Second Place by Rachel Cusk

It's been quite a while since the publication of “Outline” which is the only other book by Rachel Cusk that I've read. I was enthusiastic to try her fiction again by reading “Second Place” since it has been listed for this year's Booker Prize, but now I remember why I've avoided her books. I'm not necessarily put off by the ponderous nature of her narratives or the rarified environments her fiction is set in. It's more the manner in which she writes about her characters which is entirely centred on the self, but avoids getting to the heart of their being. Her narrators seem so intent on intellectualizing their position in life and relationships with other people that I struggle to emotionally connect with their experiences or point of view. I understand this is a conscious choice and sometimes what is left unsaid says more than forthright confessions. But this stance is more troublesome than preventing me from connecting with her characters. It means I actually struggle to engage with the ideas and issues raised in the story because I don't understand the narrator's position.

This most recent novel is told from the point of view of a woman speaking to someone named Jeffers. Who Jeffers is or why she's giving him a detailed account of a particular time in her life is never specified, but it means she controls the entire narrative and the only information we have is through her subjective point of view. Can we trust her perspective? Even though she states “I am determined not to falsify anything, even for the sake of a narrative” we're often left wondering how much she's shaping this story based on what she chooses to recount and what is left out. We never even learn her name as she's just referred to as M. Her story concerns a period when she invited a famous artist (only referred to as L) to her coastal English home to temporarily reside in a small guest cottage on her property that she refers to as the second place. Given that the letter M comes after L we can already see the layered meaning of this novel's title.

At the beginning of the story she describes a disturbing experience where she was hounded by the devil while travelling in Paris, yet the circumstances surrounding this bizarre, haunting encounter remain vague. Though she welcomes the artist L to her home with the hope that their interactions will enhance her life they soon develop an antagonistic relationship and this leads her to characterise him as the devil as well. To believe oneself hounded by such a figure feels to me like an extreme case of paranoia. I started to wonder if L is someone that M has just invented to torment her. Every time they converse she becomes so defensive it's as if there's no way for him to interact with her where she won't take the stance of someone being persecuted: “he emanated a kind of physical neutrality that I took personally and interpreted as a sign that he did not consider me to be truly a woman.” L also brings with him a beautiful and wealthy younger woman named Brett who makes M feel inadequate. It's (probably intentionally) somewhat comical the way Brett so confidently inhabits being a woman and the fact that L is inspired to paint portraits of everyone except for M when really she's the one wanting to be immortalized in art. But this humour didn't have the sympathetic effect which self deprecation or insecurity usually inspire.

It seemed to me that the narrator must have been severely traumatized or wronged, but I could never clearly see in what way. She refers to a difficult first marriage, her struggle to know how to be a woman and feelings of self disgust, but these things are only lightly touched upon without showing their fully complexity. Her identity remains elusive as do other aspects of the story such as a crisis in society which complicates L travelling to their home (the financial crash? the pandemic?) and her career as a writer (are we meant to assume this is Cusk herself?) All this intentional vagueness meant the narrator's various dilemmas regarding her identity and the existential crisis of her existence didn't feel anchored to anything concrete so I found it difficult to empathise with her. She comes across as so self-centred and navel-gazing amidst her idleness “I often found myself with nothing to do. Nothing to do!” that it mostly felt like she was inventing drama in her life simply to distract herself from her boredom.

I was continuously frustrated by the way the narrator failed to consider any inner life other than her own: “Everybody else, it seemed to me, lived perfectly happily in themselves. Only I drifted around like a vagrant spirit, cast out of the home of myself to be buffeted by every word and mood and whim of other people.” It takes a real failure of imagination and lack of sympathy to imagine that everyone else is perfectly content inhabiting themselves. I'm not averse to a story about introspection by someone writing from a place of privilege or pondering the way abstract theories can hone our understanding of identity. In fact, the premise of an unnamed narrator speaking in detail about herself to a mysterious man strongly reminded me of the novel “The Appointment” by Katharina Volckmer. But, where Volckmer's novel succeeded in teasing out tantalizing ideas and complicated issues through such extended contemplation, Cusk's book feels like it's simply posturing and grasping for profundity.

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

In November 1944 a German rocket exploded in a working class area of South London killing many civilians. It's haunting to wonder what would have happened if those lives hadn't been lost. Francis Spufford takes this as the basis of his novel “Light Perpetual” where he imaginatively “rescues” five children from this fate and fictionally builds the full trajectory of their lives complete with all their respective triumphs, failures, passions and disappointments. Each section leaps forward in time by fifteen years to give snapshots not only of how their lives have changed but how our culture and society has evolved over time. I immediately felt sympathetic to this structure as it's very similar to my favourite novel “The Waves” by Virginia Woolf – though Spufford's fiction uses a more straightforward prose style and focuses on a class of people Woolf didn't often represent in her fiction. Not only does this consistently compelling alternative history spotlight the varied lives and concerns of this working class area of London, but it queries the way in which our social circumstances affect or determine our choices and views in life. 

I admire the statement the author makes by nobly filling out five lives which aren't memorialised in any way other than as part of a number that perished during a WWII attack. However, a concern I had while reading was that if you took off the very beginning and very end of this book it wouldn't be any different from a straightforward historical novel following a group of people over the course of their lives. I wondered if this meant its central concept is more of a gimmick than something which is artfully woven into the texture of its story. But I think Spufford is making an interesting point in these lives which interact with historical events and other lives to subtly change the state of the world in ways we wouldn't necessarily notice. Many alternate histories such as “The Alteration” by Kingsley Amis or “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth imaginatively construct a story based on vast political changes involving famous figures. What Spufford does is more subtle and challenging because it asks in what way unsung figures alter and influence the world.

Though I was engaged with most of these characters' stories and enjoyed following the curious paths their lives take over many years, my main issue with the novel is that I found some more interesting than others and the periods of time we follow them through sometimes pass too quickly. Some storylines which gripped me the most include one character's synaesthesia and how it influences her development as a musician, another character's struggle with mental illness which leads him into an agonizing circular thought process and another character's dangerous attraction towards a man who is a white supremacist. However, I was less engaged by stories involving a property developer con artist with a penchant for Maria Callas and a typesetter who gets involved with print union battles. I realise my preferences come down to personal taste, but it's an issue that often comes with novels which encompass storylines involving multiple characters. I also felt some transitions between sections were a little heavy handed. For instance, a scene with a horrific racist attack is immediately followed by a romantic sex scene involving a mixed race couple.

However, the overall effect of this book is quite moving especially as it describes the transition we all must make towards death and relinquishing our place in the world. It consistently offers many surprises and delights in the unexpected avenues the characters' lives take. The novel also poignantly describes how our lives are never limited to one path or another but contain multiple possibilities which sprawl out in many different directions at every instant of our lives. There's something beautifully hopeful about this.

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

“China Room” begins with a gripping and terrifying situation. In the year 1929 three young women are married to three brothers on a farm in rural Punjab that's overseen by strict matriarch Mai. But newly married teenage Mehar (who has been given this name by her new family) doesn't even know which man is her husband. Conjugal visits take place in total darkness and she's not allowed to interact with the men during the day when she and her sisters-in-law must conceal themselves under veils and perform gruelling chores. She attempts to figure out his identity and becomes embroiled in a dangerous situation. Interspersed with her tale is the story of her great grandson who recounts a time in 1999 when he traveled to this family farm while trying to overcome his drug addiction and escape racism in England. It's so touching how details he encounters such a flecks of paint on a wall or a crumbling disused structure have such a potent meaning when we also see them in this earlier story. It builds narrative tension as well as poignancy as we gradually learn the truth about Mehar's struggle to achieve independence and what she desires. The novel beautifully builds a bridge across time connecting two family members from very different generations whose only physical connection resides in a faded photography. 

It's a coincidence that before reading this novel I read “Great Circle” which also features a dual timeline where clues are gradually revealed in alternating stories to show a more complex and nuanced account of history. It's an impactful narrative technique but I think it does make it challenging to balance the accounts so that they feel equally impactful. There were moments in both novels when I resented being drawn out of the urgency of the stories from the past. However, this form of storytelling does make me reflect in a more complicated and dynamic way about my own limited understanding of my ancestors and how little I know about the complex challenges they faced in their lifetime. Therefore I really felt how the narrator of the “China Room” has such a powerful yearning to uncover the truth and connect with a lineage lost in the murky pages of history in order to progress with his own life.

The way Sahota writes about this alienated young man's experiences does make an interesting commentary on issues to do with national identity and the limitations that women face. Though the farm feels quite isolated in 1929, the larger world intrudes when independence fighters arrive looking for recruits. A character named Suraj wryly comments “It's just another idea... That it's better to be oppressed by your own than by the British. It won't change anything for us.” This sadly rings true because although Mehar is horrifically oppressed, the narrator's aunt is also trapped in a marriage where she can't be with the man she truly loves. Equally, though the town is on the brink of the 21st century it is still ruled by gossip that perniciously tries to limit the freedom of a female doctor who the narrator befriends and falls for. This raises meaningful questions about how much progress has really occurred in society – especially when the narrator's father suffered horrific racist violence which prompts the narrator to wonder where he really belongs. 

Sahota's style of writing is beautiful and impactful. So many lines of dialogue or description have a resonant meaning. This novel feels like a personal reckoning with the past but also conveys larger universal ideas about levels of power and our connection with history.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

I love getting lost in a great big epic. Maggie Shipstead's “Great Circle” has a truly grand story which contains many adventures and mysteries over a long period of time. It spans prohibition, WWII and brings us up to present day Hollywood. The novel also dynamically captures the complex, fascinating life of its fictional protagonist Marian Graves in a way that increasingly intrigues and reveals new layers. Born to a troubled privileged couple, she survives a dramatic tragedy when she's only a baby to then grow up alongside her twin brother in a humble home. We follow the rise and fall of her fortune, the many passionate and varied love affairs she has with men and women and her ambitious mission to fly around the world from pole to pole. Because through all the tumultuous events of history and the personal challenges she encounters in her life, Marian's true love is for flying and she endeavours to sail through the sky whenever she has the chance. Though this novel touches upon so many complex issues to do with gender, sexuality, abuse, different forms of marriage and alcoholism, Marian finds there's a rare liberation to be found in the air. It's so moving how this is a space and state of mind she continuously comes back to showing the true solace that accompanies a blissful kind of solitude. 

The question of Marian's identity is explored in a compelling way through a duel storyline which follows a promising Hollywood starlet named Hadley Baxter as she is playing the role of Marian in a film about the aviator's final flight where Marian disappeared without a trace. Hadley's life superficially resembles that of the actress Kristen Stewart who was launched to fame in a teen fantasy franchise. It's enjoyable how Hadley learns details about Marian's life and the script dramatises her life in certain ways we know aren't true from reading the narrative thread that follows her actual development. This raises compelling questions about the nature of history and how we choose to interpret or distort facts to suit the narratives we want to form about the past. At the same time, as Hadley discovers there is so much more to Marian than she first believed she develops an even stronger spiritual connection with her as a figure that was maligned and misunderstood – much as Hadley herself is as a celebrity who has been used by the Hollywood system and whose public identity is manipulated to suit the story the public wants to believe. We see that there's never a single story about someone's life but many. Hadley reflects how “this is already like a game of telephone. There's Marian's real life, and then there's her book, and then there's your mom's book, and then there's this movie. And so on, and so on.” From both Marian and Hadley's tales, Shipstead shows the way narratives which are formed around the lives of particular individuals (especially women) diminish and limit how complex people really are.

Of course, this novel is quite melodramatic considering the high drama and scandal of so many of its storylines. But I don't see this as a negative thing because it's also so cleverly written and wonderfully indulgent I got completely swept up in its magnificent sweeping tale and enjoyed following the clues to learn the intricacies of its many hidden truths. It reminded me of luxuriously long novels such as “The Queen of the Night” and “The Eighth Life” where I got lost in the sheer pleasure of storytelling which is staged across significant events from history. It also structurally resembles the novel “Plain Bad Heroines” in its dual time lines which gradually reveal the true story behind a manufactured account of the past. I admire how novels such as these construct such enjoyably dramatic stories that also contain more meaningful and thoughtful elements. “Great Circle” is commendable for being an artfully constructed tale that is also utterly joyous.

The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer (translated by Jen Calleja)

In recent years I've developed more of a curiosity about my family history and this naturally leads me to wonder how my ancestors were affected by larger global events. In trying to map out the story of my lineage I'm aware of how easy it is to construct fiction and fantasy out of traces of the past. This is an issue Maria Stepanova dynamically wrestles with in her poignant and meditative book “In Memory of Memory”. Austrian author Raphaela Edelbauer constructs a fascinating and richly imaginative story concerning this dilemma in her novel “The Liquid Land”. Ruth Schwarz is a physicist working towards completing her thesis for her PhD when she's informed that both her parents died in a car crash. Stunned and grieved by this news, she impulsively decides to travel to her parents’ homeland of Greater Einland – only this is an area that doesn't appear on any map. Her search leads her to a place that is bizarrely antiquated in its customs and governance, that's owned and ruled by an imperious Countess and whose lands and buildings are rapidly sinking into a mysterious hole. It's a surreal and curious journey that creatively explores the collective trauma of a community, grief and the bizarre workings of physics. 

There's something so moving about how Ruth constructs a loose map to this strange town. After she's informed by officials that there is no record of a Greater Einland, she hunkers down trying to recall any stories her parents once told her which might give clues as to landmarks or the geography that will lead her to this elusive place. In doing so, it also feels like she's desperately trying to piece together a past which she's now permanently severed from since losing her mother and father. The murkiness of memory means that she can't be certain of any facts. She's also heavily reliant on strong pain relieving drugs which seem to distort her perspective. Added to this is her knowledge of the bizarre nature of subatomic particles whose laws don't correlate with our normal understanding of time or space. Through Ruth's delightfully peculiar perspective, we frequently see objects without a fixed solidity and the clock moves at a different pace: “everything had proceeded so marvellously gooeyly.” All this leads her to follow a random guide on an “Alice in Wonderland” style trip where she arrives in Greater Einland. This is a place which seems to adhere to its own nature of reality. Not only does it have its own sense of time and space, but the town retains its own economic and political system that is more feudal.

The location she arrives at initially has a beautiful charm, but gradually it becomes more sinister as the local population stubbornly avoid certain topics and Ruth is drawn into the Countess von Weidenheim's elite circle. Though it becomes a much more perplexing and ominous place, Ruth also feels a natural kinship to it knowing that her parents came from here and had a close, mysterious relationship to it. “I began to melt into the nature around the town. After just a few days I found my way around intuitively; later, after weeks, the forest had become an extension of my own body. In short, this was a long sought-after sense of belonging, an identification that connected me to the landscape. I would almost say; I'd found a home.” Yet, though she feels a tender sense of belonging inhabiting the house her grandparents once lived in, she becomes frighteningly disorientated at points as well. Ruth also grows obsessed by the mystery of what happened to this town during WWII and lists of the dead whose bodies have vanished. The townspeople seem to want to live in a constant present, literally disposing of their inconvenient pasts in the widening hole beneath their feet, but this refusal to face history means that cracks show everywhere and the entire town might sink into an underground cavern.

Interspersed with the primary narrative of this novel are occasional documents about the nature of physics or the history of certain events or people. I enjoyed how these add a background to the story and enhance the sense that there are deeper and more sinister things occurring in the background. It's refreshing to read a novel that's absurdist in character but also has something unique to say about our collective history and subjective interpretations of it. However this manner of storytelling comes with its own pitfalls which might make it troublesome for some readers. Logical questions about the size of this town's population and how much interaction it has with the larger world mostly go unanswered. The townspeople seem to be largely insulated but occasionally reference popular culture such as a master-builder who wants to finance a musical about Larry Fortensky, Elizabeth Taylor's seventh husband. Though the town isn't on any map, foreign labourers are still brought in to work on reconstructing buildings that are subsiding. Many practical questions abound and these not only slightly impeded my enjoyment of the story, but made it difficult for me to fully imagine this place. I understand it's not a realistic portrayal and we're so entwined with Ruth's skewed perspective that a logical comprehension of the place isn't the point, but it does niggle and gets messy. But overall the many pleasures this unique novel gives supersede these reservations.

I found Ruth's journey to be moving in many ways and I'm haunted by the numerous issues concerning memory and history that the story raises. The consequences of facing the complete truth of our collective past would probably cripple us, but, at the same time, in order to progress as a society it's necessary to acknowledge and learn from previous events. We constantly negotiate different approaches in how to manage this and much of this balance probably occurs on an unconscious level. I admire how Edelbauer's fiction engages with these dilemmas and uses an inventive strategy to get the reader thinking about them. It elevates this book above classifications like fantasy, mystery or psychological horror and puts it into a laudable category of its own.

The Child by Kjersti A Skomsvold (translated by Martin Aitken)

Since the experience of pregnancy and motherhood is one I can never have it makes me all the more interested in reading about it. I've never even felt inclined to be a father but I want to understand the process and emotional repercussions of parenthood. Kjersti A Skomsvold is a Norwegian author who has published an utterly captivating, beautifully-written and poignant account of a woman in the first several months following the birth of her second child. What's so compelling about her point of view is the way her identity transforms amidst this new responsibility but retains a consistency. It's like the tectonic plates of her personality shift to lay bare the core of her being with all her passion, strengths and insecurities. She's an author who endeavours to keep writing amidst the responsibilities and emotional strain of her life. At the same time it's fascinating how her experience is paired against others such as her great aunt who is experiencing dementia, a writer friend who committed suicide and her partner Bo with whom she's had a complicated relationship. Through her interactions we glean an awareness of all the stages of life experienced at once as the roles she plays constantly switch and are paired against the lives of others. 

The narrative is composed of short impressionistic accounts of her daily experiences, memories and reflections. They are also directed at the child so it's written in the second person making it feel like both a confidential letter to her progeny and a hymn expressing her innermost soul. It gives an immediacy to this book which is emotional and moving. This style also creates a narrative tension as we only gradually come to understand her past and the circumstances of her life. I found it poignant how when comparing herself to her contemporaries she feels that she's come late to things like having a stable relationship and giving birth to children: “Becoming adult is so very much harder when you haven't the strength.” Gradually we come to understand her abiding feeling of loneliness and depression which have also hindered her ability to fully connect with others: “it's because of loneliness I can hear if my heart's beating. Even with a child inside me I was filled with loneliness, and after the child had come out I felt empty. Loneliness lingered like a phantom pain.” I appreciate how she honestly divulges the mystery of these emotions and allows us to connect with them without feeling the need to try to explain them. Though the obsessions and minute sentiments which attend a volatile relationship grew trying to read about at some later sections of the book I did find many observations very powerful such as “I thought love meant discovering a new person, but it's more discovering yourself, and that's painful.”

It's interesting to compare this novel with Jessie Greengrass' “Sight” which also describes a very close-to-the-core account of motherhood with all its trials and uncertainties. While these bravely honest and confessional testimonies yield a lot of insights they also present a consciously limited, subjective view of these characters which left me longing to understand some of the more practical circumstances of their lives. For instance, I wondered how Skomsvold's unnamed protagonist managed economically amidst the responsibilities of having children but we never get details about this. I'd have appreciated it if the author would have dropped in a line or two about whether she had savings or whether her writing enables her to fully subsist. As a point of comparison “Ghost in the Throat” by Doireann Ni Ghriofa gives a very intimate account of motherhood while also making the reader aware of the challenging financial strain of having a growing family. However, this was only a slight reservation I had about “The Child” because overall it's a very thoughtful, moving and poetic account full of candour and insights.

An Island by Karen Jennings

Although John Donne famously wrote “No man is an island”, Karen Jennings makes a convincing case for why the particular man at the centre of her novel can no longer be connected with the nation of his birth. For decades Samuel has lived a solitary existence on an island where he tends a lighthouse, keeps a meagre garden and occasionally buries the refugees who wash ashore. But, when Samuel is in his seventies, one day an unconscious young man that is barely alive appears on the beach. They don't speak the same language and become uneasy companions. His presence stirs thoughts of the past for Samuel who finds: “Memories were there too, coming fast that morning – things best forgotten now approaching as steadily as waves approach the shore.” In fragmented scenes we come to understand Samuel's impoverished beginnings in an African nation that underwent a violent revolution but whose utopian dream quickly faltered after the rise of a dictator that imprisoned many dissidents and protestors - including Samuel. Now that his fragile, circumscribed existence has been disturbed he struggles to accept the presence of another individual.

At first I found the way the narrative introduces slivers from Samuel's past to be too jarring as it's sometimes a struggle to understand what's happening. But I quickly came to understand that this was a result of Samuel's brittle state of mind as he's experienced a lot of trauma and devastating disappointment in his life. Gradually I came to see he's not so much a man that is driven by any definite convictions but, like many of us, he's jostled through life according to the dominant politics and ideologies of his society. In one period he might be progressive, in another he might reinforce prejudiced attitudes and when he's trapped in a prison he's willing to do whatever it takes to avoid torture. It's sympathetically shown how he simply wants a better life for himself: “Who didn't want to be more than they were, who didn't want to rise up out of the dirt and be something?” But, because of his circumstances, he finds it impossible to establish any secure existence. He's unable to commit physical violence and it's interesting to consider whether this is because of his own meekness or a determination not to harm other living beings.

Though it's easy to romantically daydream about a solitary life on an island, Jennings' vivid descriptions of Samuel's hard existence and deteriorating health bring to life the challenging reality of this situation. There's also a disturbing encounter described early in the novel when Samuel first found the bodies of refugees on his shore and the official he speaks to asks to know the colour of their skin. This brief reference evokes an enormous dilemma concerning nationhood and racism. Though the author is South African, I think it's clever how she avoids using any specific names of countries, leaders or political movements to show that this is really a universal situation and, given certain circumstances, these things can happen anywhere. Though new leadership is often invested with a lot of hope for change, Samuel sadly finds that “Power made men hateful. Power made men forget everyone but themselves.” The depths of his disillusionment and pain which has disconnected him from his family, loved ones and country make his solitary state feel not only reasonable but necessary. A late encounter he has with a woman that he once had an intense relationship with feels all the more tragic because rather than being a sentimental reunion it lays bare the desperate circumstances they've been reduced to. The ending of the novel is especially disturbing and haunting because after everything Samuel has gone through there’s a devastating logic to it. I desperately wanted the story to end another way and I still optimistically believe that no one has to be an island… but I haven’t experienced the gruelling torture that Samuel lived through.

I found it really powerful how Jennings writes an engaging specific story that gradually unfolds to ask much larger and universal questions about identity, nationhood and the meaning of our relationships. It also suggests that there are perhaps more interesting, less well known stories to be told. I’d like to read a companion novel to this book which gives the perspective of the other man that arrives on Samuel’s island, but this isn’t Jennings’ story to tell and, as much as I wanted to know more about his life, she was probably wise to avoid delving into his perspective. Instead we get a surface understanding of his state of mind through his gestures and reactions to Samuel’s erratic behaviour which allowed me to feel sympathy for him having to live alongside this deeply unstable older man. It’s interesting how “The Promise”, the other South African novel on the Booker Prize longlist, raises a similar dilemma in consciously not giving us many details about Salome’s life. As accomplished and moving as both these novels are, I can’t help feeling somewhat frustrated that as a reader I’m only getting white perspectives on a deeply racially divided nation that I’ve never personally visited. That’s not the fault of these writers or the book prize, but I think it raises larger issues concerning publishing, privilege and whose voices are given a public platform.

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

How do we deal with the knowledge that an innocent man was executed by the state because of the colour of his skin? The response from many people in Britain would most likely be that this was a form of institutionalised racism which isn't found here today. Or you might find this fact sadly unsurprising given the way non-white men are still profiled and marginalized in this society – as depicted in “Open Water” by Caleb Azumah Nelson. In her novel “The Fortune Men” Nadifa Mohamed fictionalizes the case of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali-born merchant seaman who was arrested and executed for the murder of a shopkeeper in 1952 despite overwhelming evidence proving his innocence. With emotive detail she depicts the diverse community of Cardiff's Tiger Bay with its West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. Mahmood is a petty thief and a gambler who is far from saintly, but he's not a murderer. The question which drives this story isn't so much whether or not Mahmood can get a fair trial, but why was he persecuted and how are immigrants and non-white individuals still persecuted today? 

What's so powerful about Mohamed's style of writing is the intense way she depicts how Mahmood's perspective and state of being is shaped by the social attitudes around him. He has learned to physically shrink himself in different ways such as making himself invisible to avoid racist abuse or how his stomach has shrunk so that he won't feel hunger so acutely. At any moment he's aware that he might be the victim of vicious malice by a passing stranger because of his appearance and that there will be no recourse for the abuse which is inflicted upon him. He consciously avoids witnessing certain things because he knows “It doesn't pay to see something you're not meant to.” Mohamed also gives considerable space in this story to the perspective of a Jewish family who experience a tragic and violent loss which occurs while they're at home. The agonizing pain of their situation and the hard-won freedom they've found in this Welsh community after emigrating from Eastern Europe is sympathetically shown. The author evokes how these different factions of Tiger Bay live and work within the constrained limits of a larger power structure.

I think it's important how Mohamed chose to highlight and write a novel about this case from history rather than create a fictional character who is purely virtuous. Mahmood gambles with money he gets from benefits. He shoplifts items to give to the people he loves. He's capable of invoking the same racial slurs which are inflicted upon him. His marriage deteriorated and he doesn't always support his children as much as he should. The challenges and tribulations of his childhood and young adulthood are dynamically recreated in the middle of this novel so we get an understanding of how this is a man that's learned to ride the wave of chance and do what he has to in order to survive. He is not perfect, but, like all of us, he strives to be a better person and likes to imagine he's a more upright citizen than he is. Since he intrinsically knows this Mahmood believes the justice system of this country will see it too and doesn't see the need to defend himself against charges which are patently false. But the police need a culprit, the courts have found a scapegoat and the community is willing to lie in order to get a reward. This is the tragedy which leads to his execution and no one would accept such an injustice if it happened to their own son, husband or father. So why do we accept that it happened to Mahmood?

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

I was awed by the majesty of Richard Powers' enormous, thought-provoking and imaginative novel “The Overstory”. Even though I felt some of the interlinking stories worked better than others, I was so compelled and impressed with how that book engaged with environmental activism in such a dynamic way. His new novel “Bewilderment” also addresses climate change and animal extinction but in a more concentrated story. It concerns Theo, an astrobiologist who seeks to demonstrate a complex method of searching for life on other planets, and his nine-year-old son Robin, a lively and unpredictable boy who cares passionately about the environment. As we follow their lives over the course of a troubled year, Theo struggles to care for his emotionally erratic son and allows him to be used in an experimental trial to stabilize the boy's behaviour. It's a method of behavioural training which inspires a surprising connection to his deceased mother Alyssa, an environmental lobbyist who tragically died a couple of years prior to the events in this novel. The combination of these elements forms an astoundingly moving and urgent story. 

One of the most strikingly effective aspects of this novel is the dialogue between father and son which is heartfelt and convincingly realistic. Robin's passionate earnestness and straightforward idealistic logic constantly threatens to overwhelm Theo who is all too aware of the complex workings of their society which is tragically regressing under a populist leader. Robin's dialogue is italicised while other characters' speech is in quotes and this typographical distinction allows his words to chime with a moving innocence. It reminded me of the intimate way the father and son converse in Cormac McCarthy's tremendous novel “The Road” as their exchanges convey a patient exchange of ideas and touching emotional bond. Part of Theo's job is to speculate what sort of life might develop on other planets given the specific environmental conditions of these distant worlds. His method of stabilizing his son's erratic moods is to imaginatively transport them to the potential living planets he's devised. These sections convey a wonderful intimacy between parent and child.

This story is set in a near future which already feels alarmingly close to our present reality. Funding for science is being reduced, extreme weather causes havoc in communities, new forms of disease are rapidly spreading, the democratic process of voting is undermined by presidential skepticism, journalists are suppressed and the solution for dealing with emotionally unstable children is to drug them with pharmaceuticals en masse. Given these overwhelming threats, it's no wonder that Theo's son feels extremely anxious: “The question wasn't why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.” Inspired by a Greta Thunberg-type character named Inga Alder, Robin is determined to take practical efforts to inspire change or contribute to the benefit of the world in any small way he can. Though the novel presents a grim-mirror to our rapidly devolving present times, there's hope and optimism amongst a new generation determined to reject the self-centred logic of our society and preserve the environment.

It's interesting how Powers has created a novel which is so strikingly realistic in many ways, but can also be read as science fiction because of the way it creatively speculates about alien species and societies. It also feels at times like a ghost story because of the lingering presence of Alyssa. But the real heart of this book is the bond between father and son amidst the chaos of the world. They discover a beautiful tranquility by camping in the mountains where nature comes magically alive, but these precious moments are sadly cut short by pressures from the larger world. The real tragedy of this story is not that the world is falling apart but that people have become so complacent about its destruction while passively looking at their phones: “In this place, with such a species, trapped in such technologies, even a simple head count grew impossible. Only pure bewilderment kept us from civil war.” This is such a tender, expertly-written and emotionally gripping tale which has the power of an alarm bell signalling that our planet is in crisis.