Category: Book Reviews

Book review – “The Making of the Modern Middle East” by Jeremy Bowen

It’s been the busiest of times for me and I feel very out of touch with my blogging. But as I support the youngest of my three children as they embark upon the exam season, inwardly I am exclaiming “the last time!” I know it will feel weird when we are out the other side, of course, knowing that I will not be doing the journey to school any more and shortly afterwards waving another one off to university (fingers crossed). So, as I find myself saying frequently to new parents in  my day job, this too shall pass. Much of it is self-inflicted too, I must add; I decided to do a course of academic study last autumn and that is actually what has consumed much of my time. Truly I am a glutton for punishment!

I have had little time for reading, and it’s mostly been audiobooks so far this year, which I can listen to while out walking or running. So, I haven’t exactly had too many reviews to post! I’ve really felt the absence too. Reading for me is not only about being well-read and making connections with fellow book-lovers, it is also grounding. Nothing says self-care as strongly as: “I am taking 10/15/20 minutes out of my busy day, disconnecting from the family/the dishes/the smartphone, just for me, for pure pleasure.” It has to become a habit though, and it is one that seems to have slipped out of my grasp in the last couple of months, and which I now need to squeeze back in. 

The book I want to tell you about today is one that has been on my TBR pile for some time. Coincidentally, I am currently making my arrangements to go to the Hay Festival, filling my online basket with events, and this book was one I bought there last year. The BBC’s International Editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been working in the Middle East for many years and is now a renowned journalistic expert on the region. This book arose out of a podcast he did for BBC radio a few years ago called Our Man in the Middle East. This book is an insightful and informative look at the region, setting out the historical context for many of the disputes and tensions whilst also telling stories and anecdotes of his own experiences, the relationships he has forged with people, famous and not, giving an often very intimate perspective on some of the very big issues we all know about.

The Middle East is not homogenous and the history is complex. Usually, the causes of tensions and conflicts there are far more complex than can be conveyed in a single news bulletin. The region is also a lightning rod, a proxy, for much bigger confrontations. Looking at a traditional map of the world, it is very nearly the geographical centre. Politically and culturally it is where east meets west, where north meets south, where tradition meets modernism, and religion meets secularism, quite unlike anywhere else on the planet. It is quite clear, from reading this book, that the author is captivated.

Bowen takes a thematic approach in the book, but manages also to set out the historical context of each of the major countries in the region: Israel and Palestine (obviously), Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, but drawing in also Lebanon, Yemen and Libya. I came away from this book with a powerful new understanding of the motivations and perspectives of people living in the Middle East, and also of the largely malign influence “the west”, and in particular the colonial powers have had over decades, if not centuries. 

I have visited this part of the world only once in my life, about 25 years ago when I went to Lebanon. I found it a stunning and fascinating country and am saddened that it has been brought to its knees both economically and politically in recent years. When I attended the event at Hay in which Jeremy Bowen was interviewed by his BBC colleague Frank Gardner, I remember how pessimistic he was about the Israel-Palestine situation, describing it as more dangerous than he had seen it in many years. How poignant that observation seems when just a few months later the current crisis we see so vividly every day on our television screens was set in motion. 

This is a powerful and gripping book, written with the author’s characteristic style, thoroughly researched and grounded in first-hand knowledge. Highly recommended.

Audiobook review – “Misery” by Stephen King

Whether or not you have read any of his work, most people will have heard of Stephen King and could probably name one or two of his books. And anyone who dabbles in writing, whether or not they have actually read any of his books, will have some admiration for the American author, a man committed to his craft, who shares his insights humbly and widely, and who is both prolific and highly regarded. Surely a giant of American letters.

In a writing career spanning half a century, King has published more than sixty-five novels (that’s more than one a year!), several non-fiction books, hundreds of short stories, screenplays, and even graphic novels. His first novel, Carrie (published in 1974), sold a million copies in paperback and became a bestseller when it was adapted for the screen in 1976, launching the career of Sissy Spacek in the title role. His next two novels, published in 1975 and 1977 are also seminal works – Salem’s Lot and The Shining. Both won awards and both were made into highly successful screen adaptations, the latter starring Jack Nicholson, of course, in what is arguably one of his finest performances. 

All of this and I have never picked up a Stephen King book. My first boyfriend when I was a teenager was a huge Stephen King fan and I never much cared for his literary tastes, being much more into the classics at that stage in my life! I’ve also largely avoided the horror genre, disliking the films (I can barely watch most of them) and therefore assuming the books would not be for me. There is however, horror, and there is horror. So, I was open-minded when I suggested to my book club that we tackle a Stephen King. We picked Misery because we could watch the film as well, and it secured an Oscar in 1990 for Kathy Bates in the role of Annie Wilkes – its funny how I have a memory of her acceptance speech. We listened on audio, because that is our thing, and we all agreed it was read brilliantly by Lindsay Crouse. 

The plot of the novel is simple: Paul Sheldon is a successful author who, after completing the draft of his latest, and what he believes to be his best, novel, Fast Cars, decides to drive from the remote hotel where he normally likes to write, to Los Angeles. It is winter, the weather is poor and he has a serious accident, crashing his car in Colorado near the small town of Sidewinder. His upturned vehicle is discovered by local woman Annie Wilkes, who lives alone on her small isolated farm. Annie retrieves the badly injured Paul from the wreckage of his car and takes him to her house. She is a qualified nurse and keeps a wide range of medications at home. Paul wakes up to find himself in her spare bedroom, his broken legs splinted and his wounds treated. He is initially grateful to her for saving his life, a fact which she reminds him of frequently, and is only slightly curious as to why she has not taken him to hospital or brought in a doctor.

During his unconscious phase, it is clear that Annie searched his belongings and discovered his identity. She knows him well because she is his “number one fan” – an avid reader of the historical novels featuring a Victorian orphan Misery Chastain, which have been responsible for bringing Paul fame and fortune, but which he has grown to loathe because of their lack of literary merit. The latest novel in the series is about to be published, which means Annie is in an excited frenzy, and it will be the last because Misery dies, although Annie does not yet know this.

As the days pass and Paul’s condition improves he becomes increasingly concerned as to why Annie will not let him notify his friends and family and his agent of his whereabouts, or why she will not let him see a doctor. He begins to doubt her excuses about the severity of the weather. Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when Annie gets hold of the newly-published book Misery’s Child. She is enraged to find that her heroine dies, accusing Paul of murdering her. To make matters worse, she reads the manuscript of Fast Cars and considers it worthless filth. Her reaction finally convinces Paul that he is her prisoner and Annie’s behaviour becomes increasingly unpredictable and violent. Annie acquires an ancient typewriter from the thrift shop in town and sets Paul the task of writing another manuscript in which Misery is restored to life, though she insists that the story must be “fair” – credible and not by magic. Most distressingly, she also makes Paul burn the manuscript (the only one) of Fast Cars, page by page on a barbecue. 

The rest of the novel concerns the psychological battle of wills going on between Annie and Paul. He is vulnerable, weak and disabled and she exercises power over him, not least actually locking him up. She also gets him hooked on opiate painkillers, effectively enslaving him. Annie is prone to bouts of deep depression, perhaps she is bipolar, and occasionally disappears for days at a time, sometimes leaving him without food or pain relief. Paul plots escape and sabotage but his efforts are mostly unsuccessful and simply make Annie worse. There are moments of extreme violence in the book, but not as much as you would expect for a horror novel – the horror here is mainly psychological. But the threat of horror is ever-present. King gets us into the mind of the prisoner, not knowing from one day to the next whether his captor will kill or torture him, or whether today she might be nice and bring him ice cream. The reader is kept in a constant state of alert. In some ways it is exhausting, but is definitely utterly compelling. 

I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed this book. We enjoyed the film less, although it is a very good effort and well-acted, mainly I think because it is just too short, leaves out too much, and brings in additional characters who do not feature in the novel. I fear I might have started with the best of King by reading Misery, but I will definitely read more. 

Highly recommended. 

Finish a book challenge #3 – “Burning Questions” by Margaret Atwood

This might just be the book I am proudest to have finished in my ‘finish a book’ challenge! I am ashamed to say that I bought it when it was first published in summer 2022 (a signed hardback copy no less!), began reading it almost immediately, when I went on holiday I think, set it to one side when life got a bit busy again and then never seemed to get around to finishing it, despite a second and third wind each time I went on holiday thereafter. It’s not even a difficult book to read; it’s divided up into highly readable chunks (the sub-title of the book is “Essays and occasional pieces 2004-21”), the kind you can read in ten to fifteen minutes between chores and deadlines, so I have no absolutely no excuse or explanation.

I determined to finish this one though, not least because it is big and is taking up a substantial amount of the space on my bedside pile, and I have loved it. I’ve read just over half of it in the last couple of weeks and it has been a joy. Margaret Atwood is truly an international treasure. She must surely be one of the world’s finest living writers. I cannot believe she hasn’t won a Nobel Prize for The Handmaid’s Tale at the very least. Many of the pieces in this book are speeches she has given at various conferences, symposia or charitable events. Her wit is sharp and acerbic and she has an eye for the absurd that is unmatched in my opinion. Reflecting in 2015 on the tepid reception of The Handmaid’s Tale when it was first published, she writes of one New York Times reviewer:

Being dissed in the Times invariably causes your publishers to cross to the other side of the street when they see you and then run away very fast and hide under a rock. The reviewer was the eminent American novelist and essayist Mary McCarthy, and she was not amused. (She was not amused in general, so I was not alone in failing to amuse her.)

(From “Reflections on The Handmaid’s Tale”, 2015, pp 245-258

She is profoundly intellectual, awesomely clever and well-read, and yet she has a kind of down to earth common sense that must have come from her unremarkable upbringing, much of which was spent in the deeply rural settings in Canada where her scientist father worked. She is as comfortable writing about Shakespeare, the classics and the ancients, philosophy, as she is about day to day life and can be laugh-out-loud funny about both. Have a look at the following two excerpts. The first is a comment on the English syllabus she studied at school, the second on the battles of the sexes:

There was a set curriculum for all five years of all high schools in the province of Ontario, Canada. We Canadians are residing within the mindset of the British Empire – to which we had belonged for a couple of centuries –  and thus, for English Literature, the curriculum featured some things you most likely wouldn’t be able to drag the kids through today. Two novels by Thomas Hardy in five years? Good luck with that! And The Mill on the Floss, a serious-business novel by George Eliot. There was a lot of nineteenth century literature because there was no sex in it, or not right there on the page, though some of the books had some hot action in the margins.

(From “Shakespeare and Me: a tempestuous love story”, 2016, pp 293-305)

And that is why men do not pick up their socks from the floor once they have taken them off: men simply do not see these socks, having evolved to notice only animals that are moving. Whereas women can easily distinguish the socks from the background of floor carpet, having evolved to gather mushrooms – which the discarded socks closely resemble in form, and sometimes in texture and aroma…..If the socks could be equipped with tiny solar lights that would flash on and off, the men would be able to see them, and of course – being unselfish and altruistic – would scoop them off the floor and put them into the laundry basket, and one more major cause of human unhappiness would be eliminated!

(From “Greetings Earthlings! What Are These Human Rights of Which You Speak”, 2018, pp368-379)

Two of her major preoccupations, particularly towards the end of the book concern the rise of misogyny and hate, and particularly in America at the time of the 2016 election, and the speeding up of climate change and the threat to life on earth as we know it. In a speech given just before the 2016 election entitled “We Hang by a Thread” she said:

During the campaign we have seen an outpouring of misogyny not witnessed since the witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century…..This is a reminder to us that the hard-won rights for women and girls that many of us now take for granted could be snatched away at any moment. Culturally, those rights are very shallowly embedded – by which I mean they haven’t been around that long, historically, and that they are not fervently believed in by everyone in the culture. It seems that the male candidate for president of the United States, for one, does not believe in them. That’s a pretty interesting role model for boys and men.

Some of the most moving pieces in the final years covered by the book are about her late husband Graeme Gibson who died from vascular dementia in 2019. They clearly had a very happy marriage and shared many passions, mainly art, literature and the natural world, and her fond tributes to his work and acknowledgement of the impact he had on hers are both loving and generous. 

Part of me is sorry that it took me so long to finish this book, but I have enjoyed it so much these last few weeks that I am also glad to have come back to it. The reflections on the election of Donald Trump and the precariousness of human and particularly women’s rights, seem particularly prescient right now as we face another US election in which he seems likely to be a candidate, and the world faces what must surely be a tipping point. It is not a book that will leave you feeling optimistic, but it is definitely one that will make you smile and laugh at a time when things do seem rather bleak.

Finish a book challenge #2 – “Venice: the lion, the city and the water” by Cees Nooteboom

Venice has to be one of the most enigmatic, captivating cities in Europe, and possibly one of the most painted and written about. For a small place it seems always to have punched above its weight. The entire metropolitan area of Venice (which is spread over more than a hundred islands) is around a quarter of the size of Greater London, with a fraction of the population. The central area of the city, to which most of its 30 million visitors a year will be drawn, is even smaller. It is considered to be a victim of over-tourism and has for many decades been “sinking” into the lagoon that surrounds it.

I have twice in my life been one of those tourists. The first time was in 1986 when as an 18 year old I “inter-railed” around Europe. It was July and it was jam-packed. The youth hostel was full and so I was sent to a convent on one of the other islands which took in female travellers in the summer months. It was so clean and peaceful, a world away from the crowds of Piazza San Marco. The second time was in August 2012, when my children were young. We were on a family holiday in Italy and went to Venice for the day (as ninety per cent of tourists do). I’m afraid we went on a gondola and bought glass souvenirs. Again, it was jam-packed and I came away feeling somewhat tarnished. 

But Venice has always had something of a resonance for me. I studied German at ‘A’ level and read Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice). The 1971 Luchino Visconti film adaptation starring Dirk Bogarde is one of my all-time favourites. And one of my husband’s all-time favourite films is Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie (which, incidentally, was on television recently, to mark its 50th anniversary). It is about a couple who, after the death of their young daughter, spend the winter in Venice while the Donald Sutherland character is on a commission to restore an ancient church. I remember when we first watched it together I fantasised about visiting the city in the winter – it seemed so empty! I imagine now though that even in the winter it remains a very busy destination, though I hope sometime in the not too distant future to go there, perhaps in January!

I spotted this book on the city in my local bookshop recently  and my darling daughters picked up my hints and got it for me for Christmas! The author is the acclaimed Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, who comes from Amsterdam, another watery city. The book recounts a life-long love affair with Venice and oozes with the author’s affection. Like me, and no doubt many other visitors, he laments how the city has become overwhelmed by visitors (not unlike his home town of Amsterdam), and only a few thousand permanent residents can now call Venice home. He is also aware that he may also be part of the problem. 

Venice has…already been more than sold. Within the area of San Marco, 90 per cent of the restaurants are run by Chinese, Albanians and people from the Middle East…..I know the stories about the other tourists, and I also know the strategies Venetians have come up with to deny the plague, to ignore it…..In these ice-cold weeks of February and March, the great flood has ebbed away a little. Venetians do not have to contend with the foreigners who have taken their usual seat at their favourite cafe, and as I am writing this I am aware that I too am a tourist.

The above quote comes at the end of the book, but most of it concerns lesser-known Venice, where it remains just about possible to find the secret places and avoid the crowds, like a Jewish cemetery, less esteemed churches, some disused, and a once-impressive garden that is only accessible by appointment and whose guardians are somewhat surprised to welcome a visitor. It is a book to help you get to know another Venice. Perhaps something rather like the little convent that accommodated me in 1986. 

Who knows if I will ever get to see Venice in the winter or if it will be as empty as I want it to be, as in Don’t Look Now. If I do, I will be sure to have this book as my companion. It is translated from the original Dutch by Laura Watkinson and is wonderfully illustrated with photos by the author’s partner Simone Sassen (and in which there are hardly any humans). 

Finish a book challenge #1 – “Emergent Srategy” by Adrienne Maree Brown

Is it harder to read non-fiction? I note that all the books I challenged myself to complete (because they have been languishing on my Goodreads “currently reading” profile for such a long time that it’s frankly embarrassing) in January are non-fiction. In contrast, I have just completed a fairly long book. Stephen King’s Misery on audio in less than a week. It was compelling, un-put-downable and I loved it. Amazingly, it’s the first Stephen King novel I have ever read, horror being a genre that I have always eschewed, but of course, that is a very limited and naive view of King, which I now humbly admit. More of Misery for a future blog. 

I should turn to the topic in hand, the fact that I have completed a book that it appears I have been “currently reading” since September 2022! To be fair I have dipped in and out. I have gone through periods, between other books, where I have read quite big chunks of it, and times when I have not gone near it for weeks, or probably months. I was inspired to read it on the recommendation of a work colleague after a professional development event. She spoke of the book’s tremendous impact on her practice (we work in the charitable sector), encouraging her to see her work more positively when at times it can feel like you are getting nowhere, having very little impact, wading through treacle. 

At first I found the book made a lot of sense and the messages struck a strong chord with me. Adrienne Maree Brown is a black, American, Queer woman who describes herself as “fat” and is a campaigner for social justice and equality for all, particularly those in marginalised communities who face prejudice, discrimination, cruelty and are misunderstood. She has every right to be very angry, but she has come to approach her work, her practice, from a place of love, growth, and a belief in the positive power of human connection and community action. She has reached her belief in the rightness of this approach through her own personal growth and journey of self-love. 

Brown is an extremely thoughtful, articulate and intelligent activist and writer. The book is extensively researched and in many ways more of an academic text than a ‘non-fiction’ book. I listened to it on audio and it was lovely to hear the author’s words spoken in her own voice, in the way she wanted to express herself, but sometimes this also made it difficult to follow, especially as there are extensive footnotes. There are times when I wanted to go back and ‘re-read’ sections, which is less easy with audio, but, honestly, I doubt that I would have finished it at all if I’d read a paper copy of the book. It was quite hard work!

Of course, there are as many genres of non-fiction as there are fiction and this book is as different as it’s possible to be from, say, Venice, another of my “finish a book challenge” titles that I plan to review later this week. Travel writing, creative non-fiction can be as much about story-telling as the finest examples of the art of the novel. Emergent Strategy is a powerful book for activists, campaigners, people like me working in the charity sector, trying to get a message out there and make a difference, and offers an alternative approach that might well be more effective and less stressful. It encourages us to see the best in people, to focus on micro-changes as steps towards success and frames the work as an organic process. Brown draws heavily on examples from the natural world, the value of diversity, symbiosis and slow movement, for inspiration. 

I found this book mostly enjoyable and though it’s appeal may well be limited it is also possible that it provides a manifesto for change and growth that could be our best hope for a peaceful and healthy future on earth.

Booker shortlist review #6 – “Prophet Song” by Paul Lynch

January has turned into a bit of a rest and recuperate month for me. As I write, there is exactly one week left of the month and after some pretty wild weather in the UK over the last few days, I can report that the sun is shining in Manchester. I have been in my garden this morning assessing the storm damage and putting the covers back over the furniture after the wind had blown them off, and can report that green shoots are peeking out of the ground. I have an ancient nesting box on a wall that was put there by previous owners of our house and I have noticed from my kitchen window that some blue tits have been busy fluttering around it. The afternoons are definitely getting a bit longer and I do feel a slight sense of spring in the air. It feels like the long dark winter is starting to give way. Hmm, does that mean I have to stop resting and recuperating and start doing?!

For me, this month has also been about catching up. On all the things I did not manage to get done in the hectic weeks leading up to Christmas, and on all the unfinished books that have languished in piles for far too long. Perhaps that’s a sign of spring too, wanting to get rid of the old and usher in the new, draw some lines under what has passed. My most delayed unfinished task, certainly as far as this blog is concerned, is completing reviews of the 2023 Booker shortlisted titles. My final review is of the book that actually won, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. It was widely welcomed as a good winner and the author has certainly done his time as a hard-working writer, so a good choice from the judges in that respect. It wasn’t my favourite book of the six (The Bee Sting was the outstanding one for me), but it was certainly imaginative, well-crafted and had important things to say. 

Set in Dublin in an apparently near-future, Prophet Song  is a story told from the perspective of Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four children, her youngest just a baby. Eilish’s husband Larry is a trade unionist, a senior officer in the Teacher’s Union of Ireland, not exactly a militant group, and when he is arrested on vague charges of seditious behaviour and subversive activity, Eilish’s world begins to fall apart. What also falls apart is the society she has known, normal social order, and most frighteningly, the family’s future suddenly seems very unclear. 

Larry is detained indefinitely and neither Eilish nor a lawyer are able to get access to him or any clarity from the authorities on why he remains in detention and what might happen to him. Eilish has to cope alone as a busy mother of three teenagers and a baby, carer for her elderly father whose dementia is beginning to impact significantly on his ability to live safely alone, and working full-time at the lab, the only breadwinner now. There is the sense of her gradually losing her hold on day to day life as well as the emotional and psychological strain of both personal and social events. 

Civil war effectively breaks out in the country. The government becomes increasingly totalitarian and, as is usually the case when democratic society breaks down in this way, for reasons that are quite baffling, a proportion of the society gets brought along, becomes complicit in the crackdowns and persecution. Eventually, Eilish feels she has no choice but to flee the country, to try and cross the border to the north (Northern Ireland), perhaps even try and get to the British mainland on a boat (anyone spot the irony?). Her sister lives in Canada and wants her and the family, including their father, to go there. Eilish’s father won’t, can’t, leave the country of his birth, and where he wants to die. Eilish has to make some terrible choices. 

I was reading this book at the time when hysteria in Britain about refugees crossing the channel in small boats was reaching boiling point. Nothing there is resolved and we seem unable to have a reasoned debate in this country about immigration or about human rights. In 2024, it is said that a staggering forty per cent of the world’s population live in countries that will hold general elections (how many participate is quite a different question), including in the UK of course. Some of these will take place in countries where it is democratic in name only, Russia for example (hmm, who do we think will win?). In others, like the US, the world is frankly holding its breath. The media in many of these countries cannot be said to be unbiassed, objective, representative or fair, and bad actors are capable of de-stabilising democracy through sophisticated technological tools, social media and deep-fakes. Some governments are also destabilising democracy themselves and implementing laws that favour the outcomes they and their supporters desire. By making Eilish so real, so relatable, her life so like ours, Paul Lynch, shows us how close all of us are to the seemingly unthinkable. It is a wake-up call and we all need to pay attention. 

Highly recommended.

Happy new year and book review – “Yellowface” by RF Kuang

I have been reading and liking a lot of posts from fellow bloggers about their reading year in 2023. I often do such a post myself except that my reading and blogging last year was pretty woeful and I don’t want to depress myself – comparison is never good for self-esteem! Life just got in the way in 2023, but no matter. I’ve also been reading a lot of blogs about, and been receiving a lot of emails from various newsletters and platforms I subscribe to, exhorting me to set my reading goals for the year. I still have a very busy six months ahead of me with education and family commitments so I’m not going to do anything that might make me feel like I’m somehow falling short. Last year, I set myself a challenge to read one long-neglected book from my shelves per month. I was doing pretty well up until the summer…

So, this year, I am going to set myself the same challenge, because I think it’s a good one. Plus my husband has started making noises about thinning out our book collection, not a bad idea in itself, but it does make my blood run a little cold. It is hard to justify buying more books however, when you have very many unread ones lying around. For January, I’m just going to set myself the task of finishing all the books I currently have on the go! If you glance at my Goodreads profile you will note that there are currently SIX(!), and at least three of them have been there for a very long time. So, I am going to try and get these read by the end of the month. A kind of clearing the decks before signs of spring and feelings of fresh starts commence in February. Did you know that in Ireland spring begins officially on the 1st of February? I don’t think it’s any warmer there or anything, but I visited my in-laws in Dublin for new year and I can confirm that daffodils were indeed blooming in their garden! The government has even instituted a new bank holiday in 2023 for St Brigid’s Day, to mark this traditional Gaelic festival welcoming the spring.

So, in the spirit of catching up and clearing out before spring, I want to start my reviewing year with a book that I read some months ago and which I have been meaning to write about ever since, but haven’t quite got around to. Yellowface was one of a few much-hyped novels of last year and I listened to it on audio over the summer. As well as being a great read, it is a complex and brilliantly constructed novel which explores many themes and ideas. 

The central character is June Hayward, a writer who is struggling to make her mark and whose agent and publisher are losing patience with her (lack of) output. June has a friend, Athena Liu, whose fortunes are very much in the ascendant. The two women were at Yale together and in her writing career, Athena has achieved everything that June desires, both commercial success and literary acclaim, making her a wealthy writer, a rare thing. To make matters worse (for June), Athena is beautiful, popular and socially skilled. June and Athena do not have a close relationship, rather they share some mutual friends, but on a night out to celebrate Athena having sold the television rights for her latest book, the two women find themselves drunk at Athena’s luxury New York apartment. On a whim, Athena decides to cook pancakes, but in a freak accident, chokes to death in front of June’s very eyes. In the chaotic aftermath of the incident, June finds herself alone in Athena’s apartment. Looking around her study she comes across the completed first draft of another novel, which Athena has produced in her trademark fashion – on a manual typewriter. Thus, no traceable digital copy. 

The temptation is too much for June and after reading it she decides that fate has decreed that she will be the one to knock it into shape, to turn it into a publishable piece. June works on the draft day and night for several weeks and by the end of the process feels the novel is as much hers as Athena’s. She sends it to her agent and the book is eventually published to great acclaim under the pen-name, Juniper Song, distancing it from June’s previous (mediocre) work, and adding an air of authenticity to the subject-matter – the unsung contribution of Chinese prisoners to the first world war effort in Europe. With her Asian heritage this would have been a natural choice of subject for Athena, but less so for June.

June revels in the success of the book and all appears to be going well until she begins to be trolled on social media by someone masquerading as the ghost of Athena Liu claiming that June stole the work, accusing her of cultural appropriation and even suggesting June may have had a hand in Athena’s death. Events quickly spiral out of control and the rest of the novel proceeds at pace as June tries to uncover who is behind the fake social media account. As doubts about her spread she must face into some very public challenges as well as private demons. At first, the accusations against June about cultural appropriation (the ‘yellowface’ of the title) seem pretty clear-cut, but the author is also unafraid of challenging the publishing industry’s fickleness and the rank hypocrisy that can play out in social media.    

There is only really one way this story can end and yet the author still manages to make it quite shocking and twisty. It is a genuine  page-turner and I was on the edge of my metaphorical seat throughout. Rebecca Kuang is an extraordinary young talent; she left China with her parents when she was just four years old, and the family moved to America. She won a scholarship to Cambridge, did an MSc at Oxford, has a PhD from Yale and had already published four novels before Yellowface. She is only 27. Reading her bio you can sort of empathise with June Hayward!

Highly recommended.

Booker shortlist review #5 – “Study for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein

Study for Obedience was the shortest book on this year’s Booker Prize shortlist. It is an exquisite little piece in many ways, but I have to confess I remain ambivalent about it.

There is not much in the way of a plot. The central character and narrator is a female about which we know very little, apart from what she reveals through the course of the book. She may not be young, but she has certainly led a fairly sheltered, quiet life. We meet her when she is brought by her older brother to his home in order to look after him. He is a fairly dominant and not very pleasant individual whose wife has just left him and taken their children with her. Our narrator provides care and attention to him, keeping the house, feeding him, even reading to him and massaging him while he bathes. 

The place where the narrator and her brother live is unnamed but it is clear they are considered outsiders. The brother, however, has been able to achieve a degree of acceptance, through his wealth, his social status and the self-confident way he puts himself about. The narrator, however, his younger sister, is more timid, prefers to remain below the radar. The townspeople become suspicious of her, particularly when a series of strange events coincides with her arrival – a local dog experiences a phantom pregnancy; a sow crushes her litter of piglets; a herd of normally docile retired dairy cattle goes mad and all have to be destroyed. Our narrator attempts to ingratiate herself with the townspeople but her efforts go unrewarded. 

There are hints of antisemitism in the novel, the prejudice that never seems to go away. The brother and sister seem to be Jewish, different to the townspeople, but even though they are not overt in their faith, the narrator in particular arouses suspicion, hostility and is demonised. Reading the book, I was also reminded of the Salem Witch Trials, where femaleness is distrusted, almost pathologised, something to be held in check. How “obedient” is our narrator really?

What cannot be denied about this book is the quality of the writing and of providing a highly distinctive character perspective. What I am less sure about is, frankly, what the book is about! Perhaps it merits another read – it is certainly short enough to do that quite easily. My first response to it however, has been very much one of “and…?” 

It’s certainly unusual and perhaps that is how it ascended to the shortlist of the prestigious Booker, but I’m afraid it wasn’t a winner for me (or the judges, it seems).

Booker Prize announced tonight

As I write, the announcement of the 2023 Booker Prize is just a few hours away. You can follow proceedings live on the Booker YouTube channel here.

I have completed five out of the six shortlisted titles and am halfway through my final book Prophet Song. I have published reviews of four of the titles. I only finished Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience today and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it so I’m going to need to do a bit more processing before posting a review on that one.

Prophet Song? Hmm, I’m not sure. I’m about halfway through but I don’t think it’s going to turn out to be my favourite. I’m hoping to finish it in the coming days and to post a review later this week.

Cards on the table – The Bee Sting is the winner for me!

So, who do I think is going to win? Without a moment’s hesitation my favourite book was The Bee Sting and I also think it was the highest achievement. For me, If I Survive You comes second, and I have a sneaking feeling that one might win. It seems a little more “zeitgeisty”? Western Lane is, for me, just not quite in the same league, quietly moving though it is. This Other Eden is good, it tells a great story, but not as good as Murray or Escoffery for me.

Anyway, just a couple of hours to go. The Booker always throws up surprises, so I’m not expecting to have called it right!

Booker shortlist review #4 – “The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray

The Bee Sting is by some measure the longest book on this year’s Booker shortlist and the one I have enjoyed the most so far. I do think I actually prefer a long book. Murray is an Irish novelist and this is his fourth novel. He is no stranger to the Booker as his second novel, Skippy Dies, was longlisted in 2010. He is also no stranger to prizes, his debut, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, having won the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2003. So, he comes with something of a pedigree. 

The Bee Sting is a novel about a modern family living in an unnamed town in the Midlands in Ireland. Dickie Barnes runs the family business, a car dealership in the town, which was established by his father Maurice, an outgoing entrepreneurial type, who now lives in Portugal. Under Dickie’s stewardship however, and following a series of unfortunate events, including an economic downturn and a devastating flood, the business is now under threat. Dickie’s wife Imelda is introduced to us as superficial and glamorous and it is clear there are tensions in the marriage, worsened by the decline in the family’s fortunes.

But the novel opens with Cass, Dickie and Imelda’s teenage daughter, whose main preoccupations in life are social media and fantasising about a future life as a bohemian living in the city with her best friend Elaine. There is also PJ, her younger brother, who lives for computer games, his friends and the woods at the back of the family home which form part of their land and in which there is a brick outhouse they call the bunker.

Each member of the family gets a long section of the book to tell their story and gradually we learn more about their internal dilemmas. Imelda, for example, is far from the vacuous character her daughter believes her to be. We learn that she grew up in a violent, deprived and socially outcast family. She was the only girl in the family and her mother died when she was a teenager. She is a renowned beauty though, which is both her gift and a curse. When she meets and falls in love with the charismatic Frank Barnes, son of local businessman Maurice and a gifted football player, it looks as if she will finally escape her violent and vulgar father and brothers. But then Frank is killed in a car accident. 

Frank’s family is devastated by grief. Dickie comes home from Trinity (having had a mixed experience there himself) and decides that he will step in to run the garage with his father and marry Imelda, look after her the way Frank would have wanted. On their wedding day, Imelda arrives at church and refuses to lift her veil for the whole day – a bee became trapped in the fabric inside the car on the way to the church, she says, and stung her face. (When Cass learns of this story via a newspaper clipping on the internet it only confirms her perception of her mother as vain and superficial.) For Imelda and Dickie, we are invited to consider whether this was a dark omen overshadowing their future.

This the basic story of the novel and as we hear each character’s perspective on both past and present events, layers of the onion are gradually peeled away to reveal a set of four people wrestling with deep insecurities, questioning themselves and their decisions, and yet curiously unable to meet each other in their place of need. There is love, but they are hamstrung and unable to express it. Overshadowing the novel is the threat of climate change. As an escape from his problems, Dickie develops a strange friendship with handyman Victor, a single, lonely bachelor obsessed with wiping out the grey squirrel population and ‘prepping’ for the end of civilisation as we know it. This thread of the story provides some light relief (yes, really!) at times

This novel is darkly comic in places – you may feel guilty at some of the laugh out loud moments – and deeply affecting in others. The characters are brilliantly drawn, particularly the young people I felt. I listened to it on audio and was very impressed by all the performances. Its scope is relatively small, a single family of four, surprising for such a long novel, but it explores great depths and is thoroughly engaging. If I have any criticism, I think, for me, it was the ending, which obviously I’m not going to reveal here. I felt built up to a pitch of tension and then badly let down. So, I’m a little bit cross about that! 

Still highly recommended though.