I’m not sure exactly why but fortunately I seldom give up on a book and I found myself becoming more and more absorbed as the book progressed. It’s a dedicated and authentic recreation of a time gone by, without resorting to superficial nostalgia to harness the reader.

My thanks to Nudge Books for this copy.