Tag: books

Book review and literary controversy – “The Salt Path” by Raynor Winn

I suggested this to my book club as our first read of the summer – I had seen a trailer for the film (starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs) and it reminded me that I had bought this book some time ago and it was sitting on a bookshelf somewhere in my house, unread. We thought we could read the book then watch the film – I’m a fan of Gillian Anderson (frankly, who isn’t?) so thought it was bound to be good. 

Almost as soon as I started reading it, the whole controversy around the book blew up – for anyone who needs reminding, there were allegations (published in The Observer in July) that the author misrepresented aspects of her partner Moth’s illness, and that she had defrauded a past employer and that was the reason for losing their home. Even if you have not read the book, I am certain you will have heard of it, if you live in the UK certainly, so you will no doubt know that the premise of the book is that the author and her partner are evicted from the rural home they have lived in for years after falling into debt as a result of a bad business investment (she alleges in the book that the couple were poorly advised, misled even, by an old friend). At around the same time Moth is diagnosed with an incurable degenerative neurological condition. Facing poverty, homelessness and inevitable physical decline, they decide to embark upon a walk, England’s South West Coast Path that goes through Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. The distance is in excess of 600 miles. 

The book was a spectacular success for the debut author – a story of grit and determination in the face of a cruel world (both the human and the natural), a journey of self-discovery and finding joy in the simple things in life when all material possessions are stripped away. The book also set the author on a successful career in writing and she has since published two further nature memoirs. A fourth book was due to be published this summer but Penguin have put this on hold due to the controversy surrounding the author and The Salt Path.

But what of the book itself? My fellow book club members and I quite liked it, but I’m afraid it did not meet our expectations. The writing is good in parts, but in others I found it quite…mediocre? The comments on double standards in attitudes to homelessness and poverty are worthy but they are handled in a clumsy way; for example, where the couple encounter abusive locals or holidaymakers who sneer at their clothing, their poverty, their demeanour or their behaviour I found the account did not ring true. You would not necessarily expect the author to recall every word precisely accurately but I would expect an author to be able to write a conversation or dialogue that felt authentic. Some of the stories about places they camped and how they fled at dawn to avoid paying for a pitch felt like tall tales. Finally, I just found the book a bit boring, I’m afraid. I wasn’t gripped, or keen to read on finding out what happened on the next 10 mile stretch. Many times I just found myself drifting off. 

As for the accusations of misrepresentation, well that is problematic. The publisher really should have done their due diligence, particularly as the book is so detailed at the start about the ‘bad business’ that got them into financial difficulty (I’m surprised their former business acquaintance’s lawyers are not on to them as well). Personally, I found this part of the book particularly uninteresting and it read to me like getting back in print under cover of a confessed naivety. I think it’s okay for a memoir to stretch the truth a little for narrative effect, but on the face of it it seems the author has gone too far in that respect, though it must be said she denies all the allegations made against her. For me though, the book is quite weak overall so I am not sure what has been gained by the misrepresentation (if there has been any) – it would have been enough had they just found themselves at a financial/health/age-related crossroads and embarked on the journey for no particular reason. 

Quite honestly, I am surprised it won so many plaudits and everyone in my book club was decidedly underwhelmed. Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found is a far superior example of the genre in my view. 

Women’s Prize shortlist review – “Fundamentally” by Nussaibah Younis

This is my final review of all the titles on the Women’s Prize shortlist, the winner of which was announced weeks ago! It has taken me ages to get through them all, I can’t believe it. Have I suddenly become very slow at reading? I have been working a lot of evenings which means prepping in the afternoon and then getting home late, crossing over with my usual reading times, so guess what has been put to one side? I’ve also been reading multiple books at once and am still slogging my way through Proust! Doesn’t matter, I suppose. There are no prizes for most books read, although the nagging notifications on my Goodreads account, telling me I’m behind on this year’s reading goals, make me feel like a bit of a reading failure, which is ridiculous!

Fundamentally is another debut novel, and I learn from Wikipedia that the author Nussaibah Younis went to a grammar school in the town where I live – small world! She went on to university in Oxford and is now based in London, but had a career in international relations, specialising in Iraq. She was brought up Muslim but describes herself as no longer religious. I am recounting this because there are significant autobiographical elements in Fundamentally, something which seems fairly obvious even if you did not know the author’s background. Similar, in that respect to Aria Aber’s Good Girl. That does not make the novel less good, or less worthy of being shortlisted, of course, but you wonder if the author has a limited range or if they are simply honing their craft by writing about what they know. Apparently, Younis is working on her second novel, so we will find out.

The central character and first person narrator in Fundamentally is Nadia Amin, a young British Asian woman who was brought up a Muslim but has rejected her faith, following, among other things, a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother. As a young adult she pursued a hedonistic lifestyle in London alongside her university studies. She gained a PhD which led to a prized lectureship. She also had an open relationship with another woman Rosie, but when this breaks down, she decides to escape by applying for a United Nations special posting running a rehabilitation programme for former ISIS brides in Iraq. Nadia is running away and she knows it, all the while hoping that Rosie will change her mind. 

Arriving in Iraq, Nadia realises quickly how naive she has been – the scale of the task is huge. The women she is working with in the camp are not the group of malleable, self-effacing, grateful subjects she envisaged. Rather they are complex, varied, traumatised and with ideas of their own. One young woman has a particular impact on Nadia: Sara, a Londoner who was lured to ISIS at the age of 15. In her, Nadia sees shadows of herself. Despite warnings from her colleagues, Nadia involves herself closely with Sara’s case, perhaps too closely, until events spiral out of her control. This is the central plot of the novel – how the relationship between Nadia and Sara resolves and the journeys that both women go on as a result of what they learn from each other. 

The other aspect of the novel is exploring the role of the UN and other agencies in former war zones and developing countries. With her background, the author is highly qualified to write about this. There is a mixture of fondness and criticism – the people working in the field are largely very dedicated but operating in highly complex environments, trying to square the needs and aspirations of governments (good and bad), officials, and those they are meant to be helping. There is both comedy (the bureaucratic somersaults that have to be performed to get anything done), sadness (at the inevitable waste, duplication and corruption) and nuance – not every person in need is objectively “good” all of the time. Rather like democracy, the UN comes across in this novel as far from ideal but perhaps better than the alternatives. 

I really enjoyed Fundamentally – there are a few cliches and some characters are inadequate and two dimensional (Geordie ex-soldier Tom was one I found particularly grating) but it is a great story. The ‘ISIS brides problem’ is difficult and complicated at every level but it deserves to be seen in all its complexity rather than in the lazy homogenised way it is often portrayed. I listened to it on audio and the actor, Sarah Slemani, handles the wide range of voices (and accents) remarkably well. 

Recommended

Women’s Prize shortlist book review – “All Fours” by Miranda July

This book has caused quite a stir in literary circles and is possibly the most remarkable and unusual books that made it to the Women’s Prize shortlist. There was quite a lot of sex on the shortlist this year – an intense lesbian relationship in The Safekeep, the book that won the prize, as well as sex as exploration and rebellion in Good Girl and as relief from the pressures of a confined life in Fundamentally. But All Fours is pretty much all about sex and one woman’s search for her fundamental sexual core as she enters a new phase of her life.

The book is first person narrated and our central character (unnamed) is a moderately successful filmmaker and writer who enjoys a modicum of fame but has never fully lived up to the promise that her one really popular work suggested. She is in her 40s and now lives in LA with her partner Harris and their young child Sam. Her life has become somewhat routine and her relationship has settled into a loving but comfortable and predictable dynamic. She has a close bond with her child; as a baby they almost died following a very rare pregnancy complication where a foetus would normally die, and the event resonates throughout her life. 

As a gift to herself, the narrator, supported by her partner, decides to go on a road trip to New York, where she will spend time in a fancy hotel and enjoy a writing retreat to make some headway on her current project. Soon after she sets off from home, however, she decides to make a detour and finds herself at a motel, a mere half an hour from her home. At a car rental showroom she finds herself deeply attracted to one of the employees, Davey, a young married man whose wife, Claire, is an aspiring interior designer. 

What happens next is inexplicable to both the reader and the narrator who finds herself drawn along a strange path where she sets about to transform her dingey motel room, with Claire’s help, into something resembling a boutique Parisian hotel room. She also seduces Davey and the two embark on an unusual, intense, sexual relationship. All the while, the narrator, lies to Harris and Sam, telling them first about the road trip and second about New York. 

During her sojourn at the motel, the narrator undergoes a deep exploration of her life and her soul. With Davey she explores all parts of her sexual self. To say this is a ‘menopause novel’ is too simplistic, but the narrator’s age (forty-five) and her anticipation of the change that she fears is about to swallow her, undoubtedly drives the crisis she is experiencing. There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to the novel – she disappears into a kind of time warp, where collisions with her real life (calls with Harris and Sam) jar and seem unreal. She is at once desperate to be with them again, to have the reassurance of their stability, but also desperate to escape, tortured by the thought that life has nothing more to give her sexually. 

The novel is explicit as well as at times being very dark and at times very funny. The narrator is very self-aware but also very unknowing about herself, which is why she needs to go on this journey – both literal and metaphorical. Once she leaves the motel, one thing is for sure – her life will never be the same again. 

I really enjoyed the book. The sex is very graphic but pretty well done – I only recall cringing once or twice which is not much given that there is a lot of it! It’s also a really challenging book – as it sets out to question the ordinary lives most of us lead and it’s difficult not to ask yourself, is this enough? So it may be an uncomfortable read for some. It gives the middle finger to Trump-era America with its gender fluidity and libertarian approach to sex and sexuality; it may be far too “woke” for some, but I consider that a plus. 

A brave book and an interesting choice for the Women’s Prize shortlist – that said, it could not really have been left off it.

Women’s Prize shortlist book review – “Tell Me Everything” by Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is the most experienced of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize and a writer I admire. I have not read all of her work, but I love her style and reviewed Oh William! on this blog after it was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Strout writes many of her books in series, and Tell Me Everything  is book number five in her Amgash series (Oh William! was book number three). So, many of the same characters appear throughout the novels. She uses these characters in other novels too – for example, Olive Kitteridge appears in this book but she also has a book, in fact a two-book series, of her own! (Olive Kitteridge: A novel in stories and Olive, again). Some might not like this; it might seem that Strout is simply recycling, that she lacks ideas. I disagree. I think it takes huge authorial control and discipline to maintain  characters, remember their personality traits as well as their personal histories, but it also enables the author to take a very deep dive into the nature of what it is to be human and to observe over a long period of time the way that a person evolves and also the ways in which they do not change.

There is a bit of debate online about whether Tell Me Everything, or indeed any of the other books, can be read and enjoyed in isolation. As I said, I have not read her work extensively, but I certainly enjoyed Tell Me Everything and it really makes me want to go back and read her other novels. 

The central character in Tell Me Everything is Bob Burgess, a small-time lawyer and stalwart of the community in Crosby, Maine. This is quintessential Main Street America and, if nothing else, feels like an antidote to the more troubling vision of the United States that appears so often on our television screens these days. Bob spends most of his time on what we might call “pottering” until he is contacted out of the blue by a former school-mate who asks him to defend her brother, Matthew Beach, who stands accused of the murder of their mother Diana. Matthew is a lonely isolated man, probably neurodivergent, who lived with and cared for his sometimes cruel mother. 

As Bob begins to investigate he uncovers secrets about the family, the past, with which he is linked of course, living in a relatively small community and having gone to the same school as Matthew’s sister, and events beyond Crosby which seem to come back to impact on the town and its inhabitants. The case is not easy for Bob – he seems to be one of life’s innocents and he is shocked and hurt, not only by what he uncovers, but also by turns of events which affect the people around him. 

Bob shares many of his thoughts with his close friend Lucy Barton, central character in many of Elizabeth Strout’s novels, and through their discussions Strout is able to explore the central human questions and concerns that underlie both this case and other events going on around them. These other events include the serious illness of Bob’s brother’s wife, the professional challenges faced by Bob’s wife Margaret, the local minister, and Lucy’s relationship with her husband William, a man she once left due to his infidelity but who she now lives with again. There is also the Lucy Barton/Olive Kitteridge dimension; Olive lives in a retirement home but the two women strike up what appears to be an unlikely friendship, but after many get-togethers in which Olive shares lengthy stories about herself, her family and the many people she has known in Crosby, the two women find they have much in common – a deep interest in people. 

Though in many ways this seems like an old-fashioned novel with mostly middle-aged people in a small town with small lives, Strout brings in some very contemporary problems – child abuse, the opioid epidemic and other addiction problems, poverty, and family differences causing irreparable conflict and damage. All of these very modern problems impact on the characters and events in this novel.

I loved this book and could not put it down. My book club was divided – which probably reflects how readers more generally feel about Elizabeth Strout. I accept that her books might be a bit “Marmite”! I also love the way Strout writes – it appears simple, but is deceptively so, perhaps the hardest kind of writing to actually do. And her dialogue, which makes up a very high proportion of the book, is so natural. Her observation of people is brilliantly acute.

Of all the books on the shortlist this was the one I enjoyed the most, I think, but I can see it may not be the most consequential and therefore not one of those that was likely to win despite the author’s reputation and stature.

I recommend it highly though.

Women’s Prize shortlist book review – “The Persians” by Sanam Mahloudji

I think I’m in what they call a real reading and writing funk at the moment – definitely no flow going on here. I’ve been writing this blog for nine years and I am finding it hard at the moment to motivate myself to put fingers to keyboard and write reviews. I have had a handful of unkind comments on my blog posts – really only a very small number, but sadly my skin is thin. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me (I like debate about books), but unkindness sucks. But I’m not sure that’s the sole reason. Real life has been super-busy and some parts of it quite challenging of late and I just don’t think I have been in the right headspace. 

Reading has always been my sanctuary, but it hasn’t entirely been that for me recently. It was with great joy that I picked up Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (Vol 1) a few weeks ago. A long-neglected volume that has sat unloved on my bookshelves for many years (a gift from my husband back in the days before we had children!). And whilst I am enjoying the experience of reading it, it is, I’m afraid, very very slow, and only really rewards long spells of reading (like a train or plane journey). Precious few periods like that recently so it feels like hard going. And a couple of books I have read recently, I am afraid I did not particularly enjoy. So, a reading funk it is. Let’s hope I get out of it soon. 

One book I did enjoy though, was on the Women’s Prize shortlist, Sanam Mahloudji’s The Persians. I think I am right in saying it is one of three debut novels that made the shortlist and it is an impressive achievement with a cast of strong and distinctive characters and covering the lives of several generations of the same family. It is particularly appropriate for the Women’s Prize shortlist because it is primarily a book about women, about mothers, daughters and sisters and family dynamics.

The novel opens in Aspen, Colorado where Shirin, the high-flying, flamboyant, sophisticated, Iranian immigrant who left her home country and made a life, a business and a name for herself in her adopted United States, finds herself in trouble with the law after allegedly assaulting a police officer, a charge she does not take very seriously. In these opening, energy-filled scenes we get a strong sense of who Shirin is and what she represents in the family – resentment at being treated merely as an immigrant, harking back to the wealth and status her family enjoyed in Iran (they brought much of the wealth with them, it has to be said) and an arrogance which we will later learn hides some vulnerabilities. Her husband, like most of the men in the family, is rather insipid, seems merely to want a quiet life. Shirin’s niece Bita, daughter of her late sister Seema, who also fled to the US with her but who subsequently died, loathes her aunt, but is forced to engage with the embarrassment of the case because she is a law student and has connections that may help Shirin. 

The parallel story is that of Shirin’s (and Seema’s) mother, Elizabeth, the matriarch of the family, who did not leave Iran after the revolution, but stayed behind in Tehran with Shirin’s daughter Niaz, who was a child at the time. Through flashbacks we will learn the history of these women and how they have developed their world view, and we also learn about the Valiat family history, in particular the source of its wealth and status and its mythology. The author skilfully peels away the layers to reveal the lies and deceits that have been perpetrated on them all, whilst also exposing the hypocrisy in attitudes towards class, race and gender. Both in Iran and in the US. All the women in the book are on a journey of self-discovery. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. I listened to it on audio and the narration, by four different actors, was mostly excellent.

Women’s Prize shortlist book review – “Good Girl” by Aria Aber

It was good to see the Women’s Prize garnering lots of attention again this year – it really is coming into its own as a literary event. The non-fiction winner, Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart was covered in a piece on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the morning after, while the fiction winner, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, was not even mentioned. There was a bit of press interest however in the author’s acceptance speech comments about being intersex and the challenges she has faced throughout her life as a result of that, mostly the prejudice she has encountered. She also advocated for transgender people in the speech. It is worth watching and you can see it here. I do always feel the Women’s Prize ceremony is a little bit scrappy – surely they can get a bigger venue, or more organised stage appearances!

I am not sure I will read The Story of a Heart – whilst it has been described as uplifting and life-affirming, I think I might find it too emotionally challenging. It tells the true story of a heart transplant from a nine year-old girl, Kiera, who had died in a car accident, to a young boy Max, facing imminent heart failure due to a viral infection, and who needed a new heart to survive. The book is about the journey of both families.

I reviewed The Safekeep when it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year. I enjoyed the book very much, but I did not feel it was the finest book on the list. The Women’s Prize on the shortlist was somewhat different in character. I have so far read three of the other five books and whilst it has not been my favourite so far, I can see why it was chosen.

Good Girl by Aria Aber

I am going to start my reviews of the shortlist with Good Girl by Aria Aber. I think I am right in saying that Aria Aber is the youngest of the shortlisted authors and this is her debut novel. Aber is based in the US but was born and raised in Germany to Afghan immigrant parents and therein lies the rub for me – the novel reflects many of the details of her own upbringing. The central character Nila is a young woman, an art student, a talented photographer, but who has gone off the rails somewhat. Her parents were refugees from Afghanistan and have struggled to integrate in Berlin. The family lives in a run-down suburb of the city in a poorly maintained apartment block with hundreds of other immigrants who are not welcomed by the locals. The spectre of Nazism is never far away from their lived experience. Nila’s mother is dead, passing away suddenly as a middle aged woman who never fulfilled her potential; she was medically trained but her status was never accepted by the German authorities. Nila’s father simply does not know how to “be” in this society that is so alien to him, where his status as the male head of the household is neither recognised or valued, and where he is unable to get work fitting his standing. His outlet is to bully his wife and daughter.

Amidst all this ‘othering’, the unhappy home life and prejudice at school, Nila finds relief in Berlin’s underground music scene. In the clubs she is able to forget her Afghan heritage (her parents told her she should be proud, but she just feels shame and wants to hide it) and her problems at school. Instead she can lose herself in techno music, dancing, drugs and sex. On one of these nights she meets Marlowe Woods, an American writer, somewhat older than her, still dining out on past success but whose star is very much descending. His disillusion finds common cause with Nila’s hopelessness and the two strike up an intense but complicated relationship. 

I struggled to find very much to like about any of the characters in the novel. Nila is a vulnerable and troubled young woman and it is clear to see why she behaves the way she does. It is also a difficult read in the sense that the immigrant experience does not seem to have improved and the challenges of integration affect young people the most. I found it difficult to work out with Nila, what was a kind of ‘nihilism of youth’ and what could be attributed to the specifics of her situation. Parts of the novel felt like they were an angry young person who was simply rebelling and for me that was not particularly interesting. I did not like Marlowe at all, I thought he was just a creep, and I also felt the ending was a little weak. 

So, hmm, not my favourite.

I have also read The Persians, which has acquired an additional resonance for me in the light of recent events in Iran, and I felt, as far as the immigrant experience goes, this was far more cleverly and subtly done. I’ll review that next time. 

May chronicles

I’ve had another long break from blog posting, but I’m happy to report that I have had a busy month of travelling, some near and some far. It was my middle child’s 21st birthday so we made a short trip to the beautiful city of Cambridge for a family celebration. Hotel accommodation in Cambridge can be pricey and I have found that the cheaper accommodation can be hit and miss and seldom has free parking. So we stayed a little outside town at the wonderful Madingley Hall. It belongs to the University and there seemed to be some conference groups there, although it is a substantial property and was by no means full. It was beautiful, with fabulous grounds and is close to one of the park and ride facilities so I recommend it highly if you are thinking of going there.

Madingley Hall, Cambridge

A few days after the birthday I set off for Egypt! I always enjoyed travelling when I was younger, but since having my children this has been on the back burner. Our holidays have been family affairs and we have tended to stick to UK and European destinations with the kids. This has also been the first year in about two decades (!) when I have not been bound by school holidays. My husband has a busy work schedule and is less interested in exotic locations than me so I took myself off alone! Well, not exactly alone…I went on a group tour, feeling that perhaps I needed to build my confidence a bit with solo travel before going it completely alone. I could not have made a better decision! I travelled with a company called Intrepid and the tour was fantastic. It was a very international group- Australians, New Zealanders, US, Canadian and Italian citizens and even a couple of other Brits! Such a wonderful and interesting group of people, we bonded really well and I am missing them all so much. Our tour guide was brilliant, so knowledgeable about ancient Egyptian history and culture.

I had the most marvellous time and as soon as I came back I was on Intrepid’s website thinking about my next trip! Some of my fellow travellers went on to Jordan and looking at their Instagram posts I think that might be next on my list. I’ve posted some photos below. Egypt is an incredible country, with beautiful friendly people and I will definitely go back there.

I had a few days to find my feet again and catch up on laundry before I was off again, this time on what has become an annual visit for me – to the Hay Festival. For the past couple of years I have camped at the Tangerine Fields site just outside Hay on Wye, but I decided I am over camping! I stayed in a B&B in Talgarth, about 10 minutes drive from the Festival site.

I was there for three days and, as usual, had a fantastic time. There were two particular highlights for me: my final event on Saturday evening was a talk from Radiohead bass player Colin Greenwood, who has recently published a book of photographs he has taken over the years performing and recording with his band. He was very warm and candid and clearly exhausted having just returned from touring the US with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Despite this he spent almost two hours afterwards signing copies of his book How to Disappear, chatting to fans and having selfies with them – such a pro. My other highlight was seeing Kate Mosse and Jacqueline Wilson, two giants of the literary scene. Apparently, between them, they have sold 50 million books worldwide – staggering. The pair are great friends and talked about their writing habits, their current projects and many other topics. They were both so down to earth and modest.

My other events were Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor and often to be found reporting from the Middle East or Ukraine – I have seen him at Hay before. Listening to him is sobering indeed. I saw Hallie Rubenhold, author of best-selling non-fiction book The Five about the women victims of Jack the Ripper. she has just published a book about the case of Dr Crippen and his lover, who murdered Crippen’s first wife. She was very interesting. Less interesting was Jeremy Hunt MP. Politicians are usually good value at Hay, but I’m afraid Mt Hunt had disappointingly little gossip! He has just published a book talking about how Britain can be great again, but it struck me as somewhat blinkered about how we became un-great in the first place. His interviewer Robert Peston was a little more entertaining.


A few photos of my Hay Festival experience below.

I am looking forward to a bit of staying put in June! The winner of the Women’s Prize will be announced next week (12th June). I have a couple of reviews to post of books on the shortlist that I have read, so will aim to get those out in the next few days.

Book review – “Alias Grace” by Margaret Atwood

I have had a copy of Alias Grace on my bookshelf for years; my copy might even date back to when the paperback version came out in 1996. But, like so many of the books I own, it was some time before I got around to reading it! I watched the mini-series available on Netflix (it was made in 2017) during the Covid lockdown, I think, and thoroughly enjoyed it so I suppose I felt I didn’t need to read the book after that, but I came back to it recently and am so glad I have finally properly honoured this incredible piece of writing. 

Full disclosure, I am a huge admirer of Margaret Atwood and will probably never dislike anything she has written. She is surely one of the greatest authors alive, with countless awards and prizes to her name, including two Bookers and a PEN lifetime achievement award. I’m not sure why the Pulitzer or Nobel prizes have eluded her – surely The Handmaid’s Tale must be a candidate for both of these. The first book of hers that I read was The Blind Assassin, which won her her first Booker Prize in 2000. It was also the very first audiobook I ever listened to, on tape in my first ever little car! The job I had at the time involved a 90 mile round trip drive three days a week and my husband bought it for me to help pass the time. I felt that book was one of the most brilliant things I had read in years; my first child was a toddler so I did not have a lot of time for reading in my life at that stage – at least not adult reading! 

Alias Grace preceded The Blind Assassin. In my opinion, the later book is better, but you do get the sense of an author rising to the peak of her literary powers and experimenting with moving between time periods (which she also does in The Handmaid’s Tale, of course). Alias Grace is the story of a double murder and a young woman convicted for the crime. Grace Marks was a young Irish immigrant to Canada and after the death of her mother (on board the ship) she leaves her drunken abusive father and, much to her guilt and shame, her younger siblings, to get a job as a servant girl. She finds a position with Thomas Kinnear, an unmarried gentleman who is having an illicit affair with his housekeeper, and Grace’s immediate supervisor, Nancy Montgomery. 

After the couple are murdered in brutal circumstances, Grace is convicted of the crime along with James McDermott, who also worked for Kinnear. McDermott escapes with Grace, but the pair are soon captured, convicted and sentenced to hang. Grace’s sentence is later commuted to life in prison following appeals by a group of well-meaning supporters who believe she was merely an accessory to McDermott’s wicked plan. She is eventually allowed to work as a servant in the home of the prison governor, because she is a docile and obedient inmate. Her supporters eventually arrange for a psychiatrist, Dr Simon Jordan from America, to interview her over a period of time and to produce a report which they hope will help to secure her release. 

Atwood uses these interviews to tell us the story; Grace gives a full account of her life to Dr Jordan, from the beginning, her early childhood in northern Ireland, to her mother’s death, and finally her experiences working for Mr Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery and the murders themselves. For the reader, the question becomes, is Grace a reliable witness? This is a dilemma Dr Jordan finds himself in too. Over the months he spends time with her, he also gets drawn into her world and the patient/doctor boundary becomes blurred. 

The book is based on real events – these murders actually took place and Grace Marks was a real woman convicted of the crime in mid-19th century Canada. At the end of the novel, the author gives an account of the facts she has gleaned from contemporaneous and historical sources. No-one really knows exactly what happened; the reader, like others who have investigated this grisly crime, must make up their own mind. But Atwood does not leave her readers dissatisfied (at least not this one!) – she leaves you with a question. And in her subtle portrayal of Grace, she leaves you with enough space to draw whatever conclusion you want. Or to leave you as perplexed as, it seems, everyone else has been.

I recommend this book highly – it’s a really significant literary achievement. 

Audiobook review – “Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world” by Naomi Klein

My last post on here was about this year’s Women’s Prize shortlists, both the fiction and non-fiction, so it seems fitting that my next review should be the title that won the non-fiction award last year, Naomi Klein’s memoir Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world. This book was written largely during the 2020 lockdown when the Covid pandemic swept the globe and charts Klein’s reflections on how she is regularly confused with Naomi Wolf. Like Klein, Wolf is associated with writings on feminist and political topics, has published a number of books, is a white Jewish-American woman and of a similar age. Their trajectories began to diverge, however, when Wolf began to be associated with Covid-19 conspiracy theories and allied herself with the anti-vaccination movement. This book is more than just an exploration of a peculiar social phenomenon, however, and Klein takes a deep dive into the background to this movement, its association with other right-wing culture wars, the MAGA movement and the power of social media generally. She also reflects honestly and powerfully on some of her own assumptions and life choices.

I thought I had a few Naomi Klein books on my bookshelf, but it turns out that I have a few Naomi Wolf books on my bookshelf (The Beauty Myth, 1991, Promiscuities, 1997) including a signed copy of her much-maligned first edition of her 2019 book Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love.I saw Wolf speaking at the Hay Festival that year and found her charismatic and engaging. The book was later condemned after it became apparent that poor research meant that the basis of the thesis that underpins it was false. (It is possible to hear a recording on YouTube of an interview she did with a journalist pointing out her error, and it’s excruciating.) The Covid-19 pandemic followed soon after of course, but the career catastrophe of Outrages seems to mark the beginning of Wolf’s descent into the dark recesses of the internet and some dramatic changes to her worldview. 

It seems that Naomi Klein has been confused with Naomi Wolf for most of her career, an irritation but a mostly benign one, until that is Wolf published Outrages and was publicly humiliated, and then became infamous as a vaccine-sceptic, conspiracy theorist and darling of the alt-right (she has developed a close association with Steve Bannon). It became increasingly unsettling for liberal left-leaning feminist Klein to be confused with such a person, whom she describes as her Doppelganger. 

Klein delves into Wolf’s early life and career to attempt to chart her intellectual evolution and doing so enables her to spot social and political trends that have beset developed nations across the world in recent years. She explores some of the darker recesses of the internet to try and understand how so many people could be influenced and convinced by conspiracy theories that have so little or perhaps no evidential underpinning. In doing so she draws some lessons about the influence of the online world and social media in particular and its power to disseminate dis- and misinformation. 

I listened to this book on audio, read by the author herself, and her sincerity comes across powerfully, as well as her deep sorrow. As well as diving into what she calls the “mirror world” she holds up a mirror to herself, reflecting on her own assumptions and possible prejudices. There were times when I felt quite depressed, despondent and deflated listening to this book. I found myself asking – how on earth did we get like this? Things don’t look like improving any time soon. At the end, however, she writes of her own activism, hope and belief in the necessity of fighting for change, not letting the dark forces that would destroy us win.

I am not sure what I will do with my Naomi Wolf books. The early titles I read so long ago that I recall very little about them. As for Outrages, I will probably keep it for posterity. I remember starting to read it whilst I was at Hay, but did not get very far (the bookshop receipt is still slotted in at page 24!). I must not have been particularly motivated to continue.

I do, however, recommend Naomi Klein’s excellent book Doppelganger which was a worthy winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for non-fiction and is deeply relevant today. 

The Womens’ Prizes 2025

I’ve had a little blogging hiatus these last few weeks, and, unfortunately, a bit of a reading hiatus, never desirable. The day job and kids coming home from university for the Easter break have cut short my time. We also had a a short holiday in our beloved Zeeland, which was relaxing but full.

Views I never tire of: (clockwise from top left) Village Scaldia, Hoofdplaat, Zeeland; Middelburg; the Scheldt estuary; the Begijnhof, Bruges

While I was away, this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced, and a very interesting selection it is. It was a big surprise to me that Dream Count, the long-awaited new novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (I flagged this as one of the highlights among new books out this spring, just a couple of weeks ago) did not make the shortlist. A further surprise was that Yael van der Wouden’s Safe Keep, shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year, did make it. I enjoyed Safe Keep but it didn’t feel like a prize-winning novel when I read it last autumn.

Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel Tell Me Everything has also made the shortlist. She is an author I admire hugely, having shot to literary stardom quite late in life and has been fairly prolific these last few years. She has definitely found her groove. The other four novels on the shortlist are by authors I have not come across before: Sanam Mahloudji’s The Persians about a family split by the revolution in Iran and trying to make a life in America looks fascinating. Miranda July’s All Fours about a woman approaching middle age who decides to leave her family and try and forge a new identity for herself, has received a lot of attention.

Nussaibah Younis’s Fundamentally is also about a woman escaping her life, this time to become a UN worker in Iraq and developing an unlikely friendship with a young ISIS bride. Finally, Aria Aber’s Good Girl is about Afghan teenager Nila, living in Berlin with her migrant family, also trying to make a new life for herself away from the impoverished suburbs where she grew up, and finding that the grass may not be greener on the other side.

A very interesting selection that perhaps speaks to the times we are living through right now. I’m not sure where to start!

The Women’s Prize non-fiction shortlist is also out. A few of the books included had already caught my eye: Neneh Cherry’s autobiography A Thousand Threads, Chloe Dalton’s account of raising a baby hare Raising Hare, and Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart, a true account of an organ donation from one child to another – this might be a really tough read. The other shortlisted books are:

  • What the Wild Sea Can Be: the future of the world’s oceans by Helen Scales – promising to be an awe-inspiring account of the wildlife on our watery planet and what we can do to protect it.
  • Private Revolutions – coming of age in a new China by Yuan Yang, the first Chinese-born British MP.
  • And finally Clare Mulley’s Agent Zo: the untold story of courageous WW2 resistance fighter Elzbieta Zawacka, the only female member of the Polish elite special forces.

The winners of both prizes will be announced on 12th June – about 8 weeks to read 12 books!