Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell

I received an early proof of this book from the wonderful Georgina Moore and while I was reading it I was wondering what the Bard himself might make of such a story. Then, seemingly unbidden, the thought came into my head that I should write my review in Shakespearian style. And once that idea took hold I couldn’t let go of it. Apologies to Shakespeare devotees everywhere. I mean no harm!!

Act One

Scene 1 HEAVEN

HAMNET: Father, father. I have news!

SHAKESPEARE: You are well met, beloved son. What news?

HAMNET: Sire, a lady who doth dwell upon the earthly plain hast composed a history of myself and divers others in our family.

SHAKESPEARE: Zounds, you jest, you bulls pizzle . Know you not how it doth hurt my heart to consider those days. When you passed though nature to eternity this thought was as death to me.

HAMNET: But father, verily, t’is good! She has captured the humours of our family with a pen as swift as a kestrel’s flight. Her words do dance gladly upon the very parchment whereon she consigned this full and virtuous account of our doings…… and our undoings.

SHAKESPEARE: What name doth this wench bestow upon herself?

HAMNET: Sirrah. She is named Maggie O’Farrell. 

SHAKESPEARE: T’is a name I know not, my son. A language unknown to me. What tell you of her?

HAMNET: Father, her writing flows like the streams in spring, the snows in winter and the leaves of the rowan tree. She is resplendent with words of wisdom and wonder. She doth paint the most comely word pictures. Mine mother is brought to wondrous life and I confess I shook the water from my heavenly eyes.

SHAKESPEARE: Ah, sweet Agnes. My son, permit me to weep. For to weep is to make less the depth of grief.

HAMNET: And, my lord, she dost speak of my sister, Judith, with words so real I felt the tremors of that day haunt me once more.

SHAKESPEARE: Where is this book, my son? For to pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth…….

HAMNET: Here, father. Take. 

SHAKESPEARE: O heaven! that one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times.

Exit Hamnet. Stage right.

SHAKESPEARE: But soft, what manner of woman is this who dost know me so well having never met?

Truly I am undone at the knowledge she dost possess of mine and mine life.

Verily she hath studied well and studiously those details wherein my life doth takes its course.

Why tis as if I am some spirit floating, witnessing the passage of my days.

My father? She has surely some witch’s insight to see him so clearly.

And my sweet mother, how doth this earthly lady know of her toil and many tribulations.

I seize upon Mistress O’ Farrell’s words and wonder at her skill.

For here, too, are my brothers and sisters, 

Sweet brethren, you walk upon the earth again

Brought to life by this sharp, sweet pen.

Exit Shakespeare. Stage left.

Scene Two HEAVEN. One day later.

HAMNET: How now, Father, how art thou?

SHAKESPEARE: My son, my son, I am undone. This book hast opened my heart. The Lady Maggie has weaved her words into the fabric of my soul. How is’t she knows that when I left Stratford for London the parting was such sweet sorrow? For she has given word to my feelings such as I should be hard pressed to do for myself.

HAMNET: If reading be the food of love, Father, read on, have excess of it!

SHAKESPEARE: Forsooth! Think you not that I could put this book down? I have read each word ten times and more besides. My heart is replete with thankfulness. This lady hast granted me vision to see outside mine and myself. 

Exit Hamnet. Stage right.

SHAKESPEARE: Alas poor Hamnet, I knew him. 

A plague upon our house did take him.

My son, his earthly passing did harm my heart.

He could not hold mortality’s strong hand.

And I did hide inside myself.

Oft forgetting the sorrows that did torture the mind of mine dear Agnes.

And I, a man of naught but words, sought solace from my pen.

I did seek to bring him back to life.

For me, his sisters and my wife. 

I would just to say that I agree with all Will said and thought it was a very good book! 😜

How to Carry Fire - Christina Thatcher - BLOG TOUR

In my life as a book blogger I find that it is primarily fiction and non-fiction that offer blogging opportunities. To date I have only reviewed three works of poetry; two anthologies and a crime story set in verse! It’s a challenge and that’s great. I was really excited to be invited onto the blog tour for this immersive collection of poems by Christina Thatcher. 

 Shortlisted for the Bare Fiction Debut Poetry Collection Competition in 2015 and a winner in the Terry Hetherington Award for Young Writers in 2016, Christina Thatcher’s poetry and short stories have featured in over 40 publications including The London Magazine, Planet Magazine, And Other Poems, Acumen and The Interpreter’s House. Her first collection, More than you were, was published by Parthian Books in 2017. 

The volume is a collection of 73 poems linked by the common theme of fire, both physical, metaphorical and analytical. Each of these poems I have read aloud which has certainly set me on fire to say the least! The words leap off the page at me as if they are all flames dancing and writhing their way into my consciousness. Poetry is emotion, pure, raw. But how do you set about conveying in a few hundred words exactly what lies in these depths of image and metaphor? Poetry is so much more subjective than fiction that the art of the reviewer seems inadequate. 

You think about the image conveyed by the title, you think about carrying fire and I had images of ancient man with his precious torch of fire symbolising a potent for survival. I also thought about the Olympic torch and the journey it makes and I thought about beacons being lit across a coastline to warn of imminent danger.

Thematically - fire is dominant, the collection explores love, broadly and specifically, trauma of loss and addiction and the delicate balance of emotion, and emphasises the elemental nature of this being we call homo sapien. Each poem in this collection is a flame in a fire, dancing, reaching out to us, the reader. The paradox of fire, survival and destruction. Comforting warmth yet lung searing devastation.  As a group the poems convey a fusion of the physical and emotional effects of fire. Maybe we all carry fire within us? As might be expected some poems spoke to me more than others; some for their searing honesty and flayed emotion, others for their piercing insights. 

But I have too many favourites! So I must practice selectivity. Let’s start with the first in the collection, first impressions and all that! Insurance Report - blazing in its simplicity, it asks us to question the sentiment and nostalgia contained within artefacts, how they affect our emotion, and their worth in every sense of the word.

‘We cried out for these totems:

Who are we without them? Who are we?

Only the inspectors answered back:

But what were they worth?

What were they worth?’

An Improper Kindness - The opening stabs you. Two words:

‘Leave rehab.’

Then follows an elegy of love, memory and unrequited hopes.

‘But you are so tired and the light

of the halcyon place is getting brighter

and warmer, coming just into reach,

and so I tell you to go, open the door:

be happy.’

Ode to Ottsville - Oh I could quote this in full! A litany of innocence and childhood simplicity lost in the march of time. 

‘…..I want 

that time again when geese were a child’s only enemy,

when fear was just bast emerging form the paddock barn.’

And if it seems we are straying from the fire theme let’s return with the titular How to Carry Fire - which, it seemed to me, was trying to unite the strands of the entire collection using fire as a wider metaphor, the physical burning as a destructive force, fire in the belly as the life force. It’s powerful.

‘…..Take what those flames

can give you. Feel heat enter your stomach.

Stay wary now. You must never let the light

go out. Keep it lit until you learn to glow.’

What Comes Next - giving voice to that unnerving fear that love can provoke: the safety and continued fidelity and existence of a loved one, the unspoken acknowledgement of the fragility of life. 

‘….Even writing this

makes it more true

and so I am afraid, always

of what comes next

and the fear of fearing this.’

And similar in mood to that poem is What If - the poet fears for the safety and well being of her addict brother returning to the fire theme seeing the issues of their lives as fires. Another poem that is expansive in its simplicity.

‘What if you forget the fires we’ve seen,

how we fought them, and I am left

here to remember it all

on my own?’

I could continue with more. Reluctantly, I won't. And, maybe I should allude to metre, rhyme as it’s poetry? But I won’t. I can't. My heart is full up to overflowing with the immensity of the emotion contained within these verses. I’ll say no more except that, I wonder? Will there be future collectors by this exceptional poet in this elemental cycle - How To Carry Water, How to Carry Air and How to Carry Earth?!

I feel absolutely privileged to have experienced these poems and to be invited to participate in the blog tour. These are just my feelings. Please read what my blogging colleagues have to say.

Thank you to Isabelle Kenyon from Fly on the Wall Press for this opportunity. 

A Long Way Off - Pascal Garnier translated by Emily Boyce

I thoroughly enjoyed C’est La Vie; Garnier’s subversive wit can have you gasping at the irreverence but also guffawing at the audacity. So I was excited to read another of his ‘mid life crises’ books, which is what I like to call them. This story is somehow more poignant, more emotional. Marc is in his sixties, he has a partner and a grown up daughter who lives in an institution. We are never told why. Along the way he acquires a cat and with his daughter embarks upon a spontaneous road trip.

It’s not a usual kind of road trip but you wouldn’t expect that with Garnier at the wheel! I guess it begins normally enough but soon spirals into an almost surreal trip, double entendre intended. It’s as if the trip is a metaphor for Marc’s life where he needs to come off the map to find himself and examine his relationship with his daughter.

It’s one of those books where at some points you just can’t believe what you’re reading and you flick back to read again just in case you’ve lost the plot, literally almost! I sometimes wonder if the intention is to shock, to push the reader out of their comfort zone?  Some of the events are off colour, yet the absurdity just suckers you in. I’m always amazed at how much punch Garnier achieves in such a slim volume. Yet you never have  the sense of a rushed or hurried narrative.  

His two main characters Marc and Anne are not typical. As the book progresses it becomes clear that Marc really doesn’t know his daughter as well as he might have believed he did. Certainly her moral compass seems awry to put it mildly. and I have to put it mildly for I do not wish to give anything away! At one point I did fear for his safety let alone his sanity! The there is Chloe, Marc’s partner, who has not been informed of his whereabouts and you feel for the poor lady wondering what the hell is going on.

Overall it remains an entertaining and capricious read. My thanks to Gallic Books for a copy. 

A Body in the Bookshop - Helen Cox - SOCIAL MEDIA BLAST

The second of the Kitt Hartley Yorkshire mysteries,  this ‘down south’ blogger is happy to be aboard the blog tour for the latest story.

There’s something inordinately comforting in reacquainting yourself with characters you ‘met’ in a previous story. For one thing you feel like you already know them and are keen to further your ‘friendship’ with them. I was pleased to meet Kitt and Evie again but also delighted when Grace showed up! She was one of my favourite characters from Murder by the Minster. And I remember speculating as to how the dynamic between Kitt and Inspector Halloran might be developed. And boy, it HAS developed.  ;) I’ll say no more. Best you read the book. 

Kitt remains as feisty as ever, smart, perceptive and assertive.  She needs to be for when a bookish crime is committed and people she is close to are involved there is pressure to unravel the strands of this fascinating mystery. However she shows a softer side in this story. There may be a good reason for that but I’ll not do spoilers. Best friend Evie, still recovering from the trauma of book one finds herself taking the initiative as the pair seek to bring the perpetrators to justice. 

It’s cosy crime with many light moments and a smattering of romance, some unexpected. In some ways it’s like Enid Blyton for grown ups. But don’t be fooled for it IS most definitely a crime story and some nasty things happen and there are dead bodies popping up. But inasmuch as portions of the story line are cosy the bulk of the plot wouldn’t be out of place in a series like Line of Duty.

Kitt’s standing as librarian and bibliophile are never far from the surface as she compares situations with books she has read and given that it is a crime and detection tale both Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes get a mention. Her logic and cool head guide her towards a solving of the crime. 

There is a consistency in the narrative style which is most necessary to render a series credible and the characters are sustained and also developed. I think there is a risk when writing a series of books that the characters remain static almost with nothing new for the reader to discover. Development is necessary to keep that spark going no matter how subtle those developments are.  There’s an attention to detail that endures throughout the story and whilst it is possibly an advantage to have read the first book it is no detriment if you haven’t. 

This is developing into an entertaining series.  Already I’m wondering what’s going to happen in the next one! Not in terms of the crime, no, I’m sure that will be subtle, puzzling and involved, but what’s ahead for our trio of ladies! 

My thanks to Ella Patel last Quercus books for  copy of this tale and the opportunity to take part in the social media blast. 

The Last Paper Crane - Kerry Drewery

This was one of what I like to call an instinct book. I knew nothing about the writer or the book but my gut was telling me to go for it. I went for it and thanks to the good folk at Readers First, I got it!

Oh, thank you, book instinct, you so seldom let me down! This book is just beautiful, humbling, harrowing, but beautiful.

Written with free verse and narrative prose this is the story of an Hiroshima survivor. In common with many survivor stories whether they are fiction or fact, and let’s be honest the fictions are usually based on the facts, this touches you to the core. It’s beautifully presented with some subtle, effective, understated illustrations by Natsko Seki and there are instructions and paper for readers to make their own paper crane at the end of the book. I haven’t yet because I’m still so full of the book I think my fingers would shake too much!

The blurb:-

Mizuki is worried about her grandfather. He is clearly troubled by something, something that is draining life and laughter from him. Gently Mizuki encourages him to reveal a secret that he has kept to himself for many years, of a promise that he made and was never able to keep. Might Mizuki be able to help, even after all this time?

Moving from contemporary Japan to Hiroshima in August 1945, the day the nuclear bomb was so devastatingly dropped on the city, this is an unforgettable novel with hope at its heart.

This was one of those rare books that I started and could barely draw breath until I finished it. I’ve read numerous books about the Holocaust but I have never stopped to truly consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There possibly aren’t as many books widely available which makes this a very important story indeed. When you read this book sides and affiliations in terms of war cease to be of any importance. What happened to all those innocent people will tear you apart. And like the Holocaust this piece of history should never be forgotten.  We have to keep it alive in the hope that it will never happen again. And one way to do it is through fiction as memorable as this story.

In a curious parallel,  that I can’t quite get my head round and articulate clearly, I read this book and I’m reviewing it now in the midst of this coronavirus outbreak that is engulfing our world like a metaphorical atomic bomb. It’s a right time sort of thing. When I see the footage from Italian hospitals and the people suffering there and the medical staff risking all to save them I couldn’t help but wonder how it was for the medical staff in Hiroshima that fateful day and the months afterwards. 

I’m not sure who the target audience is ? Part of me felt it had qualities that lent it to the YA readership but the brutality of what happened. the injuries and suffering propels it more towards an adult readership. But I think ultimately it becomes universal. Everyone should read it. 

However it’s one thing to select a theme that maybe hasn’t been exploited in fiction much before, it is another to explode that theme with moving prose that goes beyond mere description, that enables you to feel. Kerry Drewery has created something little short of perfection. It’s pitched just right. You never feel the descriptions are to sensationalise, you just know that’s exactly how it was which makes it all the more shocking and moving.The paper crane is a wonderful image that endures throughout the whole book symbolising hope. It’s powerful yet simple.

Drewery has lovingly and tenderly created her characters to educate us, and to move us. They will stay in your heart forever. The verse is wonderful and is an effective device to draw a distinction between the then and the now. And the conclusion? Oh. If you don’t cry then there’s no hope for you.

This story may be about one of the world’s most dreadful wartime atrocities but through it all, every page, there is love. 

The Bell in the Lake - Lars Mytting translated by Deborah Dawkin

Let us commence with all matters blurbish - 

‘The first in a rich historical trilogy that draws on legend, by a literary craftsman and the author of The Sixteen Trees of the Somme

Norway, 1880. Winter is hard in Butangen, a village secluded at the end of a valley. The lake has frozen, and for months the ground is too hard to bury the dead. Astrid Hekne dreams of a life beyond all this, beyond marriage, children, and working the land to the end of her days. Then Pastor Kai Schweigaard takes over the small parish, with its 700-year-old stave church carved with pagan deities. The two bells in the tower were forged by Astrid’s forefather in the sixteenth century, in memory of conjoined twins Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne. They are said to hold supernatural powers.

The villagers are wary of the pastor and his resolve to do away with their centuries-old traditions, though Astrid also finds herself drawn to him. And then a stranger arrives from Dresden, with grand plans for the church itself. For headstrong Astrid this may be a provocation too far.

Talented architecture student Gerhard Schönauer is an improbable figure in this rugged community. Astrid has never met anyone like him; he seems so different, so sensitive. She finds that she must make a choice: for her homeland and the pastor, or for an uncertain future in Germany. 

Then the bells begin to ring . . .’

The first in a trilogy? Thank goodness! For I need to know what happens next. Lars Mytting has constructed a bewitching tale of Norwegian cold and legend creating an atmospheric landscape that transports  the reader back to a nineteenth century village freezing in the fjords and its stave church. I had never heard of a stave church before I read this book. I’m such an anorak I googled them and I looked at the pictures. Now all  I want to do is see one, feel one, experience one with all its mystical carvings and portals that make religion seem almost magical! Quite an achievement! 

This stave church is at the heart of this extraordinarily rich and layered story with a congregation of characters. Conjoined twins are the catalyst, Halfrid and Gunhild set the scene. Astrid Hekne, with a family history that she allows in part to define her , but more to complement her and her intuitive perceptions regarding the place of women in this faintly homogeneous  community. Kai Schweigaard the new pastor, young , patiently restless with a desire to improve and in possession of a keen ambition to make his mark. Gerhard Schonauer, ostensibly an architect, but with an artistic talent that allows his work to speak to even the casual observer. Schonauer from Germany seems to be everything Schweigaard is not, a metaphorical representation perhaps of the sociological ambience of the time. Astrid, intelligent yet not overly educated intuits those fundamental  differences and, without divulging too much of the plot, ultimately has to make a choice.

With a substantial narrative that possesses all the flavour of trilogy and history resplendent with rich detail and almost palpable atmosphere, you can smell the wood of the church, feel the cold of the frozen and icy lake, hear the ghostly tolling of the bells. see Gerhard’s drawings, be moved at Kai’s funeral services and feel Astrid’s dilemmas. No surprise, then, that this book has been a best seller in Mytting’s native Norway. 

It’s an impressive work and I’m excited for the next instalment. It has the potential to metaphorically explore the development, perhaps, of Europe examining the differences and the ‘progress’ of society.

Thanks to Quercus Books and MacLehose Press of a copy of this book. 

The Man on the Street - Trevor Wood

It’s getting harder and harder to come up with a new variation for contemporary crime thrillers. Plots are one thing and there appears to be no shortage of good ones in the ‘crime fiction biz’ but detectors and investigators?  Trevor Wood has come up with a new and unusual investigator in the form of a homeless man. It’s unique and without wishing to make a ‘big issue’ out of it, (I’m SORRY, okay? ), it has to be a good thing to draw attention to this sector of our society in a sympathetic but not sentimental way.

Jimmy’s our guy; ex military, ex con, PTSD, untreated. He hears and sees something one night that is the catalyst for the rest of the book. Here’s the blurb -

It started with a splash. Jimmy, a homeless veteran grappling with PTSD, did his best to pretend he hadn't heard it - the sound of something heavy falling into the Tyne at the height of an argument between two men on the riverbank. Not his fight.

Then he sees the headline: GIRL IN MISSING DAD PLEA. The girl, Carrie, reminds him of someone he lost, and this makes his mind up: it's time to stop hiding from his past. But telling Carrie, what he heard - or thought he heard - turns out to be just the beginning of the story.

The police don't believe him, but Carrie is adamant that something awful has happened to her dad and Jimmy agrees to help her, putting himself at risk from enemies old and new.

But Jimmy has one big advantage: when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

Okay. But be careful when you pick up this book to read, as I’m sure you will, because you will not want to put it down. Wood has constructed an absorbing tale set in Newcastle, that glorious city that appears here as another character almost, which gives a positive slant and reeducation on some maybe stereotypical ideas of homelessness. As well as the unravelling of a crime Jimmy’s story is unraveled too and the reader is enlightened as to how someone can end up homeless, there but for the grace of God etc. It’s humbling. The skill with which the characters are drawn ensure that the reader roots for them, cares about them, likes them. Hopefully next time readers of this book come upon anyone who is homeless they will remember Jimmy, Gadge and Deano and see the people as well as their circumstances.

The title’s dual meaning is potent too, Jimmy is on the street but that does not mean that Jimmy, as a person, doesn’t think like most other people, thinks like ‘the man on the street’. Conscience plays a part in Jimmy’s motivation to do the right thing but ultimately his doing the right thing leads him to do everything almost! But it is not one of those crime stories that has you realising who did what and when and where and why, no, it’s a complex set of circumstances with some red herrings to be sure that I feel the reader will struggle to second guess. 

Jimmy’s dynamic with the police is interesting. I think the book illustrates how members of the constabulary are ‘just’ people doing a job and bringing their personalities and motivations to that job. There’s good ‘uns and bad ‘uns just like anywhere else including the homeless. 

And if all of that isn’t enough, there’s Dog. ;) No, I'm not going to tell you. Read the book!

I’m wondering if this is going to be a series? I think it has the potential.

My thanks to Quercus Books for a proof of this book.