Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates

Reading a long epic novel by Oates is a wholly immersive experience. I became fully lost in this book, grew to love the uniquely individual characters and spent a lot of time contemplating the intellectual and emotional conundrums that the author presents. It’s a dramatic, extraordinary story that explores large subjects like the Iraq war, the American penitentiary system, alcoholism and spousal abuse. Yet, the main thrust of the tale is a deeply personal story of a family that’s been splintered apart and slowly draws itself back together to form anew. In the fictional town of Carthage, a small community in upstate New York, a young college-aged woman named Cressida goes missing. Her respected ex-mayor father Zeno desperately tries to find her. A war-veteran named Brett who is the fiancé of Cressida’s sister is suspected of being involved. Like the drawings of M.C. Escher (whose art Cressida has an intense passion for) the laws of logic/gravity are suspended as the family desperately tries to find out what happened to their youngest daughter and are forced to go around in endless circles while the search is conducted. Time becomes distorted for them “time passed with dazzling swiftness even as, perversely, time passed with excruciating slowness.” This description so perfectly encapsulates the feeling of life in a time of crisis. The truth of Cressida’s fate is surprising and heartbreaking. Over the course of the artfully composed narrative we learn what happens to her and the other compelling characters involved.

The novel takes time with each of the characters allowing us to understand them along their own personal journeys. But Cressida is always at the centre of the novel and she’s someone I grew to love although she initially comes across as an abrasive and difficult individual. As a precocious and passionate person she doesn’t easily reveal herself. With a teenager’s typical cynical attitude it was “easier for Cressida to mock than to admire. Easier for Cressida to detach herself from others, than to attempt to attach herself.” However, when she does show passion for a cause or individual she puts herself wholly into them. When she’s rebuffed or misunderstood she retreats and becomes very bitter and more carefully guarded as a result. She attempts to create her “self” anew. But the veneer of a new identity can only last for so long. “She’d cobbled together a self, out of fragments, she’d glued and pasted and tacked and taped, and this self had managed to prevail for quite a long time. But now… she was falling apart.” The attempt to adapt and create oneself is a necessary method of survival; as the world changes we must change with it. But eventually the past impinges upon the present and you can no longer deny who you really are. When Cressida fully realizes this she must take drastic action.

Apart from the focal point of Cressida, we encounter a fascinating array of characters driven by their own individual logic. Her mother Arlette whose husband dismisses her worries saying that she tends to “catastrophize” things finds great personal faith and strength in the face of tragedy where many others would crumble. Touchingly she must find places to cry in secret away from camera and members of the community during the search for her daughter. Her husband Zeno follows a diametrically opposite downward trajectory. Where once this intelligent well-meaning man was strong he becomes inconsolable, resorts to drinking and longs for the return of what was once a loving stable family unit.  As Oates writes: “It is a terrible thing how swiftly a man’s strength can drain from him, like his pride” The shock of losing his daughter so swiftly and not being able to rectify the situation renders him powerless and causes him to lose all his confidence.

Aside from the family one of the most intriguing and virtuous characters in the book is the mysterious figure of the “Investigator.” This is a journalist who has written a series of books which expose corruption and the American institutional exploitation of the lower classes. Like a literary version of the scrupulous documentary filmmaker Fred Wiseman the “Investigator” bears witness to systematic corruption and complex systems which cause the downtrodden to remain underfoot. However, Oates sensitively portrays that devotion to a larger cause means great personal sacrifice is needed leading him to be emotionally closed to others. Another fascinating character is a strong-willed lesbian named Haley McSwain. Essentially she is a person led by good morals, but who has been embittered by experience with the world which leads her to take questionable actions. The pain she carries from her past hurt is so palpably real she arrives in the course of the narrative as a fully-realized human being who makes a powerful impact.

Oates uses multiple perspectives and narrative techniques to fully map the dramatic events she lays out. The reader inhabits the perspective of naïve young soldier Brett who has been sent to fight in Iraq. “Following orders you forget what was the day before… Sand inhaled in lungs so each breath you took, you drew the desert deeper into you.” The confusion and sense of dislocation carries through following his return to the United States. Memories flash through and mingle with the present showing how neurological damage caused in battle has impacted his consciousness. We also hear the breathless voice of his fiancé Juliet who tries desperately to assist Brett in his rehabilitation and assimilation back into American life. There are impersonal journalistic accounts of crime conducted during wartime paired with crime in an average American community during peacetime. Sometimes text is blacked out like documents that have been censored. Other times general opinions are delivered by a single individual such as when Brett’s friend gives a conversational account of Brett’s character where the text is marked as italicized. The narrative voice switches between these different levels of interiority and objectivity to give a rounded picture of events. Through this skilful technique Oates allows us to understand the characters’ thoughts, the general perspective of the community around them and the characters’ reactions to those popular attitudes.

'Ascending and Descending' by M.C. Escher

Amidst this engrossing story Oates presents a number of philosophical dilemmas. For example, we are prompted to question the meaning of home. The question presented “Why is it, when you dream about a place meant to be ‘home’ –or any ‘familiar’ place –it never looks like anything you’d ever seen before?” Notions of “home” are inextricably linked with nostalgia and idealism so the physical reality of the place in which we were raised and nurtured resides in an emotionally-coloured compartment of the mind. The interplay between the tangible “home” and the imagined “home” feed into how we construct our sense of “self” – another concept which is scrupulously questioned and explored throughout the story as I already discussed concerning Cressida’s character. Alongside these issues which centre around the essential meaning of “personality” are issues of broader social inquiry such as ‘what is good?’ and ‘what is ethical?’ Approaches to answering these questions are drawn on both religious and atheist viewpoints as filtered through the characters’ perspectives. These profound questions are skilfully intertwined with the story being told so that you often don’t realize you’re pondering them till later when thinking about the mental journey you’ve just taken.

The heft of the subjects involved in this novel are tempered at times with humour – most of which involves intellectually playful commentary on the human condition. For instance, Cressida with her sly sensibility at one point paraphrases a remark by W.H. Auden: “We’re here on earth to help other people. But what the other people are here for, nobody knows.” At another time when Zeno is confronted by his daughter who asks why he didn’t carry on producing offspring in order to also have a son he wryly explains “I’ve been spared little Oedipus eyeing me out of the shadows.” Sometimes the joke is more subtle such as when Oates comments on the implausible expectations of reciprocal affection: “Always you believe that those whom you adore will adore you. Not in any species other than Homo sapiens is this possible- this delusion!” The wit shown with remarks like this demonstrates how it’s important to maintain a sense of life’s inherent absurdity even while mired in the multifarious difficulties it presents.

Carthage manages to both highlight contemporary issues at the centre of American life today and also create a distinctly localized tale of loss, heartache and redemption. A tour through a prison is described in such realistic and striking detail I felt as if I had actually walked through the prison myself. It’s with such vividly descriptive power that I feel transformed by the novel I’m reading so that I’m more aware of the world and have a more dynamic way of processing it. This is the kind of book that reminds me how potent storytelling can be. It’s an impressive accomplishment. 

Books About Infidelity

I know. How romantic, right? I actually really love Valentine’s Day and consider myself an amorous person, but rather than post about the best couples in novels or most romantic books I wanted to pose a counterpoint to all the sugary sweetness. Relationships are complicated and nowhere is this more comprehensively explored than in novels. Here are three of my favourite books which deal with infidelity in a way that is intelligent and gives fully rounded points of view to all parties involved.

The Forgotten Waltz – Anne Enright

Without a doubt this is one of my favourite novels that I’ve read in the past few years. Enright has a sharp dry sense of humour and brilliantly gets at the raucous emotions surrounding infidelity. This novel is written from the perspective of the “other woman” as she comes to terms with the dynamics of her affair and the wedge she’s made between a father and his daughter. Her memories of passion come butting against the stark reality of her present. This novel is poetic, heart-wrenching and left me in tears.

The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

Manners and decorum hide simmering passion. Nobody got this better than Wharton. Her prose delicately handle the growing emotion between a married man and the mysteriously oddball Countess. The reader can feel a strong sympathy for all the parties involved no matter how much you may want to cheer for Newland to leave his conventional wife for the woman he’s really drawn to. The novel itself has been somewhat eclipsed by the excellent Scorsese film but it’s well worth reading if you haven’t already.

The Painted Veil – W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham really knows how to put his adulteress through the wringer. Kitty marries too soon and realizes once she’s dragged away from her homeland to the far East by her new husband Walter that she’s made a terrible mistake. Her affair with a handsome and charming official can’t end well and it doesn’t. Rather than leave his wife, Walter gives her an ultimatum which could end in her death. This novel is both terrifying and brutal on its characters psyches showing how hard it is to discover what you really want in romance.

Do you have any favourite novels which deal with infidelity?

Inside a Pearl by Edmund White

Inside a Pearl is a memoir detailing the author’s years living in Paris from 1983 to 1998. No one is able to capture the spirit of a society at a particular time with as much vibrancy and wit as Edmund White. His inexhaustible energy for meeting new people and participating in high culture give him the ideal material for reconstructing this era of civilization in such a detailed, intelligent, moving and very funny book. It’s a subjective and lively account which compares the typical characteristics of French vs. American nationalities and goes behind the curtain of some of the most important artistic movements of the time. He primarily does this by sifting through the ideas and opinions of the many charismatic and fascinating people he meets during his travels and time living in France. Of course, none of this would make such a powerful impactful if it weren’t for the skilled craftsmanship with which White composes his prose. His fast-paced recollections come across as so personal and rambunctious that I think it’s easy to sometimes miss what perceptive observations he makes and how beautifully intricate his linguistic choices are unless you slow down to read his sentences carefully. This is definitely a book to be savored.

Like a knowledgeable social scientist who has been given the freedom to express how he really feels White delineates the values, manners and attitudes of the French. He shows where cross-cultural misunderstandings occur when the French encounter not only Americans, but the British and other Europeans as well. These are usually based in how people from different countries imagine what France will be like as White wryly comments: "Every country has a fantasy about every other." The observations about French attitudes can be both terrifically funny and sardonic. He states at one point that “when it comes to dying no one is better equipped or less whiny than the French. It's a role they've been rehearsing their whole lives. I'm sorry if that sounds cynical; it's meant to be admiring.” With suave grace he quickly qualifies any statements that may sound too brutal with assurances that his opinions come from a stance of true admiration. Of course, America and England get the clothes whipped off them as well under White's biting scrutiny. From a bookish standpoint, some of the most fascinating comparisons White makes include how literature is both produced and received in different cultures.

The years White documents in this book are when the AIDS crisis was really coming into full-bloom with many people finding themselves diagnosed as positive or dying. Here White documents how his own diagnosis is chillingly delivered by a European doctor after an agonizingly long wait for the results to be sent from America. White skillfully conveys the acute fright and confusion of living through a time when the disease was so misunderstood and the conflicting information unsettled everyone. Although White has fictionalized his intense relationship with his lover Hubert who died of AIDS in his novel The Married Man, here he gives a personal heartbreaking account of the tempestuous relationship and its sad end. White expresses his humility and calm sense of reason when he states that it’s only through a genetic accident that the disease has a slow effect upon him thus allowing him to live when many other people he knew died.

This book memorializes many people who would otherwise be forgotten or misunderstood by history. A personal light is shone upon the many famous people White encounters as a journalist and through social engagements. The sheer volume of names and references spun out may be dizzying, but they reconstruct the whole era of Parisian life in that time like a sociologist’s vibrantly-colored patchwork quilt. White also details the lives of some of the little-known great social ringleaders of the era who are responsible for bringing together and influencing artists. White’s most personal relationships are treated with tender care showing why his inner circle is so special and the ways in which true friendship is demonstrated. In addition there are numerous accounts of idiosyncratic wayward “tricks” White picks up and sensitive engagements with cabmen. This compendium of entertainingly-wrought detailed portraits all build up to demonstrate White’s tremendous generosity of spirit, insatiable curiosity and true love of people with all their ingenious quirks.

The most detailed and tender account of someone White gives in this book is of his late friend Marie-Claude or “MC” who helped introduce him to French life and gave frequent dinner parties which allowed him access to a wide spectrum of people. This tender account of their friendship shows the tremendous special bond that can be forged between a straight woman and a gay man. White also frequently makes mordant observations about the differences between genders and people of different sexual orientations. For instance, at one point he states “No matter how wifely his fantasies, every man is brought up to be the first violin.” White gives insight into the multiple layers and shifting dynamics which construct each person’s gender identity as it slides between the scales of submission and dominance.

I found it very touching near the end when after reading so many accounts of White’s interactions with innumerable friends and taking a wide variety of lovers that he could feel so tremendously alone whether taking a walk on the streets of London or living in Paris after his lover Hubert’s death. It seems to be a condition especially particular to artists to always feel existentially alone even when their work is well received. Luckily White meets a lover near the end of his time in France who he continues to be with to this day. Rather than settling down and retiring to his homeland, this move merely signals another stage in this gregarious and brilliant writer’s life.

Click here to read Tim Teeman’s excellent interview with White about this book:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/11/edmund-white-sex-success-and-survival.html

Inside a Pearl Inside a Bubble Bath – thoughts on supposedly relaxing places to read

I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I thought a relaxing bubble bath and read might lull me back to sleepytown. There is an idealized image of someone sinking into a deep tub full of warm sudsy water with a good book and losing themselves in the story. But here’s my problem with reading in the bath: it’s wet. Having to shift around occasionally I inevitably end up getting a hand wet and then how am I going to turn the page without also getting the book wet? The water slowly drains out. The bubbles burst. The steam rises up. And no matter how hard I try I seem to always damage the book. Maybe I need to get less anxious about keeping my books pristine letting the type blur and the spine warp. But also the struggle to get really comfortable inevitably clouds my concentration on whatever I’m reading even if it’s a riveting book like Edmund White’s new memoir “Inside A Pearl.” The same thing goes for reading on the beach. I can’t think of anything less relaxing. The hot sun makes me sweat. The sand gets in the crevices of my book and body. Handsome near-naked men walk by distracting me. Children are all around with their wicked cackling. I’d prefer a dark rainy evening, a cup of tea and my comfortable study sofa any day. Maybe that’s why I’m so suited to London.

 How do you feel? Does anyone actually read in the bathtub or on the beach?

In the Wolf’s Mouth by Adam Foulds

I was first captivated by Adam Foulds’ deeply thoughtful and poetic writing when I read his novel “The Quickening Maze” about the poet John Clare. He has a way of capturing the complex emotion of a scene using only a few choice phrases. With this new novel “In the Wolf’s Mouth” he expands upon this talent by producing short evocative chapters that dramatise scenes from WWII. The two primary characters the novel follows are an English officer named Will and an American infantryman named Ray. In the first half of the book we follow the fighting in North Africa. In one instance the battle scenes are actually described in poetry; this reinforces the breathless chaos and intensity of the fighting. Outside of portraying Will and Ray’s internal impressions and perspective with lyrical authority, Foulds employs powerfully direct and meaningful dialogue that brings to life a range of other characters in the novel. The second half of the novel follows the troops as they move to Sicily where they drive out the Fascists and attempt to restore order and stability. Bookending their tales is the story of two Sicilian men who become wrapped up in a mafia battle. Foulds writing shows how the effects of war reverberate throughout time and produce complexly unintended consequences.

Sometimes I get frustrated when reading novels set in a particular historical time period where the author doesn’t give many indicators of the actual events which are being depicted. Without the right amount of knowledge to flesh out the historic significance of what’s happening I’m sometimes left bewildered and that I’m missing out. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily the novelist’s job to give a clear map coloured in by his research. What Foulds does so skilfully is make you feel the events. Even if I felt lost sometimes while trailing through the rampaging storm of battle I always felt thoroughly entrenched in the character’s subjective experience. After all, many of the men fighting or the people whose lands were being trampled through had little sense of what was really going on either.

With vivid intensity he describes the frantic madness of combat: “blasts felt in the soles of the men’s feet, the spasming light in darkness... Ray felt small, and human.” With massive destruction occurring all around Foulds manages to continuously bring back the attention to the vulnerable individual navigating his way throughout what feels like sheer chaos.

Apart from Foulds’ vivid depictions of the battlefield he also accounts for the horrors which occur on the periphery of war. Institutions that have overthrown the fascist occupiers and are meant to be protecting the native population instead sometimes use and oppress them. Specific races of people are rounded up and put into pits to slowly die. Women are made to prostitute themselves for cans of food.  Horrifyingly we follow Will throughout the war as his moral convictions soften and he decides “It was usual for soldiers in a war or for gentlemen at various times and places to avail themselves of the comfort of women. This was the getting of experience. This was being a man.” Individual reason is trodden under the masculine mentality of conquest and triumph. Oppressive behaviour is reinforced by notions of a wartime mentality that excuses behaviour that would be considered abhorrent in peacetime.

A Sicilian offering soldiers wine during WWII.

Foulds also conveys a sobering sense of the lasting psychological effects wartime has upon people’s mentality. “Ray stood next to his friend enclosed in this sadness, knowing he would never be outside it again. This had happened to them all. This was for ever.” Not only does the horror of battle break individuals down physically and psychologically but it has a debilitating effect upon the spirit of those who survive it.

Rest assured that the novel isn’t all blood and gloom. Foulds injects a fair amount of humour into his writing – much of which rises out of culture clashes which result from the mingling of multi-national armed forces and interactions with Sicilians. Also if I ever travel to Palermo I don’t think I’ll be able to not think of this spectacularly evocative description of the place: “Palermo had an air of Miss Havisham’s madness about it, grandly baroque and broken up with sudden sky and heaps of rubble.”

Near the end of the novel there is a climatic scene which brings the profound issues raised throughout the book to a head. The fast-paced intensity of “In the Wolf’s Mouth” is supported by Foulds’ beautiful prose and sophisticated ability to shed light upon society’s worst behaviour. At one point he writes “Artillery showed this to be true of the whole world. Life was a skin: it could be peeled away like strips of wallpaper with its coherent pattern.” One could say that words have the same detonating power upon consciousness – especially when used by someone with Foulds’ lyrical adroitness.

Here is a short interview with Foulds about this novel: http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/blog/adamfouldsinterview/

Women I've Known by Greg Johnson

I’ve been a fan of Greg Johnson’s fiction for a long time. His novels ‘Pagan Babies’ and ‘Sticky Kisses’ are both excellent and the several short story collections he’s published show an impressive variety of styles and voices. Back in 2005 I was asked to guest-edit an issue of the online literary journal Blithe House Quarterly and I quickly asked Johnson to submit a story. It was a wonderful project as I was able to include Johnson as well as many other authors I respect and admire like Ali Smith, Jackie Kay and Michael Carroll (whose first book of short stories is being published this summer by the University of Wisconsin Press.) It was thrilling to receive Johnson’s story “Women I’ve Known” about a revealing fictional letter exchange with the author Willa Cather. This title has also been used as the title of this collection of old and new stories. The name is appropriate as the stories feature a range of fascinating female characters who we come to know intimately by the end of each story. Many of the stories are centered around Atlanta and contain a distinctly Southern flavor. Usually with short story collections I find myself unable to connect with some stories and only find a few really memorable. However, this book includes only stellar examples of the short story form; each tale is a mesmerizing read and makes a lasting emotional impact.

Some of the stories are from a male perspective, but concentrate heavily on the lives of enigmatic and interesting women the men encounter. “Crazy Ladies” is a haunting story about a boy's encounter with a woman branded in the local community as crazy because she lives shut in with her adult son and occasionally escapes the house to wander the town singing and removing her clothes. When she finds her way into the boy's grandmother's house the old woman states how her son abuses her and removes her clothes to show her bruised body. The son comes to take his mother away and though the police are contacted no action is taken against the son. The story makes us question the term 'crazy' and if such terminology is just a neat way to dismiss things which are too ugly or difficult to face. In 'Fever' a boy spends his days at home with rheumatic fever being cared for by his young mother who is a housewife and married to a man who is much older than her. They watch melodramatic movies and the boy wonders if his mother is having a love affair like the heroines in the dramas. The pair feel that they “could do nothing with the terrible fever of the roused love inside us, which was objectless, ravenous, and self-consuming, and which left only an astonished silence in its wake.” They are trapped together in the house with all these emotions churning inside them, but are unable to direct them out anywhere with only fantasies used as outlets for all their feelings. Many stories in this collection thus prompt the reader to ask profound questions such as what happens when we feel love, but have no object for that love?

In 'Escalators' an aunt and her nephew are left only with each other after tragedies took the lives of the rest of their close family. The nephew Gary tries to help his glamorous aunt Dinah overcome her many fears – starting with her fear of escalators. In a series of sections the truth about the death of Dinah's son Avery is revealed in a way that is dramatic and heartbreaking. The story 'I Am Dangerous' is bloody with the raw heartache of emotion. But like many of these stories much of the violence and tumultuous emotions are held inside rather than expressed externally. There is a tension between the fantasy of how the narrator wants to portray himself and the way he acts. A virtually wordless companionship with a woman in an otherwise empty movie theatre becomes the most intimate and intense encounter of his life although it is completely anonymous. There is a tragic sense of being locked in one's own consciousness when he's thinking about his relationship to others and observing “I'll never know their private histories and they'll never know mine, and what other kind of history is there?” We are all trapped in our subjective experience of the world and that personal history isn't capable of being conveyed in any true sense. However, the story seems to suggest that this aura of mystery and not being able to truly know the motives of others is the very fuel which fires love.

Other stories in the collection are from a female perspective. “Leavings” follows Claire, a woman who returns to her estranged aunt Lillian's house to help her move. It examines different kinds of loneliness through three characters. Claire is on the brink of breaking up from her husband. Strong-willed Lillian's belongings are stolen. And Lillian's son Mack commits suicide after disengaging with the world. The story produces a strong sense of melancholy as each character feels very alone with their personal struggle despite being a family. The satirical story 'Scene of the Crime' portrays a wealthy divorcee who drags her daughter from one high-end store to another in an endless quest to fill an emotional void with material goods. The daughter Edie grudgingly goes along inwardly cursing her mother and acting out, but remaining impassive or numb on the outside. Her most cherished memory is when her parents were together and threw a party where she felt “Surely this was happiness, surely this was the happiest moment of her childhood – though she couldn't know it, then, and indeed its glory lay in not needing to 'know' it, or to know anything.” She found the greatest pleasure in life was in the shared and loving company of her family which has now been replaced by empty consumerism. Her mother's outward appearance is described in grotesque detail and as being thinly veiled beneath expensive clothes and make up – reflecting the ugliness of her attitude towards life. It leads the daughter to commit an act of small rebellion to expose and shame her. 'Alliances of Youth' presents a trio of the women who were most intimately acquainted with a young man who has died. They gather for a funeral and their feelings of possession over the departed man are played out with all the dramatic tension of a staged play. Jealousy and resentment divide the women – none of whom really knew or understood the man because of the secrets he maintained.

The characters in some of the stories avoid dealing with their own shortcomings and feelings of being unfulfilled by channeling their energy into specific people. In “The Boarder” a married Catholic woman meets a young professor who she impulsively invites to become a boarder in her home. She sees him as a companion and friend, but as time goes on the professor becomes more elusive and mysterious. Her husband tries to hold her back from becoming too intimate with the professor and allow him his privacy. But when a violent altercation takes place and an unsettling truth about him is revealed about him the processor suddenly disappears from her life leaving her bereft. The incident causes her to meditate on her own solitude and distance from people. In “Wildfires” a young man comes to visit with his brother and sister in law before starting college. The brother Gerald is haunted by his time in Vietnam and unable to begin his life fully. His wife Janet hasn't been able to find fulfillment either as she has unrealized artistic ambitions. Johnson has an extraordinary way of imbedding Janet's inexpressible emotions in her physicality several times throughout the story – specifically through her hands. “At her sides lay her white hands, unclenched and still.” The good-intentioned aunt of the story ‘Schadenfreude’ invites her niece to live with her after the niece’s husband is imprisoned. Inevitably her help is more about claiming possession of the niece rather than really assisting her to achieve true independence.

Women find themselves in desperate circumstances in some of the stories as they try to figure out what should come next in their lives. Melancholy hangs heavily over three people in the story ‘A Dry Season.’ A woman named Nora avoids planning her next move after the death of her husband while on an extended stay with her friend Eleanor and her husband Neil. It’s a hot August at the couple’s lake house and while the three spend their time pleasantly together none of them are content with their lives. The effect of their unvoiced yearnings and restrained sorrow is subtly devastating. In the high drama story ‘The Metamorphosis’ a famed singer named Lacey performs for the crowd, but experiences a panicked moment of existential crisis when she thinks she sees in the crowd the leering smile of a man. Her artifice crumbles and her true self is revealed. This provokes lots of interesting questions about what someone’s essential being is and whether a person is able to interact with others without having some sort of front. “They love only the mask of her but that is all right – she is a symbol, an ideal, a star. She knows they too are wearing masks and she has often thought, up here, working her heart out, how necessary are these brash outlandish masks, how indispensible to protect the secret, feeling self.” All people create a public persona to engage socially, but it’s something which this story proposes is necessary in order to guard against the hurt of being fully revealed. In the story 'Hemingway's Cats' the central female character feels like an island, locked inside her own head and mentally removed at the safe distance from the reality around her. The wavering uncertainty of her answer to questions: “Yes. I mean, no” perfectly encapsulating her remove from the present and the pain of being drawn ever back to the past. 'Evening at Home' is a subtly troubling story of a recently married couple who plays host to the wife's parents for the night. Both the chirpy talkative mother and serious silent father are portrayed in such fine detail they feel entirely realistic as if they’ve been plucked out of someone’s living room. Their daughter's sense of being caged speaks of silent pain which cannot be uttered or expressed.

There is a section of this book which includes stories that form a conceptually cohesive group from Johnson's book of short stories “Last Encounter with the Enemy.” They all portray scenes from the lives of different female authors including Flannery O’Connor, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson and Willa Cather. Each story records an encounter between (a fictionalized version of ) the author himself and the writer portrayed using a series of reality-bending techniques. In most cases an acute awkwardness results from the meeting between Johnson and the literary idol each of whom is often unaware of the way time and the establishment have canonized them. In 'First Surmise' questions put to Emily Dickinson are received with horrified wonder until “Silence enwrapped our carriage like invisible gauze.” There is a disconnect between the author and the aura surrounding their work which leaves the intruder frequently baffled by the actual personality he encounters. There is a tragic sense of the writers feeling misunderstood in some of the stories like ‘To the Madhouse’ where Woolf works to revise her little-read novel “The Years.” The narrative voices of the stories reflect each writer’s personality so what really shines through is the distinct sensibility of each author that’s portrayed. This is a brilliant concept drawing on Johnson’s skill as a biographer and each of these stories are a dynamic tribute to the authors they portray, a serious commentary on their writing and a tremendously fun venture playing with the elasticity of narrative form.

The collection also includes some previously unpublished stories which take great narrative risks to produce startling and memorable results. The story 'Shameless' is a powerful account of a woman's desire for a man, her calculated tactics to capture his affection and the way she eventually loses out to many other women. Her intense passion is dammed behind a calm demeanor and her pride doesn't allow her to ask for what she really wants. What's unspoken between her and her lover is the reason why they can't really be together as a couple. Their pleasantries with each other are more dramatic than if they were to have a violent screaming break up. 'Who, What, When, Where' is perhaps the most technically daring story in the book where the account of a rape and murder are filtered through a detached journalistic perspective. Rather than mimic the structure of a news story, the details are chillingly relayed with a fatigued sense that this crime was inevitable. The deliberately anonymous character of the female victim perversely shows a skewed sense of impulsive tenderness which wouldn't be felt with a more detailed description. All emotion is held behind this diligent attempt to reconstruct details of the crime in a way that makes it more sharply felt and horrifying.

Johnson proves with this collection what a powerfully gifted storyteller he is. Many of the characters portrayed in these stories expand voluminously so that they feel fully three-dimensional. Their histories that include heart-break, loss and yearnings can be felt in the actions and choices they make in their own particular stories. It's the short story writer's best trick to make you feel like you've lived a long time with his characters even though you are only acquainted with them for several pages. "Women I've Known" is such a rewarding read it's well worth taking your time with each story to savor it's unique and thought-provoking riches.

The Thing About December by Donal Ryan

Some books grab you with a voice so strong and distinct you can’t help listening. The narrator in “The Thing About December” follows a young man named Johnsey in a rural Irish town over the course of a year. He lives under the shadow of men whom he considers to be great and feels himself to be a total loser. He’s often steeped in fantasies where he becomes a hero – often with semi-clad women clamouring after him, but in reality his actions are awkward and nervous leading him to be bullied and ignored and misunderstood. Amidst the calamitous year that’s covered he becomes caught in the middle of a hyped-up property boom that causes attention to cluster around him with everyone seeking their own slice of the pie. Johnsey also makes a couple of close friends in the two brilliantly realized characters “Mumbly Dave” and the nurse with the “beautiful voice” Siobhan. However, most of the time Johnsey spends his time (as he puts it) “sitting on his hole” while a maelstrom of dramatic events take place around him.

There are several things which cause Johnsey’s story to come so alive. Most obviously, the Irish vernacular of both the narrator and dialogue of the characters makes them powerfully realistic. Often these idiosyncratic descriptions come with more heavily-laden meanings. Seemingly offhand comments become wise and sombre observations about human nature and the insignificance of individual lives in the grand scheme of things. Johnsey’s stance as a solitary quiet figure brings forth a lot of sharp observations about the difference between the internal and external world. “A man is only safe inside in himself. There’s nothing people won’t do or say when they think right is on their side. Who decides what’s right?” Remaining closed to the outside world he's able to maintain his own sense of integrity (no matter how self-deprecating) and understanding of what is right. He realizes that people are driven by their own self belief which will often clash with his own understanding of the world.

Johnsey tries to remain on his own. However, he knows that being caught in his own thoughts can have a deteriorating effect on the mind: “Too much thinking could balls you up rightly. Your mind could start acting like a video player, showing you your own thickness.” He desperately wants to engage in some social interaction but it’s a tremendous struggle. There's a heartbreaking recollection from his teenage years when he attempts to go to a local dance which ends disastrously. The result is an understanding that “For a man to be lonely, Johnsey knew, he did not need to be alone.” Sometimes the company of others can only make you understand how different and excluded you are and so increase your sense of isolation even more.

Crossing the boundary between inertia and action is near impossible for Johnsey, but doing so is the only way of achieving real self-knowledge. “Sometimes you didn’t know how you would feel about doing a thing until you went and did it. And then it’s too late; you can never undo it.” There can be both positive and negative consequences of breaking through your own hesitancy and taking action. On the rare occasions he does so he discovers how tricky it is dealing with people in reality rather than inside his head. “People are better inside in your head. When you’re longing for them, they’re perfect.” His interactions reveal both his own inadequacy and the shortcomings of those around him. However, as the progress of time shows it’s impossible for him to remain an island. His personal space is invaded and he must learn how to react and engage.

Amongst other things, this is a book about mourning. Not only does Johnsey lose people who are important to him, but he loses his idealized versions of the world. He discovers that “sadness plus sadness equals more sadness.” No revelations about life or special faith in humanity rise out of the ashes of what is lost. It’s a cold hard fact. For some time he lives off from the kindness shown to him after experiencing tremendous loss. But he learns that “Sympathy doesn’t last forever. Like a pebble thrown in a river, it’s a splash and a ripple and gone.” He must accept his loss and move on with his life.

Since this novel is plotted out over the course of a year and follows each month it is moreover about time. Not only does it record the events which happen in Johnsey's life each month, but the way his mind loops back to thoughts of his parents and the deep loss he feels for time lost. In a sense he wants things to remain constant and unchanging so he recalls what traditionally happens on the farm each month. But nothing remains the same: “that’s the way time is – it’s not a constant either.” Dramatic events can cause life to speed up at a pace he finds hard to keep up with. As the world progresses and changes around him so must he. For someone so inhibited this is painfully difficult for Johnsey to accept.

Confessions of a Bookseller

I listened to Simon and Thomas’ most recent podcast at the always entertaining and erudite Book Based Banter about the subject of Bookshops. It’s great hearing an in-depth discussion about favourite bookstores, thoughts about what makes an ideal bookshop and the possible fate of bookshops in the future. Hearing Thomas’ description of working in a bookshop where the staff had specialized knowledge and an enthusiastic interest in reading made me think back to my own brief period of working in a bookshop in Boston. I wish there were fond memories about it as being surrounded by books all day should have been a dream come true, but my experiences were anything but idyllic.

In the summer of 1997 I was nineteen years old and had just completed my first year as a scholarship student at a small college near Fenway. I dreaded the prospect of returning to my parents’ home in Maine for the summer. It was something I could have done but ever since I had come out to my parents we had a tense relationship. My father was accepting and loving (if baffled by the whole thing). He frequently travelled with his job so that left me home alone with my mother who had a really difficult time accepting it. The prospect of going back to a house where we’d be stuck together for long periods that involved shouting, cruel insults from both sides, dish breaking and – even worse – long periods of angry silence wasn’t something I could face so I decided to stay in Boston until my sophomore year started. A brilliant theatre teacher at my college generously offered to let me stay at her place near Forest Hills. While she travelled out of state doing theatre workshops the place was mine as long as I did odd chores for her.

My accommodation was taken care of, but I was broke. Not that I minded. Roaming the city was free. All I was interested in was burrowing away in books and theatre. I acted in an experimental theatre company that put on weird shows in an art gallery near Harvard Square which was brilliant but didn’t pay at all. I could have spent all my time rehearsing and reading. However, after a month and a half of living on scraps and staring into an empty refrigerator I realized that I did need to eat some time. I applied for a couple of menial office jobs but didn’t make it far. I guess it isn’t surprising thinking how I must not have been that presentable with my baggy clothes and shy nature. Even a fast food restaurant I applied to didn’t call me back. Since I didn’t have the money to buy books I sometimes went into bookstores to stand amongst the shelves reading new books that weren’t in the library yet. This was before the comfy chair bookshop culture with in-store Starkbucks. I’d read several chapters a day before I sensed the staff getting annoyed by my presence and move on.

So I was stuck until late July when I went by the Barnes & Noble in Kenmore Square and saw they were hiring temporary staff for August. They supply books for Boston University so needed extra help to stock and sell preparing for the students’ return. I applied and was thrilled when I got a call back hiring me. Working in a bookshop was something I should have thought of before since I spent so much time in them anyway and I liked the prospect of being able to work with staff who I assumed would also be enthusiastic readers.

On my training day there were about a dozen of us who were swiftly taken through an induction that taught us about stocking and learning the computer system. It was hurried and very confusing. I really didn’t understand the process of tracking down books on the computer and the managers training us were really overstretched as the shop was very busy. I asked for clarification but only received angry impatient responses. So I felt a little lost. The guy training us was a big buff guy who I tried to make light conversation with him asking what he liked to read. He looked at me in confusion saying “Read what?” I said I assumed he was into reading since he worked in a bookstore. He just laughed and shook his head, “No way man. I like to work out.” So much for talking about books.

On my third day working at Barnes & Noble I was asked with a few other men to help move bookshelves to a temporary space at Boston University they were setting up to sell course books. Not being very strong this was a struggle. I lugged and pushed shelves while the buff manager stood near me angrily saying “Come on, hurry it up man!” I went home that day worn out and with several bruises. Over the next few weeks the store was increasingly busy as students arrived back in the city and wanted their text books for upcoming classes. I still didn’t understand the computer system so helping them out was really difficult. Huge queues of people gathered at my till and angry teenage faces filled my vision as they thrust course lists with innumerable text books at me. I tried to stretch out my lunch breaks as long as possible hunkered down in the fiction section reading some book or other till they’d call me over the intercom back to the academic textbooks floor.

When it neared time to move back into my dorm and start my Fall semester Barnes & Noble said that I could stay on staff but only be on call if they ever needed me. Unsurprisingly they never called. So my short stint as a bookseller was a bit of a let down. It’s understandable it was a special sort of job as it was aimed specifically at supplying text books for the university. I’m sure if I worked in a general bookshop full time the vibe would have been different. I love going in shops in London like Gay’s the Word, Kennington Bookshop, Clerkenwell Tales or Daunt Books and hearing the friendly knowledgeable staff talk about recent books they’ve read or how they are able to easily navigate the shelves to find what I’m looking for. Not that I think anyone should romanticize it too much; I know it's a hard business. I’m fortunate enough now to be in a financially secure position where I can buy whatever book I’d like. This is something I’m really grateful for thinking back to times when I could barely afford to buy a 99 cent Dover Thrift book. Since living in London I’ve seen a lot of the used bookstores I used to love on Charing Cross Road and other places close down. The enormous Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus used to have a much better vibe with enthusiastic staff and frequent reading events by quality authors. These days their policy seems to be more towards only pushing the top sellers and the atmosphere has changed to being more brisk and businesslike. So I’m very grateful that there are still some fantastic independent bookstores with caring staff here. Long may they continue!

Young Skins by Colin Barrett

Colin Barrett’s writing immediately gripped me with his richly descriptive language and evocative dialogue. It’s a display of real talent when characters can rise fully formed off the page through distinct inflections in the tone of their dialogue so you can almost hear their voices in your ear. The stories in this debut book describe a cast of characters on the margins of Irish society ranging from wild teenagers to dispirited middle-aged men. Pubs are often the spots where these two diametrically opposed sensibilities cross paths – though very seldom do they meet. Each story invokes a particular place and set of characters struggling with internal conflicts which are brought to the forefront through events which are sometimes calamitous and other times subtly transformative.

‘The Clancy Kid’ follows two boys in their mid twenties who take revenge upon a girl for slighting one of them. They seem unable to move on with their lives as they don’t know what they should be striving for so they are trapped in repeating the same behaviour over and over. At one point the narrator remarks “There is the comfort of routine in our routine but also the mystery of that routine’s persistence.” The circular routines they go through night after night reflect their inability to emotionally progress and grow. Only at the end does the narrator seem ready to cross a literal and metaphorical bridge so that he can leave behind him the resentment and things he’s been clinging onto.

‘Bait’ focuses on another couple of close young male friends who stick to a routine. The narrator’s friend Matteen is a pool shark who makes money by luring people in to challenge him at the same pub every night. The narrator is drawn away from the lively pub by a couple of girls who seduce him like sirens and then seize him in a gripping and unsettling scene.

If men in some of these stories aren’t able to progress in their lives the character of Val in the story ‘The Moon’ is definitively left behind by a young woman he’s been seeing as she moves to go to university. There’s a really subtly written feeling of melancholy as he understands their relationship can’t progress beyond a certain point and there are boundaries which will always keep them at a distance from each other.

In ‘Stand Your Skin’ a man nicknamed Bat is haunted by an act of senseless violence perpetrated upon him by someone who “couldn’t stand being in his own skin, and couldn’t stand the rest of us neither” which has left Bat slightly impaired and his face scarred. He’s a solitary figure that has let his hair grown very long and is cautious in his social interactions – the horrendous attack upon him having been reduced to a barroom anecdote.

A seedier side of a small community is shown in ‘Calm with Horses’ where Douglas (nicknamed “Arm”) acts as a thuggish guard or “loyal skin” to a drug dealer named Dympna. This is the longest story in the book and it builds tension slowly where the threat of violent retaliation seems to hide around every corner. Points of horrific violence are paired against tender scenes where Arm cares for his mentally-disabled son Jack who likes to regularly go to a stable to spend time with horses as part of his therapy. Barrett beautifully describes nature and the sky particularly as a reflection of the character’s moods. When a man’s life is being threatened he looks up “at the scratchy stars and that cute old sphinx-faced cunt of a moon, up there watching and still keeping schtum after all these years.” This conveys all the anger and feelings of helplessness living in an impassive world that he experiences in a moment of high distress. Later on when Arm is in a state of crisis “the night sky looked like something precious and crystalline had been smashed repeatedly against it.” Here he perfectly evokes the state of mind of his character whose ordered life has been destroyed while giving a vivid portrait of the environment he inhabits.

Barrett describes the heart-crushing weariness of alcohol addiction in his story ‘Diamonds’ where a man’s best convictions to go sober are undone after an encounter with a woman he meets at AA. The mechanics of sliding back into the habit as well as engaging in an affair with a married woman whose husband spends most of the year away working in a mine are told in a way that seems so natural as to seem inevitable. All emotion and regret seem as totally blunted as his senses in his alcoholic state. Only wistful memories of an adolescence filled with athletic promise offer any brightness in his life, but hope now seems like an anonymous stranger. The tragedy of his fate is portrayed in stark realistic detail.

Two men sit in a pub drinking and try not to think too much about the funeral procession which will soon be passing by outside in the story ‘Kindly Forget My Existence.’ Feelings of loss hang heavy in the air as they make awkward conversation with the foreign barman who recounts his time engaged in the Bosnian war. While the men have a complex relationship based on years of being in a band together and sharing a lover, all feelings of resentment and bitterness seem not worth fighting for and can be left behind like the jacket one leaves behind as they depart to join the funeral march.

Each story in “Young Skins” explores masculinity from a different point of view. Raucous emotions often simmer beneath the surface and only find expression through violence or surly disengagement. However, melancholy is also often superseded by surprising turns of humour expressed in the characters lively dialogue. The image of skin – the surface of our bodies which is forever changing but always with us – repeats in varied and surprising ways throughout the book. The cumulative effect of this made me ponder the boundaries between our social lives and inner private lives. This is one of those books whose stories are so skilfully crafted and engaging I found it difficult to put down when going to bed at night.  

Here is an interview with the author published in a county Irish newspaper where the stories are set: http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18947:interview-author-colin-barrett&catid=51:staying-in&Itemid=145

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas

It’s interesting having read Tsiolkas’ first novel so recently to now read his fifth and most recent novel and see the common themes which he still carries through. ‘Barracuda’ is also about a teenage boy with a fluid sexuality rebelling against the world, yet it carries his story further than the protagonist of ‘Loaded.’ The central character of Danny is extremely ambitious and seeks to become an Olympic champion swimmer. However, his dreams are dashed leaving him bereft of purpose: “without my dream, I was just a hole, an absence, that’s all I was.” The novel charts his journey moving back and forth in time from his headstrong adolescent years training at a prestigious private school he hilariously nicknames “Cunts College” to his downfall and the long hard process of finding value in his life again. While I felt large parts of the first half of the novel was like treading water as it was mired in Danny’s arrogant belief in his own abilities, his growing maturity and deepening complexity really hooked me and kept me reading till the end.

I think what I find frustrating is that, despite trying to engage with issues of capitalism and this fragmented antagonistic society, Tsiolkas’ arguments don’t progress much further than an adolescent level. The stance which comes from this book and his first novel ‘Loaded’ feels very much like a teenager stomping his feet, calling out all of society’s problems and slamming the door instead of offering any solutions. The petulance is true in some parts of ‘Barracude’ as well: “let the world burn and choke itself in greenhouse gases: no one wants to give up anything, no one wants to sacrifice anything for anyone else.” Maybe this is because Tsiolkas chooses adolescents as protagonists for these two novels so he’s reflecting their character or perhaps the author himself doesn’t have the optimism to think beyond resolutions other than petulantly shrugging his shoulders and giving up. I wouldn’t be so bothered by all the harsh judgements being made about practically everyone in society if it didn’t come with a sense of entitlement and a smug feeling that the protagonist is better than everyone else. I think that’s why Tsiolkas’ writing feels so abrasive. Of course, these are sentiments really typical of teenagers and I don't feel it's necessary to like characters in books in order to appreciate them. In Danny’s case I know that his inflated sense of self is a sort of strategy for survival because he’s looked down upon by so many people at his college. Perhaps if the character was more self-deprecating in an endearing way I would feel more empathetic. I was drawn closer to him the more the book progressed and when he was humbled. Danny is harsh on himself. When his dreams of being a championship swimmer fizzle he struggles with issues of weight and self esteem. The book says a lot about the dangers of ambition. His discipline and single-minded goal left no room for his personality to become fully rounded. It takes a while to get there, but the journey is worth it.

Danny is a fiercely independent and solitary person. He finds great strength there, but it's a sign of immaturity that he refuses to engage with other people. Tsiolkas makes a striking remark when he observes “There was no loneliness in silence. Loneliness could be found in conversation, it lurked in words.” I can really sympathize with this statement in that I only feel really myself when alone and when in social conversation sometimes feel lonely and misunderstood. However, it feels like for Danny there is a lack of development and self-absorption that he shuts out people who love and believe in him. There are frequent scenes where someone is talking to him but he doesn’t even listen to what they’re saying. This changes slowly as he gets older and shows his development when he’s finally brave enough to at least try to listen and communicate. Similarly he’s often unable to say what he really wants to and holds in how he's really feeling. “Words. The words inside are not the words that come out into the world.” As a consequence he blocks people out with silence or pushes them away with violence. This partly has to do with his issues with language itself. Encouragingly it’s through reading that Danny is able to reconnect with the world through words. “Dan had discovered that he had been mistaken, that books did not exist outside of the body and only in the mind, but that words were breath, that they were experienced and understood through the inseparability of mind and body, that words were the water and reading was swimming.” He’s able to connect the process of reading with the vibrant enthusiasm for life he used to find when swimming. After this he really comes into himself and pursues what he truly wants.

Where the story comes alive the most are in short passages about Danny’s later job as a care worker or his time in prison which are interspersed with the main narrative of Danny’s teenage struggle for stardom. This line seems to sum up Danny's dilemma in the novel: “He couldn’t think how anyone but himself could be the hero of his own life, but he knew that he wasn’t a hero.” When he realizes that he's not the star he always believed himself to be he has to find a way to go forward. It felt to me like the book could have been cut down in places to remove some repetition and superfluous detail, but the story of Danny's struggle is moving  and I admired the way the author told it moving back and forward in time to create a greater emotional impact. It's heartening to see a maturity having taken place between Tsiolkas' first novel and this new one.

Bobcat and other stories by Rebecca Lee

I received Rebecca Lee's book 'Bobcat and other stories' as a Christmas present. One of the ways my boyfriend and I like to relax in the lazy time between Christmas and New Year is to lounge on the rug in front of the fireplace having mince pies and reading short stories aloud to each other. Usually they have to be quite short short stories or one of us will get dozy and fall asleep before it comes to the end. I'd started reading this book of stories and was quite eager to read some aloud to him despite most of the stories being around thirty pages. Reading them aloud really emphasized Lee's talent for writing gorgeous meaningful sentences and creating witty dialogue in social situations. Many of the stories in this book have at their centre a woman in her 20s or 30s who is often associated with a university. Only one story in the book is written from the perspective of a man. Beyond these overarching similarities the stories are all strikingly unique and many present very funny or uncomfortable situations.

In 'World Party' an academic single mother must decide the fate of a teacher who is politically motivating his students and might be dismissed from the university. In 'Bobcat' a woman decides how to handle a dinner party that includes her male colleague and his wife who she knows is being cheated on. In 'Min' a woman accompanies her male friend to Hong Kong and must sift through women applying to be his wife. In 'Slatland' a woman is determined to find out if her Romanian finance is secretly already married with children back in his native country. In 'The Banks of the Vistula' a student copies an essay out of an old book and then desperately tries to cover up her act of plagiarism. In 'Fialta' a group of ambitious young architects put on a production of 'Angels in America' for their mentor. In 'Settlers' a woman is working over time on a script for a new tv series of Wonder Woman. Many of the stories take surprising turns and reveal details of the characters' fates at startling times.

What I admired most in Rebecca Lee's writing is the way she writes about desire and relationships. If it's true that desire and sex mostly happen in the mind it's artfully demonstrated in these stories where the characters frequently play out romantic scenarios or breakups in their heads before any action happens. A small suggestion can lead the character's imagination to spin fantasies of heightened intimacy or fearful suspicion of betrayal. In dramatic scenarios she conveys characters emotional fragility and the way they guard themselves against being hurt.

Lee frequently ponders the use of language itself. I'm always sympathetic towards writers who are always aware of the limitations of words themselves. A narrator in one story observes: “This is the whole problem with words. There is so little surface area to reveal whom you might be underneath, how expansive and warm, how casual, how easygoing, how cool, and so it all comes out a little pathetic and awkward and choked.” Language is only capable of approximating what we're thinking and can often leave out the deeper feelings brewing, the personality really lurking within. When speaking to someone in person it's often more the expression on someone's face and the tone of their voice which tells you how they are really feeling rather than what they are actually saying. Of course, this is open to interpretation and can lead to misunderstandings so it's easy to feel misunderstood. At least, that's certainly how I feel in many social situations. It's part of Lee's great talent that she's able to convey what's really going on underneath the surface with her characters despite what they say and think. She's an incredibly talented writer I'd highly recommend.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

It’s terrifying to place yourself in the shoes of the protagonist at the start of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. One night Akhmed looks out his window to see his neighbour Dokka being dragged from his house by officials. The house is burned as the man is taken away to some unknown fate and his 8 year-old daughter is nowhere to be seen. This is in the middle of war-torn Chechnya in 2004. Anthony Marra continues to describe the events which led to Dokka’s disappearance and the lives of a small group of characters whose communities have been ravaged by battles and deceit. The subject matter is very heavy, but completely absorbing. Marra’s writing is beautifully composed and the characters feel so immediately real I felt a strong desire to know what happens to them.

Marra heads each chapter with a timeline scale spanning a decade and demarcates the year being dealt with by highlighting it. In this way he slides back and forth in time between chapters showing the way the past influences the present. However, within each year he frequently provides flashes forward for different characters explaining how they flourish or perish in the many years which follow because of what’s occurring at the present time. This produces a curious effect where the repercussions of actions resonate throughout the present causing a swirling interconnected range of consequences. One elderly character named Khassan has spent his life writing a history of Chechnya which numbers thousands of pages. He can never complete it because of the constantly changing political landscape of the country. Marra cleverly offers an alternative understanding of the country based on these individual characters whose lives effect each other in ways unexpectedly and shape the future.

A country that is under siege operates in ways terrifyingly different from the everyday life of developed politically-stable countries where there is a presumption of justice and order. Marra intelligently explores how this affects the psychology of the people. At one point it's observed that “War is unnatural... it causes people to act unnaturally.” It's a state of life that is ruled by fear and suspicion. Friends inform on friends. People disappear. Sometimes they return with fingers or other body parts missing. Or they don't return at all. Rules for civilization are twisted as order breaks down. People who act egregiously can console themselves with the knowledge that “a land without law is a land without crime.” Here people are only guided by their own sense of morality – something which is tragically rendered pointless under the grinding fate of chance and circumstance. When it come to survival the values that people consider an essential part of their humanity can disappear. As the character Ramzan observes: “We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.” 

Amidst the devastation of war life comes to mean very little. A brilliant Russian doctor named Sonja works faithfully in a nearly-deserted hospital seeing to the hundreds of people who need limbs amputated after stumbling upon land-mines. For someone who must deal with pain and loss on such a large scale a part of her must remain stoic when faced with so many deaths. Akhmed is at first alarmed by this: “In her indifference he saw the truth of a world he didn't want to believe in, one in which a human being could be discarded as easily as pocket lint.” In these circumstances entire communities of people are swept into larger historical events. Individual lives are grouped into impersonal figures reported as casualties as it is easier to dismiss them and avoid facing the true horror of many personal losses.

What Marra does beautifully in this novel is elevate individual lives giving them a nobility and honouring them in a way that the statistics of war leave out. In a way similar to how the character of Akhmed memorialises the “disappeared” of his village by drawing portraits of those who have been taken and posting them around the streets and forest, Marra presents dynamic descriptions of striking individuals who would otherwise be ignored and forgotten. The author also shows the connections which join people together even in the most desolate circumstances. There is a distillation of feeling so that people understand what is really necessary. “Love, she learned, could reduce its recipient to an essential thing, as important as food or shelter, whose presence is not only longed for but needed.” There is a tenderness found between some of the characters in this novel more believable and hard-won than in many other books I've read.

Marra also meditates on the philosophical meaning of love. There is often an assumption that the person we love is someone we discover. However, he counters that “Perhaps our deepest love is already inscribed within us, so its object doesn't create a new word but instead allows us to read the one written.” I've meditated a while on this statement and I think it has multiple meanings. You could take it as having a romantic notion that the person you love was always a part of you. Or it's possible to interpret it as meaning that love reveals something about one's own essential self that the self doesn't understand without this connection. In any case, it's a fascinating way to think about the interplay between love as a projection of feeling and an emotion that leads to personal revelation.

As well as showing the deeply-felt personal stories of the individuals Marra also hints at the mercilessness of life in the grander scale of things. In one chilling statement he surmises “There is something miraculous in the way the years wash away your evidence, first you, then your friends and family, then the descendants who remember your face, until you aren't even a memory, you're only carbon, no greater than your atoms, and time will divide them as well.” No matter how much anyone strives to leave their mark on the world through accomplishments or progeny we'll all eventually be reduced down to the essential elements which are recycled and distributed again throughout the universe. It's only when considering the agonizing pain people are capable of causing each other as cited in this novel that such a cold hard truth can be considered consoling rather than horrifying. 

Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas

Approaching a book like Loaded feels in some ways like revisiting my teenage self. Although he's not at all like me on the surface there is all the familiar adolescent cynicism and rebellion which is still so easy to taste. The story takes place over roughly a 24 hour period of partying, sex and drugs in Melbourne. The protagonist Ari is a 19 year old Australian boy of Greek heritage who would scoff at being so neatly classified as he detests labels. “You're either Greek or Australian, you have to make a choice. Me, I'm neither. It's not that I can't decide; I don't like definitions.” Of course, his resistance to classification and being slotted into place is something that he hypocritically does all the time when viewing other people. He continuously defines the people he meets by their nationality or sexuality or their class (his most sneering contempt saved the married, employed, suburban people he defines as Wogs). For Ari labels like this are curiously hollowed out: “I want to tell her that words such as faggot, wog, poofter, gay, Greek, Australian, Croat are just excuses. Just stories, they mean shit. Words don't stop the boredom.” Like many teenagers he feels exceptionally bored by everything and his time is spent more in trying eradicate the self rather than nourish it (with culture, building substantial relationships with friends/lovers or working). When out and about he frequently listens to music to be “caught in a magic world of harmony and joy, a truly ecstatic joy, where aching longing to be somewhere else, out of this city, out of this country, out of this body and out of this life, is kept at bay.” Rather than be truly present he wants to escape the world immediately around him which he perceives to be corrupt and mediocre.

In addition to listening to music and taking a large amount of drugs to remain constantly high Ari has a phenomenal amount of sex. Because he's young and cute sex with men and women is never too difficult to find in bars, alleyways or at house parties. Tsiolkas' descriptions of the way gay bars and cruising functions is eerily accurate: “we hesitate in our physical communions. Testing each other, not wanting to be the first to admit desire. The first to be the faggot.” The environment is charged with sex, but there is also a wariness for fear of being hurt and rejected as well as a masculine homophobic pride in not wanting to be the first to admit you want it. Ari's blunt attitude towards calling it like he sees it applies especially to the gay people he encounters. “No matter how many hours spent at the gym, no matter the clothes he wears, the way he cuts his hair, the way he talks, a gay man always reveals himself as a faggot.” Ari is nothing but savage in the way he condemns people for being what they are and looking down at them. Typical for a teenager. In doing so Tsiolkas also highlights a particular problem for many gay men who have to wrestle with concepts of masculinity they've inherited when growing up. Our sexual nature is often aggressive especially when having casual sex. At two different points when Ari has sexual encounters pleasure is taken and given only through violent grappling. This attitude is something which especially arises when cruising: “He was a momentary figure in my life. That's what I like about casual sex with men; there's no responsibility towards the person you fuck with.” The anonymity of the encounters gives a kind of freedom where raw desire can be expressed without apology or consideration for the other person. This is because contempt runs closely alongside that desire. Ari has internalized all the anger and disdain he feels from society and projects it back out. At one point he states “insults have formed me, they have nourished me. In latrines and underneath piers I have enjoyed pleasures that are made sweeter by the contempt I know they bestow on me in the eyes of the respectable world I abhor.”

Ari sees that a society based on capitalism creates a competitive environment where some flourish while others are winnowed out. Therefore he can't feel any sort of fellowship with those he judges to be Wogs: “It is impossible to feel camaraderie if the dominant wish is to get enough money, enough possessions to rise above the community you are in.” He stubbornly resists having any sort of direction or purpose in life because of this. Better to get fucked on drugs and sleep around than join in what he sees to be an inherently corrupt and flawed society. Worse than wishing to join in with it he'd rather see the human race eradicated for its competitive machinations: “Pol Pot was right to destroy, he was wrong not to work it out that you go all the way. You don't kill one class, one religion, one party. You kill everyone because we are all diseased, there is no way out of this shithole planet.” To side with a dictator and root for the annihilation of humanity is both a strong statement and an empty pathetic statement. It feels too easy to project your pain out to the world which you haughtily judge and wish to see it levelled out. This is the same logic applied in the story of Noah's Ark or any disaster movie like 2012; wash the world of its sins by eradicating the human race except for a few who survive through chance in order to start over. Except Ari would rather the population be brought down to zero. When contemplating the complex frustrating way society works it's really attractive to imagine these stories and I do love a good disaster movie. But it's not really useful when going forward day to day and it doesn't take into consideration the individual's private pain or their inherent right to live life the way they want to. Ari can't see past his contempt for the world because he is “loaded” - not just strung out on drugs, but loaded with history and all the injustices of society. So where to go from here? It's telling that Loaded only takes place over a single day. As an accurate portrait of a teenage grappling with these difficult issues Christos Tsiolkas does a superb job and the novel is successful in conveying Ari's intense painful feelings. I wonder what could happen to Ari next (although it's clearly not the author's intention to try to answer this and it's certainly not his responsibility to do so.) There is only so long Ari can continue having this attitude towards life before he loses all his opportunities. Either he'll run out of money, favours with his family and friends, get arrested or die from over-indulgence in drugs, violence and/or promiscuous dangerous sex. Or he'll have to compromise his ideas and turn into the kind of Wog he so despises. Ari makes it clear he'll take the former option. I like to think there is a middle ground which many of us tread where we can sustain ourselves while maintaining our ideals and a healthy amount of skepticism but also having a good time and not causing too much damage. Maybe I'm just dreaming.

I haven't read anything else by Tsiolkas yet. Based on his in-your-face themes I'm not surprised he's a controversial writer. Books with unlikeable characters are difficult for some people to read. I grappled with a lot of feelings reading this novel, but isn't that the point? In terms of presenting points of view in a painfully honest way I think he's extremely effective.

Tsiolkas talks here about his novel The Slap but elaborates on his feelings about Australia, masculinity, the middle class and violence which are all themes heavily dealt with in Loaded.

Valve III

Valve is a literary journal which publishes fiction and poetry that (in the words of the editor) “uses form, language or techniques in unusual ways, often generating an essential set of rules within a piece through which to channel creativity.” This is its third issue and many of the pieces contained within it succeed in their experimental mission to express something in a creative new way and adhere to their own internal logic while breaking away from traditional form. The editors carefully pair different pieces within the journal usually bouncing two distinct stories or poems off each other which are variations on a similar theme. This transforms meaning in itself. Of course, the pleasure of flipping through a journal like this is that pieces can also be taken at random whether in a hurry on a morning commute or steeped in a warm bed on some sleepless night.

One of the pieces of writing that struck me most was Lucy Ribchester’s story ‘The She-Squid’s Embrace’ where intense desire is expressed in a squid’s taking possession of a shipwrecked sailor. She takes him down to her lair and tries to coddle him though he’s slowly being devoured by sea creatures and disintegrating on the ocean floor. While presenting a warped version of passion the story expresses something very true about love and the longing to hold onto someone who is falling apart.

More radical experiments with form itself take place in other pieces. Some are composed of lists such as Andrew Blair’s funny and vivid numbered reasons in his piece ‘you cannae shove your granny.’ Harry Giles gives indications of gruesome and tragic scenes occurring while only providing impersonal lists or an announcement. These highlight the way we are screened away from the horrors of reality by the mechanical processes of a regimented society. Bjorn Halldorsson gives ‘A Swimmer’s Guide to the Front Crawl’ which is a set of instructions that trail down the page like words riding currents in water. This transforms a physical activity into a metaphysical meditation. Katy McAulay’s ‘Important news for lifeguards’ presents another list purportedly for instruction, but which really takes on a graver meaning in the way people may be experiencing an internal crisis though they look alright on the outside. David Greaves ‘Boulders’ presents text with additional groups of words in the margins on either side of a primary text that can be left out or inserted into the main body of words to elucidate the central meaning. Another piece by Martin Schauss uses repetition of the second-person “you” to create a poetic sense and give a suggestion of being romantically transfixed by another. Poetic repetition also occurs in Lynsey Cameron’s ‘The Man Holding Flowers’ where a profusion of possibilities and a torrential downpour of past experiences bloom out of the single image of a man holding flowers.

I was once in a creative writing class where someone passed me a hand-written piece which she’d revised a lot. She intended only the words which weren’t crossed out to be read but I felt all the deleted (but still visible) words highlighted different meanings and emotionally expressed someone grappling towards what they wanted to really say. Kirsty Logan’s ‘Love in Centralia’ is an impersonal description of a town where the text is mostly slashed through with black lines. Only a few essential words are left unmarked to give a radical new meaning. There is a tremendous amount of power in writing which is crossed out so the process of selection and editing can be seen. For this reason I’ve loved looking at holograph editions of Virginia Woolf’s ‘Jacob’s Room’ and ‘The Waves’ which present drafts of these novels which show where she crossed things out and inserted other things into the text.

Some pieces in Valve enter into a self conscious dialogue with other artists to elaborate on original ideas or ricochet concepts off others to provide entirely different meanings. Clair Askew takes issue with Wordsworth’s view of the Lake District offering her own poetic view of a starker more reality-laden landscape. Scott Morris pays homage to the surrealist poet and photographer Paul Nouge with short sharp quips that expand upon a world inverted by speech and offers transformative ways of seeing.

There are flashes of the way popular competitive events inveigle their way into our consciousness making us care one moment and forget the next in the form of a Masterchef challenger in Graham Fulton’s ‘Larkinesque’ and a hotdog eating race in Charlotte Turnbull’s ‘Hotdogs.’ We’re swept into a voyeuristic sensitbility witnessing the triumphs and failures of individuals, our hopes for them dampened by a sense of superiority when they blunder. In the case of Fulton, Welsh competitor Larkin’s plight is likened to the raw reality of the cosmos. Turnbull plays much more with form in her story brazenly shouting at us with text enlarged and bold like a commentator’s irritating blathering.

One of the longest pieces in this issue of Valve is Elaine Reid’s ‘Trees for Africa.’ This story follows a call centre director over the course of a day where she receives lewd responses from a man she contacts about helping to maintain forestlands in Senegal. The worker traces the call to the home address where she meets a harried lonely woman caring for a number of children. The story expresses a sense of how we are disconnected from one another and gives a haunting feeling of good intentions being swallowed by shorthanded emotion.

In David Manderson’s ‘On the Beach’ he portrays a European holiday beach resort overseen by a tourist with his head full of the impending doom for the European economy. His pleasure of the holiday and his emotional investment in the beauty and grotesqueness of his surroundings is hollowed out by his sense of societies’ failing and feeling like “A silent man trying to scream.” Destruction comes in a more literal form in Chelsea Cargill’s poem ‘Tsunami’ which expresses a deep desire to leave a personal mark upon a world that is being washed away.

Afric McGlinchey transforms the domestic privacy of a bed into a tangled forest landscape where the body becomes tree. There is a sensuous physicality to the descriptions and deeply intimate associations are produced in small details. Ryan Van Winkle includes an Untitled poem about living surrounded by snow. Here I felt the heft and persistence of snow is likened to the way our best efforts and hopes are buried by the weight of reality. In another poem of his ‘The Duke in Pines’ an experience of listening to the jazz musician sparks an imagined dialogue between the narrator and someone who the narrator has designs upon.

Two poems by Mary McDonough-Clark are filled with such raw emotion that it feels like the pared down phrases contain a heft of feeling that expands voluminously to fill the whole page. An elaborate scene of torrid violence is summarised in a few pointed words “I retreat, you accuse, I ask, you deny: she feeds.” She gives a powerful sense of the riotous scenarios which are mentally played through amidst the actual disintegration of a relationship.

Valve is a great platform for writers to push the boundaries in what’s possible with both language and form. These pieces don’t dally with experimentation and reconfigure structure for the sake of it. They have something immediate and meaningful to say which can only be expressed in formats which aren’t traditional. I've read many of the pieces several times and find them richly rewarding. The work within this journal teases, surprises and illuminates.

Alligator Blood by James Leighton

This is something of a guilty confession, but playing online poker is a hobby of mine. I know it’s a waste of time and sometimes I end up losing money at it so it’s something I try not to indulge in too often. Online poker is something that underwent a massive boom several years ago and it still continues to be big. However, there are big legal and moral battles over online gambling. Coming across this new non-fiction book Alligator Blood by James Leighton I was fascinated to get more of an inside scoop to the industry. It’s not the kind of book I usually read, but given that it’s the festive season I’m feeling a bit more indulgent with the books I’m choosing. This book is an account of Australian Daniel Tzvetkoff who started a payment processing company which became the popular choice for many of the top poker sites in the world. Earning these top contracts gave a meteoric rise to Daniel’s fortunes turning him from a man working in Pizza Hut to one of the richest and most promising businessmen in the world - practically overnight! However, online gaming is an extremely volatile and risky industry. His rise in power and massive fortune all came crashing down a few short years later when he found himself hounded by the US government, placed under a witness protection program and made into a death-threat target by the poker community.

The tale isn’t quite so simple and Leighton goes to great lengths and has done a large amount of research to disentangle the complex story which led both to Daniel’s downfall and the twists in online gaming's history. Tzvetkoff was no innocent in his business dealings and did collaborate with authorities after his arrest, but he became a kind of scapegoat for narking on gambling websites which led to thousands of players being frozen out of their accounts and losing their money. Of course, this book isn’t just to do with poker. It’s also a tale which is very emblematic of our time. Fantastic fortunes can be obtained through savvy online business enterprises although hitting gold in this way is extremely rare. Daniel’s story is a high-octane example of how accumulating a fast fortune can sometimes lead to only more greed and grasping for power. Parallel to his journalistic investigations of the present day Leighton uses a novelistic approach to narrate the key events of Daniel’s rise and fall from success. At times he takes liberties getting inside Daniel’s mind to guess at his probable emotional state. Unsurprisingly, when his fortunes fail it’s friends and family who truly love him that count.

Alongside recounting the dramatic story of Daniel Tzvetkoff, Leighton makes an argument for possible ways in going forward with online gambling. He quite rightly identifies that (like prohibition) outlawing this risky recreational activity will only fuel the desire to participate in it through more illicit and pernicious means. If the industry is properly regulated then it can lead to a much safer online gambling experience (with safety checks in place to identify and provide help for possible gambling addicts) as well as generating a substantial amount of tax revenue. Of course, those who don’t like poker will no doubt see things quite differently. I would only add that rather than outlawing it completely the US government might consider playing a more active role in running and overseeing the industry with the understanding that the profits will go to charitable causes in a way that is analogous to the way the National Lottery is run in the UK.

Alligator Blood is a very entertaining and somewhat chilling read which sheds light on an extremely lucrative hidden industry.

Back when I used to gamble with the big boys...