The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan

Apocalyptic visions of the future usually brim with dramatic conflict amidst large-scale destruction in society. Jenni Fagan takes a much more soft-treading and realistic approach to representing probable outcomes of climate change in her novel “The Sunlight Pilgrims” where a group of characters hole up in a Scottish caravan park for the onslaught of a cataclysmically cold winter in the year 2020. Rather than any explosive end to civilization, it seems much more likely that in the future life will still continue much as it does now until the effects of rising global sea levels make an unavoidable difference to our daily lives. Here it’s represented by a slow-moving iceberg making its way to the British Isles. Meanwhile many huddle within the commercial comfort of IKEA hoping that it’s not really happening. Amidst this coming crises, a fascinatingly unique group of characters at the margins of society deal with their own personal struggles while preparing for the coming of another Ice Age.

Central to the story is the beautifully realized character of Stella, an eleven year old who was biologically born a boy named Cael. Stella has been ostracized from the social groups she so recently enjoyed easy companionship with. She finds it particularly painful that a silence now exists between her and an attractive boy named Lewis who once kissed her. He bows to the peer pressure from his friends who mock and attack Stella for being transgendered while secretly still harbouring feelings for her. Stella also faces institutional challenges from a doctor who refuses to prescribe much-needed medication to block the hormones which are causing her to grow into a male with emerging facial hair and a deepening voice. Nor will he speed up a referral to a specialist who would hopefully be more sympathetic to her condition. This causes her internal anguish being trapped in the wrong body where “she feels like sprinting away from herself.”

Luckily Stella’s mother Constance rallies to her daughter’s support and fights for the justice that the vulnerable child isn’t able to insist upon herself. It’s touching how she exhibits total love for her daughter while struggling with private feelings of mourning for the son she has lost. It is also lucky that she’s strikingly capable in matters of survival ensuring that her family and those close to them are well prepared from the impending potentially lethal freeze. She’s someone that has been relegated to the margins of the community due to her unashamedly non-monogamous love affairs – for many years she maintained a simultaneous relationship with two men.

The mother and daughter meet a new neighbour in the park named Dylan who recently moved from London after the death of his beloved mother and grandmother. They left him a trailer in this remote village of Clachan Fells which he’s had to retreat to after the closure of the family-owned London arts cinema where he was raised. Dylan muses frequently upon his bohemian upbringing and the strong, compelling women who raised him. His grandmother Gunn MacRae won the cinema in a poker game when she was younger and maintained a bracingly liberal attitude towards sex stating in one dream-sequence: “always have a lover on the side or you might as well be dead.” Poring over things left by Gunn and his mother Vivienne, Dylan gradually discovers that his familial links to this little community are more complex than he first realized.

"Fronds of ice have all blown in one direction, creating feathers"

Fagan's writing has a remarkably poetic quality when she describes scenes of tremendous emotional conflict. In one of the most striking and emotional moments in the novel Dylan climbs up a mountain during particularly foggy weather. Troubled by his grief and memories his body seems to disintegrate into the haze. There follows a remarkable fluidity between the internal and external landscape which I found so beautifully moving and effective. Paired with these lyrically-charged passages, Fagan is equally skilful at writing punchy dialogue which brings life to the characters and grounds the narrative in realistic scenes.

“The Sunlight Pilgrims” is a beautifully written and chilling vision of the future with refreshingly original characters.

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

Most love stories traditionally focus on the dramatic heights of romance or bitter breakups through betrayal. “The Course of Love” focuses instead on the interstices between dramatic events in a long-term relationship, those feelings and uncertainties that aren’t mentioned when a couple summarizes the story of their life together at a dinner party. It’s in these unspoken moments where we really live in relationships and where we thrive or falter as a couple. We can only really understand what committing to a relationship means when we look at the quiet unglamorous struggles which take place between couples in daily life. This is the story of Rabih and Kirsten who meet, marry and become parents. Spliced in between their tale are sympathetic ideas about the challenges found in all relationships and how the reality of love doesn’t often match idealistic notions about the story of romance. This makes Alain de Botton’s novel a highly unconventional read, but it is nonetheless intensely felt and deeply meaningful.

It’s skilful how de Botton manages to be rigorously thoughtful in his analytical commentary about what this couple are experiencing in their relationship without detracting from the believability of Rabih and Kirsten’s struggle. There’s an old edict in the school of story telling that you should show and not tell and Alain de Botton does a lot of telling in italicised pauses within the story, yet he does so in a way that smoothly integrates with the conflicts played out through the couple’s actions. I felt engaged by instances like the loss of each of their parents, the heat of their arguments and the passion of their sensual encounters. Their story is unique, yet many of the issues they face are universal. The novel primarily focuses on Rabih’s perspective while also rigorously including Kirsten’s point of view. One of the most touching moments is when Rabih’s comes to a hard realization that he is “anxious to the core, in his most basic make-up: a frightened, ill-adjusted creature.” Instead of annihilating his sense of sense, this confession of vulnerability allows him to awaken to the reality of love.

"Both equally aware that it would be a genuine waste of time to stand in an aisle at IKEA and argue at length about something as petty as which glasses they should buy (when life is so brief and its real imperatives so huge)"

The author adeptly touches upon feelings which everyone has in relationships, but which we’re afraid to discuss because they might besmirch the enchantment of romance. Instead of seeking a resolution for conflicts like friends who don’t get along with our partners, insecurities caused from past experience, a diminishing sex life, the challenge of child rearing, professional disappointment and infidelity, the author embraces the messiness of these issues to offer surprising and controversial perspectives on how to navigate through them. This is meant as a corrective critique to traditional stories of romance as Rabih finds “the versions of love presented in films and novels so seldom match what he now knows from lived experience.” Instead of giving us a romance with a resolution this novel gives us a meditation upon its unwieldy and often perverse shape. The title takes on a double meaning as the story explores what the longevity of love means, but the book also provides an education on why contradictory impulses might guide the evolution of our relationships. I found this novel a fascinating read which spoke to me personally in many different ways.

What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi

Is it possible to be totally perplexed and completely enchanted by a book at the same time? The fiction in “What is Not Yours is Not Yours” doesn’t follow neat arcs in storytelling. Just when you think you’re in a fantastic medieval land you suddenly find yourself in the realistic present. As soon as you get a grasp of the relationship between certain characters a decade passes within the story and everything has shifted. A story that you thought was about a ferocious female fish turns into a pop star’s fall from grace. It may sound like Oyeyemi is being wilfully opaque or mystifyingly clever, but there is something so engaging about the meaning she conveys through her indirect paths of writing that I found myself mesmerised and frequently moved. There isn’t any other way to say what she’s saying and there is no other writing doing what she accomplishes so admirably in this incredibly creative and striking book.

What makes Oyeyemi’s writing so compulsively readable is how funny and surprising it can be. To offer an opposition to an all men’s university group some women form a social club called The Homely Wenches. They go about mixing the gender segregated libraries between the two groups so Lucia Berlin’s stories are exchanged for John Cheever’s, etc. Another story surrounding a finger puppet school involves rigorous classes, assignments and auditions. This isn’t to say the subject matter handled in this fiction is frivolous. Quite often when I felt myself being lulled into complacency at the bizarre situations, I became suddenly emotionally gripped. For instance, the story 'drownings' which features a tyrant who indiscriminately disposes of people who vex him feels resonant of any number of oppressive political regimes. Or in the story 'presence' a couple uses a special programme to gain perspective on their tumultuous relationship which allows them to see a potential son grow into an old man. It’s not surprising that in his excellent review in the Independent Stuart Evers marks this story as a particular favourite. It has an inventive sci-fi premise which yields meaningful commentary on relationships in a similar way to his story ‘Swarm’ in “Your Father Sends His Love”.

"In England, Punch is a sensitive chap; any passerby who so much as looks at him the wrong way is promptly strangled with a string of sausages."

Although there is a striking fluidity of identity in this fiction with free movement between gender, sexuality, race and nationality, Oyeyemi sometimes drops in specific references gently poking fun at our stereotypes and assumptions about people. It’s stated in one story how “His skin tone lent him enough ethnic ambiguity for small children whose parents had a taste for vintage Disney to run up to him and ask: ‘Are you Aladdin?’ He’d flash them a dazzling smile and answer: ‘Nah, I’m Hercules.’” When fixed marks of identity appear within the stories they are humorously brushed aside as if it’s ridiculous to think that these are things which can neatly define us. There is something refreshingly liberating about this allowing readers to feel the sort of utopian freedom from the strictures of being that is only possible in fiction.

It’s impressive how Oyeyemi uses language in a way that stretches meaning to tease out the absurdities in our manner of speech and plays upon hidden dualities of words. Literature is so powerful it takes on a life of its own: “A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can’t stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious.” It reminds me of Ali Smith's fiction in the humorously intelligent way she plays with words and gleefully mixes high culture with low culture - references to Gogol are mixed with comments about John Waters and watching Eurovision. Oyeyemi has a perspective that is utterly unique playing with genre and form to say something entirely new. Many of these stories have a fairy tale feel (one shows a woman's encounter with the wolf that the Big Bad Wolf was inspired from) and keys that fit mysterious locks drift through several of the stories. Although this gives the stories a timeless feel what they end up saying about romance and culture feels relevant to our immediate present.

This isn’t the sort of writing that you can read with your mind half on what you should make for dinner. It is intricately detailed and if you aren’t paying attention the ground will completely shift beneath you. The author packs a lot into her stories and they are so compelling that I know rereading them will be richly rewarding. I've never read Helen Oyeyemi before, but now I am a committed fan.  

Different Class by Joanne Harris

Imagine if a novel were like a gripping and skillfully-set game of chess. The characters in Joanne Harris’ novel “Different Class” are locked in a psychological battle against each other in a story that plays out over 25 years. The setting is St Oswald’s, a boys church school steeped in tradition whose reputation has fallen under public scrutiny following a series of scandalous events involving molestation and murder. Chapters alternate between the year 1981 when a troubled boy kept a journal about his time at the school and 2005 when an aging form-master Roy “Quaz” Straitley recounts the substantial changes at the school following the appointment of a new Head. This is a dramatic tale of conflicting ideologies, lifelong secrets and the social evolution of an institution built upon conservative values.

What’s so engaging about Harris’ main characters are how unlikeable they are on the surface, but I gradually grew to feel very sympathetic towards both of them. Mr Straitley is a Latin teacher with a penchant for liquorice allsorts who wants to uphold St Oswald’s traditions at all costs. He bemoans how socially enlightened thought is filtering its way into the school. It’s remarked how what is now identified as Attention Deficit Disorder “used to be called Not Bloody Paying Attention”. Yet, for all his griping and stuffy old ways, he has a genuine affection for “his boys”, cares about their education and wants to support them throughout their lives. He can also have a surprisingly enlightened attitude towards differences in sexuality having maintained a long-term friendship with a colleague who is an English Master and came out to him early on.

Reading the school boy’s journals the reader feels very wary of this adolescent who frequently refers to his hidden “Condition” and how his reason has been warped by his ultra-religious upbringing. Frequently he’ll justify his proclivity towards dealing out sadistic punishment by believing the righteous mindset of his church: “if God made me, which my dad and everyone else at church seem to think – then I guess it’s God’s fault I’m this way.” He addresses his entries to someone he calls “Mousey”. We only later find out the significance of this person and the things that happened in some disused clay pits frequented by delinquent school boys. He ominously states that “when people get in my way, bad things sometimes happen.” Yet, as twisted as the boy’s mindset is, I grew to feel a tenderness towards him as he wasn’t able to develop emotional stability in his poisonous home environment and how he became a pawn for a religious institution that wanted to impose its values upon the workings of the school. He finds a mentor in the figure of affable teacher Mr Clarke, but his attachment to him sours when he feels betrayed realizing he’s not the only boy worthy of this teacher’s attention.

When Mr Clarke plays David Bowie to a school boy for the first time he feels "the music seemed to fold around me like a hand and finger its way into my heart... To me it was like a door in my mind opening into another world"

What’s really driving these individuals and many of the other compelling characters in this novel is a desire to be part of a group and institution that will make them feel valued. The author has a meaningful way of writing about how St Oswald’s has the power to enhance the characters’ self esteem, but also make them feel isolated and alone. It’s stated how “Our sense of belonging is nothing more than bright reflections on water; on a sunny day, we can see the sky; the clouds; each other. But dark water lies in waiting for the unwary; for us all. Dark water doesn’t discriminate.” The school which Straitley has put all his faith in is transforming in a way he can’t control and suddenly he feels alienated from it. On the opposing side, the school boy never felt the acceptance he desired so seeks to enact his revenge against the place and people who failed to embrace him. When institutions like St Oswald’s don’t recognize how individual differences can make a community stronger, people are left feeling dangerously isolated.

The tightly plotted drama of “Different Class” plays out in a way which is exciting and surprising, but the novel also says something meaningful about our shifting sense of values. I read this novel at a much faster pace than I read most books for the sheer pleasure of the idiosyncratic characters and the desire to know how their intriguing story would play out. It’s a highly enjoyable read.

Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson

It's sobering to find as we grow older we not only accrue a collection of memories, but an awareness of the things we might have done if we'd made different life decisions. So this historic time and imagined time coexists simultaneously in our minds. We're all the more aware about what might have been when thinking about people we once knew intimately but aren't close to anymore. We recall the futures we envisioned together and how differently everyone's life turned out from how it was imagined.

The protagonist of Miles Allinson's “Fever of Animals” (who is also called Miles) has come to a difficult point in his life. Now in his early thirties: his father has died, he's abandoned his ambition to be a painter and he's separated from his longterm girlfriend Alice. He's filled with uncertainty about his future. One evening he's having dinner in an Australian restaurant when he sees a mysterious painting called Night with Horses. Something about this artwork speaks to him so profoundly: “It is a painted moment composed of many moments, of many tiny decisions. And yet through this slow accumulation, something rare has been fixed in time, like a corridor through which this secret force still pours out.” He becomes obsessed with tracking down its painter and understanding what happened to this artist's life. He learns it was created by a surrealist named Emil Bafdescu who lived his later life in obscurity before walking into a forest one day and disappearing. It's as if by solving the mystery of what happened to Bafdescu Miles can find a meaning in his wayward, uncertain life.

It's easy to relate to Miles who describes his early years and university life which were filled experimentation, high ideals and exciting discoveries. He's conscious of how his attitudes at the time consisted of a lot of posturing and judgement: “Self-righteous indignation was, in those days, my favourite emotion.” He and his friend Kas wanted to make important artworks that were informed by significant movements like surrealism, but said something important about their own time. Eventually, Kas developed a career and settled down. Miles travelled the world with his highly intelligent girlfriend Alice who helped support him while he worked on his paintings. Eventually their relationship breaks down and she marries a man named Wido in Berlin. Miles feels like he alone is holding onto the ideals he and these people shared.

Bafdescu is a fictional artist, but the author convincingly creates a story of how he was heavily involved in the European Surrealist movement from the 40s till the 60s. Allinson writes Bafdescu into the history of real artists like Ghérasim Luca. The character of Miles spends his time travelling around Europe piecing together the scant amount of information that still exists about Bafdescu and writing speculatively about what happened to the painter. Meanwhile he recalls incidents from his past and sets out to find Alice who has stopped responding to his messages.

There's a charming indignation about Miles who feels that people shouldn't give up on their ideals, yet he also has the humility to know that compromise doesn't necessarily equate to betraying what you believe. He looks back upon the way an artistic movement fizzled out because of war, political shifts and changes in the personal lives of its progenitors: “Surrealism had run its course. You have to grow up eventually, I guess. Death is real. Ordinary life is too powerful.” Through an arduous journey searching supposedly haunted forests and cities where he doesn't speak the language, Miles tries to unlock the mystery of what happened to Bafdescu but really yearns to understand what happened to his idea of himself. In doing so, Miles Allinson says something special in this novel about time, self-perception and art's ability to connect the present and past.

The International Dublin Literary Award 2016 Shortlist

I know I’ve been posting a lot about book prizes recently, but I was very intrigued to see the shortlist for this prize posted this week as it’s a really fascinating list and a very special literary award!

The Dublin Literary Award (formerly the IMPAC Award) is unique in many ways. Firstly, it’s an award presented annually by Dublin City Council to a novel written in English or that’s been translated into English. Quite exciting that a major literary award recognizes translated literature! Secondly, the prize is huge totalling €100,000 (if a translated novel wins, the author receives €75,000 and the translator €25,000). Four books on the shortlist are translations so it’s great to know that both author and translator will be rewarded so lucratively if their book wins. Finally, nominations for the award are made by over 400 libraries from major cities all over the world. Yes, librarians make up the nominations for this prize! And they know good books so you know the initial enormous longlist selection is all quality.  

I’ve read four of the ten books on the shortlist. Marlon James’ “A Brief History of Seven Killings” is such an epic, complex novel about several people surrounding an attempted assassination of Bob Marley. Definitely a challenging read, but so worthwhile! It is probably one of the best known on the list as it won the Booker Prize, but I was delighted to be on the panel of judges for the Green Carnation Prize last year where we also selected it as our winner. Mary Costello’s “Academy Street” is a brilliantly compact tale of a woman’s life from her Irish roots to her later years living in NYC. Jenny Offill’s “Dept. of Speculation” has such a powerful voice and unique perspective on relationships that it’s a book I often think back on now and then still puzzling over its meaning. “Lila” by Marilynne Robinson was absolutely one of my favorite reads of last year. Its protagonist is so strong-willed, yet vulnerable and someone who fearlessly forges her own identity far from her impoverished beginning in life.

Of the other six titles shortlisted I’m most interested in reading Jenny Erpenbeck’s “The End of Days”, Scholastique Mukasonga’s “Our Lady of the Nile” and Javier Cercas’ “Outlaws”. How about you? Have you read any on the list or are they any you're interested in reading?

The winner is announced on June 9th. 

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert

I had a somewhat alarming experience when reading “The Children’s Home” where I felt increasingly anxious as the story progresses. It’s a novel that accumulates a tremendous power in its surreal tone over time when reading it. I felt a shift in perspective as I became immersed in the dark fictional world Charles Lambert created in the story and this carried on into how I see the world around me. It inspires that special kind of disquiet where you start to question everything around you and these are uncomfortable questions that you aren’t sure you want answered.

The novel focuses on Morgan Fletcher who has barely ever ventured out from living in a palatial estate he’s inherited from his family. Morgan exists in virtual solitude except for a group of unseen servants who he has virtually no contact with because of his horrendous facial disfigurements which he’s ashamed of. He isn’t entirely sure where his family’s wealth came from, but he’s content to spend his days cataloguing the huge array of books stored in the property. Even though he claims not to read them his conception of himself is highly literary: “He imagined himself the dirty secret at the heart of the world, the overlooked madwoman raving in the attic of a house that occupied everything there was, each brick and pane and board, the wondering prince in the hair-filled mask of iron he had dreamt of as a boy.” In this way he comes to represent a sort of everyman, but one who is entirely estranged from a mysterious world which functions independently around him.

A new servant arrives named Engel who cooks for Morgan, but she eventually also takes on the role of child-minder as soon as young children start arriving at the house from unknown sources. Morgan takes them all in gladly because “It has never been a house that welcomed love… Not until now.” There are soon so many children he isn’t even certain how many there are. Their presence is welcome at first, but the intelligent children seem to have a mysterious purpose of their own and they lead Morgan into facing uncomfortable problems about this world that’s been consumed by war and greed. Together with Doctor Crane who first comes to treat a sick child and eventually lives at the house semi-permanently, Morgan is shown the secrets which dwell within his own house and the sinister factory managed by his domineering estranged sister.

This is an enigmatic novel imbued with haunting imagery that accumulates meaning over the course of the story. For instance, in an attic room there is a model of a pregnant woman in a box who is strangely life-like and was presumably used as a tool for medical research. She comes to represent issues of fertility, beauty and the future of civilization. This unnerving figure also makes an alarming counterpart to Morgan’s own vain and horrifically tyrannical mother who was plagued by a debilitating illness.

Morgan and Dr Crane engage in endless games of backgammon which Morgan always wins

It’s clever how the book embeds you so firmly in Morgan’s perspective of the world where he feels like a guilty participant, but also he’s utterly confused by what’s really happening and impotent to make any substantial change for the better. Isn’t this how most of us feel in the world? If we’re living in a middle class first-world society we’re bombarded by news stories of far-off tragedies and feel like we’re inextricably a part of damaging systems in which we benefit by receiving privilege and comfort. There is a guilt attached to this and a nibbling unconscious knowledge that we resist. It’s described of Morgan how “He’d never wanted to know, which is also a sort of knowing.” Morgan remarks to an eerily sophisticated boy named David how his family’s wealth came from dealing in power. He means in energy like oil and electricity, but it also takes on the meaning of power as influence and domination over society. Charles Lambert seems to be making sly critiques of capitalism in a subtly artistic way where lives are being crushed in a consumer system. There are also small nods to Marxism such as the female servant named Engel.

Reading this book I was reminded strongly of Paraic O’Donnell’s recent novel “The Maker of Swans” because of similarities in its setting, dreamlike logic and linguistic inventiveness. The experience of reading “The Children’s Home” is like watching a David Lynch film or staring at a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Everything is seductively peaceful but has a sinister edge so that when you investigate it closely you see the unfathomable pain that was always there in plain view. In truth, Charles Lambert’s novel is entirely original and I’m just drawing upon references to other art works to give a sense of the journey you’re in for. This is highly compelling and invigorating writing.

Baileys Women’s Prize ShortList 2016

It was a pleasure getting to meet and chat to author Lisa McInerney at the event

After much speculation, the official Baileys Prize shortlist has been announced! As part of the Baileys Bearded Book Club duo, Simon and I had an excellent time at the shortlist announcement party at the Southbank Centre drinking Baileys cocktails while chatting with authors, journalists and booksellers.

I predicted three out of the six titles correctly. It's in many ways a surprising list as two of the authors are Irish, three are American and only one author is English. Established former Booker Prize winner & genius Anne Enright takes a rightful place alongside last year's Booker shortlisted and highly controversial novel by Hanya Yanagihara, but I was particularly excited to see Lisa McInerney's strong debut on the list. Elizabeth McKenzie's novel strikes a rare balance of being both entertaining and very intelligent. To be honest, I didn't expect it to make the long or shortlist but I'm delighted it's done so. I finally read the extraordinarily creative and moving novel Ruby this weekend and it's fantastic this prize will help Cynthia Bond find more of a UK audience after being read widely through Oprah's influence in America. The wild card is Hannah Rothschild whose novel is one of the four on the longlist that I didn't have time to read before the shortlist's announcement.

If you haven’t yet read some or any of these titles here are my one sentence story summaries to give you a taste. Click on the title to see my full review. The 2016 Baileys Prize winner will be announced on June 8th with readings from all the shortlisted authors the day before at the Cadogan Hall. Which are you most interested in reading next?

The Green Road by Anne Enright is about a family who have been geographically split apart for many years and are drawn back together by a charismatic matriarch.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is an epic tale of the life-long consequences of abuse and the commitment of real friendship. This is one of the most controversial novels published in recent years.

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney depicts several struggling individual lives in an economically depressed city’s violent underworld.

The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie is a slightly surreal take on a relationship between two people navigating their engagement and difficult families.

Ruby by Cynthia Bond depicts a community swayed by the power of religion and a resilient woman who won’t forget the children who have been lost.

The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild is the story of a love-lost woman thrust into the raucous high-end art world after discovering a long lost valuable painting.  

Listen to a podcast from The Readers where Simon and I discuss the Baileys Prize party and the shortlist:

The Readers: A Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Special Part Two

with Eric Anderson and Simon Savidge

Ruby by Cynthia Bond

If we’re lucky enough to be raised in a relatively peaceful and happy household we might believe that we’re the innocent inheritors of a well-meaning world. But, as we grow older, we learn the truth about current and past injustice. We slowly understand that our place in the world has to be earned or fought for and that our ancestors undoubtedly have blood on their hands. In Cynthia Bond’s novel, Ruby is a girl who has never had any such illusions of the world’s purity having been shown at an early age the wrath and domineering power of men. She’s a fantastically realized character: an intelligent and strong individual. Ruby also comes to embody all that’s wrong in her community – all the evil things which remain hidden from doe-eyed believers of purity. 

As a young woman Ruby escapes the suffocating confines and abuse of her small community in Texas to live under a different kind of oppression in New York City. But she eventually returns to the place of her birth to live a wretched existence on the fringes of the community where she can protectively foster the spirits of departed babies. Ephram is a man who knew her as a girl. He journeys across the town to bring her a White Lay Angel Cake. He wants to care for and protect Ruby who is shunned by the rest of the community – especially his church-driven and self-righteous sister Celia. However, Ruby has been transformed by the anger and lust of men. She cannot accept any traditionally virtuous path. Bond writes that “Those men were a part of the wheel of the world and helped it turn. The same wheel that Ruby knew would crush her every time she rose up to fight.” The author has an extraordinary way of turning the grim realities of the world she portrays into battling supernatural powers. The abuse and horror that people can inflict can be so extreme that they are transformed in the story into an actual demon or “Dybou” skulking and feeding upon those who have been smothered. This is an environment so saturated with superstition it spills out into the real world. It’s a community entrenched in its belief that those who wield power deserve to possess it. Ruby has learned to navigate this reality and stand outside of it. 

This is a novel populated by a wealth of fascinating and complexly written characters. Although Ruby and Ephram are the most prominent figures, the story winds back to the histories of their parents, extended family and those in the community around them. Ruby’s aunt Neva is a mixed-race strawberry blonde and blue eyed girl who becomes a married white man’s mistress who the community refuses to accept. Ephram’s father Omar (Reverend) Jennings survived a traumatic childhood to preach his sermon, lead a cult of men and inflict terrible abuse upon his wife who eventually goes insane. Ma Tante is a woman of Jamaican descent who lives on the outskirts of town and communes with the spirit world. Celia has raised her younger brother Ephram after they are left on their own, creates fantastic feasts of food and desires more than anything to be the church mother of her congregation. The stories of the novel’s many compelling characters combine to show how extremely brutal the world can be, but also how surprisingly virtuous and kind individuals can make a difference in changing it.

"she caught a supportive, conspiratorial wink from James Baldwin and felt, for a moment, seen and known by sparkling brilliance."

While the novel’s focus is on the all-black community of Liberty township, passages dip into Ruby’s experience in a rapidly changing Harlem and the emerging cultural renaissance. We’re given pleasurable glimpses of some of the prominent writers of the time like Allen Ginsberg and James Baldwin. The author is keenly attuned to some of the inherent contradictions that some people who hung upon this scene embodied: “The hip and the beat crowd pretended to pretend that skin color was a frock you donned for the evening.” More disturbingly, she writes a painful portrait of a whorehouse that Ruby comes to live in where women are made to feel they deserve to take whatever their male clients want to give them. She returns to her small community with more sophistication and resilience, but also more burdened by her experiences in the city.

It’s extremely clever how Cynthia Bond blends poignantly realistic detail with supernatural elements to say something new. “Ruby” is a beautifully written and powerful story.

Baileys Women’s Prize ShortList 2016 Predictions

Can you guess the author on my tshirt?

Phew! It’s been quite a marathon reading as much of the Baileys Prize longlist as I can, but I loved the challenge as I’ve read some great books published in the past year that I probably would have missed otherwise. The subjects and styles of the novels are so varied. From a heart wrenching account of a girl’s adolescence in the Croatian War of Independence in Sara Novic’s stunning novel to fascinating details of whaling in a small Australian town in Shirley Barrett’s novel to a tender burgeoning romance between a woman and an alien lizard in Becky Chambers’ fantastic scifi novel! And it got me to read my very first Kate Atkinson book. Now that I know why so many people love her I will definitely be reading more of her previous novels.

The best thing about this process has been all the bookish chat I’ve had about the longlisted books with people including Simon as part of the Baileys Bearded Book Club, the shadow panel organized by Naomi and many other great readers on Twitter, Goodreads, blogs and privately through emails. Thanks so much for sending your thoughts about the books on the list. It’s so interesting to hear how people have read these novels differently and how sharply opinions can divide. These responses have really helped me think about the books in a more complex way and I hope my posts have done the same for you or inspired you to pick up a book or two.

Here are my guesses for what six books will appear on the Baileys Prize shortlist which will be announced on the evening of Monday, April 11th. It’s a really tough decision! Please comment and let me know if you agree or if you are hoping to see other books from the longlist make it through.

Click on the titles below to read my full thoughts about each of these excellent novels.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah

I was sad to read this announcement today that the Guardian First Book Award will be ending after 17 years. Last year had a very strong longlist and the winner Physical by Andrew McMillan was one of my favourite books of 2015. I mention this because Petina Gappah’s first book “An Elegy for Easterly” was a book of short stories that won this prize in 2009. I haven’t yet read this book, but I’ve heard from many that it’s excellent. Now, her second book and first novel “The Book of Memory” is on the Baileys Prize longlist.

This novel has one of the most gripping and startling openings of any book I’ve read for a while. Gappah frames her novel as a letter being written by Mnemosyne or Memory from Chikurubi prison in Zimbabwe to an American journalist in Washington. The two shocking things which Memory immediately divulges are that at the age of 9 she was sold to a white man named Lloyd and, many years later, she was imprisoned after being accused of murdering him. Immediately my mind started making assumptions about both the circumstances surrounding this woman’s life and the politics of Zimbabwe.

Gappah does a very clever thing by twisting the reader’s expectations around and showing over the course of the novel how things are very different from how they first appear. This not only makes this book a suspenseful read, but challenges Western readers’ assumptions about how they read an African story. At one point, the character of Memory directly asks the reporter she’s writing to (but it’s also the author directly asking the reader) “And even you, probably conditioned to believe in the worst that can come out of darkest Africa, are asking yourself whether this really happened.” Like Memory in the course of her discovery for the truth about her family and past, as a reader I “made false assumptions” about the country and people I was reading about. This novel makes a powerful statement about how our memories function and how we can use memories to (sometimes falsely) interpret the world around us.

Memory’s story spills out rather chaotically in the beginning where recollections of the past swirl into others and wash into the deprived circumstances of her present in the women’s prison. This style feels only natural since she has been imprisoned for over two years and hasn’t had anyone sympathetic to talk to other than her lawyer Vernah. Memory is someone who has always stood out because she’s an albino making her “black but not black, white but not white”. This causes some people to assume that she is either cursed or capable of witchcraft. It also makes people uncertain what her race is. At several points she can actually see the shift in behaviour as a stranger approaches her from a distance assuming that she is white and then readjusts their attitude when they realize that she is black. The sense of alienation she feels causes her considerable emotional distress (as well as physical problems when she doesn’t have access to proper lotion and sun protection). However, this also gives her a somewhat objective viewpoint on the people around her because she doesn’t completely fit into either the social understanding of what it means to be black or have access to the privileges of what it means to be white in Zimbabwe.

"When my mother came back with candy cakes, she turned on the radiogram to play 'Bhutsu Mutandarikwa'

There are some really heartbreaking scenes as Memory describes the loss of some of her siblings and the brutal treatment she received at the hands of her dangerously unstable mother. She also describes the appalling conditions in the prison and the corrupt security guards who inflict upon the prisoners religious dogma or tedious stories about their domestic woes. Yet, as the novel progresses some of the guards become more nuanced with surprising hidden motives.

As a highly educated person and a keen reader, one of the most difficult things for Memory is not having access to any books while she’s in prison. When reading she “felt less afraid when I thought of all the other people who seemed to have had harder lives than mine. I disappeared completely to occupy the world of whatever book I was reading.” Given all the hardship she endures, it’s not surprising that she takes to reading as both a method of escape and a way to rise above the difficulty of her circumstances. Mixed in with Memory’s recollections of the many challenges she faces there is also a lot of humour such as a faux trial that several of the inmates stage within the prison or how one prisoner frequently fashions her hairstyles (rather unconvincingly) after celebrities.

“The Book of Memory” is such an engaging and skilfully-told novel. It’s both playful and very serious. Gappah paces the story so well posing certain mysteries which are only revealed within time as Memory goes about “laying out the threads that have pulled my life together, to see just where this one connects with that one or crosses with the other”. At the same time, she does something quite radical in subtly making the reader reassess their own knowledge and the assumptions we’re likely to make. It’s an impressive accomplishment.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Science fiction is a genre I very rarely read. That’s not to say I’m averse to reading it; I just feel like I’m unqualified to be writing about it as I have so few reference points to draw upon when discussing it. But this means that I’m especially delighted that the Baileys Prize longlist has brought Becky Chambers’ “The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” to my attention because it was such a thoroughly engrossing, skilfully-written and enjoyable read. The novel primarily follows a journey of the spaceship The Wayfarer as it travels across the galaxy to create a new “tunnel” connecting a reclusive embattled civilization with an allied group of human and alien species. Rosemary is a human with a mysterious past who joins the closely connected crew. There are thrilling adventures, lucky escapes, tragic losses and hilarious escapades. But what really brings this novel alive are its vibrant characters who form complex relationships that speak meaningfully about building cross-cultural exchanges.

The crew encounter several kinds of aliens on their journey and Chambers carefully describes how they differ from humans and the other species that are part of the ship’s crew. Some of these aliens are friendly and others are adversarial. However, the contrasts between their culture and human culture made me think more complexly about the way we interact with each other both in interpersonal relationships and broader attitudes towards other races/cultures. The author is careful not to idealize any specific alien culture over others, but shows how each has its own specific qualities, problems and contradictions. There are inherited prejudices that everyone carries, but which individuals work to specifically overcome. It’s especially moving how the guilt of former generations plays out across two species who might hate each other. The character of a species called Grum that has been rendered almost extinct states how “We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents start. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.” This is a powerful statement about our ability to separate ourselves from the shameful actions of our forefathers to act independently in thought and action. The way in which the story of large scale conflicts between alien races plays out has a lot of parallels with how we relate to each other across national, religious, sexual and racial boundaries.

One thing I found particularly impressive about this novel is the way different relationships are handled. Several characters engage in romantic relationships with alien species – one human character even has a long term affair with a sentient AI system. Don’t worry, there are no cringe-worthy descriptions of human-alien sex scenes. Rather, the development of the relationships come across as wholly believable and emotionally poignant. Each couple face their own challenges in overcoming prejudice, practical challenges or dealing with culturally confusing differences. Although the way we humans relate to each other socially and sexually may feel “natural”, when viewed from an alien perspective it can seem quite bizarre. The author has a pleasurable way of poking fun at this at some points such as when one character named Sissix who comes from an Aandrisk race that resembles large lizards states about humans: “This was a people that had coupled themselves stupid.” There is also something quite radical in how a character named Kizzy makes occasional references about her two dads. The reason or story behind her same-sex parents is never explained (nor does it need to be), but is presented as something perfectly natural and is fully integrated into the story rather than being treated as an “issue”. This all speaks meaningfully about the way love ought to be respected over our fixed social and political ideas about how relationships should be.

Becky Chambers includes a touching message at the end of this novel encouraging people who have artistic urges not to become discouraged in trying to realize their vision. This is a debut novel whose creation was supported by a Kickstarter campaign and it was originally self published. It wouldn’t have come to prominence without the support of encouraging readers who felt moved by the story and message that Chambers makes. It’s a heart-warming testament to how communities of readers can make a difference. “The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” is a dazzling read and it definitely makes me want to look out for more sci-fi reads in the future.

Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett

I enjoy it when novels clue me into fascinating new facts about the past. Shirley Barrett’s novel “Rush Oh!” takes place in the rural township of Eden in Australia. From a future point, Mary recounts the story of whaling season in the year 1908 so that her nephew can have a feeling for this defunct way of life. Her father George Davidson is a local hero as he leads whaling expeditions along the coast whenever they are spotted during their migration. What’s so interesting is that Barrett bases her story on a real arrangement where teams of men worked in conjunction with a group of local Killer whales. The Killer whales corralled blue, humpback or right whales into the bay so that the whalers could harpoon them. The Killer whales got to feast on the meat and the whalers took the rest of the carcass to use the blubber and bones. It’s a curious pact between men and beasts for a common cause. Barrett has brought to life a story about this rare arrangement which is filled with adventure and romance.

Mary is the eldest daughter of the Davidson family. She writes about the year 1908 because it was a time when the family’s fortunes began to turn since whales had become scarce. It’s also personally significant for her as that is when a strange former minister named John Beck comes to join the whale party and steals her heart. Having lost her mother many years ago it falls to her to organize the household and look after her younger brothers and sisters. Although I found the tales of the hunts for whales and details about the time period really engaging, something about Mary’s narration irritated me. She has what feels like a faux naivety and innocence that clashes with the brutal world around her. Her social awkwardness comes across as enduring and she has moments where she shows herself to be strong and capable. However, overall I found her mourning for her lost mother and romantic stirrings for John to be unconvincing. 

Skeleton of Killer whale that aided whalers in their hunts at the Eden Killer Whale Museum

It’s interesting how Mary turns the narrative into a kind of scrapbook including drawings she made of the whales and people involved as well as articles from the local newspaper. This combined with descriptions of the meagre food they ate and the arduous hunts for whales really brought the story to life. It's fascinating how the primary Killer whale Tom becomes a character himself with a distinct personality. There are also several excellent comic scenes in the novel including when Beck tries to deliver a sermon to whalers who won’t stop interrupting him or a gruesome tale of Uncle Aleck who submerges himself in a whale carcass as a cure for his rheumatism. But the narrative comes across as inconsistent when it follows the thoughts and feelings of men on the whaling expeditions which Mary wasn’t a part of and couldn’t have had any real knowledge of. She admits in certain scenes that “To be honest, I am not entirely sure if these were their exact words – I am reconstructing this conversation from an account given to me later by John Beck.” This a cumbersome way of getting around the fact that Barrett can’t show as much of the tale as she’d probably like to because the story is stuck in Mary’s perspective.

I couldn’t help comparing this novel to another book I read recently named “Elemental” which shares some striking parallels. “Elemental” is also the first person account of a woman recording her life’s story of working by the sea during the early 20th century. She’s recording this for a family member and the second half even takes place in Australia. Yet, there is tenderness and charm in the voice of “Elemental”’s narrator which I felt was lacking in Mary’s account in “Rush Oh!” I did enjoy the historical period and setting for this novel, but I wish Shirley Barrett had found another way or created a different character to get into the story.

The Anatomist’s Dream by Clio Gray

The emotional trauma of being an unwanted child is something that stays with people their whole lives. In Clio Gray’s “The Anatomist’s Dream” Philbert is born with a large deformity on his head. He’s wholly different from the perfect daughter his mother was hoping to give birth to and she instantly rejects him. His childhood is strangely haunted by the image of the girl that his mother wanted but didn’t get. She abandons him as does his father leaving him to the care of a kindly neighbour. When the neighbour grows ill she knows adolescent Philbert must find a new place to live. He meets a diminutive woman named Lita who is part of a travelling carnival/freakshow that is passing through town. Along with his pet pig Kroonk, Philbert finds a place he can really call home with these misfit performers and embarks on a series of journeys throughout war-torn Prussia in the mid-1800s.

Fiction that highlights the lives of extreme outsiders such as people with severe deformities or unusual conditions can provide an interesting commentary on how society reacts to difference. Angela Carter’s magisterial “Nights at the Circus” is the supreme example which uses fantastical elements to explore our attitudes towards women. “The Anatomist’s Dream” is focused much more on the personal meaning of fate. Philbert is a rejected outsider who might have been left to die if it weren’t for an individual’s kindness. Yet, he believes through his friend Kwert who is a “Teller of Signs” that he is fated for great things. Philbert’s condition makes him an unusually sensitive repository for the lives of those around him: “His head was a treasure trove of other people’s stories, a bottle into which the ships of their lives could be folded and stowed, as if he were a whirlpool at the centre of his universe, sucking in everything about him.” He finds himself tangled in the heart of a revolution that will change the political structure of Europe. The question the author explores is whether greatness is what we really want in life. She asks whether it’s better to be content living a humble life with those we love and who love us in return.

Where this novel really shines are in the connections Philbert makes with different unusual characters he meets during his travels. Upon joining the travelling fair, one of Philbert’s main duties is caring for a man named Hermann whose chronic skin condition requires constant attention. It has the effect of making his skin look like scales so he is touted as being a fish man and put on public display. The bond Philbert forms with him and several other people he meets on his journey felt very moving because of what he gives to them and what they freely give back. It shows how people can rise about the difficulties of their personal circumstance to support each other. I particularly liked how Gray explores the complicated way we want others near us, but not too close: “sometimes a person doesn’t want a crowd but doesn’t want to be alone either, just wants to know someone is there, not too far away in the darkness.” These subtly drawn feelings made me really care about the fates of these characters, but some of the action in the story which is the result of a revolutionary uprising complicates and distracts from the greater intimate moments in this novel.

I usually really like journey novels – “Don Quixote”, of course, being the classic. Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Buried Giant” or Marie Phillips' hilarious “The Table of Less Valued Knights” are more recent examples. The idea of centring a novel on an outsider who witnesses the monumental changes happening in the Prussian empire is an interesting experiment. However, Gray introduces a lot of peripheral characters and charges through scenes of violence so hurriedly I often found myself confused about what was happening. There is some sumptuous commentary on the complexity of political allegiances throughout. At one point Gray states: “The puppets of revolution are many and varied but every puppet needs its strings.” Allegiances are formed, people are deceived and whole swathes of the population are felled in the skirmishes. Whether people survive or fall is based on chance or a canny ability to evade being caught in the crossfire. This is all interesting, but the book feels at times overwhelmed by the magnitude of social change which lets down the array of fascinating characters it contains.

The Desmond Elliott Prize longlist

There’s a special pleasure in discovering a fresh and exciting new voice with an author’s first book, so I always particularly enjoy following the Desmond Elliott Prize which honours debut novels. The winner receives £10,000 – which to a first time novelist can give a huge boost to helping them through writing that notoriously difficult second novel. Last year’s winner was Claire Fuller whose novel Our Endless Numbered Days is a thrilling, emotional and beautifully written account of a girl’s abduction and long-term captivity with her father.

This year’s longlist has just been announced and it’s a particularly fantastic group of novels! I’ve read seven out of the ten books. It includes some of my favourites from last year such as Gavin McCrea’s brilliant Mrs Engels. Two on the list are also on this year’s Baileys Prize longlist. This is fitting because it’s a particularly strong list for female authors! Click on the titles below to read my full reviews of these books.

Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Butcher's Hook by Janet Ellis
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon
The Weightless World by Anthony Trevelyan
Disclaimer by Renée Knight
The Honours by Tim Clare
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester
Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh

It's particularly fun following The Desmond Elliott Prize on twitter because their popular #DiscoveraDebut hashtag generates great suggestions of new authors from a wide variety of people.

Have you read any of them? What are some of your favourite debut books?