Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Why are we fascinated by our own destruction? There have always been tales of dystopia where civilization is levelled out with only a few lucky survivors left with the mission of rebuilding it. It feels that there has been a proliferation of these stories recently represented in films and literature. Part of it is to do with fear about the environment, political instability, biological warfare and the fragility of the world economy – all valid concerns! It’d be idealistic to consider that by fictionally playing out these potential horrors it will have a galvanizing effect to motivate us to prevent their happening. Maybe sometimes they do. I think they more likely work as good entertainment because it stirs within us that instinctual physiological reaction where the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated and drives us to a state of survivalist excitement. We all want to believe that we would be clever and lucky enough to overcome the adversities which can bring civilization to its knees. Most tales that imagine civilization’s downfall are inspired by our society’s failings. However, “Station Eleven” - which envisions a particularly nasty strain of a flu virus causing global calamity - differs from these other tales in a crucial way. The focus is not exclusively on society’s shortcomings, but our own personal loss of self and consequent loss of what’s most important to us in life.

The story begins in a Canadian theatre where a famous actor named Arthur is performing as King Lear on stage and suffers a heart attack mid-show. From this evening forward, society crumbles at an alarmingly fast rate as a virus ravages through and decimates the majority of the world’s population. This is no spoiler. Amidst the action of this specific scene the authorial voice makes us bluntly aware of what’s to come and the limited lifespan of the peripheral characters as we’re reading about them. The rest of the novel follows a select few individuals throughout the oncoming calamity – particularly Kirsten who was a girl acting alongside Arthur on stage and grows into a tough survivor who travels between camps of survivors in the far future with a group of Shakespearian actors and musicians. “Station Eleven” shifts back and forth between the past and twenty years after this event to make connections to do with the character’s relationships and how memories are imprinted, changed over time or lost. The author is clever in the way she gradually releases information and keeps the reader guessing what the fate of her major characters will be and how their stories interconnect. The novel gives equal weight to the development of Arthur’s pre-apocalypse story (a man not even personally affected by the virus) as it does to the heart-racing spread of the killer flu and the struggle for survival.

In focusing on the rise of a celebrity, Emily St John Mandel shows how the underlying meaning of the novel isn’t so much about the possibilities for disastrous failings in our society but the way we lose touch with ourselves. Arthur’s drive to succeed causes him to lose connections to the people who have been most dear to him in life and he even begins to delude himself about his own motivations. Arthur goes through a series of marriages and wonders at one point “Did he actually date those women because he liked them, or was his career in the back of his mind the whole time? The question is unexpectedly haunting.” His ambitions meld with his personal intentions and he feels that he loses touch with his essential self. He asks himself: “Did this happen to all actors, this blurring of borders between performance and life?” When he meets up with his oldest friend during the height of his career his friend Clark observes “He was performing” rather than communicating with him on a genuine level. The loss of personal values and the people most important to him are tantamount to the end of Arthur’s world. The survivors of the population-destroying virus are, in a sense, the survivors of this one man’s fractured identity. Having made both positive and negative effects upon them, they scramble to unite and understand the past through the fog of memory.

Still from a 2007 production of King Lear  directed by James Lapine at the Public Theater in NYC where three little girls portrayed early versions Lear's daughters. A version of this production is fictionalized in Station Eleven. Photo by Michal Daniel.

This has a subtle, cumulative effect over the course of the novel which builds to a poignancy not often found in most disaster narratives. Added to this are parallels drawn between the characters’ lives and two other different examples of artistically rendered realities. One example this novel’s continuous references back to the play of King Lear which is Shakespeare’s great parable about how our great accomplishments in life can be decimated by greed, arrogance and delusions of self-importance. The other is based on the novel’s title “Station Eleven” which is a comic book created by a character named Miranda about a group of survivors who scramble to live on a man-made exoplanet which has slipped through a worm hole. Copies of this comic disappear and resurface throughout so that this more fantastical story adds a cryptic under-layer to the apocalypse occurring in the primary story of this novel.

The only trouble I had with this novel is that the story of Arthur’s rise to fame isn’t especially compelling. It takes some time to develop real relevancy alongside the grander narrative about the aftermath of the virus. But once I learned more about Arthur’s wives and the people closest to them it became a very important part of the story – both for the larger point the book makes and drawing connections between the characters in pre and post apocalyptic times. There is also a slightly cringe-worthy scene set in London where a cab driver delivers a dubious line of cockney dialogue. But I only felt this way because I’ve lived in London so long myself and it came across more like a cultural stereotype. However, overall this novel is compelling and impressively told.

“Station Eleven” is an adventurous read as well as a highly-poignant one. There are multiple arresting glimpses of apocalyptic horrors and moving existential moments of solitude. It extends the meaning of Jean-Paul Sartre’s great aphorism by positing the chilling question “If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?” The disappearance of others happens quite literally over the course of this novel’s dramatic story, but also applies to the individual’s personal reality when he/she becomes alienated from everyone who means the most to them. It makes you reassess the things and people in your life that you may take for granted – which is always a useful reality check.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

Sometimes it seems like so such WWII fiction has been published that even stories set during the London Blitz all start to feel too familiar. Then a story comes along like Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans and I see things from an entirely new perspective. True, this is another tale about a London boy sent to live in the safety of the countryside, but the characters are unlike any others I’ve read about. Noel is a quiet and precocious child who is living with his feisty former-Suffragette godmother Mattie in London until she begins suffering severely from the onset of dementia. With only the most tangential relations left to care for him, he sets out for a rural town where he is paraded through the streets with other children by a billeting officer until he’s spotted by a woman named Vee. She takes him into her home, not for the good of the cause, but for the ten and sixpence a week she’ll get for housing him. Vee has many responsibilities caring for her partially-invalid mother, who spends her days writing amusingly earnest letters to Churchill and son in his young adulthood, who escaped the draft due to a heart condition. At first she is perplexed by Noel’s oddities, remarking “he was like one of those fancy knots, all loops, no ends.” But gradually she comes to respect his intelligence and emotionally-guarded manner. Vee and Noel make a curious pair who form an unscrupulous alliance that leads them on an emotional journey.

The author also has a refreshing way of conjuring the time period through evocative sensory experiences. I particularly appreciate how Evans creates particularly strong feelings for the besieged city through the sense of taste. With descriptions of unseasoned boiled potatoes being consumed in an air raid shelter or a handful of London water which tastes of pennies or the red grit of brick dust which crusts a character’s tongue, the reader is drawn into the civilian experience of war-time. So when a line as short and abrupt as “This fog had been a house” comes, it’s made to feel all the more tragic because the imagined sensations of those flavours are still on your tongue. It makes the devastation feel immediately real. My only criticism of the writing style is that in certain scenes set in public spaces the arrangement of characters becomes somewhat disorientating so it’s difficult to follow the action that’s happening. However, the novel overall moves in well arranged segments that build tension and draw you into the dramatic experiences of the protagonists.

What’s particularly successful is the different slant Evans takes on the attitudes of her characters in this time period. Whether its homes left unattended because of bomb scares, citizens too eager to donate money for good causes or young men desperate to avoid being taken into the armed forces, the war unintentionally opened up opportunities for people with morally-dubious sensibilities to take advantage and profit. What’s more is that there is a sense from the response by the police and authorities in the novel that they are so overwhelmed by the dramatic societal shift caused from the war that they don’t have the time or resources to deal with non-life-threatening incidents of crime. Far from alienating them from the reader, the sometimes selfish attitudes of the characters portrayed makes them more human and relatable. It’s very different from the purely virtuous or outrageously hateful WWII characters that you find in many war novels. The characters in Crooked Heart are endearingly flawed with emotionally-damaged pasts which impinge upon their judgement and actions.

The way in which the central characters come to rely and care for each other seems particularly relevant for this time period. Although neither Noel nor Vee’s families are affected by the current war they are left isolated like many people during this time when society was being shaken down by the strain of conflict and restrictions of rationing. Driven out of their normal circumscribed existence, chance encounters brought people together out of necessity. While Noel and Vee form a relationship at first out of need they soon discover a kinship which redefines the traditional meaning of family. Crooked Heart delves into the private lives of people living through the horrors of war showing you a refreshingly different perspective. At one point it’s remarked that “There were bombs outside, but inside was worse.” This novel confronts people who aren’t invested with the cause of the war so much as their own personal survival and overcoming private difficulties. It’s exciting reading how Evans incorporates elements of the Blitz to draw their priorities into focus.

This review of Crooked Heart also appeared on Shiny New Books

The Issue of Translation

Last night I went to an event at the SouthBank Centre organized by the Writers Centre Norwich on “Living Translation.” It's one of those special evenings with a room full of people all passionate about an important literary subject where it felt like the discussion could go on and on all night with no one getting tired. The conversation between (genius author of Artful & How to be Both which I can't stop talking about) Ali Smith, (esteemed Jose Saramago translator) Margaret Jull Costa and (documentary filmmaker & author of I Am China which I really admired when I read it earlier this summer) Xiaolu Guo moderated by Daniel Hahn touched upon many aspects of cultural, economical and political issues to do with translation. Ali Smith delivered an impassioned “provocative” speech about the origins of words to do with translation, her personal connection to it and how she believes children should be taught not only other languages from a young age but how to translate one text into another. Their lively discussion covered many areas to do with translation and “bad translation” (which some argued was a “good” thing).

I was really struck when Xiaolu Guo talked about the duality of her political and cultural identity as Chinese/Western and how that feeds into and informs her writing. She spoke about the embarrassing fact that approximately only 2% of books published in English are translated books whereas in most other countries the percentage of books in translation are much higher. It's terrifying to think how insulated this makes English-speaking nations from the rest of the world. How can we begin to understand and be part of the greater civilization without reading what they are writing? Even when writing is translated it tends to be because of the economic motivation behind it – the boom in Scandinavian detective/crime fiction, for instance. Of course, there are some small, inspirational presses like Peirene Press who publish important new literary translated works from around the world.

While I'd obviously advocate that more writing should be translated and made available to the English speaking world, the motivation to publish only certain kinds of translated books raises a worrying question for me. If the primary motivation behind translating books is financial for big publishing houses, do those decisions reinforce cultural stereotypes about that country? If the thirst for Scandi crime drama provokes a burst of translation for those languages in that genre is it only because we want to see that culture in a more simplified way? Or does this eventually help encourage translation of more diverse books from those countries as well? Certainly the sensation of Knausgaard's memoirs have opened up the possibilities for other Norwegian writers – as the phenomenon of Haruki Murakami did for more Japanese writing to be translated.

It's really interesting how the political becomes tied with the economic motivations in translation. The word “banned” can be used by some publishers as a marketing tool trying to stir a sensation so that a translated book from China or the Middle East, for instance, which has been deemed controversial for it's parent country is made more “palatable” for Western countries. The intention is to get people to think 'If they don't want their own people to read it, I want to read it!' I remember once hearing Ahdaf Soueif speak about how publishers tried to emphasize and exaggerate the controversy surrounding her books' publication in Egypt as a marketing tactic. I hasten to add many of these books are worth reading and should be read. But I think this is something we need to be mindful of because if we only read because of these political differences it can foster more of a cultural divide rather than a real unification of humanity.

The great hope is that more books - of all varieties - can be translated and published, particularly here in the West where we see such a small percentage of the world's literature. This conversation between languages and culture is necessary for bridging divides between nations. I wonder what great books we're missing out on because they haven't been translated yet. Last night really motivated me to read more books in translation. 

What are some of your favourite books in translation? Have you ever read a book both in its original language and the translated language? Are there books you've read multiple translations of and prefer one translation over another? 

The Rental Heart and Other Stories by Kirsty Logan

When trying to show how most of our lives are lived on the surface while all sorts of wild desires and fantasies remain hidden inside us, traditional fiction usually only shows tiny hints of this multi-layered reality in the thoughts of characters and their dramatic actions. In fairy tales this sublimated fear and lust explodes like a geyser. Although the more traditional kinds of these tales are usually sugared for children, Kirsty Logan has written stories which are decidedly for adults due to their frankness of feeling and the complexity of their ideas.

Some stories in this short, powerful book play upon tales we’re already familiar with giving a different perspective or reconfiguring their limited morality. In ‘Matryoshka’ when the “villain” sister ends up alone while the maid she ardently desires ultimately gets to wear the pretty shoes and win the prince it feels like the most devastating kind of romantic tragedy. When the narrator of ‘Witch’ stumbles upon the notorious feared woman who lives in a hut in the woods she discovers that her ostracism from society is of her own making and her alternative lifestyle is far preferable from living with the mainstream. In ‘All the Better to Eat You With’ which is a very short tale told all in dialogue the meaning stretches out to encompass more universal philosophical ideas about the survival struggle of all species which are divided between hunters and the hunted. Characters speaking collectively in the story ‘Underskirts’ emphatically declare themselves as outside of traditional time-honoured stories “We were not the stepmothers from fairy tales” as they sell their daughters into a salacious wealthy household out of financial necessity. The title character of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is cast in a present day starkly realistic setting. In this story the unfolding narrative of a girl who suffered sexual assault after being drugged at a party is ingeniously told backwards so that the hard realism of the event strikes the reader like a hammer. It also meaningfully shows the psychology of a young woman who is trying to forget the event rather than go through the difficulty of reporting it. Far from frivolous, these twists on familiar fantasies are serious stuff.

These imaginative stories are also very playful, funny and sexy. Some are set in grand, old-world settings like a country estate where the lady of the house is known to take in select local country girls for indulgent happenings. Still others take place in the recognizable gritty reality of the present where couples are separated through the necessity of keeping self-sustaining work or struggle with the difficulty of pregnancy. Take for instance, this line from ‘A Skull of Saints’: “People are more than DNA, she knows, but if she could feel their child from her insides, know him with her own flesh the way that Hope does, it would be better. It would make sense. He would feel more like her own; he would be more than just an idea.” This story explores what the real significance of empathy and familial relationships in the way people relate to and think about each other. Yet these stories cleverly bend what’s real and stretch into the fantastic so that children grow antlers or tiger tails in ‘Una and Coll are not Friends.’ The story is told in their voices which sound like any adolescent you might overhear on the street. But the physical imposition of animal appendages makes a powerful statement about the meaning of diversity and divisions which can occur within minority groups. In the story ‘Origami’ a woman waits for her husband who is ceaselessly delayed by work and spends her time making a man out of folded paper. With this oddball detail it makes a powerful comment on the sense of complex isolation one can feel within a committed relationship: “She wasn’t lonely, she was victorious.”

Most of these stories squeeze at the prickly heart of love to make fresh revelatory statements about the meaning of relationships. The title story includes a woman who must rent a heart to begin new romances. In another story a woman takes a companion of a coin operated boy. These aren’t just conceptual ideas in the story, but have a physical impact upon the characters. As is vital in the best absurdist fiction, these weird details are treated in the narratives as completely natural so the meaning of their inclusion adds a forceful complicated layer to the progression of the unfurling story. The diversity of love is demonstrated in different stories involving romance that is lesbian, gay, straight and in-between. Female sexuality in particular is assiduously explored over a range of stories. The story ‘Momma Grows a Diamond’ is one of the most beautifully crafted stories about a girl’s coming of age that I’ve ever read. Girls are initially given the names of flowers, but as they blossom into adulthood they take on the names of jewels. Logan writes at one point: “Aren’t you tired of being a flower, Violet? Momma says to me one morning from the depths of her bed. Flowers crush so easy, baby, but nothing breaks a jewel.” This description of a necessary toughening of character in women is a meaningful and different way to see how personalities change with adulthood out of a need to deal with a new kind of social environment. There is also a particular kind of masculine aggression ingeniously represented in the story ‘The Broken West.” I’ve heard it said before that when two men look each other in the eyes they only ever think one of two things ‘I want to fuck you’ or ‘I want to kill you.’ This idea is demonstrated in the line “Daniel can’t tell if he’s been fighting or fucking, and it doesn’t really matter. Faces look different close up, and the only way to get that close to a stranger is to kiss them or choke them.” These stories cleverly play with gender to show how it sometimes determines or heedlessly defies the ways in which sex plays out or how love manifests.

An Altered Book: Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen - by artist Susan Hoerth

Logan also displays a diverse range of narrative techniques throughout so that some stories are told in short bursts of revolving first person narration while others like ‘Tiger Palace’ has a commanding narrator who leads you manipulatively through the tale and makes you question the meaning of “stories” themselves. Some tales are whimsical and retain elusive meanings. Others are slotted more firmly in particular kinds of genre, but draw into them innovative subject matter. In the haunting, melancholy story ‘Feeding’ a man prepares a nursery while his female partner becomes increasingly obsessed with tending to her garden at night. The creepy tone and continuous image of a trowel hitting dirt makes this story as eerily tense as any psychologically-rich horror story. In a completely different style the story ‘The Man From the Circus’ uses a girl’s newfound profession as a trapeze artist as a significant metaphor for taking a necessary chance in life by plunging dangerously into the unknown world.

As you can tell from my enthusiastic attempt to untangle the meaning of these stories, despite their relative brevity they contain a wealth of ideas. Kirsty Logan is very clever in the way she uses a range of writer’s tools to create the most effect style of storytelling to fit the diverse subject matters she covers. Having been a teenage lover of absurdist drama, I'm thrilled by the way she warps reality in her prose to stimulate the imagination. She crafts disarming images that are imbued with unusual meaning. “The Rental Heart and Other Stories” is a fantastically refreshing read and leaves you thinking about things in a new way. These stories have picked up awards and been included on prize lists both individually and as a collection itself which is a testament to their good quality.

Watch a video of Kirsty Logan discussing the nature of fairytales here: http://vimeo.com/104486851

Polari Literary Salon's 7th Birthday

Last night the Polari Literary Salon celebrated it's 7th birthday in the Royal Festival Hall. This is an event which I first began going to during it's humble beginnings upstairs in a pub in Soho where people packed in tightly together. Authors stood precariously amongst us while drinks were passed around. Now it's expanded into a monthly event in a large room on the South Bank with a spectacular view over Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. But it still retains that sense of a tight-knit friendly group hungry for culture and a fun evening. The salon has also recently embarked on an ambitious tour over the UK and hosts a lucrative annual first book prize. It's admirable the dedication and passion which author/journalist Paul Burston has shown in creating and sustaining Polari which consistently showcases some of the best new and established writing talent in the country.

The authors who read this evening were particularly special. Starting with Ben Fergusson reading from his novel "The Spring of Kasper Meier" (which I reviewed earlier this year here). He described a scene in a post-WWII Berlin bar where information was slyly exchanged and tentative relationships formed. What struck me hearing this passage was the sense of endurance and wry humour of the voices which came alive as he read them. There is a real survival sense to these German natives who have come through the war and seen their community fragmented and now find their lives ruled by desperation, longing and suspicion. Next Alex Marwood read a hilarious piece which made parallels between iconic characters in literature and the types of people you find in the city today. She also read a chilling extract from her new novel "The Killer Next Door" which draws you to empathize with the central character only to twist you around and realize you are relating to a serial killer. Niven Govinden read from his profoundly moving novel "All the Days and Nights" (which I reviewed earlier this year here) about the relation between artist and muse/ art and viewer. His voice had a hushed intense quality which was utterly arresting and intimate and particularly appropriate for this story narrated in the second person. It really brought alive the intensity of feeling the artist has for her subject and lover as he journeys out to reclaim his sense of identity and search for meaning. After an interval Sarah Westwood read from her book which is a collection of personal journalism "The Rubbish Lesbian." Here the 'love that dares not speak its name' is that which a woman feels for her cat, a passion more intense and fully-realized than that which she feels for her own lover. Her observations about the way popular straight culture relates to the queer community were insightful and utterly hilariously. Finally, Neil Bartlett came on speaking with authority and sincerity about the importance of remembering the transformation of queer culture and the way that society doesn't change – but it is changed bit by bit by individuals who make it change. He draws an important distinction between passive acceptance and activism. He read a piece called 'That's what friends are for' which he wrote in 1988 about a conversation between father and son. The situation and characters were disconnected from any specific time or place, but in this abstraction they came more meaningfully alive in the formations of their relationships. Then he read from his new novel "The Disappearance Boy" (which I reviewed earlier this week here). As a veteran of the theatre, Bartlett has an impeccable sense of timing in his dramatic reading which related the opening scene where a mysterious boy faces the possibility of death. In the hushed tones of his oration it felt as if this boy became a universal figure standing bare and confronting a fate which might either destroy or recreate him. The individual's will is desirous not so much for self-immolation but a sense of contact with a god-less divinity.

Me with author Niven Govinden (photo by Justin David)

It was a pleasure and honour to be able to hear these authors read. I have a great respect for the effort Paul Burston goes to rallying together talented authors in a showcase that is lively, fun and community-binding. Hopefully Polari will have many more birthdays to come.

The Disappearance Boy by Neil Bartlett

There is a confidential and intimate quality to “The Disappearance Boy” that makes it feel as if you’re in a smoke-filled pub late at night listening to an enthralling tale from the strangest man you’ve ever met. Bartlett uses his considerable experience of working in the theatre to inform both the subject of this new novel and the direct, dramatic way he tells his story. When describing a bizarre, but touching habit of one of his characters he writes “It’s a strange business, talking to the dead – but if you’ve ever done it, then you won’t need me to tell you that.” This friendly intriguing tone carries throughout the book making it an engrossing and fascinating read.

As in a cinematic opening scene, we’re introduced to the “boy” in question with the novel’s vivid first chapter where he comes close to death standing on train tracks in a stance of surrender. Some years later, we meet up with this boy Reggie who is now a young man working for an illusionist named Mr Brookes. Having suffered from polio, Reggie has a misshapen walk. It’s wryly remarked that “Every human step is a fall from which we save ourselves, they say, but in Reggie’s case that’s even more true than normal.” He has an endearing closed-mouthed grin due to his bad teeth and an introverted personality borne no doubt out of his disability and his hidden homosexuality. He makes for a submissive assistant who quietly serves to make the magic happen behind the scenes. He’s in every sense the opposite of Mr Brookes who is confident, handsome and a highly-sexed cad. Together they tour around the country with Brookes’ magic act in which he makes a glamorous female assistant disappear. Although it’s only part of the act, the women in the equation frequently soon leave for good as Mr Brookes has a habit of bedding and abusing them in a cycle Reggie has witnessed with contempt. When a particularly beautiful and savvy woman named Pamela joins the act for a gig in Brighton, Mr Brookes declares her to be special. But it’s Reg who realizes how special she really is and the two form a bond which will change their circumstances for good.

Bartlett has a masterful way of describing an environment that hits all the senses and makes the reader feel as if they are actually experiencing being in a bygone era. Take, for instance, this description of the theatre in which the act takes place: “They’re almost all gone now, these buildings, but if you’re trying to imagine what one of them would have been like to live and work in, then I suggest you start with the smell. It never quite goes away, in a theatre: breath, sweat, chocolate, clothing – and cigarettes, lots of them, in those days.” These descriptions rouse the senses to ground the reader in the gritty reality of the place. It’s particularly special how he gives an informed feeling for the way an experience of a place has changed over time.

The characters also express in their actions and dialogue the different restrictions people experienced in the 1950s. This includes Reg’s longing to find a man to share his bed; his search is limited to longing stares at men on the street or hurried clandestine fumbling with men in notorious meeting spots down by the sea in the darkness of night. It’s also shown in the way Pam expresses the difficulty of obtaining an abortion during those times where there was a complicated, expensive and demeaning charade to get the procedure done: “at least four of us must have borrowed her certificate for that all-important little interview at the clinic.” Giving an informed understanding of the social conditions of the period adds great poignancy to the clearly described physical representation of this era where life was very different from the circumstances we experience today.

Ad for the Princes News Theatre screening of the Coronation from the Herald 13th June 1953

As in so much of Angela Carter’s writing, the overarching story of theatre life is the perfect vehicle for exploring deeper issues to do with identity. Reg is specially positioned both in his profession as a behind-the-scenes trickster and as an introverted shy man to observe how so much about people’s social identities are only an act. Yet, he sees people continually falling for the illusions wondering in frustration “Why do people never spot how the world actually works?” The answer is that like the audience of these shows people are lulled into believing what they see is real when in actuality they are only witnessing an act. All that is needed to make people believe you are something you are not is to authentically believe and act like it yourself as Pam considers at one point: “Bringing off a character was all to do with how you considered yourself, she thought. How you felt inside when you looked in the mirror.” The story presents the complex way fantasy informs the way we perceive other people and how that perception can be strategically manipulated by playing upon those fantasies.

“The Disappearance Boy” feels like a very personal novel which is beautifully tender at times. I developed a strong emotional connection with both Reg and Pam so I was carried along through to the climactic ending which occurs amidst the queen’s coronation day.  Bartlett has a particularly evocative menacing quality to his writing which hints at the potential for danger. It raises a seductive sort of fear which prickles with suspense and has a heavy hint of sexual desire. He demonstrated this masterfully in his previous novel “Skin Lane” which is a book that has stuck with me since I read it in 2008. Bartlett has only produced a small group of distinctive well-regarded novels since he began publishing in the 80s. I hope that he continues to publish more.

Read an excellent interview with Bartlett where he discusses his work on a project called Letter to an Unknown Soldier and his thoughts on "The Disappearance Boy" here: http://dontdoitmag.co.uk/issue-five/telling-stories-an-interview-with-neil-bartlett/

We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas

Do you ever finish a novel and feel so close to the characters that it’s like you’re suddenly in mourning because your experience with them has ended? That’s the feeling I had after I read the final page of Matthew Thomas’ “We Are Not Ourselves.” Part of the reason I felt so attached to the central characters in this book is because this is quite a lengthy family saga and so it was as if I travelled through every crucial stage of their lives. It follows three generations of a family starting with a hard-drinking Catholic Irish couple in New York City in the 50s and ending in 2011. This novel traces one family’s journey but primarily focuses on a woman named Eileen. She’s a woman I felt very close to because her background closely mirrors that of my own mother who is also of Irish heritage and grew up in that city during the 50s and 60s. Born into a difficult working-class background, Eileen is a tough-spirited intelligent woman who seeks to live out the American dream by establishing a secure middle class lifestyle for herself and her family. However, her idealism crumbles amidst the harsh realities of life and the compromises one must make to keep a family together.

The author is in many ways a very traditional novelist relating his story in descriptive eloquent prose which draws you into the reality of his characters. This isn’t at all a bad thing. By evoking the sensations of their experiences and succinctly capturing their thoughts he admirably grounds the reader in not only what it felt like to physically live in these changing eras of American life, but also experience the influence of the cultural attitudes and ideologies of those times. The tight-knit but relatively poor Irish community Eileen is born into gradually morphs over the decades into a much more diffused suburban lifestyle where families live in comparative isolation. Much later in the novel when Eileen likes to spend time in chain coffee shops she observes that “People were islands even when they sat together.” This transformation is particular to Eileen’s journey but also generally follows economic and social changes of the times. Matthew Thomas shows that the desire for suburban tranquillity is entirely understandable because of the very difficult reality which Eileen comes out of where “Everyone needed something to believe in.” Unfortunately, the thing she believes will give her the stability she desires turns out to be something of an illusion.

The testing circumstances Eileen lives under in her youth seem to her entirely natural and a hard reality that must be endured until she discovers that “There were places, she now saw, that contained more happiness than ordinary places did. Unless you knew that such places existed, you might be content to stay where you were.” She’s dazzled by the promising beauty of Christmas displays in shop windows, the prestige which accompanies wearing a mink coat and indulgently takes tours of properties for sale which are much more expensive than anything she could afford. Particular areas of the city change greatly over the time period covered in the novel and witness the influx of many minority groups. While Eileen always admired her father for taking a stand on issues of racism, she can’t help worrying about how the changing neighbourhood affects property prices. In one striking scene she has a vociferous outburst towards a young group of minorities who defend themselves saying that they were also born here. Later she fabricates a memory of this encounter in her mind to align with a stereotypically prejudiced idea of how she feels threatened by other racial groups. It’s a sobering portrait of how discrimination isn’t usually exhibited through outright racism, but influences opinions and even transforms memory due to paranoia and fear.

It comes as no surprise that when Eileen finally moves to a neighbourhood she deems respectable and inhabits the house of her dreams, the illusion of perfection quickly crumbles. As the author remarks: “So much of life was the peeling away of illusions.”  This is closely tied to the way in which capitalism so often works where idealistic visions are marketed to seem so appealing, but once ownership takes place the desired object suddenly seems shabby and disappointing. The cherished mink Eileen pines after feels stuffy, over-hot and not worth wearing once she’s actually acquired it. More seriously, she comes to realize that the society she is a part of won’t actually sustain her and her family in times of medical need. In a passage which is uncharacteristic in this novel because of what a bluntly damning indictment it is Matthew Thomas writes:

“She’d worked her whole life and diligently socked away, from the age of fifteen on, 10 percent of every paycheck she’d ever gotten, and still her family’s fortunes could be ruined overnight because the American health care system – which she’d devoted her entire professional career to navigating humanely on behalf of patients in her care, and which was organized in such a way as to put maximum pressure on people who had the least energy to handle anything difficult – had rolled its stubborn boulder into her path.”

The author is keenly aware of the financial strains of ordinary hard working people who encounter tragic circumstances. Because there isn’t a structure in place to support them when they need it most, their suffering is compounded by the extra hardships they must take on simply to survive. Loving couples must contemplate financially strategic ways of outwitting the system, but which are demoralizing to their way of life. Both the worker and the workplace suffer because a sick employee can’t afford to take the time off or leave his/her job at times when they are incapable of adequately fulfilling their responsibilities. Intelligent individuals fall prey to the scams of con-artists in order to find the emotional solace which can’t be found elsewhere. The author cleverly embeds these larger social issues into his mesmerising narrative about this family’s struggle.

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David (a character named Ed's favourite painting)

Another interesting point not often written about which Matthew Thomas raises is issues of male body image. A socially-awkward boy named Connell is somewhat overweight and struggles to lose weight. He becomes very disciplined working out whenever possible. This sort of pressure to conform to a certain type though the body is still developing is (quite rightly) written about a lot in relation to how girls are put under social pressure to look a certain way, but it’s not as much written about in relation to men. It’s something the author handles delicately and gives a dynamic viewpoint about because it’s a struggle he deals with in solitude without his parents being aware of it. Connell is also a character I felt close to because later on when he takes a job he does all he can to read in secret when there isn’t anything he needs to do in the workplace – something I know all about!

What this sweeping novel captures beautifully is a unique perspective on our motivation for living. Rather than become engrossed in entirely selfish pursuits in life this book offers refreshingly agnostic ideas about the satisfaction which accompanies working to achieve a sense of self respect: “The point wasn’t always to do what you want. The point was to do what you did and to do it well.” The ordinary people Matthew Thomas writes about are shown to be extraordinary in the way they carry on through challenging circumstances. The novel meaningfully addresses dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease as a reality with a lot of practical difficulties and emotionally testing circumstances. Including this issue also naturally raises a lot of existential questions about the meaning of the self and what one’s life amounts to when that self is lost. Maintaining a sense of integrity in one’s self and one’s actions is shown to be what really matters – not the material wealth or status which is seen so often as the end goal of the American dream. A character observes that “There is more to live for than mere achievement. It is worth something to be a good man.” It’s a lesson that’s hard to learn. “We Are Not Ourselves” contains stories about good hard working people who sometimes make foolish decisions, but strive to keep their honour and family together. 

The American Lover by Rose Tremain

When I picked up this book I wasn’t aware that these were stories. Jumping right in without even looking at the table of contents I was surprised when I came to the end of the first story which is also the title the collection is named after and found a completely separate story next. I instantly connected with the first story on a very personal level because the protagonist takes a lover named Thaddeus. When I was in college I also had a lover by that name. I also fell for the indulgent subject of the story about a somewhat frivolous girl named Beth who loses her lover and goes on to write a best-selling novel about her affair, but retreats into a drunken self-pitying existence. However, the meaning of the story is anything but silly as it seriously questions the meaning of romance and romantic attachment. Is a life spent entirely in unreciprocated love a life really lived at all?

It’s a question that is also usefully considered when reaching the final story in this collection ‘21st-Century Juliet.’ This is a playful modern telling of Romeo and Juliet narrated entirely through the diary of a Juliet living in an upper class British household that has fallen on hard times. With a lot of tongue-in-cheek gestures to the original text, the story questions the way values have changed through the transformation of the plot, insertion of xenophobia and a surprising play on the outcome of the famous story. This is also one of three stories with heavy literary references. ‘The Housekeeper’ is told from the perspective of Daphne du Maurier’s inspiration for the daunting character of Mrs Danvers in “Rebecca.” Here too discrimination is brought into the story where the protagonist Mrs Danowski is warned she should count herself lucky to serve in a great estate considering her Polish Jewish heritage. She enters into a heated tangled love affair with du Maurier who ominously states “I could be dangerous to you and you would not notice it.” The story questions the way fact is superseded by the fiction encapsulated in novels and also how the truer story might be the more interesting one.

Thwarted love is also present in the story ‘The Jester of Astapovo’ which takes as its inspiration Tolstoy’s famous death at an obscure train station. This is a story that was also written about in author Jay Parini’s novel “The Last Station” which was also made into a film. However, Tremain’s story focuses on the station master and his bungled affair with a local woman. When he takes Tolstoy into his home he sees a greater purpose in his life. Tolstoy’s strident feelings for his wife locked her out of the humble cottage where he made his death bed. The station master locks out his wife as well – both physically and emotionally. However, he makes a mistake in underestimating her.

It’s interesting how in some stories Tremain endears us to the characters she’s writing about – only to turn things around mid-tale so that other characters who appear less interesting to both the protagonist and reader turn out to be more than we expect. Isn’t that the way it is with most people we interact with? It’s the case in the deceptively simple story ‘Man in the Water’ where a widower fisherman ponders his daughter’s future and underestimates what she values in life. In one of the most technically ambitious stories ‘Lucy and Gaston’ two people who lost loved ones in WWII are haunted by their memories. The narrative moves back and forth in time, until these two strangers discover some unsettling truths when the complex secrets they both keep are uncovered once they come together. The story ‘Extra Geography’ is a more conventional coming of age story about two adolescent girls who play with their sexuality in a way that inadvertently uncovers deeper truths about what they really desire.

This painting Yarmouth Beach by Joseph Stannard inspired Tremain's story 'Man in the Water'

Some of these stories focus on the hidden travails of parents whose central reason for being in life has been skewed by having children. This is the case in ‘A View of Lake Superior in the Fall’ which opens with an elderly couple running away from their wayward adult daughter. Unable to take her flippant life decisions, they retreat to a solitary home by a lake in the Canadian forest for an existence they jokingly parallel with the movie On Golden Pond. The themes of that film run in counterpoint to the trajectory of this family. The story seems to radically define the meaning of family and how certain bonds run deeper than expected. In another eerie tale ‘The Closing Door’ a single mother brings her young daughter to a train that will take her to boarding school. This break means that not only is the daughter left alone, but the mother is equally alone, frightened and must find her way as an individual in the world. Rather than finding the freedom of not having to care for a child liberating she is, all at once, fearful of finding a new direction in life: “she had imagined she was moving back into the selfish, grown-up life she loved, but, unknown to her, that life had turned its back and was moving away from her.” These stories prompt the reader to question the meaning of family and what strength we have as individuals apart from them.

Other stories focus on individuals that are steeped in solitude without any family to support them. In the haunting existential tale ‘Captive’ a man living humbly on his own finds a personal passion in keeping a kennel. But when his heating for the dogs is sabotaged he finds himself hemmed in by the animals he’s been charged with caring for and experiences a profound crisis of being. Equally, the story ‘Smithy’ focuses on a man very much on his own, but interestingly the story only shows a snapshot from both the beginning and end of his life with the wide space of time in between raked out completely. It brings into question how much we really change and how fatal it might be to refuse moving out of our own hard-wired routines. It’s important to note that not all these stories come from the viewpoint that romance is doomed and loneliness inevitable. The story ‘Blackberry Winter’ takes as its premise a love affair that appears fated for heartbreak, but which offers a surprising prospect of hope.

Rose Tremain has an excellent ability for incorporating history into the troubling realities of the present - whether that is through setting stories in the past which have a meaning to us in the present or writing about stories in the present which refer back to the past. These short stories are playful, often funny and contain multiple levels of meaning. I've never read anything by Tremain before, but after reading these engaging stories I want to read more.

My 5 Favourite Books to Reread

It’s not often that I read books a second time for the plain fact that there are so many new ones I want to get to. Sometimes I will recall a particular scene that I found powerful in a book which I’ll flip back to or I might read a particular favourite short story from a collection I read ages ago. But, in general, I’m too greedy to turn back to something I’ve already experienced even though I know I’ll find new meanings when reading a good book again. However, there are some titles I’ve revisited multiple times. In their own ways I find them endlessly rewarding as I get something new from them each time.

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

This is by far the book I’ve read the most times in my life. The entire movement of life from childhood to old age perfectly encapsulated in six distinct “voices” speaking out of some subterranean region of consciousness. As I grow older I connect in different ways with the characters at different ages. There is stunning poetry in the prose so it can be enjoyed for its sheet beauty. Or you can reread passages for their depth of thought. It’s the most artful novel I’ve ever read.

The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982

More than any other book here, I can flip to any entry in these journals to become immediately immersed in reading about Oates’ thoughts on literature or her philosophical meditations on the state of being. Unlike her beautifully crafted fiction, the thoughts in this book come so directly that their honesty speaks directly to me. Whether luxuriating in her touching descriptions of the natural world or enjoying her thoughts on what she’s reading or other authors she encounters, these journals are a joy to read. Since this only covers a ten year period of her life, I can only hope that Oates and her biographer Greg Johnson will one day return to this project to publish more of her journals.

In America by Susan Sontag

When Sontag finished the prologue of this novel she felt she’d created the perfect post-modern story. So she has. It’s a brilliant way to enter into the story of her Polish actress Maryna who travels to America in order to found a utopian community. Something about this novel chimes with me so that I find her search for authenticity and her failure to find it so touching and personal. Sontag was such a precise and rigorous intellectual and I’m endlessly entranced by the portrait she created in this novel.

Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler

Much like my thoughts about Rachel Joyce’s novels recently, this book touches upon the dilemma of imagining parallel lives for yourself. In this instance, without even knowing why exactly, a woman named Delia walks out on her family to start from scratch and test out a new one. How many of us haven’t dreamed of doing this? Delia’s radical claim on a meditative space where she can discover what’s most important to her in life turns into a zone where I can meditate on my own life choices and what I really value (without the danger of abandoning everything and everyone around me completely.)

SantaLand Diaries by David Sedaris

This is pure pleasure and something of a Christmas tradition in my relationship. We make ourselves cups of hot chocolate, lie on blankets in front of the fire with the Christmas tree in the background and read these hilarious stories aloud to each other. Sedaris’ humour is so well paced and tinged with a slant of darkness that makes these stories endlessly surprising.

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (translated by Jamie Bulloch)

What a joy for me to newly discover independent publisher Peirene Press that produces beautifully designed and carefully-chosen European literature in translation. They put out three books a year and each title is under two hundred words. Perfect for a morning or afternoon of really delving into a book and reading it in one go. That was my experience reading “The Mussel Feast” and I believe the all-in-one reading session enhanced the experience as it allowed me to really sink into the intensity of this story and Vanderbeke’s densely-packed narrative method. Set in Berlin before the fall of the Wall, it’s the story of a family that has moved from the east to the west side of the city. A mother waits with her son and daughter for the father to return with a specially prepared celebratory pot of cooked mussels – even though the father is the only one that enjoys this seafood. Narrated from the perspective of the daughter, she describes the tension of waiting as he’s very late returning home and the circumstances of their strained family life.

This nameless family has a dynamic which is sadly typical for many families and transcends the particular setting of the novel. The father is a tyrant who has visions of having a “proper family” and, when his actual family doesn’t quite fit the mould of this ideal, he becomes domineering and violent. Focused very much on appearances, he dresses impeccably and looks down upon his wife who thriftily buys discount clothes after the father squanders all their money on what he imagines are future investments of a stamp collection and shares that inevitably go bad. Ignoring their other obvious talents, he wants his son to be an excellent footballer and his daughter to be pretty. When neither meet his standards, they are punished. Vanderbeke shows great psychological insight when the narrator remarks “The more insistently he harangued me, the more stubborn I became, refusing to say a word, all speech abandoning me in one fell swoop.” When a child is forced to go against their natural passions and limits language often fails them – especially if they are a thoughtful introverted child like the girl narrator. Although it’s nothing like my own family dynamic, I connected with and understood the family strife as the father was continuously frustrated that they couldn’t embody his ideals. The children understandably resent him and it’s with a great deal of tragedy that the mother finds it necessary to defend him remarking “there are so many good sides to him.” I found myself hoping that he wouldn’t return at all, but there is a troubling sense that this would only lead to the total collapse of the family.

Alongside this personal tale of family life, there is a tension in the story particular to the time and place where this novel is set. A feeling hovers in the background that the battling family represents something of the mindset in Germany in this post-war period where there was a great split in the society’s ideology. The story explores how the smallest disruptions like a father not arriving home on time to eat the mussels he cherishes can quickly lead to catastrophe. Vanderbeke writes: “It’s astonishing how people react when the routine is disturbed, a tiny delay to the normal schedule and at once everything is different – and I mean everything: the moment a random event occurs, however insignificant, people who were once stuck together fall apart, all hell breaks loose and they tear each other’s heads off, still alive if possible; terrible violence and slaughter, the fiercest of wars ensue because, by pure accident, not everything is normal.” This quote wonderfully embodies the nervy sensation throughout the text that at any moment everything can fall apart. This includes both the micro level of family life and the macro level of government. It only takes a small change to a known and understood order to make the rules collapse and everything is chaos. The meaning and end of the story remain tantalizing ambiguous making this a haunting and thought-provoking tale.

For a story about a small moment in domestic life with the book lasting only just over one hundred pages, “The Mussel Feast” makes a big impression. I hope to read more of Peirene Press’ original and intriguing offerings.

A History of Loneliness by John Boyne

With the title “A History of Loneliness” it felt like I had to read John Boyne’s novel for this blog. It also feels like this has been such a strong year for Irish fiction including books that I’ve read from Colin Barrett, Donal Ryan, Liz Nugent, Audrey Magee, Eimear McBride and Colm Toibin. This novel ranks highly amongst these excellent Irish books and a novel can’t get more Irish than this one because of the themes it includes. Told from the perspective of a priest named Odran Yates, the novel moves back and forth between essential periods of his life from his childhood with his troubled aspiring-actor father to his early training/scholarship as an assistant to the Pope to his near retirement in the midst of the Irish church’s crisis over priests brought to trial due to charges of paedophilia. This novel encompasses and explores themes about the country which we’re all familiar with, but it casts such a critical, unsparing eye upon the entire culture that it feels totally fresh and makes for inspiring, compulsive reading.

One of the aspects of Irish life the novel probes is a general culture of intolerance. Prejudice against different religions, races and sexualities abound in many scenes with dialogue which keys into underlying attitudes of hatred. When Odran’s father leaves his job he comments “I never liked working for a Jewman.” In Odran’s childhood women’s life options are severely limited when they become wives and mothers, whereas men are given license to pursue their dreams no matter how impractical (an inequality reinforced by the church): “Dad was given leave to do exactly as he pleased and Mam had no choice but to put up with it.” Odran’s nephew is dismissed by the priest as nothing but a queer despite his status as a world-famous novelist. However, Odran attempts to take steps to correct this. At one point, when a mother brings her son to him in a panic because he’s taken a boyfriend, Odran advises her to respect that this is the way her son is. However, he sees little change in people’s attitudes reflecting that “there was precious little compassion to be found in the hearts of anyone in those days, particularly when it came to the lives and choices of women, and in that way, if not others, Ireland has hardly changed in forty years.”

A monumental change in attitude this novel does record is the transition in general attitudes towards the church. For many years many turned a blind eye to the way priests abused their power to sexually molest children because people were too frightened or blindly faithful or incapable of challenging the church’s authority. When accusations are finally made public and the media openly challenge the religious authorities, the general respect Father Odran received where people on a train would freely offer him food turns to a seething contempt where he can be openly attacked in a café with no one intervening. Far from seeing the accounts of child abuse as isolated incidents, people begin to view it as a conspiracy that maintains a power hold over the population through intimidation and secrecy akin to the mafia and there is a mounting desire to expel the Catholic church from the country altogether. The novel explores this change in attitude from a very personal point of view which calls into question the ways we let the general attitudes of our culture influence our thoughts and actions.

The overwhelming conflicts of the country are all internalized by Odran so that his recollections and reflections show his transition towards accepting uncomfortable truths. He comments that “I am a man for nostalgia; it is a curse on me sometimes.” His memories lock him into believing things were a certain way, yet the truth about his past is called into question when he’s confronted about what he really knew and experienced. This is a man hemmed in by a solitude fortified by religion which is meant to be enlightening, but which conversely shelters him from reality. It’s a long, difficult examination of the soul where a good-intentioned but damaged man must come to understand the degrees to which he’s culpable of perpetuating lies about himself and the institution he represents.

“A History of Loneliness” is a skilfully constructed novel that produces a big emotional impact. The plot gradually builds so that I felt distress and fear for the well-realized characters which compelled me to read on at a pace. The story also incorporates a compelling perspective about the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I. It feels like it would have been too easy for Boyne to inhabit the gay novelist character in this novel. Instead, he tells it from the perspective of the well meaning priest. In this way he intelligently sifts through the issues he addresses from the point of view of someone caught in the middle of them. This novel is motivated by a justified anger. It’s a declaration that we should say what needs to be said rather than submitting to those who intimidate us into keeping silent. It’s a statement that we cannot simply accept that things are the way they are or we’ll be caged in solitude. It’s a truly heart-felt and extremely rewarding read.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce

Sometimes it feels like most of life is spent imagining parallel lives in the mind. Whether it’s a brief glimpse of someone you admire and want to be or a longstanding passion for someone or something beyond your reach, there are always alternative choices to contemplate and brood upon. Queenie is a woman late in life suffering from a terminal cancer that has left her disfigured with part of her jaw missing. She is, as she puts it, quite literally “words without a mouth.” She lives in a hospice sifting through memories, remembering Harold, the great love of her life who never even knew she loved him, and waiting for the inevitable. After sending him a short letter informing him of how little time she has left, postcards begin arriving from Harold who tells her to wait for him as he’s walking across all of England to come to see her again. This provokes her to write back to him pages and pages with the assistance of one of the caring attendant nuns. Slowly the past between them is uncovered along with the complicated relationship Queenie had with Harold’s son David. This is not a soft tale of love lost, but a story of raw powerful emotion that realistically captures the things that are most joyful and excruciating about life.  

Author Rachel Joyce has described this novel as a “companion” to her debut novel “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.” I loved this first novel which contained a meditative journey following Harold across England to visit Queenie, but it’s been a couple of years since I read it so the story hovers dimly at the back of my head. However, it was both fascinating and touching to revisit this story from another character’s perspective with certain scenes from the first book being told from a different angle. But this novel stands alone for the sheer power of the hospice scenes portrayed and which are totally separate from Harold’s story. Queenie spends time in the gardens and recreational room of the hospice with an idiosyncratic group of residents all suffering from different terminal illnesses and the caring distinctive nuns who attend to their welfare. These characters are vibrantly drawn with the tragic/comic drama of their circumstances forming some brilliant scenes.

This novel also contains one of the most powerful portrayals of a wayward, difficult child that I can remember reading. David is an eccentric teenager who rebels against mainstream culture and strikes up a strange friendship with Queenie. Since it exists secretly and outside standard social practices, their friendship isn’t subject to normal rules. It’s in some ways an abusive co-dependency where David uses Queenie for money and recognition outside of his parents’ realm and Queenie uses David as a touchstone to Harold, the man she loves and cannot be with. All the angst and pain of adolescence is sharply drawn as David describes his ambivalent feelings towards his parents: “I look at them, Q. And it’s like I don’t belong.” As much as you can feel David’s anguish in his dialogue and erratic behaviour, it is equally intensely felt when Queenie enquires about David’s welfare from Harold. She gets nothing more than muted bland assurances which contain a subtext of tightly contained despair and heartbreak. This parent-child dynamic is realistic and meaningfully played out.

Rachel Joyce has a talented ability for forming vivid descriptions and representing the wavering net of consciousness. At one point when describing the recollection of moments of high emotional tension for Queenie she writes “Everything that happens is caught in aspic in my mind.” What a poignant way of describing memories as if they are locked in a jelly so that they can be seen, but in a way that is slightly distorted and loosely held! At other times she has a sharp informed comedic sense. One of my favourite lines is an aside which states “It’s a shame short men don’t wear heels; it would save the world a lot of trouble.” This is a fantastic slam to all the Napoleons of the world. At another point, referencing T.S. Eliot and describing Queenie’s fondness for purchasing shoes she writes “I have measured out my life in ladies’ shoes.” This is funny but it’s also truly an apt point to play off from as it alludes to Eliot’s poetic examination of a life played out in the mind that alights upon the physical details that fill up existence. Indeed, the title of this book plays off from Eliot’s own title. In this novel those physical obects - whether they be a shoe or suitcase or a Murano glass clown – are represented in drawings which are interspersed throughout the text. This adds a visual aspect to the writing bringing Queenie’s life into sharper focus.

“O Solitude” by Purcell – The song Queenie would like played at her funeral

Queenie herself writes poetry about Harold which she never shows him. However, in an act of horrific betrayal her simple love poems are thrown back in her face and she’s made to feel mocked. There is so much wisdom in this novel about the mechanics of love and how it manifests itself through faulty acts and expressions. It’s observed that “Sometimes you can love something not because you instinctively connect with it but because another person does, and keeping their things in your heart takes you back to them.” This eloquently describes the way we hold certain songs or films or objects dear to us because it connects us with someone we love who was passionate about it. However, as we develop tastes for certain things or bits of culture we’re also building upon our own identities by assimilating, changing and adapting. Queenie is someone who decided early on that there were limitations which meant she could never fully realize the love she feels for Harold. Rather than forming itself in words she lived reclusively in a beach house where she created a garden that represented her life and passions. Yet, her story continues beyond this static existence in a way that is unpredictable. It’s touchingly stated that: “The way forward is not forward, but off to one side, in a place you have not noticed before.”

For all the genuine heartbreak and tragedy of “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy,” this novel is imbued with a tremendous sense of humour which adds a graceful note to the lives it portrays. In Joyce’s first novel Queenie may have come across as simply a muted tragic figure from a man’s past, but, as is observed in this novel “people are rarely the straightforward thing we think they are.” As all of Queenie’s secrets and confessions come bursting out it feels as if this life lived mostly in her mind is more colourfully alive than many lived out in more dramatic circumstances. We learn that Queenie’s life is indeed anything but as she describes it: “small, it has been nothing to speak of.” This novel makes you feel the raw power of the imagination that forms an undercurrent to life which is more forceful and real than anything that can be seen on the surface.

The Vines by Christopher Rice

The Deep South has inspired countless fantastical tales and Christopher Rice is adding to this tradition in his taut fantastical thriller “The Vines.” A former plantation is the setting for a story of betrayal, lust and revenge informed by the region’s rich history of old-fashioned traditions, intolerance and heated passion. Here we’re in the confident hands of an author that understands the sensory experience of such a specific location where there are the “familiar ticking sounds of a great house cooling in the late hours of a night in the Deep South.” The proprietress Miss Caitlin’s birthday party is spoiled when she discovers her husband in flagrante delicto with a conniving female member of staff. The result of her despair and anger over this sets off a chain of events which raise from the earth buried resentment and fury. The grounds of former slave quarters have been smoothed over to make the location suitable as a wedding venue and tourist site. Nova, the daughter of the estate’s gardener, is a feisty intelligent college student who is very aware of the plantation’s tainted history and the nefarious supernatural events that trouble those who inhabit it. When Caitlin’s estranged best friend Blake enters the scene he carries with him his own complicated history of loss due to a homophobic attack that separated him from the love of his life. Revelations cause all the characters understanding of the world to be upturned and “suddenly no one seems knowable, every promise the seed of betrayal.” The truth is rooted out as a paranormal force takes form. The true motivation behind this power and the crime committed against Blake’s boyfriend come as unexpected surprises that had me gripped throughout the many twists in the story.

The author paces his novel well to immerse the reader in the full experience of this creepy Southern landscape. Moreover he introduces a refreshingly complicated sense of morality and the real meaning of revenge in his story: “They are seeking their own twisted form of justice, and this fact leaves her with the despairing realization that all forms of justice are somehow twisted at their core.” This puts forward a concept that justice isn’t necessarily about administering what’s right, but subjectively addressing what’s most pressing for the prosecutors involved. The author overcomes the simplified concept of spirits or ghosts seeking to redress a balance for some wrongdoing by putting forward the challenging inverse notion that “It is not the living who are haunted by the dead – it is the dead who are haunted by the living.” Moreover, for the living, the crimes of the past don’t simply cause despair but haunt the mind in ways which impinge upon any true feelings of contentment. At one point a character realizes “That’s what guilt truly is… a fishhook’s tug on the third or fourth minute of every happy moment.” The dynamic tortured characters in this story add credence to the expressive forms of unwieldy vengeful emotions overflowing from the supernatural powers at play. It’s what makes this novel not only a riveting read, but one that is also heartfelt.

Christopher Rice’s new novel “The Vines” delivers fully in the suspense and charm that you want from a Southern gothic thriller. It combines the edgy fantasy of ‘True Blood’ with a cheeky Tennessee Williams’ wink. A clever, fast-paced, enjoyable read.

Film Review: The Tribe

As if going to see a Ukrainian film that is in sign language isn’t enough of a challenge! As director Miroslav Slobshpitsky’s film ‘The Tribe’ starts there is a notice informing viewers that there will be no subtitles. When I read this I felt a sting of panic wondering what I’d let myself into for the next 130 minutes. Suddenly I was immersed in a world with no sound except the occasional noise of people walking, scuffling or breathing. All communication between the characters is through sign language – not even International Sign but Ukrainian Sign Language so most deaf viewers who go to see this film will only understand a small portion of what is being communicated as well. There are no inter-titles or captions of any kind to indicate place, time or plot. You can only watch the action so that, like most deaf people are made to feel in a society built around audible communication, you must constantly piece together what’s happening around you. Of course, this is an alienating experience but it’s also fascinating because it makes you more attuned to people’s actions and facial expressions. Moreover, the eerie silence adds a layer of tension beneath all the action – and there is a lot that happens in this gritty, thrilling drama. I was immediately hypnotised and riveted throughout the entire film. 

The story focuses on a teenage boy who arrives at a boarding school for the deaf. Arriving at a bus stop, we see him from a distance gesturing to a woman for directions and communicating that he can’t hear. Once he finds the school we’re cut off from the hearing world completely and immersed in an institution where people only sign. The boy is introduced to the school where class times are indicated by flashing lights rather than bells. There is little authority outside the classroom. During recreational time there are no adults present so that fights between the students are unmarshalled. The dorms seem to be organized haphazardly with teenagers grouping themselves into gangs. The boy is quickly drawn into one particular gang where he’s given the duty of working as a pimp to two girls who prostitute themselves at a local truck stop. The shocking ease with which the characters go through these actions indicates how they are routine for them. The money the boy earns from this job is immediately given to one of the girls to hire her for sex as well. What could be viewed as a voyeuristic scene where the pair awkwardly start to have sex, works movingly as an essential part of the plot where blunt lust slowly transforms into deeper passion through their actions. It’s a subtle shift where the boy becomes enamoured with the girl and is motivated only to be with her. However, the girl is ambivalent about her feelings towards him. Her feelings are complicated further by the discovery that she’s pregnant. She terminates the pregnancy by going to a back alley abortionist in a scene which is one of the most startling and traumatizing things I’ve ever seen. Although she continues to see the boy, she wants to continue on as normal working as a prostitute and joining in a larger plan where she is evidently going to get a passport and papers to be trafficked to Italy. When the boy goes against the gang to stop this there are serious consequences. The ending is horrifically surprising and haunting.

The film works on many levels. It’s a gritty drama that shows what people, especially young disadvantaged people, do under desperate and impoverished circumstances. Like “Lord of the Flies” they make a tribe unto themselves with its own savage laws. As the film is silent the intricacies of all conversations are lost on the viewer who can only get the general gist of what’s being communicated. This makes you think harder about what’s happening and the stark reality of the actions take a firmer hold on the viewer’s attention. All the actors in the film are amateurs cast from a general call-out made by the director to people in the Ukrainian deaf community. It’s impressive how natural the performances are and the degree of subtly of feeling some of the main cast display in such a high drama story. The film has won the Critics Week Grand Prize at Cannes and the First Feature Award at the London Film Festival. The director has orchestrated a story about challenging specific circumstances that have a larger message about humanity. Having dispensed with language completely to say something much more meaningful about the human condition, this is surely a drama that Beckett would have approved of.

‘The Tribe’ is an utterly compelling and original film that will stir strong reactions. It’s not easy to watch, but it’s unlike any other film and a thought-provoking rewarding experience.

The Smoke is Rising by Mahesh Rao

Mahesh Rao has a fascinating and unique approach to narrative. Although “The Smoke is Rising” closely follows several central characters who inhabit the city of Mysore and develop over the course of the novel, the primary character is Mysore itself. This is an Indian city that is in a state of flux where advancement is marked by achievements such as the launch of a lunar probe or the construction of HeritageLand, a theme park dreamed up by an eccentric visionary to be “a world where cutting-edge technology could harness the drama of the ancient epics and transport his compatriots to an alternate reality.” At the same time as the city's elite toast progress, other citizens are being left behind with their lives seeing no improvement from the apparent leaps in prosperity or hindered as is the case of the farmers displaced by developments. Protests form and rioting ensues. Rao's novel circulates amongst Mysore's major institutions such as law courts and libraries as well as points where citizens meet and gossip like coffee houses and sari shops. All the while the author touches upon the lives and perspectives of a number of minor characters who inhabit these spaces as well as the central characters. The cumulative effect of this is to produce a complex portrait of a specific place and makes the reader feel as if they've really experienced Mysore itself.

Of the individual characters that the novel focuses there is Uma, a reserved servant who is the victim of pernicious gossip and whose home is flooded by a monsoon. There is Mala and her husband Girish who at first appeared to be an excellent match, but whose anger and frustration has a dangerous edge. Rao presents a heart-rending picture of domestic abuse where Mala finds that “Living a secret life made innumerable claims. Every day she had to guard against the erosion of her will with a heightened watchfulness, induced at great cost and leaving her winded.” The fear and shame caused from consistent abuse impedes her spirit. On instances where Girish lashes out against his wife: “he viewed them as the unfortunate adjuncts of his zeal, the collateral damage precipitated in trying to bring equilibrium to their relationship.” Although Girish attempts to make his behaviour appear justified and normal, Mala is always aware that it is not and she has quietly been planning a way to escape. Taking into account the psychological gameplay and social pressures at work, the author presents a layered understanding of this difficult subject.

The character I was most drawn to was the widow Susheela. Finding herself alone now that her husband has died and her children have left, she lives (what she considers) a fairly modest existence, but finds she's often lonely. “The intensely irritating thing about being a widow, apart from all the other intensely irritating things, was that she had been rendered void by most of their social set.” Thus isolated, she thinks to dabble with online dating but finds the process repugnant. But gradually she strikes up a companionship with a man named Jaydev who also has an intense sense of solitude formulated out of years of being a widower. This is portrayed through a visit to a new hairdresser who offers him a head massage which makes him burst into tears because this kind of human contact isn't something he's experienced for ten years. Their relationship builds to a beautiful point where “The silences between them were now rich with contentment, the pleasure that could by gained only through an intimate civility.” Yet the natural progression and tenderness of this budding companionship has difficulty in being truly realized when it clashes against the characters' old fashioned morals and sense of social acceptability.

“The Smoke is Rising” is a richly rewarding novel full of descriptive sensory delights, textured drama and wry humour about the human condition. Though some readers may find it jarring being shuttled around a near cacophony of points of view, I was glad to give into the experience because I felt that the many locations, voices and characters were building the overall character of Mysore. It's impressive that a novel can be so thoroughly rooted in its environment and can come across as so fascinatingly idiosyncratic, yet it feels like a familiar home to a reader who has never actually visited it. It's an impressive debut novel that marks Mahesh Rao as a truly distinctive and talented writer.