Tag: fiction

Book review – “Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I posted earlier in the week about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist and one of the books I was surprised not to see on the list (it did not even make the longlist) was the latest (and for me long-awaited) novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So surprised was I by this oversight that I even double checked the eligibility criteria – was it published within the time frame? It was indeed and I remain very puzzled. It is hard to believe that it is twelve years since Adichie published her last novel Americanah, though in the intervening period she has written some shorter form non-fiction works. She and her partner have a young family so presumably she has been focusing on raising her children and she also lost both her parents and has written about her grief at these events.

Well, it was, in  my opinion,  worth the wait because she has well and truly hit a very rich seam once again with this, her fourth novel. Dream Count reflects on the dilemmas facing women today, on the choices between career and family, on the unreliability of too many men, on cultural clashes, on food, on the Covid 19 pandemic, on loneliness and fulfilment, on Africa and on inequality. 

The novel traces the story of four women – Chiamaka, who comes from a wealthy Nigerian family, her cousin Omelogor, a brilliant financial analyst and sometime academic, Chiamaka’s friend Zikora, a lawyer, and her long-time housekeeper in the US Kadiatou. The novel opens with Chiamaka’s story at the time of the Covid 19 pandemic when she finds herself stranded in the US, only able to communicate with family via internet video calls, as happened with so many of us. Chiamaka is a travel writer, who has had only moderate success, but her family’s wealth means she has no real need to work. There is pressure from her family to marry and have a family, however. Chiamaka is a romantic and the novel recounts some of her many relationships, but the men in her life invariably fall short either of her ideals of marriage or in terms of their character. 

Omelogor is a self-made woman, highly intelligent and extremely able from a young age she became a financier in Nigeria and made her fortune by taking her own share of the corrupt profits she helped her unscrupulous bosses cream off the state. A modern day Robin Hood-ess she sets about redistributing funds to less fortunate, less educated women in her community, women trying to support their families by setting up small businesses. Latterly she takes a sabbatical in the US and becomes a researcher into internet pornography and how this impacts on men’s perceptions of women and how they conduct themselves in relationships.

Kadiatou is Chiamaka’s housekeeper in the US. A deeply caring woman who left Nigeria at the behest of a man who promised to marry her. She has a daughter to whom she is devoted. Kadiatou becomes embroiled in a high-profile sexual assault case which closely resembles the true story of Nafissatou Diallo, a maid at a luxury New York hotel, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director of the IMF, in 2011. The author references this case in her afterword. In her exploration of Kadiatou’s assault, the author explores the perennial problem of power imbalance and how the law and the media are stacked against immigrants, women and poorer people.

The fourth main character is Zikora, close friend of Chiamaka and Omelogor, a lawyer who also experiences family pressure to marry and start a family, but who again, finds herself let down by inadequate men, but also, sadly, a distant mother. 

The novel alternates between the different women’s perspectives, exploring their back stories, their thoughts, their preoccupations and their dreams. ‘Dream count’ seems to refer to the different sexual and romantic relationships and encounters they have, the good, the bad and the really ugly. Thus the term ‘dream’ becomes one that is loaded with irony and with cultural perceptions (a partner may appear ideal, dream-like, from the outside, but there are usually problems and inadequacies that make them unsuitable or unacceptable to these women). In their different ways none is prepared to settle for a second-best. 

There is so much to love in this novel. I listened to it on audio and was delighted that the opening part of Chiamaka is read by the author. Her voice is smooth and rich and filled with the nuance that only she, as the author, could understand. Thus she brings expression that makes listening even more of a pleasure. If I had read this as a book I feel sure I would have been turning the corner on every other page, defacing it with hundreds of underlinings and notes because the language and the expression are so powerful. 

It is the best post-pandemic novel I have read to date and a book I highly recommend. 

Booker Prize shortlist 2025

The shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize was announced recently, an event which more or less passed me by. I have been so busy with my day job recently (and will continue to be for the next few weeks) that my reading, writing and blogging have fallen badly by the wayside. I have a long break in November, however, and I am determined to get some balance back in my life.

In the nine years since I have been writing this blog I have endeavoured each year to read through the shortlist in time for the announcement of the winner. I think most years I get through all the books (even if it takes me months!), but I think I have only once managed to get to the end by the time of the winner announcement, and only called it right on one occasion also (with the very memorable Shuggie Bain, winner in 2020).

This year’s shortlist is made up of experienced novelists. I am familiar with the work of half of them – Kiran Desai, a previous Booker winner (2006, The Inheritance of Loss) is the daughter of legendary Indian novelist Anita Desai, who wrote Fasting, Feasting, which I read many years ago and which was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. David Szalay, wrote All That Man Is which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 (the year I started blogging). And Andrew Miller whose book The Land in Winter I read a few months ago in my book club and have already reviewed it on here – so I have one under my belt!

Some of the books are exceedingly long – Flashlight comes in at just under 500 pages and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny a whopping 700 pages! I am not quite sure where to start; I think The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits speaks to me most at this point – the opening line of the blurb is “What’s left when your kids grow up and leave home?” Kind of where I am in life!

This year’s Prize is distinguished also by its interesting judging panel, which includes Sex and the City actor Sarah Jessica Parker, and authors Kiley Reid and Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, both of whose work I have reviewed on here. The judging panel is chaired by veteran bestselling author Roddy Doyle.

So, what chance do I give myself of finishing even half these novels by 10th November when the winner is announced? Let’s say 50/50!

Happy reading!

Book review and travels in Vienna – “When the World Was Ours” by Liz Kessler

I read this book at the end of the summer. It is set partly in Vienna, where we went for our family holiday in July, though that is not why I read the book, or why I went to Austria! Pure coincidence. When the World Was Ours is actually a book for young people, or what is often called ‘middle grade’ fiction, but that should not deter any adult from buying it – I was gripped from start to finish and absolutely loved it. 

The book opens in Vienna in the mid-1930s at the birthday celebration of nine year-old Leo. Leo’s father has taken him to the city’s ferris wheel for a treat, along with Leo’s two very close friends Max and Elsa. There they meet an English couple, a dentist and his wife, who are in town for a conference and afterwards the couple and all the children are invited back to Leo’s family home for Sachertorte, the iconic Austrian dessert. 

The three children are inseparable, firm friends; Elsa’s main dilemma is which of the two boys she will marry when they grow up! But timing is everything, and as political events around the children develop, it is clear that they will not be unaffected by the fascist takeover of the city and country by Hitler and his army. Leo is Jewish, as is Elsa. Max is not. This will create a wedge between them as Leo and Elsa’s families must navigate the new environment; should they stay or should they try and escape? Meanwhile, for Max, the challenge is rather different. Always a more timid boy, somewhat in Leo’s shadow, he finds there are expectations upon him once his father begins to rise up the Nazi ranks, which it is not clear he will be able to meet.

I do not want to say more about the plot of the novel as it is a critical part of the enjoyment of the book. There is a gloomy inevitability about many of the events, however, as you might expect. It is a compelling read, with chapters alternating between the perspectives of each of the children.
The characters are well-drawn and the writing has a graceful simplicity that suits the subject-matter, the primary intended audience and the gravity of the events. It is plain without being patronising and I felt it was an authentic portrayal of the voices of the individual children.

I had the great pleasure to meet the author and discuss the book with her as she lives in the north west of England, not far from me. She came to our book club and was very generous with her time and her thoughts. As is stated at the beginning of the book, there are autobiographical elements as it is based on her own family history. This adds even more poignancy to the story and is a timely reminder that fascism and authoritarianism must never again be allowed to take hold. The consequences are intolerable.

Vienna

It was by sheer coincidence that my family went on holiday to Austria this summer. We have been skiing there a number of times  in the last couple of decades, but it is many years since I have been there in the summer. We spent a few days in Vienna and then travelled west to Schladming, normally a ski resort but a walker’s paradise in the summer, and where the hills were most definitely alive – verdant, green, lush and beautiful. 

Before I went I looked up ‘famous Austrian writers’ because I found I could not think of any! The list did not include many that I had heard of apart from Arthur Schnitzler, who wrote the novella Eyes Wide Shut, famously adapted for the screen by Stanley Kubrick and starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Austrian culture is perhaps better distinguished by its eminent composers and artists, such as Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, Haydn and Klimt.

Vienna is truly one of the must-see capitals of Europe, however, not least because of its historical significance and its closeness to eastern Europe; Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is less than one hour’s drive away and the mighty Danube runs through both cities. Vienna is a stunning city, beauty on every corner, and it even gives its name to a particular kind of patisserie – Viennoiserie! Needless to say we sampled much of what it had to offer on this front, frequenting many coffee houses, including the famous Cafe Central, where Sigmund Freud is said to have hung out, and the Hotel Sacher, which claims the Sachertorte as its own. 

Pastries galore!
Mr Freud at Cafe Central!

Had I read When the World Was Ours before going to Vienna, I would certainly have headed for the vast green space to the east of the city where the Riesenrad, the giant ferris wheel, still stands – next time!

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. 

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.