Six Wicked Reasons - Jo Spain

This is my third Jo Spain book now. Does that make me a fan? I’d like to think so. After Dirty Little Secrets last year I thought she might be hard pressed to come up with yet another page turner seemingly so soon. But she has. Again the number six is key. There were six neighbours in Dirty Little Secrets with six secrets and six reasons for murder and here in Six Wicked Reasons there are, well, six wicked reasons for……… nope, you won’t get me to go down the spoiler path. 

The formula in this new book is similar to the previous one, but whilst that might sound critical it isn’t intended to be. Imagine your favourite chocolate bar? You can hear the tearing of the wrapper, the taste of that first glorious bite and the knowing that it will continue to taste as good until you’ve finished it. And the aftertaste, sweet and luxuriant. People return to their favourites  again and again and seldom get tired of eating them. Books and chocolate. You know what I’m saying?

This story uses the almost claustraphobic setting of Spanish Cove and the events of one night that allows a cascade of confessions and revelations concerning one family. A story that begins like a tightly wound ball of yarn and slowly unravels willing the reader to second guess yet making it harder and harder as the yarn startss to unravel faster and faster. You need to keep up. It’s like six plates spinning and you have to attend to all of them to really keep your grip on the story, 

Ms. Spain is a plotter supreme, skilled and experienced, sometimes you feel that as a reader she is toying with you but she’s always one step ahead which is just as it should be. Guaranteed to make you want to read on and on but you’ll be sad when you reach the end for a part of you wants the experience to continue. Isn’t that what we want from a good book?

Six siblings; James, Adam, Clio, Ellen, Kate and Ryan. Their deceased mother. Their father. Their father’s friends. Their friends. All play a part in this taut drama that takes us from Ireland and New York to Paris and Rome. Six siblings; scattered seeds until their homing instincts brings them all together when one scattered seed returns home and all their tales germinate and bloom with chilling consequences. Six siblings; loyal or perfidious? 

It might be a crime story but there’s also some insights;

‘She only realised, when Kathleen was gone, that her mother’s personality was rare, that she’d been a gem. It ruins you, a person like that loving you. Once you’d had that, it was devastating to realise nobody else would ever care for you in the same way. You would never be that important to anybody else.’

Each of the siblings has their story to tell, each of them has their flaws, not all of their own making. Their return is catalyst for tensions that explode. Words like narcissism, sociopath, dysfunctional, twisted, will creep through your consciousness as you read of this flawed family. And it all makes for such a complicated whodunnit you’ll not want to put the book down. 

My thanks to Quercus Books for a proof of this gripping story. 

The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley

One of my ‘late to the party’ reads since the hardback was published about a year ago and the paperback was out several months ago, But I don’t care! If a book is good it stands the test of time. This cropped up so much on social media and seemed to meet with much approbation I decided I needed to read it. So I put in a reservation request at my local library to see if I agreed with the accolades.

It’s a decent little twist on a fairly classic murder scenario; the remote location with a finite suspect/victim list stranded by an unassailable situation, here it’s the weather, and an onion story where layer by layer the characters and their sorry stories are peeled back. You probably won't fail to think of Agatha Christie. There’s also something  of The Secret History about it with a group of friends and a death. So it’s not an original premise and I doubt the writer would disagree but it’s what a writer does with any premise, original or otherwise that makes or breaks a book. 

A dual chronology of then and now and several POV from various female characters and one male character drive the narrative. I found that interesting because we don’t get every character’s take on the situation. None of them seem especially nice people, fairly vacuous and self absorbed. There are subtle and vague flashes of potentially redeeming qualities and as histories are revealed you sense some hope for a couple of them. Sometimes less than pleasant characters are criticised by readers who feel they can’t engage with them. However I have always believed that it permits the reader to look at the events with an objectivity which I think is helpful for a crime story. I thought it was an effective device in this book.

I also liked how the author kept the reader guessing as to who the victim was and therefore who the killer might be. Ms. Foley then led us all willingly into that labyrinth of red herrings and possibilities taking us to that point over and over again where we assuredly believe we know who dunnit and who had it ‘dun’ to them. But we’re wrong. Dammit! Oh, how I love that! When we smug, know it all readers are forced back to the drawing board. And we know, we just know because we’ve read so many crime and thriller stories that all the clues are there, hiding in broad daylight. There for the taking. But it’s only when we reach the final denouement that we start metaphorically pummelling ourselves for not seeing it! Naturally there are those readers who spotted it all right from the start! It’s a win/win situation! 

It’s a book that satisfies the penchant for the flawed character, psychological thriller. It’s also interesting to see what a writer does when they ‘switch’ genres. I do see that as a brave move. But did the book deserve its social media accolades? Yes, and no! I enjoyed it and I wanted to read on to the conclusion. I could pick out inconsistencies in places, descriptions, details but what would be the point? I am not seeking perfection. I am seeking an entertaining read that keeps my attention. I got that. But if I’m honest there was a sense that I’d read it all before. And I’m on the fence as to whether that matters? 

Followers - Megan Angelo BLOG TOUR

Well, if this doesn’t have you deleting your social media accounts I don’t know what will! This is a dual chronology, dual POV, debut novel of dystopian disturbance from Megan Angelo, a former editor of Glamour Magazine. With one time frame in a relatable 2015 and the other in a chilling 2051 this is a tale of friendship and family dynamics and how they are affected and dominated by social media. 

Our principle ‘followers’ or ‘followees’ are Marlowe, Orla and Floss. Their lives are irrevocably entwined in a complex mix of technology, social media and a digitally dominated life where your number of followers can dictate your mood or even your prospects on any given day. It’s disturbing and should be made compulsory reading for those who choose to spend the bulk of their time connected, yet in a broader sense, disconnected. There is something almost starkly prophetic and scary about this story. I’m unwilling to give too much away because there are some delicious twists in the tale. It also demands we consider the ultimate fragility of the internet with what is aptly named The Spill and what happens to all that data we so carelessly offer up to the cyber Big Brothers.  

I found it very compelling, wanting to read on and on. It honours the traditions of decent dystopian fiction by creating landscapes of unease where the familiar and the unfamiliar nestle alongside each other to offer the reader an unnerving ride. As an ‘enjoyer’ of dystopian and sci fi fiction I experienced that almost indefinable frisson of edginess that I get from watching things like  Blade Runner or reading The Road. 

What makes Followers so relatable is that it sustains the topical instability of social media with an incident that pivots the course of the narrative down an alternate path from the one the protgaonists, certainly, if not the readers, were expecting.  It’s something I feel sure we’ve all done at times, victims of the immediate and 4G/5G speeds at which competent users manipulate their chosen social media platforms and how easy it to misconstrue some digital communication and watch events spiral out of control. And of course the cyber jargon that seems to drive social media nowadays - 'Influencers'. 

There might be a growing trend within this genre to voice concerns about our dependence on technology and how we willingly allow it to shape our lives. I’m thinking Of Jem Tugwell’s Proximity and Liam Brown’s Broadcast. But Followers gives you a nice little mystery too. 

My thanks to HQ  and HarperCollins for a proof of this unforgettable story and an opportunity to participate in the blog tour for this book. Please check out what my colleagues have to say about Followers.

The One Book or The Debut Novel

Evry so often I rummage around on my hard drive and come across some forgotten 'gem' that has thus far escaped one of my blogging binges. This article was originally published in New Books Magazine several years ago when Guy Pringle was still the Editor. I remember being thrilled that he considered it print worthy. And if it was good enough for Guy then........ it's good enough for this blog, I guess!

They say there is a book in all of us. I know mine is in there somewhere and has been since I learned to read and write but darned if I can find the little rascal!! So I am prone to imagine what it must be like to write a book and see it through to publication for the very first time. 

And that is why I think I am a sucker for the debut novel. For me it is a genre all of its own. A new jar of coffee ready to be opened. An anticipation of being on the precipice of a great new talent, maybe a whole new series of books, something that might challenge or change our thinking, a literary masterpiece, an award winning piece or maybe just that one book that was in that person. 

They can be easy to spot if you’re unaware as to whether it is a debut novel or not. There is an exuberance of language and description that fills me with both delight and despair in equal measure. It as if the writer has just this one chance to show what they are made of and every trick and device that they can think of is poured into their writing. Sometimes it detracts from the real, raw talent that may be there and you crave for some subtlety. But often when you come across follow up works you can see how a writer develops and matures. 

And from there I am often led to consider the motivation of a writer. What drives a person to commit thousands of words to paper?  A commitment that takes time and persistence. The debut novel may not always be the starting point of their writing but it has to be a product of that motivation, Are they writing for themselves, first and foremost? Or are they writing for an intended audience or readers?  Are they writing to express a deep felt theme or cause that has consumed them and been the catalyst to finally put words to paper. Is it an act of our catharsis to aid them through a troubled time? Or are they writing hoping to earn some money, make their name and their fortune?

Doubtless all of these reasons are valid,  for each writer is different and unique. But can anything ever match the experience of that first book? For myself, I have plenty of unfinished material hanging around so why don’t I get myself in gear and finish something? Or is it not about completion but the fact that writing is simply something that a person has to do no matter whether any one else reads it or even gets as far as publication? Publication is the icing on the cake maybe? 

Then I think of all those successful and established authors who have forged a career for themselves with their words. They all produced a debut novel at some point. Did the success of that first piece determine the direction of their careers? Or did they think that it was just their ‘one book’?

An Interview With Elizabeth Lowry

Dark Water, Elizabeth Lowry’s second novel, was published on September 6th to great acclaim.

The Guardian’s Book of the Day, The Times’ Critic’s Choice and Book of the Month. Historia Magazine included it in their list of best recent historical writing. Numerous bloggers, including myself, and other publications are running out of superlatives. With good reason. It is a work of depth and substance that only comes along once in a while. 

I reviewed it on my blog earlier this month - https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2018/09/dark-waters-elizabeth-lowry.html

I am thrilled beyond measure to have had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present - An Interview with Elizabeth Lowry.

 Dark Water has left a lasting impression on me. There’s been so much to think about long after I closed the book. My mind boggles at the thought of how you approached the planning and plotting of this story. Can you give us some insight into the initial motivation for the book and how the idea for it first came to you?

Well, I’m interested in questions of identity and how we define personality. After you asked me this I went back to my very first notebook for Dark Water (I had three in the end) and found I’d scribbled down this remark by Primo Levi: ‘Man is a mixed-up creature; and he becomes all the more confused, we might add, the more he is subjected to tensions: at that point he evades our judgement, just as a compass goes wild at the magnetic pole’. William Borden sprang out of that, I think, and out of a love of Melville’s sea stories.

 The novel is offered as an historical novel, although I found it to be much more than that. But you must have had to do some extensive research. I found the narrative to be so realistic and convincing, I never doubted for a moment that I WAS back to 1833 Massachusetts. I also wondered if you actually spent some time below decks on a ship, the descriptions were so palpable? Can you tell us a little about the research you undertook?

I didn’t know much at all about ships (though unlike Hiram Carver, I don’t get seasick!) before I began to write Dark Water. It was quite an education. I had before me the painful example of Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket without doing his homework. A scathing early review pointed out that in Chapter One the jib of a ship in a storm is still mysteriously flying even though the mast has been ‘carried away’ by the waves just moments before. (The jib is a small triangular sail that is set ahead of the foremast and is usually rigged to a stay extending from it. Oops.)

I found Melville a good teacher – his memoir White-Jacket about his stint on a US man-of-war was written expressly to explain the ins and outs of life at sea to landlubbers like me. We also share some source material. The route steered across the Pacific by Borden following the Providence mutiny draws on the real-life story of what happened after the Nantucket whaleship Essex was sunk by a whale in 1820. On losing the ship the survivors made for the coast of South America in open boats. An account of this disaster and their journey was published by the first mate, Owen Chase, and was used by Melville as the basis for Moby-Dick (though he was much more interested in the whale). I had help too in the form of marvellous sea-going accounts by other sailors of the time, such as Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast describing his experiences as an ordinary merchant seaman. Dana was a gentleman sailor (like Melville) who enlisted for the adventure of it, rather than from necessity. Once he’d had enough he could afford, unlike your average tar, to go home and retrain as a lawyer. That’s why his book isn’t called Ten Years Before the Mast!

I didn’t get to tour a real wooden man-of-war until I’d already written the early scenes on the Orbis, and took a trip to Boston, where the USS Constitution is kept in dry dock. It was useful to be able to check if I’d got the physical details right. You know, though, when approaching Dark Water I wasn’t drawn so much to the technicalities of ships or sailing as to what a nineteenth-century man-of-war could represent – an enclosed community with a rigid hierarchy and its own inflexible rules. The metaphysics of ships, if you like.

 Geographically that part of the USA is one of my favourite parts, especially Martha’s Vineyard. There is an indefinable thrill associated with those islands and I always feel that affinity when I read about them. I regret never visiting Nantucket. It seems crucial to the book. It conjures the ghosts of Melville and Moby-Dick, adding another atmospheric layer to the story. Are those places familiar to you or did you make some special trips?

I was born in Washington DC but left at a very early age, and hadn’t been back to the east coast at all until I tackled this book. I’d written a good chunk of Dark Water when I decided I’d better go and take a look at the places in it: Boston, of course, but Nantucket especially. It’s easy to get a sense of Boston and its history from paper sources; Nantucket was more slippery. An island has a totally different sense of space to the mainland. I spent about two weeks in Massachusetts in the summer of 2016, walking around Boston’s Beacon Hill and climbing all over Old Ironsides, as I mentioned just now, before staying in a tiny grey shingled cottage in Sconset on Nantucket – pretty much as Carver does, except that I didn’t have a Mrs Bunker to cook my meals.

Hiram Carver? He is the supreme paradox of us all! He behaved abominably at times, especially towards his own sister and her happiness. Yet in spite of it I simply couldn’t bring myself to dislike him. There’s something within him that seems to be within us all maybe? He and Borden seem to be two halves of a dichotomous whole. How did you go about creating such characters? Or did they eventually start to develop themselves!? I’ve heard some writers speak of how once created the characters do go on to develop their selves almost as if the writer has no part in it!

I’m so glad you don’t completely dislike Carver. I don’t either. The challenge, as with William Borden, was to write someone who couldn’t be pinned down too easily. I felt I had to give him some significant redeeming features, in the form of his youthful anti-authoritarianism, his willingness to question the mores of his time and place, and his instinctive sympathy for the social outcasts he is treating at the asylum. Once I got going he added his own flourishes. But of course he is the worst cannibal in the book. By the end he has consumed Ruth Macy as surely as he consumed Richard Mansfield, Frank Goodwin, Adam Thornton, his sister Caro, and William Borden. The irony is that he’s also trapped himself. By achieving a position of supremacy in the society he once despised, he has – as he knows full well – given up his last chance at freedom. 

 The sea as a metaphor is wonderfully sustained throughout the book and together with considerations as to the real meaning of madness encourages the reader to ponder the frailty of the human soul. When Hiram suggests to Ruth that all we’ve created out of freedom is a prison it struck such a mournful chord with me because it’s so inviolably true. I found it a pivotal moment in the story and I wondered whether it was your intention to throw these metaphysical ideas out there in the hope that the reader might ponder some solutions?

Yes, absolutely. And if anyone can find a solution, I’d love to hear it.

 The book has much to say about the invisible line between sanity and insanity. The passages set in the asylum were both fascinating historically and sociologically. All too easy to ‘get it wrong’ but you didn’t! How did you set about writing these sections of the book?

Writing the asylum sections was tricky because I was hoping to show how fine that line can be, and how common, even ordinary, mental disturbance is – but couldn’t use any of the vocabulary we have at our disposal in the age of psychiatry. When I was reading the memoirs of some nineteenth-century asylum patients it seemed obvious that a few of them suffered from maladies which would now be quite easily treatable with psychodynamic medication, and this got me thinking. I wanted to approach these scenes through a sort of double perspective. In the book Adam Thornton, for example, clearly has what we’d today call bipolar disorder, with a two-to-three-week depressive phase, followed by a month-long build up to mania. Richard Mansfield insists that Thornton is mad, but Borden and Carver sense that something else is at play here, and the modern reader will too. What is ‘madness’, anyway? The doctors and attendants aren’t exempt: Richard Mansfield is a morphine addict; Felicity Joy exhibits a form of OCD when washing the asylum floors; Frank Goodwin is a binge eater. The younger Carver himself, whose refusal of food is really a rejection of his overbearing family and everything they represent, is anorexic.

 Suffering, whether oblique or realised, physical or emotional, play a huge part in the book. So many contemporary parallels, for example Richard’s dependence on drugs, Frank’s relationship with food, Hiram’s confusion with his sexuality take this beyond the historical. Was it emotionally demanding to write?

I wrote the book during a period of great personal stress and sadness and the wonderful thing was that I knew, while writing it, that it was acting as a very real life preserver for me. So yes, it was demanding, but not more demanding than actually getting through that time. 

 For me the most uplifting characters are the patients in the asylum! They seemed to have ‘got it right’! Was that your intention or am I… insane?!

You are quite clearly bonkers. Just joking – spot on. As Carver says, they’re at liberty to express the sorts of foibles and idiosyncrasies the rest of us have to keep in check. That can be quite appealing.

 Quite coincidentally as I was writing these questions I noticed that you had referenced Janet Frame on one of the social media platforms. I’ve always found Faces in the Water to be a seminal work regarding sanity, insanity and institutions and wondered whether her work had any influence on your writing?

Janet Frame is an expert at rendering mental anguish. I recently tweeted an excerpt from the second volume of her autobiography, An Angel at My Table, because I’m including it in a feature for the Guardian on my ‘Top Ten Books’ about psychiatric institutions. Her story is truly horrifying. She was misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic in 1945 and spent eight years in and out of mental hospitals in her native New Zealand. In spite of this she managed to write a collection of short stories, The Lagoon. In 1954 she was scheduled to have a lobotomy, when the doctor who was due to perform the procedure read in the paper that her book had won a national literary prize. He cancelled the operation and she was released from hospital. In her autobiography she says, without any exaggeration, ‘My writing saved me.’

 How do you approach your writing? By that I am wondering if you have a special place, special time, any special routines and rituals?

At the moment writing is my day job, though this hasn’t always been the case. I write between dropping my children off at school and picking them up again, a working day of about six hours. It never seems long enough. I was a teacher for many years and I’ve written while taking detention and before registration in the mornings. When I’m away from home I set my laptop up on a bedside locker and write there. You can’t afford to have special rituals or be too fussy about your circumstances when your next thought is liable to be interrupted by someone saying “Mu-uum”. (Hello kids, I love you too.)

 I know that being an avid reader is almost compulsory for a writer so a question I always ask is if you can remember the first book you read that moved you to tears, if any?

Not sure if I can pinpoint the very first book that moved me to tears, but I do recall, with weird immediacy, learning the alphabet itself. I was at the Walworth Barbour American School in Israel and must have been about five years old. We were taught the alphabet with an ingenious story flip-chart. In this story you were taken on a journey through a jungle, over mountains, across seas and deserts, and each day, as you travelled, you met a new letter. An audio cassette tape played alongside and made it all seem doubly real (there were no interactive whiteboards or DVDs then – this was the 1970s). I really had no idea what came after A, or B, or C, so every day was a total cliff hanger. I lived for these sessions and I was forlorn when we reached Z and they stopped. The excitement I felt for those 26 days is still vivid to me – I’ve probably never known anything like it since. Just thinking about it has made my heart thump.

 And finally having enjoyed this novel so much I am bound to ask when we can expect another new one! And is there anything you can tell us about it?

Soon, I hope. I’m working on a novel about Thomas Hardy, set in the weeks immediately following the sudden death of his first wife, Emma. In the thirty-eight years they were married their relationship had become very strained: though they were living in the same house they only met once a day, over dinner, and had stopped speaking to each other. But he is shattered by the loss of her. Then, while he is still overwhelmed by grief, he finds a record she has written about their life together in which she accuses him of a very specific and very terrible thing (you’ll have to wait and see what that is), and he has to start re-evaluating their entire marriage – and himself.

The novel is called The Chosen, after one of Hardy’s poems. While describing it to you I’ve realised that like Dark Water it’s a story about suffering and the unknowability of the other, even the people to whom we’re supposedly closest. And about memory and identity and the mystery of human motivation. Which brings us back to where we started our interview, doesn’t it?

My heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth for this frank, informative, erudite  and entertaining interview. If you’d like to hear more of her I include a link to a radio interview Elizabeth did for BBC Oxford with Kate Orman - https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/p06k5d8w

And my thanks, yet again, to the wonderful Ana McLaughlin at Quercus books for introducing me to this book in the first place and for facilitating  this interview. 

When We Get to the Island - Alex Nye BLOG TOUR

After loving Arguing With the Dead Alex Nye has been firmly on my radar so I jumped at the opportunity to read her new book and be a part of the blog tour. My thanks to Kelly at LoveBooksTours for making that possible. 

Author Bio 

Alex Nye is the award-winning author of four novels. She grew up in Norfolk by the sea, but has lived in Scotland since 1995 where she finds much of her inspiration in Scottish history. At the age of 16 she won the W H Smith Young Writers' Award out of 33,000 entrants, and has been writing ever since. Her first children's novel, CHILL, won the Royal Mail Award. 

Her fourth book is a historical novel for adults about Mary Queen of Scots. Her fifth title, ARGUING WITH THE DEAD, is another historical novel, this time about Mary Shelley, and explores the chaotic and destructive forces which shaped her.

She divides her time between walking the dog, swimming, scribbling in notebooks in strange places, staring at people without meaning to, and tapping away on her laptop. She also teaches and delivers atmospheric candlelit workshops on creative writing/ghost stories/Scottish history. She studied at King's College, London more years ago than she cares to remember.

Possibly intended for a YA audience but there’s little here for an OA to object to! It’s a powerfully moving story about issues very relevant today. I was reminded forcibly of a talk I attended earlier this year with Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor, talking about a number of relevant issues but one she touched on that was pertinent to her own situation was that of refugees. We can read oft times in the media of peoples ‘outrage’  at the Calais jungle,for example. In fact if you’ve ever been at that port heading for a ferry it IS alarming to be bombarded by people who are determined to find a way to get on board if they can. We hear constantly of migrants attempting to reach our shores, undertaking journeys fraught with peril. But the point Eva Schloss made, and it is pivotal, is that no one ups and leaves their families, their friends, their way of life, their culture, their country unless they are DESPERATE. What people are prepared to go through to escape whatever miseries surround their dally living must surely make it obvious just how anguished they have become. I think this book makes this heart wrenchingly clear. 

Hani is a Syrian refugee conned by an unscrupulous ‘entrepreneur’ and living in Scotland as a migrant worker, illegal, dependent, with his sister Reena until she disappears. It is never stated why she disappears but the implications are pretty obvious. In order to find her Hani escapes. Then there is Mia, also on the run, her flight is for different reasons but she, too, is searching for happiness. They meet. I won’t give too much more away. But it does make for a splendid tale.

What Alex Nye has created here is a clever story pitched perfectly towards her intended audience. It’s exciting, nail biting, with a well paced narrative that should carry the younger reader along willingly. Skilful too is the rendering of the two runaways from different walks of life but with a common aim.  A balanced dynamic between our two courageous protagonists reinforces concepts of friendship and loyalty and trust. And survival.

‘They were survivors. And this is what it meant to survive; it meant being haunted, carrying images you would rather not carry, but there it was, you had no choice. You had to keep going, You had to keep believing, and you had to try not to remember all the bad stuff when you shut your eyes.’

The sustained analogy that life is a game of snakes and ladders is an accessible one for a YA readership but won't be lost on an older audience. 

‘Everyone has a story, Mia thought then. Some people land on the squares with the ladders leading to a bright new future, others land on the ones with the snakes, sliding back down into disaster and disappointment; ‘

And Ms. Nye has done her homework. Hani’s memories and account of his harrowing journey from Aleppo to Scotland are believable and should have you weeping. I hope the impact is not lost on a younger audience and that they realise this isn’t just an adventure story, it is a fiction created out of a reality. And a reality that is happening as we read. Right now there are people risking their lives to escape intolerable regimes. Right now there are people being exploited for wanting a better life, in a better place. But this is not a glum or depressing story ultimately. There is redemption on several sides. I’m not going to give the ending away but it is vital for the younger reader to close a book feeling satisfied that ‘all is well’. However I hope that the reading of this book offers food for thought and much discussion leading to a wider empathy and understanding for a next generation.

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2XuW8ue

But, folks, this a blog tour and that's just my take on the book. Please take some time to check out all the other amazing bloggers and see what they have to say. 

The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern

Do you believe in the mystical, the fantastical, the improbable, or the impossible? Do you believe that things others dismiss as dreams and imagination actually exist? Do you believe in fairy tales?

Thus says one character in Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, and if you can answer yes to all of those questions then this is the book for you. More magic surrealism than magical realism this book takes you on the most incredible journey. I’ll say though that this is possibly a Marmite book - for those who prefer their fiction to have a foothold in reality and the probable may struggle. However if you exult in a writer who gives free reign to their imagination and allows the improbable to seem not only  probable but likely within the pages of a book then you will delight in this wonderful tale of Zachary Ezra Rawlins.

I was flooded with memories and fragments and suggestions. I became more than a reader as I enveloped myself within the pages of this book. Psychedelia was a commonplace term in the sixties and sometimes I thought this book was the result of one hell of an acid trip! I saw colours as I read. And then it seemed like one of those role paying video games from the early days of computer gaming when the text was as dominant as the graphics and there were doors and floors and keys and artefacts to find with obstacles and adversities to overcome. Is it a coincidence, then, that Zachary’s thesis is on video games? I don’t think so.

There is a short story by Franz Kafka called ‘Before the Law’  or sometimes called  ‘The Doorkeeper’ and I was reminded of that with the introduction of the Keeper character and the many, many doors in the story.and the dreamlike nature of the narrative. Many of the sequences have a fable,fairy tale like quality to them.  I was reminded of the rock group The Doors, too, with Jim Morrison The Lizard King but in this story we have the Owl King. I thought of the sixties group Traffic and their song Hole in my Shoe. And of course I thought of Lewis Carroll and Alice In Wonderland of which there are several references some obvious, some more oblique.

Structurally diverse with stories within a story, an effective device that reminded me of Nina Allan’s, recent,  The Dollmaker. Here the stories nestle within each other like the matryoshka dolls that Zachary finds and within the larger story and with Zachary, himself. And Kat’s diary entries towards the conclusion of the story. So much to keep the reader interested. 

Like a piece of visual art where the artist’s intent may be guessed at we can surmise what the writer’s intention is but this book is for us to experience and make of it what we wish, what we will, what we need, for you get the sense that everything is symbolic and metaphoric depending upon the reader’s own experiences and responses. The scope and depth are overwhelming at times and I can only describe as it as a book that filled me up to overflowing. 

This isn’t a story you can effectively summarise or précis in my opinion and to do so would be a disservice. Books and libraries are key, as are stories themselves. Let Allegra explain, as she compares  a story with an egg.

‘A story is like an egg, the universe contained in its chosen medium. The spark of something new and different but fully formed and fragile. In need of protection. You want to protect it, too, but there’s more to it than that. You want to be inside it, I can see it in your eyes. I used to seek out people like you, I’m practised at spotting the desire for it. You want to be in the story, not observing it from the outside.  You want to be under its shell. The only way to do that is to break it. But if it breaks, it is gone.’

And if there’s ever a story you want to be in then this is it! For where else will someone tell you, 

‘I used to be a rabbit. I’m not anymore. I don’t need to be. It’s never too late to change what you are, it took me a long time to figure that out.’ 

And how about, 

‘Be brave, ….be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul  worth their star stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.’

There are some lovely touches - such as the moment when Zachary is reading an important book and the lightbulb above him shatters offering him a literal lightbulb moment. 

But I guess at the heart of all of this  is love. Love on several levels.

As Dorian, another character in the book, says -

‘ We’re here to wander through other people’s stories, searching for our own.’ 

and aren’t we always searching for love? 

The book is rich with words and emotions and imagination. It’s an immersion and it requires commitment from the depths of you. But the rewards are indescribable.

I borrowed this book from the library. What a fool! I need to own a copy. I need to have somewhere to disappear into when the real world conspires to annihilate me.