The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury

Who are you and where do you belong? Most people get through day to day life secure in the knowledge that they have a home and loved ones waiting for them. But some people can be perpetually hounded by these questions as if their place within the world was uncertain. Even if we're told that we're loved and wanted it's difficult to believe. So we wander through city roads or hike in the countryside as if marking the solidity of the environment around us could fix our being in the world. Life feels too ephemeral and our place within the world feels volatile. This is why the character of Rhoda in Virginia Woolf's novel “The Waves” continuously knocks on objects reassuring herself that they are fixed. People find a security in rambling. Walking through a landscape there is a comfort to seeing and feeling it there all around you because you understand that you too are a physical presence within it. While moving through the world we can also move through our minds to sort through the memories and stories we carry which make us who we are.

Katharine Norbury's candid memoir records her expedition to trace a river to its source.  Like the central metaphor of a fish ladder this isn't a straightforward start to finish journey. There are pools of experience along the way which hold her. The primary impetus for making this trek is the miscarriage of her unborn child. This raises questions of legacy. She was adopted at a young age and cared for, but has no knowledge of her birth parents. With her adoptive father's death, the critical illness of her mother and her own diagnosis with cancer, life is understood to be incredibly fragile. She has a wonderfully supportive husband and friends. But, in terms of blood ties, she and her adolescent daughter Evie exist in a circumscribed genealogical pond. Since Norbury is acutely aware of this she seeks to discover who her birth mother is like she seeks the source from which a river flows. The result is an emotional journey which reassesses the meaning of belonging.

The writing in this book is absolutely stunning. Norbury's figurative language recasts the landscapes of Spain, Wales and Scotland so they feel invigoratingly fresh and alive. She imbues physical place with her own being – all the memories and possibilities of what might have been: “The rest I left on the shore; a life I could have known, but never did, its myriad possibilities suspended.” Alongside the author’s observations about the world around her she references a diverse and relevant range of poetry from the likes of R.S. Thomas, John Donne and Dylan Thomas; prose writers such as C.S. Lewis, Wilkie Collins, Isak Dinesen and John Cheever; classical texts such as “The Mabinogion”, “The Odyssey of Homer”, local mythology and the myth of Persephone. Quotes from these texts add an informed understanding of how her touching expeditions and experiences are a part of the fabric of history and place. Even the lyrics of ‘Over the Rainbow’ which the author hums occasionally during her walks take on an added level of poignancy. But the overriding texts which inform this memoir are Neil M Gunn’s “Highland River” and “The Well at the World’s End” which literally inform the travels she takes. His spirited desire to connect with nature also influences the way in which Norbury interacts with and lyrically interprets the world around her.

Norbury and her daughter visit Antony Gormley's art installation: 'Another Place' at Crosby beach.

So beautiful are her passages about the environment she holidays in or walks through you could almost miss the dangerous hint of menace underlying much of it as she sorts through her emotions and the past. Like stepping into a covered sinkhole suddenly you can find yourself enveloped in the heartbreaking centre of her pressing dilemmas. The facts of these hit the reader with their stark truth such as this passage about her husband: “The argument that had railed over the baby, the possibility of the baby, the things that had been said, that could not now be unsaid lay between us like a badly made rope bridge upon which I dared not trust my weight.” The turmoil of a couple who experience the loss of an unborn child is sensitively handled. The only other book I can think of that has approached this subject with as much meaning is Niven Govinden’s powerful novel “Black Bread White Beer”. A sense of mourning is keenly felt as a persistent undercurrent in Norbury’s day to day life. Alongside encounters with beauty, joy and disappointment “I carried my dead in a net, a clattering catch of bones, of promise, of might-have-been.” The potential for possible alternative futures if loved ones had lived is deeply felt in all experience.

Family is key factor in understanding who we are. Norbury elegantly describes this: “Genealogy allows us to construct our identities from our own myths and legends, to know who we are, and where we have come from. Or we can use the stories as a starting point from where we might like to go, a legacy to be built on or rebelled against.” Without this foundation it’s difficult to build a story of one’s own. The author addresses not only the emotionally fraught experience of an adoptee trying to connect with the family she was born into, but also the logical complications with doing so. The surprising results of her discoveries are both devastating and inspiringly hopeful.

It’s natural to compare this memoir about grief with last year’s multi-award winning brilliant book “H is for Hawk” about a woman dealing with the loss of her father. However, Norbury’s sensitive account is entirely distinctive. The writing is much more poetic and quick-shifting – more rooted in myth - in comparison to Macdonald’s rigorously-intellectual and regimental prose. Macdonald remains intensely confined and solitary with the goshawk she trains whereas Norbury attempts to assuage despair through walking, searching and striving to connect with the environment and others. Norbury’s book presents a landscape heavily ensconced in a lineage within which she is struggling to understand her place due to her circumstances and the fettered nature of her bloodline. Of course, both books give equally valid perspectives, but I’m just trying to make the point that they are rather different in their approach and conclusions. 

This book stands on its own as a powerful account of human experience. However, it will also no doubt give people who have experienced similar life challenges a touchstone of understanding and mental avenues through which they can process their feelings. Norbury doesn’t just deal with the riotous emotions which accompany her journey, but also the blunt reality of financial strain and emotional tension within a relationship that accompany severe loss and physical illness. This touching and elegantly-constructed memoir is an impressive story that needed to be told.

The Chimes by Anna Smaill

I’ve read a couple of fascinating dystopian novels published recently: “Station Eleven” and “Not Forgetting the Whale.” Both use a dark forecast of the future to say something meaningful about the present in unique ways and not necessarily in a political fashion, as most dystopian fiction tends to do. This is true with “The Chimes” as well, but it is an extraordinarily different kind of novel. It presents a recognizable, but distorted version of London at some point after a catastrophic event. Familiar streets and landmarks still exist but many names have been recast with phonetically-spelled playful names such as Batter Sea, Dog Isle, Mill Wall or South Walk Bridge.  It’s a time when the written word has been outlawed with communication occurring primarily through music. New memories cannot be created and the minds of ordinary citizens are perpetually wiped clean by a daily musical ritual. All experience has been distilled to the resounding tradition of OneStory. The result is a nightmarish world where creativity and personality has been squashed into a monotonous constant.

Once you become familiar with the world-view of “The Chimes” the plot is fairly straightforward. A young man named Simon Wythern arrives in London without any concrete knowledge of where he’s come from or what he should do apart from a vague mission set by his mother to locate a woman who runs a market stall. He survives in the city by joining a gang who scavenge through the tunnels of London to find materials to trade. Leading the roving pact is a semi-blind young man named Lucien who takes Simon into his confidence. Together they set out to uncover the truth about the authoritative system which rules over them and discover how to utilize Simon’s natural gift for recovering memories. The language in the novel is as jarringly new as Eimear McBride's “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing” and set in a London as fantastical as Susanna Clarke's masterful “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.” So it takes some time to become accustomed to the rhythm of reading “The Chimes’” narrative. However, the rewards are well worth the effort as it makes the experience more thrillingly immersive. It’s like your way of thinking has been temporarily reprogrammed to see this alternative reality that Smaill has created. The result is that you might view the real world from a new perspective. I found it affected both my dreams and the way I thought about my own memories.

"Between river and city, between water and air. There are letters of white code painted across it that speak in letters I cannot read. ENTRY TO THE TRAITOR'S GATE, they say."

The novel prompts many questions about our relationship with memory and the past. The only sure way the characters can remember an incident is when they transfer their memories into physical objects. This isn’t so different from the way in which we hoard photographs, letters or objects as touchstones which mentally transport us back to people and places of the past. But there is also body memory. This is formed more from habit or connection between body and place. So which memories are important enough to keep? This issue is raised in the narrative: “What is it that tells you to make a memory? I can't say. Something that sits raised and raw against the skin of the day. Something that presses you.” Certain experiences trigger something inside us which we intuitively know is fundamental to letting us grow and adapt better to the world we live in. Memories of these experiences have practical use. But other memories are based in emotion and subject to creative distortion. “The Chimes” also prompts the question of whether the memories we hoard and cling to like the characters in this novel really amount to anything more than tattered relics?

There is also the issue of collective memories – the stories which are told and retold which help us to define ourselves as a culture. At one point two characters have this conversation:

“'What do you think made certain memories important?'

'Those that were bigger than single stories. That told people something about themselves in this time, about where they were and why.'”

This is when the personal transforms into the emblematic because one person’s story says something crucial about where our civilization came from and where it’s going. Details might change with each telling, but the kernel of an idea remains. The novel also raises more philosophical questions about human nature such as: are memories the things which define identity or are there inherent characteristics within each of us that make us individual? There is nothing overtly epistemological about this novel’s story, but these issues hover lightly in the background due to the way the story is set up.

I noted down a short glossary of musical terms to help better understand reading The Chimes

Finding deeper meaning in novels doesn’t amount to much if you aren’t engaged with the characters in the story and “The Chimes” has a fascinating variety of personalities. Pact member Clare is a compellingly tough self-harming individual. An eccentric old woman named Mary offers surprising insights. The most crucial relationship in the book is between Simon and Lucien. The meaning of their connection changes over the course of their journey and develops into something touchingly romantic. This is handled with great care. I commend the way that the issue of their love affair isn’t to do with the fact that they are two young men, but that they are people from radically different socio-economic backgrounds. Through feeling invested in their relationship, I was also drawn more into the trajectory of the story and made me desperate to know how it all ends. The climax of the novel takes the reader somewhere unexpected with a satisfying twist.

I don’t think there are any fully formed conclusions the reader is meant to take away from travelling through this totalitarian version of the future. But I think “The Chimes” does present a caution about imposing strict homogeneous rules about the arts. The beauty of art is found in the strength of individual voices; dictating that every voice must strictly adhere to certain structures for that expression to have meaning is inimical to art. It’s admirable that this author’s first novel creates an alternate world which is so fully formed and substantial. This is an example of a writer who is drawing upon her strengths to create a new novel form with its own structure and rules. Smaill utilizes her background in music and violin performance as well as her finely-honed poetic voice to create a cohesive language with which to tell her story. I have no musical training or technical knowledge of the subject, yet by the end of the book I not only understood the musical terms through which the characters communicate but felt like I could almost hear the sounds of their world. To have such an impact on the way a reader thinks makes “The Chimes” an impressive accomplishment. 

Sequels in Literature

It’s been heartening to see the buzz of excitement around the announcement a few days ago about Harper Lee’s new book “Go Set A Watchman” coming out this year. Like so many people, I loved reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” when I was a teen and, although there was no sign of this novel ever going away, how great that there is now a renewed interest in the original book which many people will no doubt read for the first time or reread. Who knows what the quality of it will be like, but it will be fascinating nonetheless. It’s had me thinking about sequels in literature.

It often feels like sequels of classics that come out many years after a book has been published and are written by another author are just looking to make easy money. I'm not talking about Harper Lee obviously who apparently wrote this book before “To Kill A Mockingbird.” As most people only think of sequels in terms of films these days, it’s interesting to note that there has been a long tradition of sequels in literature. I only know this because my boyfriend published an academic book last year titled “The Hollywood Sequel: History & Form, 1911-2010” by Dr Stuart Henderson. Obviously, I highly recommend it. Even as a non-film studies person it’s a fascinating and entertaining read about Hollywood. In an early chapter, it also discusses how many classic and 19th/20th century authors wrote sequels to their books.

The cash in sequel books I'm referring to are novels like “Scarlett” by Alexandra Ripley whose story followed from "Gone with the Wind." I'm not writing with total authority here because I haven't read “Scarlett” (but watched the tv series). Most reviewers were very critical of the book. As far as storyline, it seemed so preposterous and out of character with how Scarlett was in the original book - would she really go to Ireland?

One of my favourite literary prequels would have to be Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea” which tells the story of the famous “mad woman in the attic” from Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” as a girl growing up on a Caribbean island and how she came to be the mysterious woman in Bronte’s novel. Having been born on the island of Dominica herself, this novel succeeds so well I think because its invested so much with the author’s own identity and personal history (not literally but her emotional experience). It also gives voice to a character that was marginalized – not necessarily by Bronte – but by the restrictions of the plot as laid out in “Jane Eyre.”

A recent example of a brilliant literary sequel is Rachel Joyce's “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey” which came out in the autumn last year and is a sequel to “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.” I think it succeeds because it was written by the same author and, though it has lots of references to the first book, it stands on its own and could be read without having read the first book.

Another good example of a literary sequel is JM Coetzee's novel “Foe” which is his sequel to Daniel Defoe's “Robinson Crusoe”. I read both of these while staying on a Greek island last year. Even though this was written many years later and by another author it too succeeds because Coetzee uses the story as a commentary on women and race as represented (or not represented) in Defoe’s text. It’s more like a dialogue. While it was a fascinating read and contemplates the form of writing itself, I don’t think it stands on its own as a satisfying story. While “Robinson Crusoe” stands as an iconic figure in our culture today, it’s probably not well known that Crusoe himself wrote a sequel titled “The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” I haven’t read it but can only guess it’s not as much interest as the original since it’s now virtually forgotten.  

I’ve been trying to think of other sequel books. Do you know of any particularly bad or good ones? Or do you have any favourites?

Second Life by SJ Watson

I think SJ Watson’s new novel “Second Life” has one of the best teaser blurbs I’ve read in a long time:

“She loves her husband. She's obsessed by a stranger. She's a devoted mother. She's prepared to lose everything. She knows what she's doing. She's out of control. She's innocent. She's guilty as sin. She's living two lives. She might lose both.”

What a succinct and enticing way to draw a reader in!

The tone is apt because this psychological-thriller is written in a similar fast-paced style narrated from the point of view of emotionally-torn Julia Plummer, a married photographer living with her husband Hugh and son Connor in London. Although they have a relatively cosy and happy life, it’s been rattled recently by Julia’s younger sister Kate who asks for custody of Connor. The teenage boy is really Kate’s son, but Julia and Hugh have cared for him since he was a baby because of Kate’s instability. In the novel’s opening we learn that Kate was murdered in Paris under mysterious circumstances. Julia used to have her own wild side before settling down. Partly as a way of dealing with her grief, she becomes entangled in an online romance which spills over into real life. Her stable life is threatened by the new secret second life she begins to lead while also searching for answers about her sister’s death.

Central to the story is the notion of parallel lives that people lead. Early in her adult life Julia spent some untamed years in Berlin where she had an intense affair with a man named Marcus and established a reputation as an artistic photographer. Her lifestyle spun out of control with tragic results, but finding Hugh and establishing a stable home life saved her. However, she still desires the undomesticated aspects of this earlier time which are realized within her affair. Sex isn’t usually only motivated by desire; factored into Julia’s experimentation are her insecurities, yearning to freely express herself or, as she admits at one point, “It’s the simple thrill of being wanted.” As is common in modern life, cybersex is a way for people to test out repressed aspects of their sexuality. It’s a common paranoid fear that you may end up chatting up online and then meeting in real life someone who turns out to be a psycho. While this rarely happens in reality, this novel is a thriller so it’s not possible for Julia to meet a decent man looking for fun or for her unleashed desires to stay in neat little compartments. Occasionally her lover becomes a bit too much of a comedy villain during the story. But what drives the narrative and makes it a compelling read are the true motivations and mounting mystery about the real identity of this charming, seductive rogue who enters her life.

We all operate on different levels of self-delusion in order to justify our actions and not be weighed down with guilt. This ranges from large lies like Julia’s initiating an affair in order to investigate clues to smaller lies like breaking her diet to eat chips because she thinks she deserves it. Throughout Julia’s narrative the reader learns about the different ways she’s deceiving herself so that while facts continuously come to light we question the reliability of what she’s telling us. Lies abound in this story and it adds a compelling complexity when the reader questions not only the characters she meets but the narrator herself.

This raises larger issues about the distinction between identity and self-presentation. At one point she observes that “we’re wearing masks, all of us, all the time. We’re presenting a face, a version of ourselves, to the world, to each other. We show a different face depending on who we’re with and what they expect of us. Even when we’re alone it’s just another mask, the version of ourselves we’d prefer to be.” This is another way of putting William James’ theory that people have a different self for every social situation that they participate in, but it adds a level of complexity about the way individuals choose to see a more idealized self when alone. As the different lives Julia leads between her husband and her lover become increasingly complicated, she herself is uncertain who she really is when alone.

A really poignant aspect of this novel is its depiction of Julia’s struggle with alcoholism. During her time in Berlin she developed an addiction to alcohol and drugs. Although she’s been sober for many years it’s still a struggle, especially in moments of stress. What Watson captures so well is the psychological steps the addict goes through when facing temptation. Rather than impulsively following the desire to drink when it comes up, Julia has learned to pause and think through the emotions which are making her want alcohol. By being conscious of this she can deal with these emotions in a way other than drinking. She’s also learned techniques for dealing with social situations that include drinking where she doesn’t need to divulge the nature of her illness. This representation of someone’s way of dealing daily with alcoholism felt very true to life and meaningful.

“Second Life” makes a gripping read in the skilled way it captures the moment to moment logic of its sympathetic narrator and drops well-timed suggestive hints which prompt the reader to experience pleasurable “ah-ha” moments of understanding. It also presents a complex understanding of sexuality when the distinction between fantasy and reality becomes blurred. While I was able to guess a couple of the twists along the way, it succeeds as a thriller by delivering a surprising ending which I didn’t see coming.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

It's always felt to me that at the centre of Anne Tyler's novels about genteel middle class Baltimore life there is horrific fear. What if this life you've worked so hard for is something you wake up wanting to escape from? What if the people closest to you and the family you've known all your life turn out to be strangers? Tyler presents these insolvable dilemmas by following the daily life of her characters while also acknowledging the absurdity and uselessness of the questions. Of course there are a multitude of possibilities in life and we can't choose them all because we're caught in the unstoppable flow of time which necessarily limits the options we have. Even though we can spend our lives with people we're linked to by blood or marriage and we can know their habits, we cannot know what's truly in their hearts. In Tyler's fiction people can walk out the door one evening to become someone new or wake in the morning to see that their partner of forty years is someone they've always hated. It's this daily risk which makes the finely constructed domestic detail of her narratives both terrifying and thrilling.

In “A Spool of Blue Thread” she takes a new approach to this by writing a family saga which moves backwards through the generations. At the start we're introduced to the Whitshanks who live in the perfect suburban home. They have four adult children, but it's their third child Denny who is the wayward black sheep. He flashes in and out of family's life unable to settle. Unsurprisingly, it's the troubled child which gets the most attention and therefore draws resentment from his siblings. Tyler then shifts focus to the mother Abby. She writes about Abby and Red's uncomfortable transition from old age to elderly. The family rally together to decide how to care for their parents Red and Abby while still allowing them to maintain their independence. Finally the story moves back to the family's origin: Red's parents Junior and Linnie with their mysterious past. At the centre is the Whitshank family home, an idealized space built by Junior himself for a middle class family and gradually purchased for his own family. The home is passed through the generations as a symbol of self-creation, a quintessential American family who started with nothing and have formed a lineage with many branches.

This novel in triptych form reminds me of Gauguin's incredible painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? from the way it unpretentiously displays every stage of life and multiple generations. At the same time it quietly asks these fundamental questions about the nature of being. Tyler is also cleverly disentangling the myth of the idealized nuclear American family. On the surface, the Whitshanks give an impression of established stability. Yet, everything about them was acquired, if not exactly immorally, but on the sly. Junior schemed to purchase the family home from the Brills, the family he worked for. Red's sister Merrick connived to gain the wealthy husband her good friend intended to marry. A child who is suddenly made an orphan is taken into the Whitshank home and raised as one of their own without any formal adoption taking place. These are all things which the family have appropriated as aspirational accessories to present themselves to the world as who they want to be. The great tension in this novel is between becoming and being. Whether you have truly earned what's in your life or not, when do the people/things around you turn from a symbol of what you want to become into a fundamental part of who you are?

The impressive thing is how lightly Tyler addresses all these concerns in her writing. There is nothing ponderous about her narrative at all filling it with so much detail about the delicate balance of family relationship and the minutiae of daily life. She includes a good degree of humanity and humour into her prose. When recounting one of the two stories which are marked as vital to the family's oral history, Tyler writes of Junior: “In 1936, he fell in love with a house. No, first he must have fallen in love with his wife, because he was married by then.” This sort of wry observation has all the humorous qualities which you can recognize as characteristic of a tale endlessly retold over the dinner table. Only later in the novel does it take on a darker quality. There is a fine balance to the way the family narrates their own story in this novel and the facts of their history which are doled out by Tyler herself.

Many of Tyler's observations about her characters behaviour come across as true to life, things you can relate to yourself or things which you can recognize as similar to people you know. There is the odd occasion when she does slip. When describing in parentheses an example of one character's generosity of spirit she remarks: “(He traded his new bike for a kitten when Jeannie’s beloved cat died.)” It makes me wonder, what sort of transaction would estimate a bike as equivalent value to a kitten – animals which are notoriously given away for free when a family has a cat that's given birth? And even if a trade like this did take place what parent would allow their young boy to make it? Aside from some small quibbles I had at times, Tyler's characters come across as well-formed and relatable.

In this novel's best moments it has all the heft and pleasures of “To the Lighthouse.” Virginia Woolf was a writer who cherished the physical detail and small interactions of life because these tiny realities are the line of life. They add up to saying something substantial and meaningful about existence. “A Spool of Blue Thread” gives us a deep insight into the type of family you could live next door to. At the lake where the Whitshanks vacation every summer there is a family who rent a cabin adjacent to them. They see them every year, but never make contact. Instead they observe subtle changes about how the family grows and changes from a distance. The Whitshanks feel that their story is parallel to their own, but essentially unknown. Tyler's writing is about making that contact where polite society does not. In doing so, she shows all the passion and fear that is a part of every family life.

Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile

Imagine staring at enormous fields of wilting sugar cane stalks and knowing your entire future depends on whether you can keep this crop alive. Single mother Charley faces this challenge after moving from California to a substantial farm in Saint Josephine, southern Louisiana which she’s inherited from her recently deceased father. She must rapidly learn the back-breaking business of harvesting sugar cane from scratch before her money and time run out or she’ll be destitute. The transition from the highly-mixed urban landscape of Los Angeles to this rural Southern town couldn’t be more dramatic. Not only must she adjust to a new livelihood with her adolescent girl Micah in tow but learn how to integrate into this different culture which is very parochial and stuck in its ways. Charley is both helped and hindered by the family who surround her as she struggles through a difficult year of re-establishing the farm as a viable business. “Queen Sugar” is a heart-felt novel primarily about overcoming painful guilt and accepting that forgiveness can open new opportunities for the future.

Running parallel to Charley’s narrative is the story of her half-brother Ralph Angel. He is also a single parent who arrives in Louisiana soon after Charley, but hasn’t been included in his father’s will. Since he’s nearly broke he resorts to shop lifting at times to even feed himself and his six year old son, Blue. Ralph Angel struggles with his pride, drug-use and resentment over being cut out of any inheritance; he’s what could be called the black sheep of the family. However, being the favoured child isn’t always positive. Charley feels the legacy she’s taken on is more often a curse than a blessing and she’s bewildered why her father traded his life savings for this remote farmland. Only when she learns the truth about her father’s youth in this rural Southern town does she understand what the farm really meant to him. By securing the business she can establish her and her family’s future. Also as a black woman, she can set an important precedent in a predominantly white male farming industry. Charley acknowledges that “you don’t move to a tiny Louisiana town, way out in the middle of nowhere, and expect life to be a stroll through the park; you couldn’t expect to be the only woman in an industry filled with men and not think someone would eventually say something stupid; you couldn’t ignore the long, dark, tortured history of Southern race relations, or pretend that everything would be fixed overnight… But you could be brave.” Demonstrating courage, tenacity and drawing upon the support of her family, Charley is determined to overcome the substantial challenges she faces in this town. However, farming is expensive and it all comes down to money.

The novel shows a complicated and dynamic portrait of racial politics. Outwardly ignorant demonstrations of racism don’t often appear, although it is still sometimes present especially amongst the established elite. However, there are more subtle layers which manifest in subsets of mixed race communities, within romantic relationships and amongst the presumptions of workers – there are migrant workers who’d be treated better by black employers but would prefer to work for white employers. This novel is unique in the way it shows how boundaries can be broken down by circumnavigating destructive conflict through patience and intelligently correcting the missteps people make when talking about race.

Natalie Baszile has a highly engaging fluid style of writing which sympathetically draws you into the lives of her characters. Through glimpsing their thoughts and reading their dialogue characters such as the deeply Christian grandmother Miss Honey come alive and feel like familiar family. Adolescent Micah’s personality is revealed more through her impetuous actions in a way which feels very realistic. While this novel shows a highly informed level of detail about the process of sugar caning, it’s not so much that the reader feels overwhelmed like they are reading a farming text book. At the centre of the book is a potent symbol: a small statue called The Cane Cutter which Charley has also inherited from her father. It’s emblematic of where her family came from, their determination to persevere and where they are going. It’s a way of acknowledging the past, learning from it and moving forward in a more fulfilling way. I admire the realistic way this novel deals with the real world problem of how money seems to rule our lives, but acknowledges that it is definitely not everything. Baszile writes: “there was so much more to life than just money. There were family and friends, there was good, satisfying work, and knowing you had a place on this earth where you were loved and there was nothing to prove.” Despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and difficulties that arise within communities and families, establishing a home should be the centrepiece and the greatest goal we can aspire to fully attain.

The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates

Given the recent much-publicized protests in America about a series of unjustified killings of black individuals at the hands of white policemen, the subject of The Sacrifice couldn’t appear any more prescient. Yet, what Oates shows in her novel is that fear, ignorance and misunderstanding is a constant presence, and is the legacy of racial tension in American society carried throughout the years and multiple generations. The media highlights particular examples of the issue regularly, and this sparks movements of public outcry and protest seeking to gain justice and correct societal imbalances. The Sacrifice traces the way incidents like this transition from the particular to the emblematic; how people at the centre of the incident are turned from individuals into symbols and are made to surrender their unique complexities as human beings; and how facts can be obfuscated for the sake of a “bigger meaning” or to progress personal agendas. Oates has created a gripping, complex story largely inspired by the case of Tawana Brawley, a black teenage girl who was found by a grand jury to have falsely accused six white men of raping her. The Sacrifice memorializes the conflicts, both internal and external, of individuals whose subjective reality is subsumed by their public identity within a movement of social change. 

Read my full review on Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies: http://repository.usfca.edu/jcostudies/vol2/iss1/1/

Not Forgetting the Whale by John Ironmonger

The first thing that attracted me to reading John Ironmonger’s new novel “Not Forgetting the Whale” was its beautiful cover. Of course, that’s a shallow way to choose your next read, but the cover illustration of sea water cascading over a whale with a town in the distance is very striking. The story begins mysteriously enough with the residents of St Piran, a fictional Cornish village, who collectively remember and celebrate an event that occurred fifty years ago. A naked man washed ashore in the harbour of their small seaside village and a whale appeared in the water. The facts of this incident have been stretched and tangled throughout the generations and with multiple retellings. What was once a historical incident has been transformed into a myth with a meaning far beyond itself. This occurrence marked a large shift that occurred in society which nearly brought it to a frightening end: “Sometimes life could do this. It could draw a line. Beyond the line, life would say, nothing will ever be the same. The sun will rise tomorrow but it will rise onto a different world.” Yet this village continued on and thrived in a new form. What follows is a highly unusual and thoughtful story about the events which led to this post-apocalyptic point.

Joe is a man on the run. Under duress, this handsome 30 year old fled his life in London where he worked in a prestigious investment bank as a computer programmer. Joe was an instrumental part of developing a program which could predict the rise and fall of the stock market with reasonable reliability. However, the company’s director has designs on this program doing much more. When things reach a crisis point Joe drives off into the countryside to randomly wind up in isolated St Piran. Only one main road leads in and out of this quaint village with a population of just over three hundred residents. The village is composed of a cast of characters with their own entertaining quirks and idiosyncrasies. Life has a very different rhythm here from the fast-paced trading floor that Joe is used to: “Time. That’s what he was noticing. Time was moving at a different rate here.” The inhabitants don’t have much interest in news of the outside world because global events have little effect upon them. Little ever changes. In fact it’s remarked of one resident that “Demelza Trevarrick had lived sufficient years in St Piran to understand that the tranquillity of the village was almost geological in its permanence.” It seems nothing can affect the way of life for this tranquil place – until a deadly flu reaches Britain.

Thomas Hobbes

Ironmonger’s primary preoccupation in this novel is with the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and his emphasis on self-interested cooperation. A crucial test for the resiliency of any government is at a point of crisis where self interest becomes the central motivating factor over any (social or legal) laws because people’s survival is suddenly at stake. The author’s story presents how events might play out and offers a surprising avenue through which individuals can weather through the challenges which threaten to tear a society down to basics. One resident observes “‘A village,’ Martha Fishburne would say, ‘is more’n a row of houses. It’s a whole network of connections.’” Whether they like it or not catastrophic affairs of The State (what Hobbes characterized metaphorically as a monster) come to their doorsteps in quite a literal way as a whale washes ashore and the essentials (food, electricity, oil) of everyday life are cut off from them after the outbreak of a deadly flu. The decision on how to move forward for this group of individuals will determine if they are able to progress as a collective or if their lives will be, as the philosopher famously surmised, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Caught in the middle of this is Joe whose actions inadvertently inspire the people as a guiding force. The ramifications of his experiences help steer his own personal direction in life, overcoming his estranged family’s tumultuous past and rediscovering what he values most.

I really enjoyed Ironmonger’s cleverly constructed story. He has a very different approach to the apocalypse tale from Emily St John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” which I also read recently. “Not Forgetting the Whale” is more concerned with the way macro systems of society feed down into the micro. Harnessing together some of the most pressing global concerns which make us fear for our collective future, the author proposes a realistic way in which civilization can become unhinged with the loss of only a single, but ultimately essential, part. Rather than focus on the panic and gore which normally attends apocalyptic stories, Ironmonger chooses instead to concentrate on deeper thoughts about how human nature factors in the correlation between individual motivations and social organization. It’s an engaging tale which poignantly develops its deeper meanings as it progresses while the history of both Joe and the village are slowly revealed. “Not Forgetting the Whale” creates an entire world which made me reflect upon my own.

Listen to the opening extract from the novel here: https://soundcloud.com/orionbooks/not-forgetting-the-whale-by-john-ironmonger-read-by-david-thorpe

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman

The stories in “Almost Famous Women” by Megan Mayhew Bergman stand out in my mind as some of the most exciting fiction in both content and style that I’ve read for some time. Here the author has chosen a group of women from history who have rubbed shoulders with fame or were associated with a celebrated person. Stories include fascinating figures such as conjoined twins Violet & Daisy, actress Butterfly McQueen, Alegra: the short-lived illegitimate daughter of Lord Byron, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister Norma, black trumpet player Tiny Davis. She has fictionalized scenes from each of their lives in which she brings their unique and forgotten perspectives to the forefront. Almost every story is proceeded by a photo of the woman in question which adds a striking visual reference point grounding these fictional conjurings in docemented history. They are women who each showed tremendous talent and intelligence in the arts or sports, but for some reason they have been relegated to the footnotes of history.

These stories are so extraordinarily entertaining while also making bold statements about the plight of women in society at their time. The fact that many have fallen into obscurity says more about the way history is largely informed by a patriarchal agenda. Perhaps the author is also making a statement upon the valiant feminist mission which underlies this book when she comments in one story: “Maybe the world had been bad to its great and unusual women. Maybe there wasn’t a worthy place for the female hero to live out her golden years, to be celebrated as the men had been celebrated, to take from that celebration what she needed to survive.” In this book a select group of women are brilliantly and rightfully celebrated in all their complexity!

Many books of short fiction are made up of disparate pieces which the author has written over many years. It’s rare that a central concept unites a book of stories in the way of “Almost Famous Women.” One book which does bear a similar resemblance is Greg Johnson’s brilliant book of short stories “Last Encounter with the Enemy,” several of which I discuss in my review of his collection “Women I’ve Known,” in which he writes about fictional encounters in the lives of several great female authors. I’m also reminded of Joyce Carol Oates’ tremendous book of short stories “Wild Nights!” which fictionalizes the end of several famous authors’ lives. Short stories should, of course, stand independently, but it adds a level of complexity and poignancy when there are overarching themes connecting them in a collection. Although the stories in “Almost Famous Women” vary greatly, they do form a larger statement about these unique female lives which have mostly been forgotten and deserve to be given a voice.

What’s fascinating about Bergman’s technique is that, for the most part, she approaches her female subjects from the side. Except in a few stories where we are more or less centred in the perspective of the woman from history that the author has selected, most are narrated by or entrenched in the perspective of someone associated with these women. In one of my favourite stories ‘The Siege of Whale Cay’ the story is told from the mistress of cigar-smoking heiress M.B. “Joe” Carstairs who was known as the fastest woman on water because of her motorboat racing abilities. She purchased a Caribbean island to rule over and live out her eccentric lifestyle in relative seclusion. But her story unfolds through the perspective of Georgie, a woman who used to play a mermaid at an amusement park and who Carstairs has taken to the island to live as her mistress. Through Georgie we learn of Carstairs’ lavish soirées, affair with a famous actress and sometimes tyrannical nature informed partly by the trauma she endured during WWI.

Natalie Barney

Although this isn’t explored in the stories of this collection, Carstairs also had an affair with Dolly Wilde, the niece of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Dolly is given her own story in ‘Who Killed Dolly Wilde?’ which is also narrated from the perspective of someone close to Dolly rather than by Dolly herself. It follows the sad and slow demise of this flamboyant socialiser, writer and drug-addict despite the earnest attention and love of her friend/patron who narrates the story. The story about Romaine Brooks ‘Romaine Remains’ also has a connection here as both Dolly Wilde and Brooks are known to have had affairs with Natalie Barney, that famous woman who held court to some of the greatest writers and artists in early 20th century Paris. Therefore, it’s almost surprising not to see a story about Barney included in this story collection as well.

‘Romaine Remains’ focuses on the painter’s much later life when she is living as a cantankerous recluse. It’s told from the perspective of Mario, a young homosexual who works as the elderly Romaine’s carer and housekeeper. He’s fascinated by this woman’s extraordinary life but tortured by his impoverished state which requires him to be subject to both this difficult old artist and his domineering mother. It leads him to take control of the vulnerable woman he’s employed under stating “Power is a funny thing. Sometimes you can just take it.” His fervent desire to become an artist despite his circumstances suggests how both he and many of the women in this collection are prevented from realizing their full potential in part because of their strained economic circumstances.

Ernestine "Tiny" Davis

Running through each of these three stories is also a fascinating perspective on queer identity. It’s shown in very different manifestations through these characters’ individual perspectives. Sometimes compromises must be made in order to live the way they want to with their chosen same sex partner and sometimes they unapologetically/defiantly live the way that feels natural. Another story which touches upon a unique historical example of a homosexual figure is ‘Hell-Diving Women’ which conjures a period in time of The International Sweethearts of Rhythm who were the first integrated all women’s band in America. It’s told from the perspective of Ruby who was trumpet player Tiny Davis’s lover. Here the struggle this lesbian couple face is subsumed over more pressing overt concerns of racial intolerance the band experienced while touring under difficult situations.

Some stories have what feels like a more overt agenda to yank back a historical person’s integrity from what’s been (to date) a mostly male-dominated historical narrative. The story ‘A High-Grade Bitch Sits Down For Lunch’ is proceeded by a quote from Ernest Hemingway about aviator and memoirist Beryl Markham. Arguably, it’s because of Hemingway that Markham is still known at all. Yet he gave her a typically backhanded compliment praising her writing effusively while also denigrating her personally. What follows is a tender story about Markham living in hard-won independence in rural Kenya. She works to tame a horse for riding. The autonomy she forms within her existence here where she’s left her husband is very difficult, but there is a triumphant pleasure in it where she can exist without needing to pay heed to the opinions of men. What a satisfying way of rendering Hemingway’s arrogantly macho opinion insignificant!

In a departure from the other stories in the collection, the very short tale ‘The Internees’ unusually uses the collective voice to describe groups of women liberated from the Nazi internment camps in Bergen-Belsen. Last year I saw André Singer’s devastating documentary ‘Night Will Fall’ about the filming of the camps by Allied forces after their liberation and the political complications of making a complete documentary. In it there are testimonies and footage of women in the aftermath of being freed and their intense desire for clothes and make up to feel like themselves again. In Bergman’s story she resurrects these voices in a way which makes you consider the meaning of identity and femininity.

I feel like I could go on and on about the stories I’ve mentioned and many more which are contained in this book. That’s how provocative and thrilling they are! They make you want to rush online or to the library to research more about all of these fascinating women. One other story I was particularly struck by was ‘Hazel Eaton and the Wall of Death’ about a woman who performed dangerous motorcycle stunts in a carnival’s motordrome. I felt a personal connection to it since its set in the state of Maine where I grew up, although this story is set early in the 20th century. But I was also deeply moved by the philosophical query it raises about what makes a fulfilling existence. Bergman writes: “She was questioning then, as she does now: what makes you empty and what makes you full?” Questions and conundrums like this which prod at the centre of your being pop up throughout the stories in this book. The author’s great skill as a writer and a deep thinker are what make this fiction so compelling. Underlying the compelling stories Bergman creates out of these women resurrected from their nearly-forgotten place in history are much deeper meanings about life, identity and society.

A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White

Today is Edmund White's birthday and A Boy's Own Story has recently been reissued as an ebook by Open Media, so it seems fitting to celebrate this book today, one of the author's most famous novels. My thoughts below are something which I first posted in 2009 on the blog Chroma. For the original special Valentine's Day post, I gathered a group of authors such as Jackie Kay, David Plante, Sophie Mayer, Aaron Hamburger and JD Glass to comment on queer books they heart/ones that have influenced them the most. I still heart this novel and return to it occassionally to read passages which have particular resonance. Edmund has also produced a stunning body of work from the definitive biography of Jean Genet to historical novels such as Fanny: A Fiction (a personal favourite) and Hotel de Dream to great books of memoir such as My Lives and Inside a Pearl, which was published last year. Fans will be excited to hear that he finished a new novel just last week! But A Boy's Own Story will always remain an extremely special book.

Photo of me & Edmund in London, 2005

I read this novel as a teenager and discovered in White's beautifully rich prose an articulation of feelings I myself was struggling to understand. Speaking to other gay men and reading about people’s relationship to this book I’ve found that many have experienced the same thing reading this brilliant novel. It’s startling that a story so specific and entwined in it’s particular time and location can touch upon such universal feelings, taking on personal meaning to so many. It also felt brave and honest that the great betrayal at the end of the book doesn’t conform to a facile love story, but hints at impulses inherent to queer identity which have the power to divide us as much as bring us together.

The Room by Jonas Karlsson (translated by Neil Smith)

Have you ever worked alongside an oddball? Someone who has a markedly different way of dealing with people socially which makes your need to work alongside them somewhat uncomfortable? Most people have at some point. The pressurised environment of an office seems particularly prone to small personal clashes between people with different social techniques. The most striking example in my own memory is when an online marketing expert was recruited at my office. The directors asked him to spend a few minutes with all the employees so he could get an understanding for what they do. He took this as an opportunity to evaluate everyone’s workload and lecture them about how they should do their job better. Unsurprisingly, this made him few friends. He frequently spoke to people with an arrogant superior air - even when he was unquestionably in the wrong. Yet, he seemed baffled as to why he was socially alienated from everyone in the office. He didn’t last long at my company.

“The Room” is a novel about a person named Bjorn who is very much like this and it’s narrated from his perspective. At one point he states: “They [people] think that as long as they do their best, everything will work out okay. You have to remind them. You have to show people like that what their shortcomings are.” The people Bjorn works with don’t enjoy how he arrogantly shows them this. He has a very regimental, strict attitude towards his work and work habits. Every fifty-five minutes he allows himself a few minutes break. It’s on one of these breaks he discovers a room near the office toilets. Inside the room is a perfectly ordered and ordinary unused office. Bjorn finds it comforting to spend time in this tranquil space. The only problem is that no one else can see it and all available evidence shows that the room doesn’t actually exist. When he’s inside the room, his co-workers only see him standing in the corridor staring at nothing with a totally detached manner. They remark: “‘It’s like you’re just not there.’” It’s like the room is a mental space Bjorn needs to gather his wits about him, but the narrative surreally plays with the question of whether this room has a tangible existence.

Because of the stark, plain language of the narrative and the preoccupation with Bjorn’s sense of self-consciousness, comparisons could be made between this novel and post-modernist writers like Samuel Beckett or Eugene Ionesco’s only novel “The Hermit” or existentialists like Knut Hamsun or Jean-Paul Sartre or Franz Kafka. Because of the office setting and the upset his small antisocial actions cause, this novel also has the feel of Merlville's "Bartleby, the Scrivner." Bjorn’s character has an anonymous feel similar to many characters created by these writers because we’re given so little background about him other than how he left his previous job because of difficulties he had with co-workers and a brief reference to being punched in grammar school. But this novel has a much lighter, brisk tone and its ideas don’t extend far enough into the cerebral thoughts of these writers to really merit comparison. Joshua Ferris’ office-set novel “Then We Came to the End” is a much more apt reference for “The Room” because it is concerned more with the social manners, career tactics and office politics it explores. Bjorn’s behaviour and some of the things he says to his co-workers is really outrageous. Because the reader is totally entrenched in his point of view it’s made to feel completely rational. But, of course, we can’t help thinking how angered we’d feel if someone said these things in our own offices.

A case could easily be made for Bjorn being diagnosed as a sociopath. Or perhaps he has tendencies similar to certain kinds of autism which make social interaction very difficult. No mental health diagnosis can be made because when Bjorn is directed to get treatment from a psychiatrist the bureaucracy he encounters dismisses him as not worth the time. Sometimes in the narrative Bjorn uses the second person speaking to “you” but the “you” could almost be himself he’s speaking to because Bjorn has a very intense internal dialogue with himself. He also feels a definite remove from other people where he believes he can see things more clear-sightedly than them because of his superior intellect: “I suddenly felt how lonely it is, constantly finding yourself the only person who can see the truth in this gullible world.” His removal from his workmates and strategic plans to ascend in rank sees him bring his office to a point of crisis. The ending is both thrilling and teasingly elusive in meaning.

The Morning and the Evening by Joan Williams

Since the holidays have just passed and we’re in the glum of winter, I was feeling somewhat nostalgic and in the mood to read something older so I decided upon this new Open Road reprint of Southern-writer Joan Williams’ 1961 novel “The Morning and the Evening.” Set in the small town of Marigold, Mississippi, it centres primarily around mentally disabled 40 year-old Jake who is abruptly left living alone to fend for himself. Moreover, it’s a portrait of the town focusing on different characters’ perspectives chapter by chapter. Jake, who is a mute, gets a few chapters devoted solely to him and, unsurprisingly, Williams’ narrates these sections in a more “poetic” voice which is nonetheless effective and moving: “he felt words inside him the way he felt music.” The novel captures the feel of small-town Southern life with evocative descriptions and distinctive characters such as an older woman quietly addicted to a (legal-at-the-time) form of liquid opium or a black man named Little T whose lifelong ambition is to catch a legendary elusive catfish. The book’s great power is the way in which it explores the tension people feel between being both an integral part of their community while also remaining essentially isolated.

The townsfolk who has known Jake all his life rally around to help him get by while he lives on his own until a misunderstanding causes Jake to lash out in a way that disturbs all of the residents. He’s committed to an insane asylum which, in this instance, happens to be well funded and a positive nurturing environment. It’s fascinating reading about the process by which a few members of the community go about having Jake sectioned. There are a number of legal hoops for them to go through, but it is frighteningly easy. An administrator at the institution remarks how this leads to many people being wrongly committed and it takes some time to get them out. Expecting a riotous environment a visitor finds the place more filled with people overwhelmed by their circumstances: “She’d never realized before it was nervous breakdowns that sent folks here.” This is a rather surprising representation of a mental institution in this time period. It’s a testament to how well-meaning some staff can be in wanting to rehabilitate the ill, but the novel makes a good case for more stringently regulated methods to deal with how people are institutionalized.

A photo of silver screen idol & the face of Wheaties cereal boxes Johnny Mack Brown is pinned to the wall in character Jud's room

The novel strikingly presents the way racial relations in this time period were handled in daily small town Southern life. There is a sense whereby people of colour for the most part live and work companionably alongside the white residents of the community, but only if the general understanding that they belong to another class is upheld. It’s understood among these white residents that the “worst boys” are ones who “took Negro girls as a lark and otherwise told impossible tales of their prowess with white ones.” When two people who are both married have an affair, it’s remarked that if the man’s wife were to find out what’s been going on she “wouldn’t care nearly so much if it was a Negro; she’d know it wasn’t somebody he was in love with.” At one point Little T presses slightly against the conventions: “For the heck of it only, he had not long ago referred to a white man, in public, by his first name. A white man, overhearing, had said, ‘Boy, I believe you mean Mister Bill, don’t you?’ The longstanding racial divide relies upon these small behavioural checks to uphold the way non-white residents are stationed below the white ones. Thereby this presents the insidious way racism can bear a smiling face as long as certain boundaries are maintained.

It’s interesting that this book began as a short story which Williams grew into a novel. It makes sense that this is the way it was constructed as many of the towns people’s chapters could be taken in isolation. Usually only a few details, mostly pertaining to Jake, act as the line which connects all their stories. The way in which she captures the solitude people can feel amongst groups and Jake's idiosyncratic way of dealing with the world reminded me strongly of the much more recent novel The Thing About December by Donal Ryan which I read a year ago. Williams writing is often strikingly beautiful particularly when she portrays the atmosphere of Mississippi: “During the long, overgrown summer the citrus smell of mock orange had filled the air; now that languid smell was lost on an air crisp and sharp with the aroma of leaves beginning to dry.” Not only does she show a keen sensual awareness for the landscape but touchingly portrays the passage of time as experienced by the residents so familiar with the elements around them. This novel allowed me to live amongst all the most joyful aspects of this particular community while making me grateful (much like the character of Jud who quickly moves away when he’s old enough) that I don’t have to actually inhabit it any longer.

Updates

I may not be updating this blog as frequently as I have been because I'm working on my novel. This is the only mention I'll make of this as I'm self-consciously aware how contradictory it is to continuously go on social media and blogs discussing the writing you are apparently working on. There is even a hilarious/tragic Penguin book and twitter account dedicated to sending up writers who are apparently “working on my novel.”

The thing is I have a great opportunity. An editor at a major publisher has expressed an interest in a novel I've been writing for some time. He's gone out of his way to meet with me and edit my writing. Anyone who cynically says publishing houses are only filled with marketers looking to increase profits are wrong because there are editors with a true passion for writers/writing. This happened by chance and is unconnected with this blog. It came about as a side effect after a job interview I went for. Who knows if it will come to anything, but it'll be great motivation to carry on and write more. As you can probably tell from mentions I've made before about stories I've written being published and my heavy engagement with what I read that I like to write myself. I've been publishing my own fiction for years in literary reviews and anthologies. I had a short novel published with a small press that won a book award when I was fresh out of college.

I love reading and using this blog to better articulate how I feel about what I'm reading as well as connecting with other passionate readers. But between doing a full-time job, working as a massage therapist on weekends and working on my own writing I don't think I'll have as much time to read and write about what I'm reading. There will still be updates. Just not as many. Of course, if I could spend all my time reading and talking about books with people I would. I'm not paid for doing this blog; in fact, I pay to keep it. It's a pure passion project and I only write about books I'm interested in. But the new year is motivating me to get my priorities straight. This could be a great opportunity and I ought to go for it. No doubt I'll still be checking in with other blogs and hearing what others are reading. My already mile-high “to be read” pile will no doubt continue to grow exponentially. The great thing about books is that they'll always be there waiting to be read.

My Top 10 Books of 2014

In total I’ve read 86 books this year. Most of them were newly published novels. If you read my reviews, you’ll know how much I engaged with and got out of many of these books. Just because I’m picking ten to highlight here doesn’t mean I think many of the others aren’t great works in each of their own unique ways. There’s no way to really compare the inventive distinct voice of “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing” with the refreshing perspective on WWII that “The Spring of Kasper Meier” gives or the majestic view of an extensive family in Calcutta that “The Lives of Others” provides. Still more difficult is to judge books of short stories against each other. While some stories in books like “All the Rage” or “The American Lover” or “The Best American Stories of 2014” could be counted amongst the most powerful things I’ve read this year, other stories in these books haven’t stuck with me as much. And, of course, browsing other best books of the year lists, I’m aware just how many other new much-lauded books I simply haven’t had time to read yet. I haven’t even read this year’s Booker prize winner. But I think winter is designed for cosy afternoons inside catching up with reading while drinking cups of tea.

The ten books I’m singling out here simply had a tremendous personal impact upon me. I’d gladly thrust copies into the hands of any reader and call them essential. Click on the titles to read my full thoughts on each.

Arctic Summer
A section of writer EM Forster’s life is fictionally mined by Galgut to reveal the power of a quiet life. It hit me like a punch in the face.

The Blazing World
What could be the most inventive and daring artistic hoax of the century forces us to question our assumptions about gender and the meaning of art.

The Walk Home
This short novel about a Glaswegian boy caught in the crossfire of ideological and family struggles deserves to be more widely read and remembered.

The Incarnations
Fantastically inventive and the most relentlessly entertaining book I’ve read all year, Barker’s novel of stories within stories subversively questions the meaning of identity.

H is for Hawk
This memoir about grief breaks the mould showing Macdonald’s very personal experience of managing her feelings through training a goshawk and exploring the life of writer TH White.

How to be Both
Smith is a revolutionary writer. Language is never a passive, dead thing in this author’s books. In this new novel her words perform gymnastics and make me want to do backward hand-springs.

The Paying Guests
No two love stories are the same. This novel gives us the tale of a most extraordinary affair that shows how we can be both generous and selfish in passion.

Lovely, Dark, Deep
Many books of short stories come across as uneven, but every tale in this collection stands out. Using an impressive arsenal of literary styles, Oates writes about people as far ranging as an unlikeable victim of cancer who won’t tell anyone about her illness and a viciously aggressive teenage boy writing about his death.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
Rachel Joyce’s literary sequel to her popular first novel, shows an elderly woman physically inhibited by her illness shining light on her lifetime of experiences like a prism reveals the entire spectrum of colours.

The Repercussions
Two disparate stories that are divided by a century come together in this tremendous and emotionally-enthralling novel about war, photography, sexuality and race.

My Top 10 New Films of 2014

This list may come across as if I’m trying to be a bit high brow. Believe me, I appreciate some good big budget movies like ‘Bad Neighbours’ which was utterly hilarious and the time-twisting action of ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ which was really entertaining. But when I think back on the many films I’ve watched this year these are the ten that made me think the most about them afterwards and made me want to watch them again to try to understand their meaning. They may not all be easy views - although there is much pleasure to be gained from all of them - but they are all powerful and haunting.

Gloria
I missed this film when it played at the London Film Festival last year so was thrilled to catch it upon its small release. Divorced 58-year old Gloria goes to singles bars in Santiago looking for love. She’s determined, free-minded and prone to overzealous passion. With a fantastic soundtrack following the ups and downs of her romance, this is an emotional and engaging film.

Her
Set in a future that is more recognizable than filled with sci-fi fantasies, ‘Her’ is another film about a divorced individual looking for love. But in this film he finds it with a piece of artificial intelligence – a disconnected voice that adapts and changes as the system learns more about him. Like other AI stories problems arise when the computer becomes self aware, but this is more a story about the modern perils of digital relationships and misdirected expectations in love.

Stranger by the Lake
Part suspense story, part erotic gay film and part commentary about the danger of desire, ‘Stranger by the Lake’ is a French film that works equally well on many levels. Set on a nudist beach it’s about a man named Franck who frequently attends this gay cruising ground. What at first comes across as a simple story develops into a tale filled with psychological complexity. The idyllic playground morphs into a vicious battleground.

Under the Skin
Adapted with a heavy amount of changes from the novel by Michel Faber, this film imaginatively portrays a strange being in the form of Scarlett Johansson driving a van through the streets of Glasgow hunting for men. This film conveys so much about the warped nature of desire and the complex formation of identity. It features an incredibly creepy score by Mica Levi which I was lucky enough to see performed live at the Southbank Centre alongside the film’s screening.

Pride
It’s impossible to imagine that two groups as disparate as a loose gathering of London gay activists and striking miners from a small Welsh village coming together, but this really happened in 1984. I was hesitant about seeing this movie when its trailer made it look like a hokey feel-good comedy, but the film is entirely absorbing and emotional and inspiring. It’s also been a fantastic platform to raise awareness for Gay’s the Word bookshop which features heavily as a meeting spot in the film and is still going strong today.

The Imitation Game
This film is another impossible-but-true story about Alan Turing’s instrumental contribution to cracking the enigma code which no doubt massively helped win the second world war. This central story is bookended with the sad details of Turing’s troubled personal life including his early heartbreak and later persecution as a homosexual where he was chemically castrated under government mandate and driven to suicide. It’s an incredible story that memorializes a man who should have been celebrated but was tragically vilified. It made me cry.

Ida
It’s startling how spare and simple the dialogue in Ida is, yet how powerfully complex its meaning. Set in 1960s Poland, a young nun named Anna goes in search of what became of her family during the second world war. Paired with her spirited aunt Wanda they travel in search of terrible truths where the weight of history threatens to crush them. I was utterly astonished by this beautiful movie.

Two Days One Night
Over the past decade, the Belgian Dardenne brothers have made some of the most moving films about the downtrodden and forgotten. ‘Two Days One Night’ follows Sandra played by Marion Cotillard as a wife and mother who has been struggling with mental health issues. Because of complicated politics at the factory she works at, she’s been voted out of her job and this film shows her desperate journey to try to maintain her employment. So few films deal with the real hardship ordinary people experience trying to keep afloat during challenging circumstances. This film is by no means perfect, but it makes a great impact.

The Golden Dream
This Mexican film also highlights the struggles of ordinary people – in this case young migrants from Guatemala who journey to cross the border into the US. The challenges they encounter are surprising and terrifying. Small unexpected acts of kindness are enough to make you keep faith in the goodness of humanity. At the same time, the failings of institutions show how people in situations as disadvantaged as this can be preyed upon by groups of opportunists.

The Tribe
Daring, original and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Click on the title to read fully what an impact this Ukrainian film about a boarding school for deaf children had on me.