Pew by Catherine Lacey

I've always been a quiet person. Even when I feel like I'm just as present and chatty as everyone else around me, people have always remarked on how quiet I am. But one of the interesting things this has allowed me to notice is how much people reveal about themselves - not so much in the content of their speech but the way they say things shows a lot about their preoccupations, insecurities, desires and fears. The very quiet narrator at the centre of Catherine Lacey's novel “Pew” is suddenly discovered sleeping in the church of a small American town and because the narrator is found on a pew the locals call this anonymous individual Pew. Even though we the readers are privy to Pew's thoughts we don't know any details about their past or identity. Pew is an adolescent of indeterminate age, indeterminate race and indeterminate gender because their appearance is so ambiguous. No matter how much the town's inhabitants enquire Pew barely ever responds and certainly provides no answers. As the community tries to determine what to do with this mysterious young vagabond, many individuals have private one-sided conversations with Pew where they confess their emotions and unintentionally reveal many of their prejudices. We follow Pew's many encounters over the course of a week leading up to a strange ritualised local ceremony. 

This novel's simple premise grants a lot of space to ask teasing sociological and psychological questions about the nature of community and identity. What traits or qualities ensure our acceptance amongst a group of people? How far does our empathy extend to people who are unknown to us? To what degree do our unique characteristics define or inhibit who we are as individuals? Why do categorisations matter so much in our society? These all arise as the town's inhabitants either rigorously try to define exactly what Pew is or simply accept Pew for whoever they are. Within Pew's meditations there are even more overt philosophical queries raised about the nature of being: “Can only other people tell you what your body is, or is there a way that you can know something truer about it from the inside, something that cannot be seen or explained in words?” In this way, there's a fascinating tension built up over the course of the novel about the nature of subjective experience.

While I worried at first that this all might be too pondering I felt the story had a lightness to it in balancing Pew's observations with the local's italicized speeches. It's something like Alice's episodic adventures through Wonderland encountering many puzzlingly curious personalities along the way. So it gradually develops into a strangely captivatingly meditative journey. Of course, this story's construction also presents some troubling issues. Even though people are prone to saying more than they mean to when confronted with a very quiet individual, people aren't often quite as confessional as many in this novel who relate their deeply-personal histories and most intimate secrets to Pew. There's also a danger in these speeches made to Pew, some from bleeding-heart liberal types, that in laying out all their vulnerabilities and faults the author is mocking them more than taking their complex individual positions seriously. But I didn't ultimately feel that this was the case and I found myself compelled by the various connections between people in the town as we meet more and more along the way. The novel also builds larger mysteries about a wife stabbed in the eye, the racially-motivated murder of a child and other outstanding grievances/crimes which culminate in a bizarre festival. 

There are teasing, cryptic elements to this story which create an underlying tension like The Wicker Man or Midsommar. But the novel's overarching construction and premise feels more like a cross between Rachel Cusk's “Outline”, Ali Smith's “The Accidental” and Elizabeth Strout's “Anything is Possible”. It's heartening to see this creative take on overly-politicised discussions about identity politics and immigration. Harold, a popular spokesman for the community, rants at one point: “I want justice to prevail, for the good side to win. And in order for that to happen we have got to know who people are. Who they really are.” This novel splits such simplistic ideas and notions open to reveal their dangerous limitations. It's clever how Lacey subtly challenges the reader to not make their own assumptions about Pew's identity as well. I found it to be a very meaningful and ultimately liberating journey to be inside the head of narrator who remains entirely undefined but not unknown. 

Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez

Rarely have I read a debut novel that conveys the piercingly accurate immediacy of its central characters' experiences with such grace and insight. “Rainbow Milk” begins with the story of Norman Alonso, a horticulturist and former-boxer from Jamaica who moves his family to England as part of the Windrush generation. He suffers from a debilitating illness which is causing him to lose his sight and he finds working and integrating into a small British community much more challenging than he expected. His situation and character is described with poignant delicacy so I was initially thrown when the story abruptly moves on to follow Jesse McCarthy, a teenage boy from the West Midlands who moves to London at the beginning of the millennium. But I soon felt an intense affinity and affection for this character whose story comprises the bulk of the novel. The way the author captures Jesse's fierce confidence as well as his vulnerability is so sympathetic and true to life. Only much later does the tale loop back to a connection with Norman and his family in a way which is achingly beautiful.

I recognize that in many ways Jesse's experience is very different from my own. He's a black young man who grew up in a predominantly white society and he was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. But I strongly connected to him as a gay boy that moves from a small community to the city. He throws himself into the pulse of urban life engaging in the same sex experiences he could only previously fantasize about. I remember the feelings of uninhibited delight and liberating honesty of those first sexual experiences - “This was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” But I also intensely recall the subsequent fears and newfound isolation after understanding the consequences of those actions. Mendez conveys all this with great strength that makes no apologies for his character's explosive desire. As an attractive and well-hung young man Jesse meets many older men who want to use him: “he was a skinny, twenty-year-old black boy with a big dick, which was all anyone ever seemed to want him for.” Because of this, Jesse, in turn, also learns to use the men he meets rather than following his impulse to romantically settle down. The transactional nature of these encounters encourages Jesse to start working as a rent boy.

I think it's so powerful how Mendez captures the way that commerce bleeds into the emotional and sexual needs of a young man in Jesse's position and I've not read anything quite like it since the novel “What Belongs to You”. Some of his encounters are destructive, disappointing or simply dull. But others are surprisingly nurturing as there are a few individuals that see Jesse as a dynamic young man to engage with as more than an object of desire or a repository for their revenge. This forms a very accurate portrayal of the diverse and perilous social landscape which a gay man enters into where the physical body is so vulnerable. Equally, the full emotional consequences aren't often felt until much later as Jesse gradually learns what he truly wants in his relationships with men.

As someone raised by his black mother and white step-father in a predominantly white community, Jesse was prone to moments of intense self-hatred during his childhood because of the colour of his skin. Later the experience of truly inhabiting his skin begins as a form of imitation: “He actually felt like an actual black man, listening to rap, especially to the lyrics, really letting the beats get into him.” The novel skilfully moves backwards and forwards in time showing how Jesse learns to inhabit the multifaceted parts of his identity on his own terms and I particularly enjoyed how the story describes Jesse's evolving communion with music. There's an interplay between the song lyrics and the emotions of his personal experiences that form a startlingly personal view of the world through his eyes. And I have to note (as someone who was roughly Jesse's age when I moved to London at the start of the millennium) I especially loved the references to artists like Kelis and the Sugababes.

The novel so vividly describes Jesse's journey towards finding a sense of community amongst like-minded individuals and honest romantic relationships. There are some sections which describe the will and desires people place upon him in frenzied expressive bursts of italicised dialogue. These range in tone from darkly sexualized projections to the humorous and paltry demands restaurant customers make upon the staff. But there are also low key but pointed references throughout to the racist paranoias and subtly-expressed fears of people Jesse encounters in his everyday life from white men who avoid sitting next to him on public transportation to white women who cling a bit more tightly to their purses when he's around. It's moving how, in addition to forming bonds with other BAME individuals, Jesse grows to understand and articulate his experience through reading writers like James Baldwin, Bernardine Evaristo, Andrea Levy and Sam Selvon. Paul Mendez proves he's definitely a part of this tradition and also establishes a voice that is uniquely his own in this boldy heartfelt novel.

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili (translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin)

There’s something so satisfying about getting immersed in a big family saga. At over 930 pages, “The Eighth Life” may look intimidating from the outside and I had a few false starts reading this novel but as soon as I got caught up in the many stories it contains I stopped noticing what page number I was on. The novel recounts the tales of multiple generations of a family in the country of Georgia over the 20th century following them through the Russian Revolution, Soviet rule and civil war. Ever since reading the novel “Soviet Milk” and finding out more about the Latvian strand of my family history I’ve been interested in the effects the Soviet Union had upon Eastern European countries. Haratischvili’s novel gives a wide-scale perspective on this time period and region paying special attention to the negative effect these political changes had on the lives of a variety of women. Comparisons have been made to “War and Peace” and “The Tin Drum” but, from my own frame of reference, I'd liken it more to “Gone with the Wind” crossed with “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. 

The novel does an impressive job at balancing an overview of large-scale political and social changes over the past century alongside recounting the personal fortunes and failures of a particular family. Starting as a family of confectioners whose speciality is an irresistible secret recipe for hot chocolate, the descendants become involved in all levels of society from a commander in Trotsky's Red Army to the mistress of a fearsome leader to a defector fighting for Georgian independence to a singer that becomes a symbol of political resistance. At the heart of the book is Stasia who possesses superstitious beliefs about the cursed nature of the family's chocolate recipe and believes she can see the ghosts of dead relatives. The novel is truly epic in showing how family stories are built upon the tales of past generations and shows that radical transitions in society result in innumerable tales of personal strife.

A great pleasure that comes from reading a long novel like this is seeing how characters will change and reemerge over many years. A character that appears only briefly as a girl trapped in a perilous situation appears many pages later as an old woman who has achieved great success. We also follow the evolution of certain characters who may begin with certain personalities and values but who, in response to political events and personal strife, find themselves irreparably altered in their convictions and outlook. I felt like I truly lived alongside many of these characters who undergo so many changes over the years. But it also takes on a great poignancy following the subsequent generations who may repeat certain patterns of their ancestors' behaviour or might wildly rebel against what was expected of them.

There's a difficulty in the way political discourse and the history books have set up this dichotomy of East (Soviet Communism) vs West (Democracy) and how this shaped the way the populations of these geographical regions relate to and conceptualize one another. Of course it was a real ideological battle that brought us to the brink of nuclear war. But I also feel like this has set up an oppositional mentality which produces a lot of stereotypes and barriers. For instance, when Kitty leaves Georgia and eventually settles in England to become a successful singer the media and general public want her to be a victim of the Soviet Union: “She allowed customers to engage her in conversation, and played the part of the Soviet sensation to the hilt. She played up to people’s fears and projections, and accentuated them with more horrific details.” While she did suffer terribly under Soviet rule and while the Soviet Union's practices were horrific, I feel like the West often demonizes the entire region and its people. So it's enriching how this novel humanizes a family caught up in this time period, showing how they have to make difficult choices and choose certain allegiances in order to survive.

A way this novel spoke to me is in its portrayal of Kitty, a woman who leaves her homeland to settle in England. She makes a successful career there but feels a strong longing for her place of birth and family yet she can't return for political reasons. In reflecting about her mentality the narrator states: “Perhaps the most tragic thing about exile, both mental and geographical, was that you began to see through everything, you could no longer beautify anything; you had to accept yourself for who you were. Neither who you had been in the past, nor the idea of who you might be in the future, mattered.” This made me think about displacement as a radical confrontation with oneself. Although I'm much more privileged and fortunate than Kitty I can relate to her as someone who has spent a long period of my adult life away from my homeland. And I think at the moment, in this state of global lockdown where we are in a sense exiles within our own homes, many of us are forced to confront ourselves and what matters to us in a way we didn't have to when we were caught in the busyness of daily life.

I had the great pleasure of sitting down for a cup of hot chocolate with author Nino Haratischvili and translators Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin for a live discussion about their tremendous novel.

A common criticism I've seen made about this novel is that there's not much differentiation between characters later on in the novel, especially between the men who are often portrayed as villainous. Personally, I didn't feel this way except perhaps about the characters of Miqa and Miro who did feel very similar to me. And, though there are several male characters who act in a horrendous way, there are many prominent men from this period of history whose actions resulted in the torture and death of many people so the novel is merely reflecting that fact. I could also cite many men in the novel such as David or Severin who are more positive characters. Also, one of the many interesting things which emerged from speaking from the author is that she didn't see the character of Kostya as simply a villain despite the many terrible things he does. All the characters have strengths as well as flaws which makes them more fully rounded. But I think it's also right that the novel focuses more on female characters as these women’s stories haven't been as frequently documented in history books. 

It feels like a cliché to say that a novel contains a lot of heartache but ultimately has a hopeful message. But that's exactly what “The Eighth Life” does in its construct because the entire novel is narrated from the point of view of a descendant named Niza who recounts these many varied and dramatic stories of their family for her adolescent niece Daria. In honouring these lives from the past she both informs and makes space for the next generation. It's a way of reckoning with the tragedies of the past century and paving a way for the future through the ingenuity and resilience of the family who survives and can carry on that legacy. The novel poignantly demonstrates how what's to come hasn't been written yet.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Why Shakespeare? In Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet” the author uses her considerable talent for mapping the emotional terrain and intimate relationships of her contemporary characters over a long period of time to write a historical novel about the plague-ridden reality of late 16th century England and the death of Shakespeare’s adolescent son Hamnet. Four years after the boy’s death the Bard wrote ‘Hamlet’, a name that was used interchangeably with Hamnet at the time. Given we know only a slender amount about Shakespeare’s life and he wrote nothing of his personal grief, it’s irresistible to speculate on what motivated him to immortalize his son’s name in a play which went on to be one of the most quoted literary works in the English language. However, rather than portray Shakespeare’s thoughts and feelings, O’Farrell instead focuses on the lives of his family: Shakespeare and Agnes’ hastily arranged marriage, the illness of Hamnet’s twin sister Judith, Hamnet’s sudden death and the devastating grief which followed. This is powerfully rendered, beautifully written with evocative historical details and I enjoyed it immensely but…

I felt like something was lacking. A problem might be in my expectations for this novel which has been much-hyped and lauded. It’s been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, tipped for the Booker and a prominent review ended by simply stating “this is a work that ought to win prizes.” Publicity for the book describes it as “the heart-stopping story behind Shakespeare’s most famous play.” But the novel tells us very little about Shakespeare’s motivation or influence for writing the play beyond what I’ve already described. So I feel that if O’Farrell uses this as a premise her fiction needs to converse with and expand our understanding of Shakespeare’s writing and his literary stature by imaginatively inhabiting his reality. However, Shakespeare is very much a periphery character who is emotionally and physically absent from his family in Stratford while he pursues his dramatic work in London. Of course, this was no doubt the reality. But if we’re not going to get Shakespeare’s perspective or a feeling for the man himself why include him as a character or focus on this central storyline?

Instead, O’Farrell inventively and movingly imagines the life of Agnes as someone with healing powers and quasi-psychic abilities who frequently gathers flowers and herbs to concoct healing mixtures for many of the locals. It’s remarked that “Agnes is of another world. She does not quite belong here.” She’s an entirely-convincing, fully rounded character who is strong and full of heart. I found it very touching how she’s hampered with feelings of guilt about her son’s fate even though she couldn’t have predicted the outcome of his illness or prevented his death. Also, her ambivalent feelings about her husband are a poignant and realistic depiction of a relationship. She’ll never want to see him again one moment and then another moment will feel achingly close to him. She also recognizes that his family and life in Stratford could never be enough for him: “She can tell, even through her dazed exhaustion, even before she can take his hand, that he has found it, he is fitting it, he is inhabiting it - that life he was meant to live, that work he was intended to do.” All of this detail and characterization is excellent but it could be about any family with an absent husband/father.

Shakespeare looms large in our esteem as probably the greatest writer in Western literature and there’s a prolific amount of biographical literature based on relatively few facts making the Bard seem more mythical than historical. Therefore, O’Farrell’s novel feels somewhat like fanfiction that imaginatively and powerfully builds a domestic universe out of the slenderly-known central players in his life. It makes an important statement by naming these figures and conspicuously not naming Shakespeare at all in the novel – he’s only ever referred to by his status as either “the husband”, “the tutor” or “the father”. Perhaps it is partly O’Farrell’s purpose in writing this book to state that the man was merely mortal and his reality was probably as ordinary as his stark and plain writing room that we get a glimpse of late in the novel. That’s perfectly fine. But…

While reading this novel I kept thinking of “Lincoln in the Bardo” and how much Saunders dynamically builds on both our historical and imagined understanding of Abraham Lincoln as a legendary political figure from American history. As with any prominent figure, it shows how he had to balance his personal reality with his public reputation. But “Hamnet” shows us almost nothing about Shakespeare’s conflict except why he’s almost entirely absented himself from family life: “He sees how he may become mired in Stratford forever, a creature with its leg in the jaws of an iron trap, with his father next door, and his son, cold and decaying, beneath the churchyard sod.” But even before Hamnet’s death he rarely visited his family. A writer who feels like they can’t simultaneously maintain a family and professional life is an interesting subject, but his feelings on this aren’t explored either. The most moving portrait of Shakespeare in this novel comes when he tries to engage Agnes in talking about the flora she gathers rather than discussing their son’s death and Agnes resolutely ignores him. Otherwise, I was left as surprised and confused as Agnes about why Shakespeare named his play after his son – other than a fairly obvious psychological interpretation for his motivations. This left me feeling somewhat deflated at the end of the novel.

Given our current circumstances, I also have to note the bizarre coincidence that this novel focuses so much on the effects of a pandemic. It describes in detail the symptoms the plague has on the body and the way measures were taken to try to contain the illness. There are references to theatres needing to periodically close because of it. There’s also an imaginative and impressive section which describes the journey of the illness and how is spreads through fleas from a young sailor to a glass craftsman and how it finally comes to infect a member of Shakespeare’s family. It’s a strange experience reading a novel whose central subject matter becomes surprisingly topical. I also want to stress how much I enjoyed this excellent novel and I’m not surprised it has many enthusiastic fans, but I just wasn’t as impressed as some other readers have been.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2020

Here are the six novels on this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist! How are we all feeling about these picks. Good choices, right? I think it might be the best group in years as they’re a really strong and varied group of contenders. The stories range from the Bronze age to Tudor times to modern-day NYC. The shortest novel on the list is 208 pages and the longest is 882! I give a lot more of my thoughts on this year’s list in a new video I just posted here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M75MGjEYbk

I must admit, I’m probably most happy to see “Weather” as I loved this short impactful novel and I’m glad it’s getting more attention. Of course, “Girl, Woman, Other” is excellent and yes deserves more attention even though it already co-won The Booker Prize. Will Evaristo get to stand on her own in the spotlight this time? I’m also glad “Dominicana” is on the list as I’m eager to read it and this nomination is the final push I need to get me to read “The Mirror and the Light” soonish (rather than letting it gather dust on my shelf for years with the intention to read it one day ) “A Thousand Ships” is really enjoyable (even for someone who has read a lot of the recent mythological retellings.) And I’m part way through reading “Hamnet” now - I’m enjoying it but not blown away by it yet (as many people have been) but it still might grab me.

I’m disappointed “Actress” and “The Dutch House” didn’t make the cut but that’s how prizes go!
How do you feel about the list? Any favourites or longlisted titles you’re sad not to see? Will you read all six before the winner is announced in September? I’m glad we have this to look forward to!

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Haynes begins her novel with the explicit and noble mission to give voice to women from Greek mythology – many of whom were only ever portrayed as minor, unheroic and simplistic characters. This is a necessary and much-welcome endeavour because, aside from the feminist point of view  this adds to these male-dominated tales written by men, telling the story from the women’s perspective gives a rich opportunity for retelling these classic stories and shows there is still so much more to say about them. The novel begins with the muse Calliope being asked to inspire an old male poet by singing to him. She bargains for a trinket, but also insists he relate the stories of the women involved. Thus we get tales of the fall of Troy, the journey of Odysseus, the battles of Achilles, the revenge dealt to Agamemnon and the deities who intervened (or interfered) with the struggles of the mortals. But all these are told from the perspectives of Clytemnestra, Helen, Penelope, Thetis, Hecabe, Polyxena, Calliope, Eris, Gaia and many other women.

In some ways this feels like a greatest hits from Greek mythology as many of the events portrayed are well known. There are notable exceptions such as the tale of Hector’s wife Andromache which I was less familiar with. But what’s so clever is that Haynes develops an overall narrative to the motivations which influence many of these events. The mortals may feel like they are steering events, but it’s the deities who play them against each other as they bicker and squabble amongst themselves. I found it quite funny how the author shows so much carnage and chaos coming out of a petty battle amongst a group of goddesses. So even though this novel’s aim is to give voice to women it doesn’t idealize them because, of course, many of the female characters involved are motivated as much by spite, selfishness or cruelty as they are motivated at other times by magnanimity or kindness. This made the novel really dynamic, fun and suspenseful.

The trouble is that there’s been several retellings of this mythology in the past few years including “Circe”, “The Silence of the Girls” and “House of Names”, many of which have covered the same events. Of course, Haynes gives a different perspective to the stories and differently portrays the characters involved. But there were moments while reading this when I felt I’d read it before because there’s certain architecture and details to the tales which naturally overlap. And it’s certainly no fault of the author that she happens to have been caught in this zeitgeist of retellings or that her novel is the one I happened to read after all these others but it did detract from my enjoyment of the novel. My other main issue with the book was that there were so many characters involved it got somewhat confusing keeping them straight - I’m grateful a list of characters with descriptions was included at the beginning of the novel so I could occasionally refer to it. Nevertheless, it was still a pleasure to read this book and I felt like I got a lot out of it.

I think Haynes is excellent at balancing humour and poignancy in the way she relates these tales. Great fun is made at the expense of the deities and the male heroes’ arrogance and pomposity. But there are also moments of heartbreak and insight such as when it’s observed how language is also a victim of war because “when a city was sacked everything within it was destroyed right down to its words”. This gives a new perspective on history as well as mythology. But the strongest message of all is that heroic acts aren’t just made by men who are turned into statues and immortalized in stories which get retold through the ages. Penelope remarks how “The bards all sing of the bravery of heroes and the greatness of deeds. It is one of the few elements of your story on which they all agree. But no one sings of the courage required by those of us who are left behind.” This novel cleverly proves how the heroes of war aren’t only those who are fighting on the front lines.

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

Afia Atakora’s debut novel “Conjure Women” takes place on a Southern plantation and focuses on the life of Rue, a girl born into slavery. She’s the daughter of the community’s much-respected midwife and conjure woman Miss May Belle. Though she passes much of her knowledge to her daughter, changing circumstances mean that Rue’s craft is under suspicion especially when a new born boy with startlingly black eyes is believed to be a curse or haint Rue has brought upon them: “They had been waiting on reprisal, reprisal for freedom, for the joy of being free, and when that reprisal wasn’t fast coming, they’d settled on the notion that punishment was finally come in the black eyes of a wrong-looking child.” The narrative occurs in two alternating timelines before and after the Civil War - ‘SlaveryTime’ and ‘FreedomTime’. This builds a lot of tension in the story as many mysteries build and shocking revelations occur. It was gripping and I was drawn into the psychological complexity of the characters as the intricacies of their relationships unfold.  

There’s a curious doubling between Rue and Varina, the red-haired daughter of the plantation owner. Varina often plays with Rue but there is no question that Varina is the young mistress who is privileged and ultimately destined to own Rue. This creates a power play between the girls and though they seem to share an intimacy Rue is strongly reminded at one point that they can never be friends. Miss May Belle sews a flip doll that is a white girl on one side and a black girl when inverted and this emphasizes the girls’ connection to each other as well as the way they are like two sides of the same coin. As the war progresses and dramatic events occur Rue finds herself empowered in a way she wasn’t before. While they may be forced to be at odds with each other because of the circumstances, each girl is subject to different abuse and the natural kinship they’d might otherwise find with each other is disrupted by racial injustice. But this is just one of many relationships which are twisted by the gross imbalance of power. Atakora movingly explores these dynamics through the lives of her characters.

Miss May Belle and Rue’s power may be based in superstitious belief but this grants them a power they wouldn’t otherwise have. Yet what’s fascinating is the way they use their understanding of the circumstances to bring about change rather than through any conjuring spells. Miss May Belle understands that “Faith in magic was far more potent than magic itself”. Atakora shows how Christian belief comes to take precedence over the community’s belief in conjuring in the form of Bruh Abel who comes to preach to them. This novel gave me a new perspective on the mechanics of faith as well as a new point of view on the after-effects of the Civil War. It was also a great pleasure to read for its evocative language and the building suspense as the story plays out to a moving conclusion. An overall vivid, enthralling tale.

The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction longlist 2020

One of my favourite writers that I read during my time at university was George Orwell. I have a special fondness for his fiction such as “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” and “A Clergyman’s Daughter” (in addition, of course, to the famous “1984”) and nonfiction such as “Down and Out in Paris and London”. So it’s wonderful that The Orwell Foundation runs a series of prizes for new books which seek “to make political writing into an art” including an award for political fiction. Last year’s winner was Anna Burns for “Milkman” which is a sharp-eyed look at the personal impact of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Other novels I was especially glad to see on last year’s shortlist include “Ironopolis” by Glen James Brown, “Sabrina” by Nick Drnaso and “Red Clocks” by Leni Zumas.

The longlist for this year’s prize has just been announced and includes an intriguing mixture of fiction I’ve read, a few I’ve been meaning to get to and some books I’ve not come across before. Some of these novels such as “The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner, “Spring” by Ali Smith and “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead have been critically lauded but received little or no prize attention before this award. So it’s great to see a book prize shine a spotlight on them and noting the political message of these books in particular. Four of these novels also appeared on last year’s Booker Prize longlist including “Ducks, Newburyport” by Lucy Ellman (which was the best book I read last year), “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernardine Evaristo, “The Wall” by John Lanchester and “The Man Who Saw Everything” by Deborah Levy. Iconic writer Edna O’Brien’s novel “Girl” is also listed for this year’s Women’s Prize.

Other books on the list I’m keen to read include “This Paradise” by Ruby Cowling which is a collection of short stories about people fleeing towards places or times or situations they hope might be better. “Broken Jaw” by Minoli Salgado, the other book of short stories on the list, includes tales mostly set in Sri Lanka that concern the traumas of war. Regina Porter is an award-winning playwright and her debut novel “The Travelers” concerns the histories of two interconnected American families (one white, one black). Attica Locke is an acclaimed author of literary crime novels and “Heaven, My Home” is the second instalment in her Highway 59 series. James Meek’s “To Calais, In Ordinary Time” is a historical novel set in the 14th century amidst the shadow of the Black Death.  

So it’s a wonderfully varied list and I look forward to discovering some good new fiction from it. The shortlist will be announced mid-May and the winner will be announced on June 25th, George Orwell’s birthday. Let me know if you’re rooting for any of these books or if you’re keen to read any of them now.

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler

Like a lot of people I’ve sometimes found reading difficult during this period of national lockdown. It can be challenging to concentrate when there’s so much anxiety all around me. So the calm and measured thoughtfulness found in Anne Tyler’s new novel is greatly welcome at this time. Since she focuses on psychological nuance and a realistic portrayal of daily experience nothing very dramatic or distressing often occurs in Tyler’s novels. That’s true for this book as well although there is an imagined apocalyptic scene which felt surprisingly relevant for this current time. At one point the protagonist has a fantasy that his community has been hit by “one of those neutron bombs they used to talk about that wiped out all of humanity but left the buildings intact” so that he imagines himself as the sole survivor and, while he would occupy himself with his usual solitary activities, he’d eventually go out looking for other people and find “Nothing.” This is exactly the sort of existential crisis many are experiencing now when they venture outside to a normally bustling community and find no one around. So this added a touching poignancy to an all-around gentle story about a man caught in the humdrum routines of his well-established lifestyle.

The novel follows the daily experiences of Micah, a man on the brink of middle age who has a lowkey life working as a “glorified handyman” assisting local individuals with their computer problems. He runs his independent business under the name Tech Hermit which is a title all too appropriate for him. Although he has a long-term girlfriend and close connections with his family, his life is dominated by tidy habits which shield him from any messiness in his home or emotional messiness. Eventually this distances him from those closest to him and when the son of an old flame arrives at his doorstep he finds himself confronted by how severely circumscribed his existence has become. As often happens in Tyler’s novel, the mundane details of ordinary life gradually build to something much more moving, substantial and profound. Few writers can capture the way individuals are trapped in the steady flow of time the way Tyler does.

My favourite novel by Tyler is “Ladder of Years” which concerns a wife and mother who literally walks away from her life to enjoy some precious much-needed solitude. In a way, “Redhead by the Side of the Road” offers an opposite point of view about a man who has consciously built a self-contained solitary world for himself but finds when he’s left absolutely alone he needs others to provide a form of disruption to his orderly routines. This causes him to glancingly imagine others around him when there’s really no one there such as when he comes upon a fire hydrant that he regularly passes by: “He momentarily mistook the hydrant for a redhead and gave his usual shake of the shoulders at how repetitious this thought was, how repetitious all his thoughts were, how they ran in a deep rut and how his entire life ran in a rut, really.” While many of us long for a special kind of solace found in being entirely alone, an important aspect of human nature is maintaining some form of human contact. Yes, this will inevitably lead to disorder or even chaos but part of the pleasure of living is not being able to predict what these interactions will bring. This novel shows that Tyler’s humble story can provide a startlingly timely message.

Booker International Prize Shortlist 2020

The shortlist for this year’s International Booker prize was announced online yesterday – the planned event for this had to be cancelled because of the global pandemic. If nothing else, recent events show how important it is for us to access literature from other countries to stay connected and in dialogue with each other during these uncertain times. It’s notable how the shortlisted novels reach out to many different corners of the globe including Japan, Iran, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico and Argentina. The list is also largely populated by female authors and a few of the novels give radical new retellings of national myths, legends or origin stories. So I especially appreciate how this group of books gives voice to female, queer and working class perspectives from history which are often left out of historical accounts. You can watch my quick reaction to this year’s shortlist announcement in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1udkZ9uMBTA

I’ve had the pleasure of reading a number of the nominated novels from the longlist over the past month and I’m delighted with the group of six novels the judges have chosen. Three in particular which stand out to me are the excellent historical novel “Tyll” which takes place during the Thirty Year War in central Europe, “Hurricane Season” which gives a panoramic look at life in a Mexican town centring around the death of an individual branded a witch and “The Memory Police” which creatively uses a dystopian story to ponder philosophical and psychological issues to do with memory. I enjoyed reading “The Adventures of China Iron” but had some issues with how fanciful the narrative became. And “The Discomfort of Evening” was an interesting book from a promising new writer but felt too meandering to come together for me. The only novel on the shortlist I’ve not read yet is “The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree” but I’ve heard such excellent things about this novel from other people who’ve read it that I’m greatly anticipating it now.

I was surprised not to see “The Eighth Life” on the list because I’m currently caught in reading this sweeping epic and I was disappointed that “The Other Name” wasn’t shortlisted as this is such a movingly meditative novel. But overall it’s an excellent list. Let me know if you’ve read any of these novels and what you think of them or if you’re keen to give any a try now.

Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell)

While there have been many think pieces about the potential joys, pitfalls and dangers of our social media age, I haven’t read much fiction which imaginatively and realistically tackles these issues. “Little Eyes” presents a society where mechanical stuffed animals called “kentukis” become a new craze for people around the world – from an idle boy in Antigua to a pensive artist’s wife in Oaxaco to a lonely old woman in Lima. The cute mechanized animals are fitted with a camera which links to an anonymous controller or “dweller” who voyeuristically watches the life of the owner or “keeper”. Samanta Schweblin puts her characteristic dark spin on this story as a series of characters find themselves entangled in connections which spiral out of control and threaten to overwhelm them. 

It feels entirely plausible that this is a device which would catch on and become a thing. It's like a cross between reality TV, social media apps and a robotic pet. The characters are initially confused about why they want to either own a kentukis or inhabit one, but they're drawn to it out of curiosity and gradually find themselves addicted. The anonymous connections they create introduce power plays between keepers and dwellers. It's clever how the novel shows hidden aspects of the characters' personalities emerging through their interactions with the devices in surprising and unforeseen ways. Some might become exhibitionistic or needy or amorous or jealous or even sadistic.

The kentukis come to fulfil what's lacking in many people's lives and thus provide them with a controlled double existence: “She had two lives, and that was much better than barely having one and limping around in free fall.” But the counter life that the kentukis provide gradually get out of control. A bit of indulgent fun becomes deadly serious as the virtual interactions spill over into real life. Several of the storylines become quite tense such as a kentukis who witnesses a kidnapping while others are more meditative such as a boy who completely loses himself as a dweller wanting only to exist within a liberated kentukis dragon.

Like with all new technology there are good and bad consequences to it becoming a fixture in so many people's lives. While it's easy to focus on the sensationalized negative consequences of the devices, I appreciate how Schweblin also explores the benefits they provide. I also enjoyed how this novel made me think more deeply about my own online interactions and my ambivalence about participating in so many social media platforms. Often we can plunge into various online activities and find ourselves swept into the novelty of recreating ourselves and participating in interactions with largely unknown people around the world. The consequences of doing so might be disappointingly banal or surprisingly revelatory, but they give us new ways to test the shape of our identities. Schweblin's novel is an entertaining, compelling and fascinating exploration of this.

The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (translated by Damion Searls)

A clichéd complaint about modern art is that it’s something a child could do – as if little or no thought has gone into the process behind it. In a way, “The Other Name” might serve as an extended riposte to this dismissive attitude as it details in 351 densely-packed pages an artist agonizing over two intersecting lines he’s painted on a canvass. Of course, it’s about much more than that but this is the primary dilemma at the centre of this deeply introspective novel. Asle is an artist living a sparse monastic existence in a small Norwegian village and his only real social contact is with a neighbour that clears the snow from his driveway. But he also occasionally encounters a doppelganger, an alcoholic artist also named Asle who lives some distance away and who he finds near death passed out in a snow drift. As Asle travels to assist his precarious double he moves in and out of memories and fantasies in a way which fascinatingly traverses the usual boundaries of time and space. The result is a moving and complex meditation on the meaning of art, faith and relationships.

It’s interesting how Asle’s thoughts frequently twist around themselves, repeat or meander in a way which can feel initially frustrating, but all of a sudden they take on a meaning which is profound and revelatory. For instance, a long strange scene where Asle observes two young people frolicking outside results in the statement “We’re making each other like children again” and helped me consider how deep intimacy between adults can inspire a kind of reversion to infancy in our behaviour and manner. It’s a poignant insight into the vulnerability and innocence adults still carry inside them and which is little shown in ordinary life but might be revealed to a significant other. However, the act of watching this couple also takes on strange and sinister undertones as it becomes an act of voyeurism whereby the pair alternately become Asle and his deceased wife or Asle with Asle himself. It’s as if he frequently wanders into shifting new landscapes which blend intense memory with fantasy.

It’s not only Asle who exists in a strange sort of duality, but a woman he meets and who takes charge of his double’s dog also takes on multiple identities. Her name might be Guro or Silje or Silja, but no matter how many times she introduces herself or refers to their previous intimacy Asle is consistency mystified by her. This might be another form of casual misogyny which is also made in that earlier scene when the pair he observes engage in hurried intercourse: “she liked it, even when she was saying she didn’t like it she was actually liking it, she says and he says yes well that’s how it often is”. This attitude is alarming but I’m guessing Asle’s obliviousness to the thoughts and feelings of women is part of his macho disregard for the reality of women and preferred reverence for the idea of them (as in the form of his late wife.)

The doppelganger acts as a distressed acquaintance who Asle strives to save, but he’s also a way of enacting an intense conversation with oneself. In some ways the narrator is an idealized self: faithful, sober, intensely dedicated to his art and lives a simple thrifty lifestyle. Yet he’s also emotionally repressed and actively blocks any thought or mention of his deceased wife. Whereas his double is reckless, unproductive and wants nothing more than to drink. Thus he represents an entirely different way of dealing with insurmountable emotion. While it appears nothing much occurs over the course of the novel Asle gradually works backward to a stage where these dualities can achieve some form of cohesion. There’s an extended sequence where he imaginatively journeys with his sister into places their mother forbid and the novel ends with a shocking and significantly traumatic memory. I’m still really uncertain how I feel about the final few pages. I can’t decide if it’s a crass way of explaining Asle’s psychological complexity or if it adds an interesting way of viewing everything that proceeded it.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the thoughtful space this story patiently opens up over the course of the novel. It’s a book that you definitely need to be in the mood for, but I found it very relaxing to read and I especially appreciate the way it considers the creative process. Asle occasionally refers to a hidden light that can be seen in successful artwork and to realize this vision in a painting “it’s not the painter who sees, it’s something else seeing through the painter, and it’s like this something is trapped in the picture and speaks silently from it, and it might be one single brushstroke that makes the picture able to speak like that, and it’s impossible to understand”. Fosse’s reverence for the deep engagement and compelling mystery of art whether it’s in paintings or literature is poignantly portrayed in this soulful and searching story.

Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (translated by Ross Benjamin)

I sometimes find it challenging to read historical novels which concern particular wars or political movements when I don’t have much knowledge of these past events. I like to get fully immersed in a story and it’s hard to do that if I feel like I frequently have to check Wikipedia to understand a historical context or situation. This is why it took me so many years to get into “Wolf Hall”. Daniel Kehlmann’s novel “Tyll” concerns The Thirty Years War, German folklore and other subjects from 1600s central Europe that I have even less knowledge about than the Tudor period! But I didn’t mind that so much because the characters (many of whom are compelled by superstitious beliefs) are so engaging and its story of witch trials and the power struggles of self-entitled monarchs is so compelling. It meant I was completely charmed by the book even if I didn’t fully understand the intricacies of several sections. Also, while this novel begins like a biographical account of Tyll Ulenspiegel, a prankster from numerous German folk tales, it is Elizabeth Stuart, an English noblewoman who was briefly Queen of Bohemia and popularly known as the “Winter Queen”, who emerges as the true hero of the novel.

Tyll is raised in tragic circumstances. He's the son of a miller who is put on trial for being a warlock where a string of witnesses are forced to testify against him under intimidation and torture. From this Tyll comes through as a canny individual who has the ability to survive deadly circumstances. But also, as a prototypical trickster and professional jester, Tyll imbues this novel with a wicked sense of humour. He harbours grudges against those who abuse their power and subverts that by mocking them to their faces like a comedy roasting using satirical or even scatological jokes. It was probably the only way to speak truth to power at the time without getting your head chopped off. 

So he's an interesting character who avoids the fate of many who died at the time because of plague, war or religious persecution. But, just as Tyll evades being captured or killed in several situations, he also slyly slips out of the narrative for much of the later parts of this novel and only pops back into the story occasionally to disrupt or comment on the proceedings. The novel comes to focus more on Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart, two high ranking figures of European nobility and royal blood who briefly ruled as King and Queen of Bohemia, but they were forced to abdicate these roles after only one Winter. The politics surrounding this are quite complex and it's something I did have to do a lot of extra reading on just to grasp the circumstances. That's definitely not a bad thing because it is really interesting, but it did pull me out of the story a bit and means a rereading would probably make the experience of this novel more pleasurable.

The main point is that Elizabeth Stuart is such a fascinating historical figure who I hadn't known about before reading this novel. She was the daughter of James VI and Anne of Denmark, highly educated, spoke several languages and had a special passion for reading and literature. I enjoyed how the novel depicts her tricky political status and the personal difficulties this caused for her as she realised she was in a position where she could dramatically alter the fate of history. She comes across as an astute figure who cleverly knows how to survive difficult circumstances just as Tyll does. Whereas some of the main rulers at the time such as her husband Frederick V and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden come across more as bumbling or blowhard potentates playing with power. But Elizabeth is quite strategic in her movements during her extended exile after she and her husband are deposed. I'll be keen to read more about her and it appears several biographies and books about her exist.

With the shifts in focus and leaps in time throughout the novel it did come across as somewhat uneven to me. But overall I was enraptured by the story and writing which is moving, richly evocative and deeply thoughtful all at once. This novel is a strong contender from this year’s Booker International prize list and I'll be keen to read Kehlmann's previous novels.

The Windham-Campbell Prizes 2020 Recipients

Imagine you’re a writer who gets a phone call informing you that you’ve won a literary prize worth $165,000 and you didn’t even know that you were nominated for it! That’s what’s just happened for the eight recipients of this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes. Part of what’s so brilliant about these literary prizes is that they don’t follow the traditional model of book awards by announcing their judges or lists of candidates beforehand; they are simply announced giving writers a previously unforeseen level of financial security to continue working on their artform.

Two winners are selected for the categories including Fiction, Non-Fiction, Drama and Poetry. It’s notable that this year it’s a female dominated winners list with seven women and one man. Since this is a global prize these are also writers whose origins span many different countries including India, China, Zambia, Australia and the United States. I’m especially thrilled to see Yiyun Li on this year’s list since I loved reading her memoir “Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life” and novel “Where Reasons End”. The other recipient of this year’s fiction prize is Namwali Serpell whose novel “The Old Drift” has received a large amount of praise and is a book I’ve been meaning to read.

In the poetry category the winners are Bhanu Kapil who is the author of several collections and is a fellow blogger at the brilliantly titled The Vortex of Formidable Sparkles. The other winner is Jonah Mixon-Webster whose debut poetry collection Stereo(TYPE) addresses the economic and health crisis in his native city of Flint, Michigan. The recipients of the drama category are Julia Cho, the author of nine plays which explore the power and frailty of human connection—between cultures, between individuals, between generations, between institutions; and Aleshea Harris whose two plays confront the physical and psychological wounds of misogyny and racism. The recipients of the nonfiction category are Maria Tumarkin, author of four nonfiction books which explore the interrelatedness of past and present; and Anne Boyer whose writing blurs the boundaries between different forms as exemplified in her most recent book “The Undying” which is a non-traditional memoir about cancer.

I’m looking forward to exploring the work of these authors. The Windham-Campbell Prizes are exceptionally good at highlighting and raising awareness for literary talent that is under-appreciated and under-represented in mainstream publishing. Let me know if you’ve read any of these winners or which you’re most interested in reading now.

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (translated by Fiona Mackintosh & Iona Macintyre)

This is a novel with such an uplifting energy to it as it follows the adventures of a young woman caught in a time of bloody conflict and the formation of a modern nation. But it's also a clever and self-assured historical satire in the way it upturns patriarchal values in favour of those who are marginalized – especially female and queer individuals. “The Adventures of China Iron” feels like a comedy in the classic sense of beginning in tragic circumstances and ending with a joyous resolution. Set in Argentina during the political turbulence of 1872, the story concerns a journey of a heroine born into nothing; she is an orphan without a name, raised by a tyrannical woman and forced into marriage during her adolescence to the gaucho Martin Fierro, a heroic masculine figure from Argentine folklore. After giving birth to two sons she is cast aside by her famed husband and this is where the novel starts with this heroine establishing her own name as well as naming a stray dog who has become her only friend. She reclaims the name China from its dismissive/negative connotations (it's a Quechuan term for a lower-class girl or woman) and maintains her husband's surname of Iron, the English word for Fierro. From here she bands together with Liz, a Scottish woman travelling across country and Rosario, a cattle farmer searching for somewhere to set up with his herd. We follow their entertaining journey to find a home and establish a family that is “linked by more than bloodlines.”

It's great reading how China Iron becomes her own individual hacking off her hair and how this allows her to tread more easily between a masculine and feminine sensibility. I also found it moving the way she gradually establishes a sexual relationship with Liz to form emotional bonds and discover bodily pleasures which were previously denied to her. But one of the most powerful parts of her education comes in her new way of mentally mapping the world to understand the underlying national and economic conditions which result in social disparities. When drinking a cup of tea she comes to understand the “suffering that also travels in tea” and that in drinking it “we drink the broken back of the man bent double as he cuts the leaves, and the broken back of the man carrying them.”

This also informs what's happening in her own country especially when they come to stay with a Colonel who has basically enslaved a number of gauchos and tortures those who do not submit to the colonial powers. These are people whose labour is exploited because the attitude towards the gauchos is that “the only country they were going to get was the one they were building for the colonels and landowners”. Therefore it's no wonder that the narrative of Martin Fierro which depicts the abuse of the gauchos and their role in the country's independence from Spain was so desired by the people and he became a celebrated figure. But while doing so it also valorises a certain image of masculinity and relegates female participants like China to being little more than a footnote. So it's inventive how this novel rewrites this foundational text recasting the myth of Martin Fierro and how the epic poem came to be created.

I enjoyed how China's relationships with both Liz and Martin becomes more complex over the course of the story. But an issue I had was when China and her crew finally arrive at a community of Indians. The prose comes to feel so exaggerated in its lushness and overly romanticised. China believes that she becomes one of the Indians so much so that the narrative takes on a collective voice “we don't want to crush anything underfoot... Our rivers are alive and the streams are animals, they know that we live as one, that we only kill what we need to eat”. This idealized view of a community feels so over-the-top that it came across as ridiculously simplified when I'm sure the reality was much more nuanced and complex. I appreciate that the story was keeping to a more comic tone and it's refreshing to read a historical novel where queer individuals aren't fated to a life of misery or death. But, for me, the later part of the book undermines the power of the story thus far. Nevertheless, this novel is very clever in how it offers an alternative view of a nation's mythology and overall it's a very pleasurable read.