Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

This is Graham Swift’s tenth novel and I wonder if it’s a common occurrence that writers, particularly male writers, in their later years lean more towards a pared down prose style to only focus on what’s necessary. It’s been true most recently for Julian Barnes whose recent novel “The Noise of Time” is a very short book and it’s been the case for authors like Philip Roth, Ian McEwan and Don DeLillo. It may not mean anything, but I wonder if this trend has something to do with mature writers feeling less a need for the grand showmanship of an epic novel and finding more poignancy in tightly compressed stories. Whatever the reason, it’s worked for Barnes and it’s certainly worked for this tremendously gorgeous novel “Mothering Sunday.” In only 132 pages, Swift encapsulates a crucial day in the life of Jane Fairchild, an orphan maid at a grand country house who becomes a great writer.

The day in question is Mothering Sunday 1924. At a very elderly age Jane looks back on what happened over the course of this day when she was still young. In beautifully stark language Swift evokes the lingering pleasure and tension of an affair. Paul is a member of the gentry who has agreed to marry Miss Hobday, mostly for her family’s money. He’s due to meet both his family and his fiancée’s at a gathering scheduled two weeks before their marriage. Instead he enjoys an assignation in his bedroom with Jane before eventually leaving to join the party. Does he want to stay with Jane instead? Is he happy to marry Miss Hobday? Or is he merely fulfilling an obligation? These questions are suspended in the air as the afternoon drifts by and they enjoy each others’ bodies. What’s mesmerizing is the way that Swift circles back to the same images and moments between them over and over. Since this is a novel being told in retrospect this accurately mimics the way memory works where past events are frequently replayed in our minds from different angles with slight changes. It’s stated that “This was the great truth of life, that fact and fiction were always merging, interchanging.”

As the title suggests, one of the most fascinating concepts that Swift explores within this story is children and parenthood. Set after the First World War the sons of some of the established families within the area have been lost in battle. Photos of Paul’s brother poignantly remain in his room as he spends time with Jane. They are able to enjoy this time in his large residence alone because the staff have gone home to visit their mothers. Jane, being an orphan, has nowhere to go. However, it’s interesting that she views her parentless status as an advantage. It gives her the opportunity to entirely forge the path in life she wants rather than be hemmed in by the obligations and expectations of family. This is a novel partly about heritage, who owns the future and hence who controls the narrative of history. 

Me with Claire Fuller & Antonia Honeywell

The later part of this novel also turns much more into a discourse on the nature of language and writing. I know many people will find it predictable that this is another book about a writer writing about a writer. However, Swift raises very compelling ideas and makes meaningful observations which I felt so emotionally involved with because I was arrested by Jane’s distinct perspective and her situation. Geeky pleasures of the committed reader abound as well since Jane writes about the books that have influenced her, particularly Joseph Conrad, and her early discovery of reading in the library of her employer Mr Niven. She humorously observes that “It was what, she sometimes thought, libraries were for: for men to disappear into and be important in, even though they had disappeared.” Unlike the privileged class surrounding her in her early years, she actually reads and engages with the literature she finds in these private libraries and it turns her into a writer.

Since this is a book about a writer it seems appropriate that I met with the writers Antonia Honeywell (The Ship) and Claire Fuller (Our Endless Numbered Days) to discuss this new novel. We formed a sort of mini book club since we all discovered on Twitter that we’d been sent advance copies. It was an absolute pleasure getting their points of view about how the story played out and some of the novel’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a book open to many different interpretations because I think Swift creates a number of intriguing ambiguities. I was somewhat trepidatious about starting “Mothering Sunday” as the only other book by Graham Swift I’ve read is “The Light of Day” which I didn’t really like. However, now I’m enthusiastic about going back to read his acclaimed novel “Waterland” and “Tomorrow” – which Antonia assures me is brilliant. “Mothering Sunday” begins somewhat unsteadily in a privileged world that feels a little too ‘Downton Abbey’ but it quickly becomes something much more profound and beautiful. I ended up completely loving it and wanting to immediately read it again.

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

Back in 2002, I read Alexander Chee's acclaimed first book “Edinburgh” - a novel that was equally engrossing for its strikingly original language as it was for being about a gay boy growing up in Maine (where I was also raised.) The protagonist Fee struggles to overcome his traumatic childhood and feels the story of his life is mingled with that of a mythic fox. Interestingly, although Chee's long-anticipated second novel “The Queen of the Night” is a huge departure from this first book, the narrator who calls herself Lilliet Berne also finds her identity paired with an animal – in this case a falcon which is an operatic singing voice that registers between a soprano and mezzo. The novel begins in 1882 when Lilliet is one of the most famous opera singers in Europe. At a lavish party she meets a writer who has produced a novel about a singer's life and he hopes that it will be turned into an opera which she will star in. Lilliet is shocked to find the story is her own. She fears that someone is secretly plotting to destroy her as the real story of her past and her difficult rise to fame is known only to a few.

The novel relates Lilliet’s quest to uncover who is behind this planned opera and tells the epic tale of her life. Along the way we get an intimate glimpse of the dramatic fall of the Second French Empire and the fascinating famous figures that shaped the events and fashion of the time. She interacts with artists and writers including Ivan Turgenev and George Sand - described as looking like an “old elf.” Two of the most interesting people at the novel’s centre are the Empress Eugenie who was exiled following the end of Napoleon III’s reign and the Comtesse de Castiglione who was Napoleon III’s mistress and a cunning figure of influence. Both were style icons of the time, wielded significant political power behind the scenes and were engaged in a fascinating rivalry. Fashion is at the heart of this novel where details of Lilliet’s dresses and concerns about appearances abound. It revels in the sumptuous detail from emerald jewellery to crystal-beaded silk satin bodices to powdered wigs. As well as providing a survey of how style reflects the culture of the time, this extended engagement with forms of presentation reflects the way Lilliet constantly works to reshape her identity in order to survive. Yet this can cause her difficulty when at points “I had confused myself with my disguise.” The clothes are an emblem of power. Lilliet strives to attain as much power as possible to free herself from the past, yet risks losing a connection to who she really is and what she really wants in the process.

The Countess of Castiglione who sat for many portraits which capture her elaborate costumes & her distinct elusive personality.

The story of “The Queen of the Night” is filled with all the high-pitched melodrama of an opera and Chee reveals in an afterward how the storyline is based on Mozart’s The Magic Flute. What’s fascinating is the way he combines all the dramatic plots and exaggerated emotion of this art form with the subtly of psychological insight that can only be accomplished in a long fictional narrative. There’s the wild adventure and sensational tale of a woman who utilizes her talent for singing and ingenuity to rise out of desolate impoverished circumstances to sit at the centre of society. A ruby gift from an emperor, the colourful diversity of circus life, the intrigue of a high society house of pleasure, a hot air balloon escape, assignations in secret rooms, shocking murder, the collapse of one society and the birth of a new society all feature. It leads Lilliet to reflect that “my whole life had become the opera.” So much action threaded through this condensed and personal history does at points threaten to spin the story out of control. As fantastical as it all seems, the novel does give a framework to the lives of many extraordinary real life people who lived in extraordinary times. But at its centre is always the heartfelt voice of an individual desperately seeking to assert her independence, fully realize love’s potential and practice her artistry amongst those who only seek to possess and use her.

Lilliet uses the rumour of a superstitious curse to escape playing an opera role selected for her and there is a lot of speculation throughout the book about how fate and destiny may shape her story. She ponders how “A singer learned her roles for life – your repertoire was a library of fates held close, like the gowns in this closet, yours until your voice failed.” There is ultimately nothing predetermined about life except for the choices we make and the opportunities we embrace or reject. Lilliet’s great turning point comes when she enters into the tutelage of a famed voice teacher named Pauline. Here she utilizes the potential for achieving the greatness which her talent can give her. For me, it’s a quote from of a giant named Ernesto at the circus that reverberates throughout this novel when he says “We’re none of us made right for this world. But we’re still here, aren’t we?” In embracing what makes her different, Lilliet achieves success and finds her true place.

During the seige of the Paris Commune balloons were used to transport mail and help key people escape.

It’s also in the training school in Baden-Baden under Pauline’s guidance that the narrative comes vibrantly alive. The process of leaning to discipline and master her voice is recounted in fascinatingly realistic detail. The experience of Lilliet’s reality is also intensely felt in her performances when emerging on the stage we see from her point of view how she “couldn't see these men and women as the limelights burned, only the smooth seashell walls of the Comique and the gaps where the boxes were, like the sockets in a skull, a depthless dark from the moment the curtain went up.” She performs for the audience just as she does for the people she encounters in her life – enchanting them with her talent but unable to fully see their motives or the circumstances of her own situation until it is too late. 

The novel’s title takes on multiple meanings over the course of the story. The Queen of the Night is a role in an opera which is so difficult that it might break her voice. It’s also the position of a prostitute as explained by the madam who states “This is a profession; you are performers. These men, they entrust us with their most secret fantasies, and we, we keep that trust – they rule the day, we rule the night.” More than recounting the exploits of the most famous figures from history, this is a novel dedicated to those who played behind the scenes and steered major events in ways which aren’t recounted in the history books. They are the ones who played an equally important part in shaping the culture we live in today.

I was frequently enthralled reading “The Queen of the Night” just for the pleasure of its luscious detail and the finely-honed beauty of Chee’s writing. This is a novel with thrilling adventure, intriguing insight and tremendous scope that brings a dramatic period of history fully to life.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

When we’re young we can have a simplified vision of the future. If we’re lucky enough to live with a loving family what more is there to hope for? But, as we grow, change comes both from outside forces and internal changes – neither of which we can control. Eleven year old Ijeoma dreams of living in a castle with her adoring parents, but she’s awakened to brutal reality in 1968 when her home in Ojoto, Nigeria is ravaged by a civil war that splinters her family apart. What follows is a highly original and moving coming of age story about the way she must adjust to the new environment around her and reconcile her homosexual feelings with the conservative religious attitudes of her community. More than this, “Under the Udala Trees” shows how we inevitably make damaging compromises in our lives which at a certain point become untenable: “There’s a way in which life takes us along for a ride and we begin to think that our destinies are not in fact up to us.” However, the story shows that with strength of character we can assert what we really want in life and make a place for ourselves in the communities we were born into.

It’s refreshing and surprising how I initially thought this novel was going to be primarily about war, but it turns into a much more personal story about a woman’s struggle with her sexuality. The civil war has a huge effect on Ijeoma’s life, but this book is more about the conflict homosexuals face in a country where it is dangerous and criminal to be openly gay. When the bodies of gay men that have been beaten to death in a homophobic attack are discovered it’s stated: “We called the police. They couldn’t even be bothered to do anything, not even to take the bodies away. ‘Let them rot like the faggots they are,’ one of the officers said.” This is a society where expressions of same-sex desire are cornered into the shadows. Her ardently religious mother Adaora tries to teach Ijeoma interpretations of the bible which she believes support how God thinks homosexuals are an “abomination.” This is something Ijeoma can’t help question as well as objecting to how the bible shows only a singular point of view: “Just because the Bible recorded one specific thread of events, one specific history, why did that have to invalidate or discredit all other threads, all other histories?” There is a multiplicity of perspectives and stories which have been winnowed out from history and religious texts. Ijeoma creatively integrates aspects of stories and local fables passed down by her family to establish her own understanding of the world.

Fela Kuti's ‘Shakara Oloje’ plays in a secret gay disco held in a church at night.

In addition to some devastating scenes, what makes this such a heartrending story is the way Ijeoma is forced to question her own nature because of the pressures from those around her. It’s a common feeling for any closeted person to at some point think like her: “I did want to be normal. I did want to lead a normal life. I did want to have a life where I didn’t have to constantly worry about being found out.” This inevitably leads to bitter compromises. But what’s surprising and uplifting about this novel are the opportunities Ijeoma does discover to meet people and have experiences which do allow her to explore her natural feelings. Even though “Sometimes we get confused about what happiness really means” the story offers a hopeful message about how we can better realize our desires in life from rare people that we meet.  It also shows how others can surprisingly change with time, love and patience.

I know some details of the Biafran War that took place in the late 1960s from historical programs and films I’ve seen or novels I’ve read which focus on this conflict. Adichie’s tremendous novel “Half of a Yellow Sun” which deservedly won the recent Baileys Prize ‘Best of the Best’ is an obvious point of reference. However, before reading “Under the Udala Trees” I hadn’t come across any story of this war or Nigeria itself that comes from a homosexual perspective and bears witness to the ongoing conflict faced by LGBT citizens in this country. In an author’s note at the end of this book Okparanta records how a 2012 survey found Nigeria to be the second-most-religious country surveyed and a new law passed by the president in 2014 criminalizes same-sex relationships and support of such relationships. Narrow-minded interpretations of religious texts are often at the root and used to justify this discrimination. However, it’s very surprising and encouraging to read how Chinelo Okparanta’s offers a hopeful strategy for reconciliations between religion and LGBT communities. By encouraging a shift to less rigid readings of the bible, religion can better respect the changing social spectrum of individuals in our society. There is a way that religion can move with the times rather than the times trying to fit itself into dogmatic translations of religion. This novel offers a significant message that urges integration over separatism (which would inevitably lead to more conflict).

“Under the Udala Trees” is a novel that voices a forceful, inspiring and necessary perspective and reveals a country’s hidden stories. 

The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie

In the past several months I've been thinking a lot about how my parents have influenced who I am. It's only become evident after some time and distance while making my own life in adulthood how patterns of behaviour can be seen in relation to how I was raised and how I reacted to them. I don't want to ascribe blame for any of my shortcomings on my parents' actions. It's simply interesting to observe and try to understand how the alchemy of nature and nurture influence attitudes and values throughout life. This novel acutely observes how “A life could be spent like an apology – to prove you had been worth it.” I believe that if we don't frequently reflect on the way our families have made us who we are the self becomes wayward, acting out in reaction to the past rather than working to better realize who we are in the present.

“The Portable Veblen” is about a couple who meet and marry, but it's much more a story about families and how two people can forge lives of their own coming out of very difficult family situations. Veblen is a thirty year old woman who lives on the remote edges of Palo Alto working secretarial temp jobs to fund her passion for translating Norwegian literature and studying her namesake Thorstein Bunde Veblen, a Norwegian-American economist. She freely quotes William James and sees herself as a curious kind of “travelling scribe” recording the lives of those around her. She meets and quickly falls in love with Paul Vreeland, a thirty-five year old research scientist who is on the brink of discovering a revolutionary new method for relieving cranial swelling and brain damage from head trauma. They want to marry soon, but planning a wedding isn't simple with families like these.

Veblen's mother Melanie is a hypochondriac who seems to have a new chronic medical condition every day and has a fierce emotional attachment to her daughter. Melanie's husband Linus, Veblen's step-father, tiptoes around his wife trying not to upset her and caters to her frequent unreasonable whims. Veblen's father Rudgear has been living for years in a mental institution as he suffers from PTSD and barely recognizes his daughter on her infrequent visits. Because Veblen has needed to take on a caring role for both her parents she still clings to childish fantastical notions of fictional lands filled with animals. It means she talks to squirrels.

Paul was raised under very different circumstances where his anti-establishment parents lived in a type of commune that grows marijuana. When they aren't engaged in sessions of chemically-induced escapism, most of their care and attention goes to Paul's mentally disabled brother. This upbringing has in turn made Paul very independently-minded and ambitious to gain approval from the establishment. However, his aspirations to achieve recognition in medical technology and bring his device to fruition entangle him in a corrupt system that his parents were rightly suspicious of. Alongside the story of his evolving relationship with Veblen is a plot about a corrupt medical industry that values profit over people's health care.

Thorstein Bunde Veblen

There are many cringe-worthy tragicomic scenes in this book as the couple meet each other's families and try to navigate how they can successfully integrate them into the life they want to build together. Importantly, the author doesn't mock the parents in this book or make them targets of derision for the ways they may or may not have fucked up their children. McKenzie takes care to show how they are capable of catering to their children's wellbeing when it's really needed. There is a tenderness of feeling present amidst the chaos as Veblen declares at one point “But you love your family, what can you do.”

It's interesting how McKenzie can introduce surprising moments of self-reflection amidst her narrative. As the characters' lives teeter on the brink of losing all control she can suddenly stop and ask searching questions which probe how the past and family life might influence the way her characters relate to their partners: “Was it possible to love the contradictions in somebody? Was it all but impossible to find somebody without them? Had her mother made of her a ragged-edged shard without a fit?” There is an endearing feeling throughout this novel of desperately trying to make sense of one's life while facing the challenges of life and trying to forge honest meaningful relationships.

McKenzie also has a fascinating absurd slant on the world. The squirrel Veblen maintains an occasional dialogue with becomes an important character himself and bends the plot of the story. Interspersed with the text of the story are occasional photos depicting a variety of things that Veblen either sees or imagines which make the reader more immersed in her view of the world. There’s an intriguing urgency to this author’s narrative which is more concerned with what her characters are thinking and feeling moment to moment rather than creating an organized structure to their journey or finding a clear consistent focus. She allows for moments of pause such as this: “She relaxed and watched a family at a table nearby, the parents feeding the children, wiping their mouths, cleaning their hands, a father and mother and two children, the unit of them unsettling to her, though she couldn’t say why. She looked away, at an older man eating by himself, and that unsettled her too. She wasn’t sure how to live.” Rather than developing her characters, McKenzie allows them to wade in uncertainty in a way which is strikingly poignant and meaningfully blunt.

“The Portable Veblen” is a curious book in that it isn’t afraid to keep asking questions for which there can be no solutions. I felt really connected to the story because of that and enjoyed the humorous and relevant journey of psychological insight it took me on.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

I’ve been looking forward to reading “The Trouble with Goats and Sheep” for a long time. Authors such as Rachel Joyce, Sarah Winman and James Hannah whose books I’ve loved reading over the past couple of years endorsed Cannon’s novel. Added to this is the fact that Joanna Cannon received support in writing this, her first novel, from the WoMentoring Project (a programme that matches mentors from the publishing industry with talented new female writers) which was set up by Kerry Hudson – another author whose books I love. So a lot of build-up was attached to this novel! Part of me was nervous that this would be a book with prose so polished the story would come across as cold. However, the pleasure of reading a debut author is that you never know what the writing will be like until you get into the thick of it. Rather than something overtly showy, I was delighted to discover that “The Trouble with Goats and Sheep” is awash with the subtle delights of relatable human stories and inventive writing that is rich with emotion. At its centre is the intriguing story of a neighbourhood mystery which two intrepid adolescent girls are determined to solve.

During a relentless heat wave in the summer of 1976, a woman named Mrs Creasy goes missing from her house in the avenue of an ordinary British town. Ten year old Gracie and her delicate bespectacled friend Tilly visit the local vicar about the matter which has the neighbourhood buzzing with worry. The vicar has delivered a sermon where he quotes scripture about people being divided into those who deserve eternal punishment and those who deserve eternal life – like a shepherd who separates the goats from the sheep. What the girls correctly guess is that it’s not always so easy to tell who belongs in what group. Life is filled with lots of moral ambiguity and appearances can be deceiving: that’s the trouble. This is certainly the case in this avenue filled with characters who all harbour secrets and private lives unknown to their neighbours.

The story plays out something like a ‘whodunnit’ as the stories in each numbered house are revealed and the tangle of their connections to Mrs Creasy becomes clear. Layered on top of the story of her disappearance is a tale from a decade earlier where the neighbours united against a local outcast with disastrous consequences. A socially-awkward and mysterious man named Walter Bishop was accused of a serious crime. The courts acquitted him, but he remained guilty in the hearts of his neighbours who still scorn him. One resident puts it like this: “There are decent people,” said Mrs. Roper, “and then there are the weird ones, the ones who don’t belong. The ones who cause the rest of us problems.” Even though some people find it harder to fit in (or be allowed to fit in) with others, this novel shows how everyone is equally complex and equally fearful of being cast out. Groups have a tendency to target and vilify those who are superficially unusual in an effort to hide their own hidden peculiarities or their own misdeeds. 

Grace likes to carve her name and the names of her friends into this delicious mousse-like dessert

It’s really original how this novel solidly creates in the reader’s mind a picture of a neighbourhood and the relationships between all its colourful residents. The author lays this out so clearly in the narrative that I felt like I could see a map in my mind where each house is positioned and how the inhabitants spend each day. Through short sharpened metaphors Cannon can invoke a rare feeling of understanding for another’s life. In one section she writes: “widowhood wore a beige cardigan and said very little.” This creates a powerful sense for the mixture of isolation, sadness and despondency this character feels. When Cannon hits these snippets which perfectly encapsulate a character the story really soars, but when the narrative gets too caught up in the minutiae of the neighbourhood interactions it can drag somewhat. However, what really drives the story and allows a three-dimensional understanding of the avenue are Grace and Tilly. This compelling and likeable duo trundle from neighbour to neighbour seeking clues for Mrs Creasy’s whereabouts - treated to plates of custard creams and bowls of angel delight along the way.

Grace is a strikingly precocious girl still discovering the ways her intentions don’t always meet her actions. This is eloquently described here: “I still hadn’t learned the power of words. How, once they have left your mouth, they have a breath and a life of their own. I had yet to realize that you no longer own them. I hadn’t learned that, once you have let them go, the words can then, in fact, become the owners of you.” This is a moving way of realizing how you have to take responsibility for what you say. In another part, Grace reveals herself to be a fellow bookworm from the pernickety way she organizes her shelves: “I had to run my finger down the spine of each book to check it was in its proper place and make sure they were all safe, before I could even think about doing anything else.” It’s endearing reading about Grace’s burgeoning awareness of her place in the world and the surprisingly central role she plays in this neighbourhood mystery.

Even though “The Trouble with Goats and Sheep” is a novel concentrating on a mystery set within one small neighbourhood, it stretches open to reveal many compellingly intricate stories of love and loss.

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

In 1936 a Russian man spends night after night sitting by the elevator of his building fully expecting to be taken away to be killed. Dmitri Dmitrievich is a successful composer whose work has been judged by an editorial as contravening the ideals of the Soviet Union. He wants to avoid trouble for his wife and young daughter who sleep nearby so waits outside his door with a packed suitcase. He’s made to live in a perpetual state of terror expecting secret police to seize him at any minute. Over years of intense scrutiny and being batted around by the ruling political powers, his immense talent and passion for his music is slowly twisted. It provokes questions about the meaning and value of art when it’s trampled on by the overriding political forces it’s created under. The novel is composed in triptych form capturing Dmitri’s feelings at three very different points of his life. Spaced in twelve year intervals it also makes a fascinating portrait of the Soviet Union at significantly different stages of its existence. Inspired by the real-life Russian composer Shastakovich, “The Noise of Time” asks how the pure intentions of music fare when played against the clamorous dogma of reigning ideologies.

One of the great challenges of reading any novel set in Russia is trying to keep track and comprehend the flurry of names which appear. Many people have triple-barrel names, each of which is intermittently used and sometimes variations of those names are used in place of the proper names. This simply poses a practical problem for a reader, but I’ve never found it really detracts from my enjoyment of a novel – especially when it’s as powerful and elegantly told as this one. My strategy is to keep a list of the primary characters while reading and, after a time, the story washes over me to a point where I know who is who. Another challenge is entering into Soviet Russia’s complex and extensive history of which I only have a bare bones understanding. I didn’t find this to be a problem though as long as you have a broad understanding of Communist Russian and Stalin’s life – who plays an integral part in the story. Really this is a novel about the fate of artists under the rule of tyrants. Its universal meaning can be strongly felt even if you don’t get some of the nuances of the world in which it is historically set.

Dmitrievich keeps on his bedside table a postcard of The Tribute Money by Titian – painting where the Romans try to bribe Christ for their own political motives.

One of the most fascinating sections is when Dmitri goes on a state-approved tour of America. He’s much lauded in other nations even if some of his work is still banned in his own country. The Soviet Union try to use him as a pawn to present their country as less oppressive and more open. But the effect of this ultimately fails: “Scrub, scrub, scrub, let’s wash away all this old Russianness and paint a shiny new Sovietness on top. But it never worked – the paint began to flake off almost as soon as it was applied. To be Russian was to be pessimistic; to be Soviet was to be optimistic.” Instead of being inspired by the “freedoms” supposedly found in the US and other western nations, Dmitri feels how they are both played and play into political forces which seek to suppress opposition to their power. He also hilariously notes about American journalists that “The fact that they couldn’t pronounce your name was your name’s fault, not theirs.” There is also quite a funny perspective given of the thinness of Picasso’s political convictions: “he knew Picasso for a bastard and a coward. How easy it was to be a Communist when you weren’t living under Communism!” Dmitri eventually finds himself unstoppably drawn into a system whichapplauds him as an idol for their own purposes “He swam in honours like a shrimp in shrimp-cocktail sauce” rather than an artist with an independent voice and spirit.

This novel made me question the degree to which my own creativity is guided under the society in which I live. Even if I don’t live within a country that seeks to directly shackle what’s created within its own dominant ideological beliefs, I’m guided and influenced by the media and popular beliefs of those around me. In this novel it’s observed how even good intentioned people are worn down by the fact of their survival because “conscience was always there to insist that more courage could have been shown.” Barnes explores the deep complexities and moral ambiguities involved in a lifetime under an oppressive regime. What survives through the gruelling circumstances under which it is created is the music: “Art is the whisper of history, heard above the noise of time.” But the novel asks how this might become perverted when the mind of the artist has been poisoned by a lifetime of compromise. “The Noise of Time” is a short intense novel of breathtaking scope and wisdom.

Listen to a wonderful interview with Julian Barnes by Sinéad Gleeson on The Book Show where they discuss “The Noise of Time”, the author’s bookshelf and his development as a writer: https://soundcloud.com/thebookshow/the-book-show-s3-1-16th-january-2016-at-home-with-julian-barnes

The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates

Strong love stories drive many of the greatest novels of all time, but the love story in The Man Without a Shadow is remarkably unusual and haunting. From this tale Joyce Carol Oates raises probing questions about the nature of love and the phenomenon of consciousness. Elihu Hoops - a charismatic man from a prominent wealthy family and ardent civil rights activist - experiences an acute inflammation of the brain in 1964 which causes him to lose all short-term memory. He is incapable of remembering anything new for more than seventy seconds. His condition can never be cured because of irreparable damage to the hippocampus area of his brain which is responsible for the formation of new memories. In the proceeding decades he’s regularly taken to a university’s research facility or “Memory Lab” where groups of neuroscientists engage him with tests to better understand the biological connection between the brain and memory. Even though this is for the betterment of society and human knowledge, the question lingers if Elihu is being exploited. One of the scientists Margot Sharpe builds an entire career out of working closely with the amnesiac. The connection she forms with him over a lifetime turns into a strikingly original romance.

Read my full review on Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies: http://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=jcostudies

Bret Easton Ellis and The Other Dogs by Lina Wolff (translated by Frank Perry)

It feels like a provocation for an author to include another author's name in the title of her book – especially if she calls that other author a dog within the subtitle. The name comes out of a section of the novel about a brothel in a run-down town called Caudal in Spain. There's a kennel at the back filled only with male dogs who are given the names of male authors after a feminist comes to visit the prostitutes who work there. There's also a canary bird called Harold Bloom. When clients are cruel to the prostitutes they take it out on the dogs by feeding them rotten meat. Later this image of consuming rotten meat is repeated when a man named Rodrigo dreams of a starving man who is only given putrid scraps from a butcher to eat. Images of putrid sustenance in place of nourishment for men who have heretofore escaped punishment have a strong resonance in this “civilized” society. Rodrigo is telling this story to a girl named Araceli who comes to see him at a hotel on her very first job as a call girl. Araceli is fascinated by a neighbouring woman named Alba Cambo who writes dark short stories that she and her mother seek out to read. It's difficult to pin down a single plot for this novel set in the Spanish landscape. It's essentially a collection of anecdotes, yet they all feel eerily tied together and are frequently fascinating. What Wolff gets at through all her divergences and stories within dreams within stories is a special commentary on the way self-perception works in conjunction with the way others view us.

There are stories in here about people who sell themselves, who cheat on their spouses and who live in unbearably bitter loneliness. Characters seem guided more by instinct than by logic. It's stated that “You never really know anything about anything. At best you have an aching feeling in your stomach and a compass that sometimes points right, and other times spins crazily.” Much of the time there is a slightly surreal edge to things so that when a man slips and falls unconscious in the middle of a Sitges dinner party it doesn't seem strange that conversation just carries on. People feel on guard about becoming too close to others or allowing them into their lives. They feel caution is needed because “beneath the thick skin of even the most armour-plated person there is always a crack that runs straight to the centre and you should think it over very carefully before raising a hand to signal your willingness to fall inside.” Indeed when a group of students surprise their teacher with a bottle of bubbly she unexpectedly opens up about her severe disappointment with life in a direct and uncomfortable way. So too when Araceli takes Rodrigo on as a client, but it turns out he's not after sex as he was sent to her by Alba and her own mother. Instead he wants to talk all night which strikes Araceli as in some ways more difficult to take because “Selling your body was one thing – but your mind, that was prostitution on an unparalleled scale.”

In this novel Lina Wolff is saying something really striking and original about human relationships and our relationship with literary culture. Children attending a school see literature as a diet which must be as balanced and nutritious as the food they consume: 'As literary anorexics we have to make sure we get some Borges inside us,' Muriel said. 'A few words a day, a few words that are the extremely nutritious parts of the tuna. Those are the bits that will feed us, and those are the bits from which we will be born.' This resonates strongly as I often feel that consuming the right books is important as eating right. There's a loutish man named Ilich who has an affair with Alba and blackmails Rodrigo who takes it upon himself to read “The Old Man and The Sea.” His crass interpretation of the book is laughable to Rodrigo who is more cultured. Yet, it is Ilich who ultimately succeeds in business and with Rodrigo's wife despite living a life which has been devoid of literary nourishment. When he flips through some salacious pages of Houellebecq's novel “Platform” he comments: “So this is what literature is all about? A bunch of wankers who stick pages together with their own sperm? Ha! It's enough to make you weep.” Wolff expresses in her stories a frustration with the hard economic realities of the world, but also a suspicion of the male-dominated literary culture. Her approach to depicting this reality is disarming and refreshing. “Bret Easton Ellis and The Other Dogs” is a highly unusual and haunting read.

Slade House by David Mitchell

I was hesitant about reading “Slade House” when it came out a few months ago because I didn't finish his previous novel “The Bone Clocks.” Mitchell's recurring technique is to write really involving smaller realistic stories within larger, ambitious and fantastical narratives that say something meaningful about time and humanity. This was most successfully realized in his tremendous novel “Cloud Atlas.” The problem is that I come to feel really involved with some of the smaller enclosed stories and grow impatient with the larger all-encompassing story. This is the reason I put aside “The Bone Clocks” because I didn't care enough about the supernatural elements that tied disparate stories set in different time periods together. He uses the same structure in “Slade House” building quieter short tales of an insecure boy, a philandering detective inspector, a teenage girl self conscious about her weight, a lesbian journalist and a black Canadian psychiatrist into a chilling narrative of a pair of twins' paranormal existence. One by one these people are lured to a grand old house and then they are never seen again. The difference is that the length of “Slade House” better suits this technique. “Slade House” is only 240 pages compared to “The Bone Clocks” which totals 640 pages. This makes “Slade House” a much more fast-paced and thrilling read.

David Mitchell is such a skilled writer in the way he quickly and convincingly creates narrators that are immediately identifiable. Switching between all the different personalities I listed above over a 36 year time period could feel jarring to a reader, but Mitchell uses choice details and compelling voices which grab your attention. Even with an unlikeable character like Inspector Gordon Edmonds who makes sexist and racist remarks, he's a dynamic and vivid personality who is engaging to read about. Mitchell confidently brings in points of reference from the high-brow like famed musician Yehudi Menuhin to the ever-loveable Miss Piggy. At times Michell scrambles too much to invoke an atmosphere for the time period by flipping through news events or popular culture from the time period so it can begin to read like a wikipedia page for the year in question. But, on the whole, their stories feel layered and deeply thought out.

In the section 'Oink, Oink' teenage Sally Timms wears a Miss Piggy mask at a party in Slade House 

Mitchell gives a great sense for the depth of personality and the way people present version of themselves: “People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you go.” It's interesting to see how over the course of the novel the sinister twins Norah and Jonah's characters gradually develop. The various people these mystic beings inhabit break apart to reveal their foibles and tensions between the pair. So, by the end, I felt as involved with their stories as I did with the tales of the individuals they lure into the supernatural house.

“Slade House” is essentially a group of short stories held in the framework of a fantasy novel. I admire Mitchell's ambition and the scope of his imagination to meaningfully tease larger questions out of tales that straddle great swaths of time. But such scale isn't always needed. In Mitchell's novel “Black Swan Green” he confines his narrative to a year in the life of a thirteen year old boy to great effect. “Slade House” is a thoroughly entertaining read and a refreshing new spin on a haunted house story, but I hope Mitchell doesn't always feel the need to contain micro stories within grandiose macro narratives. Sometimes a whole world of meaning can be felt the smallest of spaces.

The Widow by Fiona Barton

Every now and then I enjoy reading a good immersive thriller. Last year it was SJ Watson’s “Second Life” about a woman’s search for her missing sister and her adventures from creating a secret online identity. “The Widow” also taps into the nefarious corners of the internet at some points, but this psychological thriller centres on the case of a missing girl, the deceased man who was suspected of kidnapping her and his long-suffering wife-now-widow. This is Fiona Barton’s debut novel, but she’s had considerable practice writing about cases such as the dramatic one created in this story as she’s an experienced journalist. The story’s primary focus is not Glen Taylor, the primary suspect in a kidnapping case that’s been ongoing for four years, but Jean, the submissive and compliant wife who has stood always stood beside – but more often behind - him. The novel begins at a point when Glen has recently been killed in an accident and now Jean is left on her own with the media wanting her side of the story. What does she really think about her husband? How much does she know about the kidnapping? Is she lying to the police and reporters or is she lying to herself? These questions are explored over the course of this well-paced, suspenseful thriller.

At the beginning of the story I felt impatient with Jean because she’s initially so passive. She shows a wilful ignorance: “There is so much I want to ask, but so much I don't want to know.” While this is frustrating it’s also a true reflection of how some people evade looking at the truth. Without her husband to order her about, she knocks around her empty house until it’s invaded by skilled reporter Kate Waters who cosies up to Jean like a friend but really wants the big scoop. Gradually the extent of Jean’s introverted behaviour becomes more meaningful as her complex reasoning takes shape and she slowly reveals her version of events. The novel moves between 2010 when Jean is interviewed and 2006 when two-year-old Bella Elliot disappears from her single mother’s front garden. An investigation is launched by well-meaning detective inspector Bob Sparkes who becomes obsessed with solving the case. Bella’s mother Dawn launches her own campaign to find her daughter utilizing the media and stirring up public interest. The search eventually leads to Glen who becomes the focus of the case. What’s fascinating is the way his wife Jean gradually emerges from the background as she’s torn between her husband and the people investigating. Both sides try to manipulate her for their own purposes, but when she’s interviewed Jean is finally ready to assert her independence.

The novel really picks up pace half way through when a string of carefully placed clues start adding up, secrets are uncovered and Jean becomes more complex. I found the ending to be as satisfyingly dramatic as a thrilling crime drama. It’s particularly notable how well Barton writes about the methods journalists use to chase sensational stories like a kidnapping and how the media works in tandem with (or sometimes comes into conflict with) police investigations. “The Widow” is an engaging and well-executed thriller.

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

“American Housewife” is undoubtedly one of the funniest books I've read for some time. These short stories imitate the parlance of our modern day popular and online life to skewer the shallow values of a consumer-driven superficial culture. Sorrows are drowned with Chanel No. 5. Book clubs are more about potluck dinners and outfits than literature. Little pageant girls enter protection programs to hide them from their fame-driven parents. The satire of these tales is enriched with self-help guide speak which encourages you how to understand the subtext of what a “Southern Lady” says or how to be a “Grown-Ass Lady.” Longer stories push frivolous pastimes to extreme and absurd ends like being forced to be the surrogate for a group of ladies in a book club or neighbours who turn murderous over a decoration dispute of an apartment building’s common area. This bombastic horror exposes the underlying emptiness of trivial middle class standards of behaviour. Just like the self-portrait artist Cindy Sherman who inhabits personas of fictional characters distorted by the society they live in, Helen Ellis’ humorous imitation of women who bow to the values of popular culture serves to send up the shallow attitudes and seductive images we’re bombarded with in every day modern life.

Cindy Sherman Untitled #461

Beneath the playful humour, there is a relatable simmering anger driving these stories. Women feel compelled to “stallion-walk” in their kitchens like Beyoncé. Even though we know we can never be like Beyoncé, we can’t help wishing to be like her and thus making ourselves look ridiculous. These stories are also suffused with a sense of frustration that what is trivial is popularized more than what is thoughtful. For writers specifically, it’s as if there can be little drive to pen anything worthwhile because it will just be chewed up and twisted by the machine of popular culture or ignored by an easily distracted public. It’s remarked “Looks like, unless we're raging drunkards, writers are boring.” In this story a writer who hasn’t published anything for some time is drawn into joining a reality show called “Dumpster Diving with the Stars.” Another story focuses on an author commissioned to write a novel by Tampax. One of the most funny-but-cringeworthy stories ‘How to Be a Patron of the Arts’ features the transformation of an aspiring writer who gradually dumbs herself down to the point of being a monotonous socialite and wife. When having a conversation at an art exhibit she instructs you to “admit that you published one book. 'It was a novel.' Talk about it in the past tense as if it's a dead child.” This book is awash with satirical humour that anyone can relate to, but particularly to writers like me who once had a novel published and have since failed to successfully get that second book to press.

I’ve been reading a few novels recently that are excellent, but heavy and difficult. So the stories in “American Housewife” made fantastic intelligent, but easy and very funny reads. They also made me intensely self conscious of the ways I might also be like an American housewife with glitter in my desk drawer and spending the morning hunched over my desk in my pajamas.

The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt by Tracy Farr

There is something special about the character of Lena Gaunt that I strongly connected to. On the surface she and I have nothing in common. She’s a ninety year old musician living in a small cottage in a suburb of Perth, Australia. Her specialty is playing the theremin or the aetherphone which is a special electronic instrument controlled without physical contact. Even at her elderly age she still performs in concerts and then retires to her quarters to smoke opium. She’s an eccentric character who narrates the story of her colourful life from early days in Singapore to her affair with a famous artist to the peaks and troughs of her musical fame. What’s so entrancing and sympathetic about Lena is her intensely felt dialogue with herself:  “I could connect – but with myself, in a closed circuit.” There is an element of unashamedly clear independence about her life which is beautifully admirable. She is defined more by her relationship to the creative process than to other people. This makes Lena an inspiration and a joy to read about.

As the title suggests, this book is also about the people Lena loves. It’s difficult for her to connect with others mainly because she’s more interested in her music. Her childhood is spent mostly in solitude. She feels little connection to her parents, but strikes a stronger bond with her Uncle Valentine who inspires her interest in music. It’s fantastic to read about a character who creates her own family units rather than remaining confined into the one she was born into. She’s drawn more to outsiders than those who tread a safe and conservative path. So there is her uncle who takes her to an opium den, a painter named Trix who takes her to a queer bar called The Buzz Room, a large Russian cellist who recognizes her musical talent and a woman living by the ocean who provides steady company. Her companions are few, but carefully chosen. There is a great love of her life who she forges a strong romantic connection to: “every night, as we held each other, curved into one another, we cared not what the world thought of us. We were entire, within ourselves. Perfect.” Their relationship is sincerely felt and very touching.

Leon Theremin playing the instrument he invented

Although these relationships are extremely intimate, she has a closer and more long-lasting relationship to her music and, by extension, to the elements of the world around her. For her, the rumblings of life are interpreted as a kind of music to her ears so that the sound of the sea roar is “basso profondo” and the engines of a ship beat “lentissimo.” In a more low-key sense, this sort of “music of the environment” reminds me so strongly of the Anna Smaill’s inventive novel “The Chimes.” However, this is a novel driven more by voice and its Lena’s personality that steers it. Inspired to reflect on her past by an ardent documentary film maker who persistently calls on her, Lena recounts the story of her life moving back and forth in time. For her “Time is all over the place, like a madwoman’s breakfast.” Like all great storytellers, all I wanted to do was pull up a chair and ardently listen for as long as she wanted to talk. This is Tracy Farr’s debut novel and it’s impressive that she’s created such an assured and compellingly voiced narrator who feels fully realized. “The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt” is an absolute pleasure to read.

Human Acts by Han Kang (Translated by Deborah Smith)

There is a disturbing thing which can occur when we’re faced with death on such a large scale as that which occurs in war or disasters. A group of individuals can be reduced to a number. Even when faced with piles of bodies we can start to think of them as things rather than people because the horror of what we’re seeing is too terrifying to deal with. This certainly happened to me a couple of years ago when I was watching the film ‘Night Will Fall’ about the process of creating a documentary with footage taken by Allied Forces inside German concentration camps. It’s a reality almost too nightmarish for the mind to deal with, but of course you can’t turn away from victims who’ve been rendered voiceless. “Human Acts” begins with such a startling confrontation and gradually reinstates the human face of those who’ve been lost as well as testifying to the struggle of those who survive. It starts with the immediate aftermath of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea where hundreds of demonstrators protesting the military dictatorship were killed and beaten by government troops. This novel traces the survivors of this conflict using a radical style of writing to weave in and out of their perspectives, that of the dead and the reader her/himself who becomes inextricably drawn into the reality of their situation.

Adolescent school children work to prepare and organize bodies to be identified by their loved ones and readied for a funeral ceremony. A boy looks for one body in particular – his friend who was killed while by his side in the skirmish. When asked if he feels any fear working with so many corpses he replies: “'The soldiers are the scary ones… What's frightening about the dead?'” The consciousness of his dead friend persists in the narrative. Through it, he shifts the reader’s focus and the story’s point of view so we see the scenes from both the deceased and the characters still living in fear of the militia. It’s remarked at one point that “Being left as the sole survivor would have been the most frightening thing.” The novel follows the price of survival over many years until close to the present day. It includes stories of different aspects of the conflict and the society through the perspectives of a variety of characters including an editor dealing with state censorship, a prisoner, a factory girl and a grieving mother who demands official acknowledgement for the loss of her son. 

Han Kang's writing style changes throughout different sections of the book. At some points she invokes an interior voice or uses the confrontational second person "you" which could be directed at the reader or a specific character. Other times the narrative has a more documentary feel switching back and forth from the present to the past. Each shift in her method of telling better reflects these very different individuals’ stories which involve some recurring characters. It was interesting starting this new novel “Human Acts” having so recently read Kang’s book “The Vegetarian.” Whereas this earlier book explored a woman’s inwardly blossoming but outwardly deteriorating life through the perspective of three people close to her, “Human Acts” is simultaneously a novel with a broader political perspective and also more intensely personal to the author herself. It’s significant that the afterward is in the author’s own unmediated voice discussing the significance of the Gwangju Uprising on her family and how she approached this story. This is a novel about the legacy created by those members of the population living under a military regime who were willing to bravely stand up to it. Kang imaginatively takes readers into the reality of these victims’ lives and provokes serious questions about individual responsibility. She states: “Conscience, the most terrifying thing in the world.” Their actions and personal sacrifice made a statement which has shaped the country’s history. It’s also about the actions taken by the survivors of this conflict to memorialize those who lost their lives and are continuing their fight for human independence. “Human Acts” is a novel filled with significant insight.

Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin

It's not till the last part of this debut short story collection by author Danielle McLaughlin that you reach the title story. If you've read all the stories in order (as I did) then you'll already have a sense of the title's more complex meaning. It’s a phrase taken from a conversation in one story where a child speculates that if dinosaurs were made extinct after a meteor hit Earth there could still be dinosaurs on other planets. However, a more layered understanding of how this image’s meaning connects with human relationships comes from the interactions of the characters throughout all of the stories. They convey a sensation that, even if we are emotionally destroyed in our own circumscribed existence, other lives still carry on independently. There is a feeling running through many of these varied and skilfully-written tales that the existence of others happens at a far remove from you and your own internal reality. Even if we live in close proximity to each other and especially if we're in a relationship with someone, the bulk of these other lives remains distinct and private. McLaughlin subtly handles this by creating deeply immersive and compelling stories which show a keen sense of how people relate to each other.

These stories centre on a broad spectrum of people from a university girl to a working class young man to a philandering husband to a grandmother. I admire how the author represents many different classes of Irish society. There is a story about a poor father and daughter who run a mink farm who take extreme actions to secure feed for their livestock. Another story directly references the Irish property bubble where a working mother loses faith in her husband who is searching for a job and she wanders through her decimated community which resembles a kind of post-apocalyptic landscape. The story ‘A Different Country’ shows the divide in understanding between urban dwellers and rural fishermen who take action against seals who meddle with their fishing nets. In ‘All About Alice’ a 45 year old woman feels bound to still live with and care for her father so on the rare occasions he is away she explores her hidden lascivious side. Together these stories form a complex portrait of society made up of different social groups all functioning in relative independence from each other.

McLaughlin also shows a complex understanding of gender. The first story 'The Art of Foot-Binding' features a daughter who takes a class project about an antiquated sexist practice to heart using it as a form of self harm because of her own insecurities about her weight. At the same time, her mother Janice emotionally binds herself in another way desperately trying to keep up appearances for her faltering relationship. Interspersed with Janice’s account are instructions about foot-binding coated in a poetic language which perversely emphasizes the barbarity of the practice. The juxtaposition of these instructions with the mother’s story creates a powerful new understanding about the way women have harmed themselves and each other throughout time because of social and misogynistic expectations that they live under.

Lily mistakenly identifies flowers by the side of her train as oleanders just as she mis-identifies the meaning of someone's friendly gesture

Other stories present very different kinds of challenges that women face. In 'Not Oleanders' a woman named Lily unexpectedly travels abroad in Italy when her companion cancels on her. On the train she meets a younger woman and believes that there is romantic potential between them. Interestingly, this is the first piece of fiction I’ve read that highlights a person’s clavicles as a part of the body to be desired! Because of some wrongfooted signals, there is a tragic misunderstanding. McLaughlin writes a beautiful line about the experience of humiliation: “The humiliation of earlier had faded a little. It would return, of course, as humiliations always did, it would wait for her in the long grass of memory.” I love how this captures the way in which our instances of shame recur in our minds over and over throughout our lives. The character of Aileen in ‘Silhouette’ lives in London but nervously returns to visit her mother in Ireland to tell her she’s pregnant. However, her aged and ailing mother has very traditional narrow values and Aileen is unwed and having an affair with a married man. A girl going to university in 'The Smell of Dead Flowers' acts somewhat as an agent of chaos in a household where she submits to a lodger's sexual advances and distracts her relative from the care of her mentally disabled daughter.

The author writes just as compellingly about struggles particular to men. In 'Those That I Fight I Do Not Hate' a married man attends a children’s party for the child of his former lover creating a tense environment for her and her husband. His intentions feel unknown even to himself. The man at the centre of 'Along the Heron-Studded River' has a wife with mental health issues who cares for their young child while he’s at work. There is a sense that care and attention for her must be handled delicately or there could be disastrous results. This is represented in a powerful image of him driving across icy pockets of water in wintertime “shattering membranes of ice stretched across the puddles.” In 'Night of the Silver Fox' a young man named Gerard finds his burgeoning feelings of romance squashed in the face of hard world economic realities. Throughout all of these diverse stories it’s compelling the way McLaughlin presents such varied portraits of the way gender roles can play into the way we relate to each other.

I first heard about this book when I attended an event chaired by Thomas Morris at the Southbank Centre in London towards the end of last year featuring authors Colin Barrett, Claire-Louise Bennett and Kevin Barry – all part of the so-called Irish New Wave. Barrett mentioned that this is one of the strongest books he’s read recently which made me really intrigued since I admired his debut story collection so much. I found each story in “Dinosaurs on Other Planets” captivating in its own way. McLaughlin has a talent for creating tension in her scenes of everyday reality so that every detail reflects deeper stories of hidden affairs, desperation, financial insecurity or love that has gone sour. I felt compelled to go back to the beginning of some stories after I finished them and reread them now that I had a fuller understanding of the characters. This is the mark of great fiction as these stories have real depth which isn’t immediately apparent. They are also so entertaining and beautifully-written that they made me want to spend more time with them. As this is only a debut collection, I think Danielle McLaughlin demonstrates tremendous skill and confidence in her writing. This is definitely a book to be savoured.

A Snow Garden by Rachel Joyce

I do like the holidays as much as most people – time off from work and an excuse to indulge – what's not to like? But I've never felt compelled to read something on theme whether that be something spooky around Halloween or jolly around Christmas. The only exceptions have been David Sedaris' fantastically irreverent “Santaland Diaries” or, as they are also known, “Holidays on Ice.” If I'm feeling in a particularly sentimental mood there is also Truman Capote's deeply-moving story 'A Christmas Memory.' So I had no plan to seek out holiday reading this year, but then I came upon Rachel Joyce's new book of short stories “A Snow Garden.” I love the understated beauty and quiet wisdom of her writing, especially in her novel “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.” That same power is carried through into these short stories which are all focused around the Christmas season, but these aren't syrupy tales of holiday cheer. Many of these stories focus on people on the margins like an irascible woman who feels isolated, a father with a history of mental illness trying to make things right with his sons, an older couple whose marriage is splintering apart or a girl's first tentative steps towards becoming social by attending a dance. These stories are very much about redemption and hope, but in a realistic and hard-won sense that won't leave you with a toothache.

Most of the stories are loosely connected to each other or with Joyce's past books. Mention of a flight delay in one story is carried through into another story focused on people stuck at an airport. An unused winter-themed film set for a pop star's holiday special becomes the focal point in another story where a father is trying to rekindle a connection with his sons. I greatly enjoy short story collections which are lightly related to each other because it gives a more fully rounded sense of a fictional world and gives little pleasure triggers when I'm able to join things up. Connections with Joyce's past books are gently done so I don't think a reader will feel left out by not recognizing characters which they've met before. It simply functions like an added bonus for a Rachel Joyce fan who is in the know. One enduring thing which recurs throughout this book is an advert with an image of a girl in a red coat who is in a snowy winter scene. This feels so effective because it seems so true to life: a sentimental image created for commercial purposes which nonetheless effects the mood of the characters who continuously encounter it.

Although these stories are firmly grounded in reality, I like how sometimes Joyce's writing starts stretching the seams. So, when in her touching story 'A Marriage Manual' the couple who have been together their whole lives reach a near breaking point when collaborating on a bicycle's construction, the very construction of the garage around them begins floundering and breaking apart. The only point where I don't feel this works is in her story 'Christmas Day at the Airport' which is a modern-day retelling of the nativity story replete with a lesbian who gives birth, women who bear fragrant gifts from Duty Free and a donkey being held in the animal redemption centre. The concept of this story took over making it feel too manufactured. However, I found every other story in this book to be genuinely moving.

Rachel Joyce has a talent for creating really vivid and intensely-felt characters like a difficult woman named Binny in 'A Faraway Smell of Lemon' and a vibrant rebellious adolescent girl named Patty Driscoll in 'The Boxing Day Ball'. Each line of dialogue builds their personalities to make them feel immediate and real. She doesn't shrink from showing the awkward pauses or repetition of speech which hint at the underlying emotions of her characters. In their normal exchanges and the mundane detail, Joyce reveals hints of profundity in the everyday. In this way she remind me very much of Anne Tyler's fiction. So I really enjoyed reading this book over the Christmas season. Rachel Joyce has another novel forthcoming this year and I'm greatly looking forward to it.