And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

It's tricky trying to summarize how I feel about Alicia Elliott's debut novel as the experience of reading it was often frustrating, but the power of its voice and the complexity of the many issues it raises have inspired me to engage in a lot of discussion with my bookclub about it. There's also a very clever narrative twist a long way into the book which helped me to emotionally engage with it in a way I struggled to up until that point. The story focuses on narrator Alice's experiences grieving the loss of her mother and living in a predominantly white Canadian neighbourhood separate from her familiar indigenous community. She's a writer endeavouring to compose an updated version of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story, a wife to a kind-hearted white man who is academically researching her culture and a new mother to an infant she feels she's failing. Increasingly she senses that inanimate objects, creatures and strange visions are speaking to her. This introduces the question about whether she's suffering from mental health issues, the disorientating effects of sleep loss or whether she's deeply communicating with spirits/ancestors from her culture (or perhaps some mixture of all of these things.) So there is quite a lot going on and it's not surprising that Alice feels continuously overwhelmed!

It's quite a surprise in the prologue when Pocahontas (or Matoaka) begins speaking to Alice through the television screen. This feels both comic and playful, like something from a horror story. It's also meaningful in how there is a darker truth to indigenous history/experience than what non-First Nation groups acknowledge in popular culture. I feel like Elliott tries to balance these three modes throughout the novel's narrative which is a difficult thing to pull off. The novel uses a very conversational style of writing which makes it very personal and immediate. I appreciate how this conveys a strong impression of Alice's point of view and state of mind however, to me, it can sometimes feel too much like a rant where Elliott hammers through messages rather than letting them arise naturally within the story. Alicia Elliott wrote a very interesting personal essay about perceptions of mental illness: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/the-power-of-alicia-elliott-how-the-indigenous-author-embraced-the-unreality-of-fiction-and/article_b0e3c11d-7092-5c59-ac2a-07c83b34a815.html It's really challenging not to dismiss someone's perspective when they've been categorised as suffering from “madness”. At the same time, there are so many practical difficulties which accompany this experience especially when clear and honest communication becomes nearly impossible.

Alice's daily physical interactions seem fairly benign – being gifted dvds, buying alcohol from staring shop assistants and being pounced upon by a hyper vigilant neighbour. Certainly there is unacknowledged prejudice and micro aggression within these encounters but Alice's reactions often feel out of proportion to what's occurring. I understand she is frustrated that the white community she's surrounded by can't understand her perspective and that she desires to exhibit positive representation to deflect stereotypes about Native people and feels the need to keep up appearances – especially to her husband Steve. This poetic line from the novel seems to really encapsulate her experience: “I'm a puddle pretending I've got shape and form.” However, it feels like her increasing panic about her predicament would be tremendously eased if she were to speak honestly with others about what's happening and her state of mind. Instead, she constantly covers this up and keeps an increasing amount of “little secrets” from Steve. Though we don't get much backstory about the formation of their relationship this seems to be a consistent aspect of it: “I've kept so much from him from the very beginning. Edited my life to make it seem a little less tragic and a lot more functional.” Of course she wants to present herself as capable/confident but a big part of any successful long term relationship is allowing a partner to see your vulnerabilities. Instead, Alice seems to be trying harder to cover them up so the truth of how she's feeling can only come out in erratic or paranoid behaviour.

Perhaps this is part of the point of the story. However, it makes it frustrating and difficult to empathise with Alice when she's not willing to let others into what she's experiencing except through this narrative and her rewriting of the Creation Story. I'm aware my reaction might be biased because this character's life is very different from my own. I want to listen to what this book has to say and I'm not trying to minimise the impact of her cultural heritage, position in this society and the difficulty of new motherhood. I was really struck by the lines: “Motherhood is sacrifice. Not metaphorical sacrifice. Literal sacrifice. Every day I feel like I'm destroying pieces of myself to win the favor of this insatiable demigod who wants and wants and wants.” It must feel devastating to rapidly lose yourself in this way and feel like this baby is the antagonist while also loving your child. I've found it really interesting to compare Elliott's novel with “Soldier Sailor” by Claire Kilroy since there are parallels in how new motherhood causes such a terrifying physical and mental breakdown and sense of isolation. What's clear from both is that it's a tremendous strain no matter the circumstances and support/lack of support from one's family/spouse.

It was a complete surprise to me how the story switches its nature later in the novel just as Alice's manic energy and all-consuming paranoia become too much to bear. By getting an outside perspective of Alice (and getting a heartrending peek at the many directions her life might have taken) I suddenly understood the tragedy of her plight better. I'd previously felt sympathy for how overwhelmed she's been with the grief for her mother, the responsibilities and sleeplessness of new motherhood, separation from her Indigenous community, wavering mental health, semi-reliance on drugs/alcohol and frustration trying to honour her heritage by rewriting its stories. But being locked in her point of view also made me feel like a therapist listening to a hopelessly tangled diatribe and this made the reading experience increasingly laborious. It's not often that it seems worth it to read through hundreds of pages to get to a pay off like this. But, in this case, I am very glad I read until the end. It felt necessary to see Alice's increasing frenzy from the inside in order to really know how she got to this point of absolute despair. There's a pleasure in re-viewing the events that have come before given that the nebulous voice is given a personality. It's also quite playful and inventive how the author has structured the book as if self consciously drawing upon the kind of popular culture films she frequently references. I was reminded of the films 'Get Out' in the dinner scene, 'Interstellar' in the family reunion across time – as well as the numerous movies which have drawn upon concepts of alternate realities/the multiverse. Some might see this as derivative but I think it felt natural for this story and a way to show the tension Alice experiences as someone whose identity is a blend of both Indigenous and colonial culture. I found this concluding section really heartwarming and moving, but I'm sure not all readers would agree.

The title of the novel is taken from the story of the Sky Woman being dropped by The Great Spirit into a hole so that she falls towards the Lower World. But I like that it also has a popular culture meaning in how Alice connects to Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka because she thinks if she makes the wrong choice the floor will fall out from beneath her. There's also some “Alice in Wonderland” influence given the protagonist's name, that Sky Woman falls (or is pushed) down a hole and at a disastrous dinner party Alice believes that guests shout “Off with her head” at her. I'm glad to have read this book and to have received Alicia Elliott's point of view. I do question whether she might have been able to use a different writing technique or structure to better tell this story. It's really difficult to say because Alice's mindset is so messy it feels like the narrative needs to emulate that and if it'd been more formalised it might not feel so authentic. So it's difficult to know how to rate this novel or whether I'd recommend it. I'm continuing to mull it over and I'd be very keen to hear reactions from other readers about the book as a whole.

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

In an era that's often dominated by confessional “tell all” fiction it's refreshing, in a way, to read a novel that makes a dilapidated cinema the protagonist of the story and the journey we follow is this dying movie house's last hurrah. Each chapter is headed by the title of a different film and the subsequent events frequently play upon the style or subject matter of these movies. We know little of the narrator at all. She calls herself Holly after a character from 'Badlands' and just arrived in the country, but beyond that we know nothing of her past or future plans. She happens to see a movie house advertising “We're hiring” and quickly gets the job. After orientating herself around its strange interior and working there long enough, she's gradually drawn into the sub-culture of film enthusiasts who are her stand-offish colleagues.

This group doesn't just work in the cinema; they stay after hours drinking the dregs left by customers in glasses of alcohol, taking any drugs which customers drop on the floor or stash in the toilets and screw each other on the stained seats of the movie hall. However, they could hardly be called a collective or a united clique as their tastes in films vary wildly and their piling together to share unhealthy snacks while watching countless movies is more a convenience. Instead, it's the actual film house which has more of a body than any of these people with “the building's gaping mouth, a sparkling marquee teeth grin” and a lit chandelier “like a skeleton hanging there”. The single scratched screen plays mostly old films while a river of sewage runs in the concealed depths underneath. There's rumoured to be a mysterious secret screen which reveals itself in surreal moments to the curious narrator.

The Paradise cinema is the oldest in the city and it's definitely seen better days, yet the employees are devoted to it as a living artefact and beacon of culture. I related to this scenario as in my teenage years I worked at a haunted house in an amusement park. The employees had a cultish devotion to the place and often spent time there even when they were off the clock. It's endearing how a group of people who could be classified as misfits find solace in gathering around a place of employment whose days are clearly numbered. Equally, the bizarre owner of The Paradise and its patrons continuously return with religious devotion. This endows the cinema with a strong personality and Grudova relates in great detail the remnants of its glory days as well as the excruciating way it is steadily falling apart. Although I can understand why some readers are put off by the way it almost revels in the grotesque, there's a perverse pleasure in following the farcical events of this novel as it veers into absolute absurdity. For me, the story unraveled somewhat towards the very end as enforced changes to make this old independent cinema conform to a large cinema chain's designs go badly wrong. The narrative dwindles and feels less significant as all we're left with is the insubstantial narrator gazing in wonder at another lost institution.

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

There have been very few reading experiences I've had where I finished a book and immediately turned back to the first page to read it all again. But this novel has such compelling subject matter and central characters that I wanted to experience the story a second time to see how it all fit together. There's still a lot about it which feels mysterious and which I'm thinking about, but it's left a lasting impression and really compelled me to re-view the world around me. Not to get too grandiose about it, but I feel like we naturally get so caught in focusing on our immediate environment and our daily lives that we can easily forget how enormous the universe is around us and how infinitesimally small life can be. It's usually only when we suddenly see the starry night sky when it's not obscured by light pollution or notice tiny creatures thriving in a rock pool that we remember the relative scale of the world around us. For me this happened late one evening while driving with the top down in Death Valley and I saw the glowing immensity of the stars in the sky. Reading “In Ascension” gave me a similar sense of awe. It pulled me out of myself to think about the depths of time and space. It shows how an individual is relatively small amidst this vastness, but also that everyone is an integral part of it.

This novel could definitely be called science fiction, but I think of it more as an environmental novel and a psychological investigation into the meaning of life. The story centres around Leigh, a scientist who studies the marine world and cultivates a strain of algae as a sustainable food source. When technological advances mean that deep space travel is possible her discovery is used for an important application. However, this is more than a professional interest for Leigh because she's always felt a deep connection with the scope of life on Earth. She survived an extremely difficult childhood. During this time she wasn't necessarily drawn to suicide, but took respite in the knowledge that her own existence was the result of chance and there's a powerful section when her life hangs in the balance. This is one of those instances in my reading where the scene and all the emotion wrapped up in it are etched in my memory. It's such a moving moment where her own life feels intensely precarious and she realises how dynamically alive the world is around her. This also inspires a sense of wonder which leads her to exploring the furthest depths of the ocean and the farthest reaches of outer space. I've always been entranced by documentaries about these remote regions of our world and the universe so I found this to be utterly compelling. It's an imaginative journey of discovery that's about the origins of life and the reason for our existence. It's also about the fragility of our environment. It's about the price paid when the progress of our civilization is driven by capitalist enterprises.

Even though this book is about such big issues and questions, it's also such a personal story. Leigh is a complex character who is intensely dedicated to her work and is really driven by curiosity. It's so interesting following her transformation and what she finds venturing so deeply into the unknown. She's in many ways quite straightforward in her desires, but she also bears an immense hurt which distances her from others. She's very solitary and prone to isolation. This creates tension between her and her family especially as her ageing mother is in need. But she also feels a strong connection to all life. In some ways she's utterly anonymous while also possibly possessing immense importance. I won't give any spoilers but the novel takes a surprising turn later on when the narrative shifts to another character and suddenly we're given an entirely new perspective on both Leigh and events surrounding her. I began to question how reliable Leigh really is as a narrator and how much I could trust the reality of what is being shown. This is partly what inspired me to go right back to the beginning of this novel. The story has a circular quality as well which comes to feel so profound and made me want to float around in it for longer. That's what reading this novel is like. It's like being suspended in this character's consciousness as the immensity of life and time and the world unfurls.

So this book made a big impression on me. Martin MacInnes is such a fascinating writer in how he pursues ambiguities surrounding life's big mysteries, but in a way which is continuously compelling and unpretentious. His debut novel “Infinite Ground” similarly delved into questions to do with the nature of being and our connection to one another. I feel like “In Ascension” explores these questions in a much grander way with not only excellent detail (this novel clearly required a great deal of technical research) but it also shows a wider scope of imagination. It provides answers and a definite conclusion, but also instills a sense of wonder which has left me so much to ponder. It's a book that I know will be well worth reading again and again. I'm sometimes asked what makes me permanently keep a book on my shelves and this is a great example of a novel I know I'll really enjoy returning to. It makes me want to buy a cabin in some remote location where I can clearly see the stars at night and spend all day reading this and my other favourite books over and over.

Consent by Annabel Lyon

“Consent” begins with interesting dynamics between two sets of sisters. Identical twins Saskia and Jenny have very different personalities. Where Saskia is studious and humble, Jenny is glamorous and thrill-seeking. Then there are Sara and Mattie who have a very different relationship with each other because Mattie's mental disability means she needs daily assistance. Though Sara enjoys fine wine and expensive clothes she must take on the more modest role of being a carer when their mother dies. Annabel Lyon alternates between the stories of these sisters over a period of almost thirty years. At first we're left wondering what the connection is between these two stories, but eventually a commonality is revealed which leads to a suspenseful conclusion. It's interesting how these women's contrasting stories give a different perspective on sisterhood and how challenging it is to form an individual identity apart from being a sibling. However, I felt it turned into too much of a thriller about revenge which prevented me from emotionally connecting with the plight of these characters. 

At first I felt really drawn into Sara's story when she was still young. Her passion for fashion drives her to relentlessly seek the respect of the snobbish staff of a high end shop and spend almost all of her inheritance on designer clothes. Strangely, as the story progressed, I felt that there was less distinction between the characters even as they grew older and circumstances forced them into very different situations. I would have preferred it if the novel focused on the story of only one pair of sisters. There are other novels such as “The Vanishing Half”, “A Saint from Texas” and “The Looking-Glass Sisters” which I feel have more compellingly described the alternating feelings of connection and disconnection in different kinds of sisterly relationships.

I did find it moving how Sara's distress about her sister's fate drives her into a circular self-destructive pattern. The author writes, “She's chained in the masturbatorium of her own guilt”. This is an evocative way to describe this state since grief sometimes drives people into forms of masochistic behaviour. But the overall issue of where consent tips over into victimhood is used more as a plot device and I didn't feel the story conveyed the psychological complexity of this issue as meaningfully as it could have. Also, both Saskia and Sara seemed to lack motivation until they were driven by a common purpose so I found it hard to care about them. The story raises some intriguing ideas and I liked the author's tightly-controlled writing style filled with sharp declarative sentences, but I ultimately found the story a bit disappointing.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington's story collection “Lot” imaginatively delved into the fictional lives of a variety of characters in Houston. He movingly portrayed the numerous conflicts and strong bonds to be found amongst families, friends and neighbourhoods as well as many different ethnic and socio-economic groups. His debut novel “Memorial” is a kind of extended story you might have found in that collection but concentrates on couple Benson and Mike whose relationship is severely tested when Mike leaves their home in Houston to reconnect with his estranged dying father in Osaka. Although they alternately narrate this novel we also get glimpses into the lives of their families, neighbours and the larger community so there's a wonderful kind of plurality to Washington's narrative. This is also one of the most complex and honest portrayals of a modern-day gay relationship I've ever read. Although there is a strong emotional and sexual bond, this story lays out much of the ambiguity and uncertainty that exists between them. These elements can be found in many relationships, but there are specific challenges which African-American Benson and Japanese-American Mike face being a same-sex couple. Washington shows how these elements of their identities certainly don't define them but have a persistent impact on how they interact with the world and each other. 

It felt really true the way Benson and Mike never really define their relationship. From meeting on an app and a mutual acquaintance to living together to Ben being in the strange position of co-habiting with Mike's mother when he leaves, the state of their connection is uncertain and fragile. Neither is particularly good at communicating how he feels so these unwieldy emotions are primarily expressed in fights and sex. Is this an extended hookup? A loving affair? A marriage by another name? Roommates with benefits? The reader is never entirely certain because Benson and Mike aren't certain. I've been in relationships like this and know lots of gay couples that live in this state of uncertainty.

I think the variables involved are due in part from them both being obstinate men who don't want to commit one way or the other, but also because gay relationships aren't given the same credence as heterosexual relationships in their families and community. This is an effect of both external and internalized homophobia. When we meet them their respective families fully accept their sexuality, but it wasn't always so and the painful rejection Benson experienced when he admitted to his family that he's not only gay but HIV+ is still intensely felt. Details of these factors are gradually revealed as pieces of the story are recounted by both men. It makes the moments of silence or unemotional communication between them all the more meaningful.

One of the powerful ways Washington represents this is in a series of photos of their respective urban environments Benson and Mike message each other. We get the context of when both men are sending and receiving these images so understand their respective positions and abiding desire for a connection but it doesn't make it clear how their relationship will go forward. It says a great deal without using any language. This tension is movingly sustained over the course of the novel as both of their lives are evocatively brought to life with the details of their day to day interactions in Houston and Osaka.

I really appreciated the way the author represents the perspectives and voices of many different people in his story, but I felt the dialogue didn't always ring true. There are certain turns of phrase which are used by a number of characters. It'd be understandable if it was just Benson and Mike who speak the same way, but both Mike's separated parents and a man who works in Mike's father Eiju's bar in Japan use similar expressions at different points. This would occasionally take me out of a story I otherwise wholly believed.

Overall, I admired how this novel let its tale gradually unfold in many low-key scenes involving cooking or working or waving to neighbours. It's stated at one point how “The big moments are never big when they're actually fucking happening.” “Memorial” shows how some of the most dramatic decisions in our life often aren't ever definitively settled but result from circumstance and a resounding ambiguity about which direction we want our lives to go and who we want to be with.

The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Before reading “The Narrow Land” I had little knowledge of painters Edward and Josephine Hopper. Of course, I was familiar with Edward's most famous painting Nighthawks but all I knew about the artists themselves was a brief biographical sketch and critique of his work/their relationship in regards to the subject of loneliness in Olivia Laing's book “The Lonely City”. So it was fascinating to find out more about the strong bond and animosity between this tempestuous couple through the lens of Christine Dwyer Hickey's fiction. The novel depicts the summer of 1950 on a stretch of coastal property in Cape Cod known as the narrow land. Though Edward and Josephine are two major characters in the novel and we see many scenes through their perspectives, the novel begins with a ten-year-old boy named Michael being sent by the woman who adopted him to spend the summer on the Cape with the Kaplans, a wealthy philanthropic family. Michael is meant to be a companion for the adolescent Kaplan boy named Richie but the two boys do not get along well. As a young German who survived the war, Michael is deeply traumatized but this isn't openly discussed with the people around him; there are only devastating glimpses of what he must have suffered in half-seen foggy memories and his guarded, self-contained attitude. The Hoppers live next door to the Kaplans and over the course of the summer Michael and Richie strike up a unique friendship with them as Edward struggles to begin a new painting. Through an accumulation of subtle, quiet moments this novel creates an extraordinary portrait of people struggling to deal with the after-effects of WWII and different forms of deep-felt loneliness.

The way Hickey writes about her characters and describes certain scenes is similar to the modified perspective of reality that art provides. For instance, at a train station a couple who are kissing are viewed from a distance and the author notes how this is “A sailor and his girl taking a last, long chew of each other's faces.” Most people who'd glimpse this couple would consider this a tender, romantic moment but the way it's described here makes it feel much more sinister and cannibalistic. It provides both a unique, humorous new view of the world and also the way someone of Michael's temperament might see fleeting scenes like this as more creepy and threatening than the average person. A similar image of consumption is given later when Edward Hopper sees someone in the distance: “he stops to watch a man with a fancy-looking camera make a meal out of the scenery.” I like how this gives an insight into the way people attempt to take possession and digest the world through their subjective perspective. It also gives an indication how Edward might be doing something similar in the way his meandering walks and observations of different people are filtered through his imagination to create new paintings.

Mrs Hopper's real name was Josephine but throughout the novel she's mostly referred to as “Mrs Aitch” as that's the way Michael phonetically understands her name. I adored how she is a difficult, fiery character that speaks her mind so forcefully and how this usually leads to incredibly awkward moments of social interaction. She's one of those deliciously ornery characters like Olive Kitteridge who is a joy to read about but who I'd be terrified to meet in real life. It's so moving how Josephine forms a quick bond with Michael because even though there's more than fifty years in age between them they are able to relate to and understand each other much better than the majority of people who surround them. I find such unusual chosen-family relationships very touching to read about and it's heart breaking to see how their connection to each other plays out in the story.

It's also fascinating the dynamic between Josephine and Edward who are so different in their temperaments. The author movingly describes how they provide a necessary support for each other in certain fundamental ways but how their relationship is also extremely painful and destructive. They frequently bicker and sometimes have physical altercations. Hickey brilliantly writes about the way they are so attuned to each other's moods and can predict their partner's probable reactions to certain situations. This so accurately depicts the subtly found in how long-term couples interact with each other. It's also a compelling look at a creative couple who are beset by certain jealousies. Josephine fiercely longs to be recognized as an artist in her own right, but her efforts are ignored next to her lauded husband. This is an indication of how female artists had more difficulty in achieving success in the mid-twentieth century compared to male artists but also the way Josephine specifically sacrificed honing her own craft in order to support Edward with his artwork.

Edward and Josephine Hopper in Cape Cod

One of the most impressive things about this novel is the way Hickey builds so much compelling drama into many seemingly trivial situations and builds sophisticated small mysteries into her narrative. A man's indecision about whether or not to have ice cream at a party hints at unexpressed grief about his son who died in combat. A boy's private play with paper dolls signifies the deep-felt loss he's experiencing because of the war. A small act of theft becomes a pivotal dramatic point in the novel. These moments build to a much larger understanding of the reverberating effects of WWII. There are also brief descriptions of things like a book hidden in a basement and a boy observed crying which the story circles back to later in the novel. This artfully shows the hidden motivations and isolated longing different characters feel. It's also a satisfying payoff for the reader who uncovers the significance of certain actions and moments as the novel progresses. This made it an utterly absorbing book to read. Prior to The Narrow Land” I'd only read a short story by Hickey in the Irish anthology “The Long Gaze Back” but I'll be very keen to read more of her novels.

All the Lives We Ever Lived by Katharine Smyth

Any author who describes her passionate engagement with Virginia Woolf’s writing will instantly grab my attention. So when I saw how Katharine Smyth’s memoir “All the Lives We Ever Lived” is about her process of finding solace in reading Woolf’s novel “To the Lighthouse” amidst the prolonged illness and death of her father I was drawn to it. My experience was further enhanced by reading this book along with fellow YouTubers Britta Bohler and Kendra Winchester. We left each other wonderfully long geeky messages about our reactions to the book and general thoughts about Virginia Woolf’s life and work. I think this is what makes this book something more than a traditional memoir – it’s a communion for anyone who has been deeply affected by Woolf’s writing. Smyth mimics the structure of “To the Lighthouse” to tell her own experiences before, during and after her father’s illness to mirror the three sections of Woolf’s novel. But she also interjects how her experiences and emotions are informed by her reading as well as meditating on the life of Woolf herself. In this way the author creatively approaches the experience of grief and mourning, the complexity of how we feel about our families and how our relationship with art and literature is often deeply personal.

Smyth powerfully captures that revelatory sensation we can sometimes get as readers where we feel so connected to the text of a book. After quoting a section from “To the Lighthouse” she describes how “I was drawn to that darkness and depth; it actually hurt to read a sentence like the one above; it was so apt, it was so beautiful; I longed for Woolf’s genius, yes, but I also longed for Mrs. Ramsay herself, for her as my mother, for her as my friend; I wanted to be her – that’s how painful I found the distance between us, the distance between me and that text. I might have swallowed the page.” This total immersion in a book is the kind of spellbinding experience which makes reading so important and unique. Smyth chronicles how certain sections of Woolf’s novel spoke to her at different times and how her feelings about the characters change over time. She shows how the experience of reading and rereading yields ever-shifting meanings as we navigate different challenges throughout our lives.

“To the Lighthouse” is a fictional memorial to Woolf’s mother where she sought to capture something of her essence in the character of Mrs Ramsay. Smyth is doing the same with her father but, rather than just neatly draw parallels between him and Mrs Ramsay, Smyth freely makes connections with other figures as well. For instance, she considers how Mr Ramsay strives for intellectual achievement and doesn’t achieve as much as he hoped for. Similarly her father encounters different personal and professional set-backs and disappointments. But Smyth freely admits that her quest to connect life and text doesn’t always work so neatly: “Such is the nature of Woolfian failure, which, despite my urge to conflate them, turns out to be a different breed from my father’s own.” In many ways her experiences and the events in Woolf’s novel are very different. But her process doesn’t feel forced; it’s more of a meandering journey through this significant time in her life while reflecting on how the universal meaning found in “To the Lighthouse” speaks to her experience.

One of the most moving and melancholy sections of the book is the last where she describes her experiences in the aftermath of her father’s death. Here she’s confronted with an absence in the same way the characters in “To the Lighthouse” live with a palpable loss in the final section. It’s an all-consuming sensation of grief and Smyth feels that Woolf’s novel wholly captures the reality of this experience. She poignantly describes the knowledge she gleaned from the book and how “To grieve is to be floored, again and again, by a series of epiphanies that, put to paper, sound painfully banal. To grieve is likewise to be plagued by questions that can only gesture towards the clarity we seek and occasionally find – these are the shorthand by which we must stumble through an experience too vast and too disorientating to express in its totality.” Woolf’s writing frequently gestures at thoughts and feelings which can’t be contained in language and Smyth equally finds that her experience can’t be summarised. Rather, she points to the way time moves onward. Lives end, homes are transformed or destroyed and memories are lost.

Godrevy Lighthouse - Woolf’s inspiration for the lighthouse in her novel

I’ve always felt one of the most difficult dimensions of grief is how it can valorise those who have been lost over those who are still living. Death can highlight the cruel reality of how we value certain people in our lives over others. Some people in mourning might even wish that other family members had died rather than the person that’s been lost. This dark reality is described in “To the Lighthouse” where some of the Ramsay children resent Mr Ramsay’s presence when Mrs Ramsay’s absence is so painfully felt. It’s striking how Smyth admits how she valued the love of her father over her mother because “how uneventful it is to be loved by her, a person whose very existence was so dependable that I rarely, if ever, considered it.” So it’s moving how she finds one of the most revelatory experiences of losing her father is the appreciation and connection she makes with her mother “it wasn’t until well after his death that I finally took the time to ask for her memories, to listen to her own account of grief. She surprised me”.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Smyth’s style of writing at times mimics Woolf’s own – especially when describing certain places or the presence of light. But I don’t think this is intended as imitation. It’s more a gesture at how Woolf’s sensibility has permeated the way she actually senses and interprets the world around her. It signals the way Woolf’s writing has enveloped her life as a way of understanding daily existence in the wake of this significant loss. Moreover, this reinforces how the experience of reading this memoir is akin to enjoying a conversation with a fellow Woolf lover. But, for this reason, I’m not sure I’d recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t read Woolf before. I don’t know how meaningful Smyth’s analysis and connection to Woolf’s text would be for anyone who hasn’t read “To the Lighthouse” – although, I’d be fascinated to hear what anyone who has read this memoir but never read Woolf thinks about “All the Lives We Ever Lived”. Regardless, I found this book very moving and it’s made me want to go back to reading Woolf – yet again!

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

It’s interesting how when Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut novel “My Sister, the Serial Killer” was first published at the beginning of this year it received a lot of positive responses, but when it was shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize it started to receive a lot more criticism by people who don’t feel it’s “prize worthy”. Personally, one of the things I enjoy most about book prizes are that they push me to read books I haven’t got around to yet so I was glad to finally experience Braithwaite’s novel for myself. I thought I’d really enjoy reading it and I absolutely did. It’s narrated from the perspective of Korede, a nurse who has lived somewhat in the shadow of her more beautiful and vivacious sister Ayoola. But unfortunately Ayoola has a habit of murdering her boyfriends when they anger her and Ayoola helps her cover these crimes up. When Ayoola becomes romantically involved with a doctor named Tade who Korede also desires things become even more complicated. It’s a fast-paced and thrilling story about sisterhood and the roles of women in society.

I enjoyed how Korede comes across as an uptight but largely sympathetic character who feels protective of her sister above all else. Although they are nothing but supportive to each other in person, the complexities of their relationship are drawn in the way second-hand information is related through the figure of Tade who makes very different claims about what the sisters say about each other. Braithwaite creates a lot of tension in the way the characters slyly try to manipulate and distort perceptions. I also appreciated the way the backstory of the girls’ complicated home life and difficulties with their father cemented an early bond between them and a propensity for acting outside what is morally and legally right in order to survive. All this formed a lot of suspense which kept me gripped to the end and wondering how the story would conclude.

I do get why some people have said this novel doesn’t seem to be making any larger statements. It’s an effective psychological suspense story. It lightly touches upon a number of issues. Ayoola’s beauty gives her a number of privileges and allows people to give her the benefit of the doubt whereas Korede is treated more like a villain because of how she looks and her serious demeanour. Ultimately this says a lot more about the way men treat women and the social expectations placed upon women more than the women’s actions. But the story doesn’t delve too deeply into these topics. I certainly cared about the characters and how the story would resolve itself. Maybe that’s enough and prize winners don’t need to be ground-breaking artistic works with a big message. Regardless of book prize politics I’m glad this novel was given more exposure and I’m sure a lot of people have enjoyed reading it.

America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

There have been many excellent novels about the immigrant experience in America. But I feel like the richly detailed and engrossing story of “America Is Not the Heart” by Elaine Castillo shows a really unique point of view I've not read about before. The story primarily revolves around Geronima De Vera who is nicknamed Hero when she arrives in America from the Philippines. She goes to live with her aunt, uncle and feisty young cousin Roni in Milpitas (a suburb outside San Jose, California) where she primarily helps looks after the 7 year old girl. As an illegal immigrant she’s not able to seek out work despite being a trained doctor back in the Philippines. Even if she had papers to find employment she’d have to retrain in medicine as her uncle has painfully discovered. Though he was a highly respected surgeon in the Philippines he can only find low-paid manual work in America. Hero has gone through many difficult experiences to arrive here and the novel slowly discloses the complexity of her life over the course of the novel, but it integrates this so gracefully into accounts of Hero’s day-to-day life in this Filipino-American community and her relationship with a woman she meets there named Rosalyn. Of course Hero’s life has been shaped by her heritage, but the story doesn’t hang on the question of national identity as much as how she’s constantly evolving as an individual.  

It’s especially striking to read a novel that centres around a bisexual female protagonist and the story powerfully captures the development of Hero’s sexuality – alongside Rosalyn’s who is refreshingly blunt in her forthright desire to be with Hero. Not since reading Amy Bloom’s novel “White Houses” have I read a novel that considers so meaningfully the dynamics of physical intimacy. This novel deals with that so honestly without feeling the need to mask the act using lyrical language or overwrought prose. It straightforwardly lays out how desire, pleasure and emotion mingle in sex. But it also shows the challenges of building a same-sex relationship with the influence of family and a tight-knit community around them.

Surrounding Hero’s very personal story Castillo powerfully describes the way economics shape people’s lives more than questions of nationality or politics. She includes how corporate enterprise manipulates the living standards and health of whole communities. The story also shows how poverty makes people aliens within their own society: “You already know that the first thing that makes you foreign to a place is being born poor in it.” The novel is filled with people trying to belong by buying the right perfume or correcting their skin, but no matter how much they try to change there are elemental parts of their being which stick: “your accent still hasn't left, and you're starting to understand what it means to have baggage. Baggage means no matter how far you go, no matter how many times you immigrate, there are countries in you you'll never leave.” What I loved most about this novel is how it demonstrates that Hero is like a country unto herself changing in time and led only be an instinctual feeling for what she wants her future to be.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Many book lovers have fond childhood memories of going to the library and discovering there the wondrous breadth and power of great storytelling. Early in “The Library Book”, author Susan Orlean gives a moving personal account of her burgeoning passion for literature found in the library and also the quality time spent there with her mother as they’d take regular trips to borrow new books. It’s her memories and ardour for the institution which prompts Orlean to explore the bizarre mystery surrounding the horrific fire in Los Angeles’ historic Central Library which occurred on April 29, 1986 and destroyed approximately 400,000 volumes or 20 percent of the library’s holdings. She gives a vivid account of the incident and the case surrounding it - especially the investigation of Harry Peak who was suspected of starting the fire. Moreover, Orlean meditates on the LA library system’s history as well as how libraries are institutions central to many communities. Although it recounts a very bleak incident, this book is ultimately hopeful in describing the resiliency of libraries and books because people’s desire for them keep them alive: “The Library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”

Some of my favourite sections of the book are her descriptions of the endearingly quirky people who have organized and run the library system in Los Angeles since its inception in 1872 and the diverse librarians who run it today. It’s bracing discovering how the management of the library was at times wrestled out of the hands of more capable female librarians because the library board believed it was a job for men. There were also bizarrely prescriptive rules in place early on for patrons who were discouraged from reading too many novels or they were labelled as “fiction fiends.” Naturally, as society became more progressive, so did the rules of the library and the ways in which it served the community from the city’s homeless to being more accessible to children, immigrants and the disabled. It was also compelling reading about how libraries have embraced the arrival of the information age and the challenges of updating how information is stored and disseminated to the public. It made me feel for librarians who get asked some of the most bizarre questions imaginable by the public every day.

Orlean spent a lot of time conversing with people who work in many different functions within the library: not just librarians who check books in and out, but people who organize the stock, transport books, guard the library and run community programmes. In this way reading this book felt like getting a tour of the institution itself. Seeing so many levels to its running and management felt similar to watching Frederick Wiseman’s 2017 documentary Ex Libris: The New York Public Library. Orlean’s book is also a great conversation starter about what libraries mean to us personally. In this way, it’d be a wonderful companion to reading Ali Smith’s “Public Library” which is a book of short stories as well as a series of testimonies by authors and publishers who’ve found libraries springboards in fostering their passion for literature.

I also found it fascinating reading about some of the LA Central Library’s most famous patrons including Ray Bradbury who frequented the library in his youth. It’s ironic that the institution which fostered a love of reading for the author of “Fahrenheit 451” would eventually lose so many of its books due to fire decades after this classic novel’s publication. While the mystery surrounding the cause and reason for the destructive fire of 1986 is at the centre of this book, its heart is a celebration of libraries and the people who are devoted to them. “The Library Book” feels like the most wonderfully intimate conversation for book lovers. But it also meaningfully grapples with the struggles that libraries face. Like many places in the world, libraries in the UK are facing increasing budget cuts despite the number of patrons increasing (according to a recent BBC report). I loved using and borrowing from my local library when I first moved to the UK. In recent years I’ve frequented places like The British Library and the London Library for special exhibits like a celebration of Jean Rhys or book prizes such as The Young Writer of the Year Award. But I’d like to return to libraries more frequently for the objects they’re founded upon: books!

When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife by Meena Kandasamy

This is a book that felt so thrillingly alive and teeming with ideas that I frequently copied down quotes while I was reading it. Meena Kandasamy writes about a young woman reflecting on the atrociously abusive marriage that she lived through. Her narrative is very analytical as it artfully poses statements with challenging concepts and ideas about why abuse occurs, why the abused feel pressured to remain in that relationship and the challenges of extracting oneself from that relationship, but at the same time it is so heartfelt and meaningful that I felt totally drawn in and emotionally connected to this woman. Her story is very particular and beyond all theoretical commonalities she asserts “Abstractions are easy, but my story, like every woman's story, is something else.” She marries her husband and moves to Mangalore where he works as a professor heavily involved in the Communist revolutionary movement and gradually he cuts her off from her friends, family and livelihood to the point where she's totally isolated. This isn't just a novel that honestly explores how someone gets drawn into an abusive relationship, but also the way familial and social reactions to that abuse can inhibit abused people from sharing the reality of their situations. The story traces this unnamed narrator's journey from the start of her marriage to the gruelling aftermath as she navigates the world having confessed the brutality she endured within her marriage.

The narrator is a highly educated and capable woman so a common reaction to her situation is: shouldn't a woman this smart know better than to be caught in an abusive relationship? She's well-versed in feminist theory and sociological ideas. It's a common assumption that abuse only occurs amongst the poor and under-educated. The development of her relationship is complicated, but part of what draws her to her husband is an intellectual reverence: “I fell in love with the man I married because when he spoke about the revolution it seemed more intense than any poetry, more moving than any beauty. I'm no longer convinced.” He's an influential figure within a social and political movement that is larger than himself. Although the title of this novel is a play on James Joyce's famous novel that traces his alter-ego's intellectual and religious development, it felt in some ways that “When I Hit You” also connects with George Eliot's “Middlemarch”. Dorothea's attraction to what she believes is a cerebral excellence in the boorish Mr Casaubon seems to mirror Kandasamy's protagonist in some ways, but it also makes me think so much about Susan Sontag. Sontag once wrote about how she married an older professor and it wasn't until she read “Middlemarch” that she realised she had fallen into the same trap as Dorothea. The attraction towards a perceived intellectual superiority is very powerful for some people and it's often not until the seduced spends a lot of time with this “brilliant” person that they realise that person is actually full of hot air.

Watch Meena Kandasamy in conversation with Naomi of TheWritesofWomen.

One of the most heartbreaking things about reading this novel is tracing the way the narrator loses confidence in herself as her relationship devolves into one of rancorous abuse. Her husband plays upon this by undermining her and cutting her off from her lifelines (making her delete her email history, quit FaceBook, taking her phone away, cutting her off from all professional and personal contacts.) He criticises her conduct and body to the point where she tragically states “I learn to criticise myself for who I am.” With her self confidence and self worth shattered she becomes wholly reliant upon economically and psychologically. The incremental introduction of physical and sexual abuse into the relationship builds and develops a special kind of terror where “The use of force is always to signal the impending threat of greater force.” Adding to this the majority of her Indian community and her parents make her feel like the guilty one in this relationship. Even when she admits to her parents that she is being hit she's encouraged to be patient and her father frighteningly speculates “These problems will cease to exist when you have children.” All these things contribute to her remaining within this horrific marriage despite it clearly being a poisonous situation.

Leaving her abusive relationship is especially hard because she observes how “Sometimes the shame is not the beatings, not the rape. The shaming is in the being asked to stand to judgement.” Once the narrator actually extracts herself from the marriage she becomes very cognizant of the dialogue and judgement placed upon her as both a victim and participant in her marriage. It's interesting how Kandasamy points at how this is indicative of latent sexism that exists in our communities which should support women in perilous situations like this. She states how “The post-mortem analysis of my marriage reveals more about people and their prejudices than anything about me or my husband.” Reading this novel made me think about how abusive relationships are much more complex than they outwardly appear and the contributing factors to their continuation are far more insidious than most people would assume. I also particularly like how each section begins with quotes from different women writers and the way she analyses situations shows how she is in dialogue with these women's ideas. “When I Hit You” is incredibly revealing not just in the way it shows how abuse occurs within the privacy of home, but in the way our society reacts to it.

Infinite Ground by Martin MacInnes

It begins like a caper story. A young man named Carlos went missing from a family dinner when he stepped out to use the bathroom and never returned. An investigator is given the case to track him down. But his search almost immediately folds in upon itself when he starts searching the restaurant/Carlos’ office and interviewing people connected to him. The woman he speaks to who he believes is Carlos’ mother is not really his mother and many people at his office are only actors hired to look like productive employees. A scientist named Isabella analyzes traces of Carlos’ biological makeup and expounds upon an increasingly improbably multitude of chemical factors which could have led to him departing. The borders of reality collapse as the investigator struggles to analyse, research and report. Nothing is what it seems. The closer you look at things the more the world becomes an absurdist fantasy. Martin MacInnes’ compelling debut novel is a story of existential crisis and irreconcilable loss.

There’s a wonderful fluidity to MacInnes’ writing so that, although his narrative makes surprising tonal shifts from the comic to the horrific to exhaustively detailed analysis, I felt entranced by his skewed perspective of the world. It all resonates with how the investigator is not just searching for a missing person but for a way to wholly capture experience. By the time all the details are accounted for, time has moved on and the moment has passed and we must mull over it all again trying to faithfully recreate/understand it. If you think of these things as obsessively as the investigator then “it was a marvel, he thought, that any of them managed to do it all, to get from one day to another, to keep everything going just like that.” The novel artfully expresses the fallibility of memory and the clunky mechanics of consciousness. It’s interesting reading this so soon after César Aira (a quote on the cover compares this novel to his work) because Aira equally uses dream-like logic as a way of highlighting the futility of accurately representing reality.

The investigator frequently looks for a more primal understandings of human motivation and behaviour as a way of explaining our actions. Many chapters of this novel are prefaced with quotes from a fictional book about tribal behaviour. The second half of “Infinite Ground” entails the investigator’s travel to “the interior” of a forest where he believes Carlos has slipped away to. Here he embarks on tours to find others who have become lost in this wilderness as well as searching for more authentic modes of life. Hilariously reality here turns out to be as simulated as that in urban life. This is also where the investigator becomes more psychologically revealing as his civility is stripped slowly away. Some time ago he lost his wife and instead of dealing with her loss he seems inspired by Isabella’s proposition that “If it were up to me I would spend my whole life digging up the lost civilization of a single vanished person. There would be no end to the project, Inspector. No end to what may be discovered.” Instead of narrowing down possibilities, the investigator opens his mind to an infinite amount of them. It becomes apparent that “He was out of his depth in a case he couldn’t understand and would never resolve.” This was never about finding out what really happened to Carlos, but accounting for the totality of life when we’re caught in the unstoppable flow of time.

This is an experimental novel whose imagery and ideas challenge our modern sensibilities. In an age when our understanding of other people’s lives are mediated through how they are represented on social media it seems more pertinent than ever to question how we can really understand or know about another’s experience. At the same time there is something pleasingly retro about the novel’s style and earnest manner (perhaps because its action isn’t located in any specific time or place). It harkens back to post-modern literature like Joyce Carol Oates’ phenomenal novel “Mysteries of Winterthurn” which is more about the process of investigation than the crime itself. No matter how objective we try to be in understanding the world it is always refracted through a personal perspective leading the investigator of MacInnes’ novel to see he was “so naïve as to believe in the authenticity of the investigation and the autonomy of his own role.” The totality of the investigator’s being is caught up in searching for answers (which might be why he has no name), but he can only start to see what’s true when he looks hard at himself.

Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan by Ruth Gilligan

A common theme in many Irish novels is emigration where new generations often go to settle in England or America, but not as many recent stories have been written about immigrants who come to Ireland. Ruth Gilligan’s new novel “Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan” is in part about a Jewish family from Lithuania who sail in 1901 expecting to arrive in New York City only to discover upon landing that they are in Ireland. And there they stay. The patriarch Moshe was a well-regarded playwright in his native region and strives to get his new play about a fifth province produced in Ireland. As there are four provinces in Ireland this refers to the literal translation of the Gaelic word for province which is fifth, but also an ideological space where cultural identity isn’t so rigidly defined. The meaning of this resonates throughout the novel which follows three distinct and engrossing stories over a century. Gradually these strands tie together to form a complex picture of Jewish life in Ireland.

Gilligan has an interesting and complex way of building a fascinatingly layered story. Moshe’s youngest daughter Ruth was only a young child when they first arrived in Ireland so feels thoroughly Irish and is determined to remain there. Shem is a mute teenager who has been admitted to a poorly run mental health facility by his parents in 1958. He’s made to share a room with the only other Jewish patient in the house: a cantankerous and legless man named Alfred who desperately wants his story to be recorded. In 2013, Aisling is an aspiring journalist from an Irish Catholic family who moved to London. When her partner Noah requests that she convert to Judaism she returns to her familiar Dublin family home for Christmas to contemplate this choice. The novel revolves between these three stories and builds in suspense as the reader discovers how each strand resolves itself and what the connections are between them. It also makes a larger statement about the attitudes towards the Jewish community in Ireland over the course of a century.

As a religious minority in the country, it's observed how levels of antisemitism vary from mild to extreme over time. For the Eastern European Jewish family who has long settled in Ireland it's observed “There had been other terms flung their way these past few years. ‘Bloodsuckers’ and ‘Moneylenders’. ‘Murderers’ too. ‘Jewtown’ the locals called their neighbourhood, though they claimed it was only an endearment.” In other instances a pelt of rashers are thrown on a Jewish doctor's car, “Kike” is shouted at a young man in a canteen and Catholic parents have a stony reaction to the news their daughter might convert to Judaism. Gilligan also recounts Zionist movements amongst the Irish Jewish population where established or native Jewish people would move to Israel. During WWII when a German bomb coincidentally falls on “Clanbrassil Street, right in the heart of Dublin's Little Jerusalem” there is a house which is perfectly split in two. This comes to symbolize the feeling of Jewish Irish identity – only ever half existing in the country. There is a prevailing sense that if you are Jewish in Ireland you are made to feel in a sense “other.” But the author builds a more complex sense of national identity and what it means to belong observing that “maybe we have all changed into something other by the end, whether we decide to or not.”

There are playful references to Ireland's literary history throughout the narrative where figures like James Joyce and Anne Enright loom large. School notebooks are covered with “a sketch of Martello Tower on the front as if to encourage every gobshite in the country to become the next James bloody Joyce.” Later a scene builds to a climax in imitation of Molly Bloom: “faster and faster, higher and higher until she felt. Herself. Say yes.” When Aisling is booking a flight to Dublin banner ads pop up for the novel “The Gathering” and the novel appears again when she's contemplating the state of being one who has left Ireland: “The various snippets of the annual rant in all its different forms, like how lucky they are to have escaped, but how bloody amazing it is to be home – The Gathering indeed – nostalgia and disdain all slurred into one, the emigrant's beautiful paradox.” This beautifully summarizes and adds meaning to the conflicted sense of national identity for people who have left their native country.

Shem travels to Gleann-na-nGealt or "the Valley of the Mad" seeking a miracle cure by bathing in its legendary water.

Gilligan has a talent for building highly dramatic scenes where images from the past are interspersed with dialogue. This is artfully done and adds meaningful depth to the action as it plays out. She also has a keen ability for descriptive detail such as this moment “I stirred my soup. The skin on the top puckered like an elbow” or when a character looks at the sky “Behind the flag the sky wore diamonds, a sparkle on black like a widow's throat.” These create a vivid picture in the reader's mind as well as setting the emotional mood in a way which is poignant and memorable. There are some moments when observations are made which powerfully resonate such as how “The silences a family is made up of, to try and protect one another; the silences which shove us apart.”

“Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan” is a deeply thoughtful novel. It's in turns dramatic, comic and heartbreaking making it highly readable. It poses challenging notions of how identity is commonly viewed in neat categories, but in reality who we are is much more complex than any one label. Legends and myths are passed down through generations making appearances in each part of the story where they find different resonance. In writing about what stories are remembered or forgotten over a century, Gilligan forms in this novel a powerful triptych of Ireland.

Volcano Street by David Rain

“Volcano Street” is partly like an Ibsen drama, partly like a Vincent Price creep show, but mostly it is an innovative coming-of-age story. Twelve year old Helen (who likes to be called Skip) and her teenage sister Marlo move in with their domineering aunt Noreen after their single mother is put in a mental institution. The girls have been heavily influenced by their liberal mother Karen Jane who was very anti-establishment and anti-war. Marlo emphatically reads “The Female Eunuch.” In a difficult situation the girls will ponder “What would Germaine do?” So it is quite a shock when they are moved to a small conservative town where Marlo is forced to give up school to work for her aunt. Skip’s tomboy behaviour is deeply frowned upon and criticized. Noreen and many people in the town regularly spout racist or homophobic jokes or insults. There is a fascinating clash in ideologies. As the girls grow and change, they come to know some people who have been outcast and scorned by the majority of the town. Gradually they find a place where they fit in the community and a way to go forward in the world.

David Rain describes Skip’s development so well. She’s the kind of feisty, creative character you really want to root for. Her close relationship with Marlo alters as her sister’s values change and she begins a relationship with a man. The antagonistic relationship between Skip and a local boy named Honza gradually develops into a close friendship. This shows how our connection to other people changes as we grow and find our view of the world altering. At first Skip’s perspective is fixed firmly in the moment and her immediate surroundings. But gradually this opens up to include broader points of reference so that she sees what has come before and how provincial her surroundings really are: “Dull, sensible South Australia was not all it seemed. Volcanoes had once shaken this green corner of the state; riven with fissures, faults, subterranean channels, the earth spoke of strangeness. This hole in the ground was a prehistoric pit. The park above, with its rows of roses, the town hall with its tick-ticking clock, were the merest imposition on a timeless land.” Skip learns that life in this town is fleeting and circumscribed. This shift in perspective is an essential part of development as it shows how opportunities in life need not be limited by the short experience or the small-minded views of those around us. At first we accept everything about our surroundings because it’s all we’ve known, but as we learn about history and radically other ways of living we seek out what’s different to assimilate into places and connect with people we feel a more natural kinship to. Rain’s novel skilfully articulates and beautifully plots out these remarkable stages of development.

“In any situation, ask yourself: What would Germaine do?”

There is a dramatic shift two thirds of the way through this novel when the story breaks partly away from Skip to focus on a different story. Skip has long been haunted from watching the classic Vincent Price flick House of Wax. She is sometimes shadowed by a mysterious man who turns out to be a hidden member of the community that has a fascinating story of his own. Roger was a man who grew up in the town with tremendous promise as an actor. He’s singled out by Laurence Olivier who toured through Australia alongside his wife Vivien Leigh looking for fresh talent. Roger and his lover/mentor Quentin move to London as a consequence of this to launch Roger’s performing career. But soon their relationship deteriorates into a hostile partnership trapped in a squalid room. The inequity and jealousy between the couple is terrifyingly reminiscent of playwright Joe Orton and his partner Kenneth Halliwell. I believe this change in story between Skip’s development to Roger’s rise and downfall is meant to reflect the tension between emerging into the world and retreating back to the place of our origin. While both of these stories are compelling and well-told I’m not sure they integrate fully together as the novel reaches a dramatic climax towards the end. Nevertheless, this is a novel with tremendous force, intelligence and passion. Skip is a wonderfully realized character and certain vivid scenes from “Volcano Street” will stick with me.

When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen

What happens to people’s sense of national identity when their country is occupied during war? Estonia has a particularly complex history having been a part of surrounding nations or occupied by its warring neighbours for centuries. In the aftermath of WWI, the country fought a battle of independence for two years and finally achieved sovereignty. But with the onset of WWII the country was again seized to be used as a pawn - first by the Soviets and then occupied by the Germans in 1941. This is where the novel “When the Doves Disappeared” begins. The characters are suspended in a state of agonizing tension as no one knows what the outcome of the war will be or where their loyalties should lay. It primarily follows the stories of Roland, his cousin Edgar and Edgar’s wife Juudit. Each character makes different choices and transforms themselves to survive the subsequent crucial few years. During this time the Estonians discover that the German “liberators” are another occupier intent on using their resources and instigating their pogroms upon their Jewish and gypsy populations as well as others. The novel flips back and forth between these years and the 60s when the Soviets have re-occupied the country establishing networks of informants who watch the population and report to the government any dissenters. This complex powerful novel shows the degrees to which people radically transform their identities and how close relationships are destroyed under pressure from the overwhelming onslaught of war.

The novel begins at the grave of Roland’s wife Rosalie. She was mysteriously killed and Roland is determined to discover what happened. Only at the novel’s end do we find out why she was silenced. In the meantime, Roland fights with the resistance while Edgar’s loyalties change with the times. He renames himself while desperately trying to endear himself with the Germans and report to them about the political loyalty or dissent of members of the Estonian public. When the Soviets take the country over again he gives himself yet another name and continues his spying as well as writing outlandish propaganda against enemies of communism. His estranged wife Juudit in a way comes to represent Estonia itself. Rejected by her husband for reasons she never understands, she is at first recruited by the Estonian resistance but becomes a German officer’s lover. When circumstances tear them apart she’s left as a husk living out her days back with her husband Edgar who neglects her and treats her as an invalid. These characters’ intricate tales are played out over a number of years in a way which shows how people’s integrity can be worn down over time while living under oppressive governments.

Museum of the Occupation in Tallinn

It can be confusing and disorientating at first trying to follow characters and the narrative as this novel switches through time and place – especially as some people’s names change over time! However, about halfway through it all fell into place for me and I felt the building suspense of Sofi Oksanen’s heartrending labyrinthine tale. This novel makes you feel the persistent tension people feel when living in perpetual state of fear. There is also the horrific silence which builds when people die or disappear as people are worn down and don’t speak because “Maybe life was so fragile and meaningless that there was no need to add to their troubles.” Beyond physical damage and death, Oksanen captures the way in which people are defeated in their minds. For those who try to be savvy in order to survive by transforming themselves, she shows how they lose an essential part of their being. This is demonstrated particularly in a homosexual character who denies his sexuality and loses himself entirely in his attempts to assimilate to changing ideologies.

One of the most impressive things about “When the Doves Disappeared” is the complex way Oksanen represents time. She observes at one point that “Everyone had his breaking point, and if nothing else destroyed the mind, time would.” Following the entangled stories of the characters in this novel you learn the way war can ultimately tear people’s sense of themselves apart. This is a cleverly constructed novel filled with many poignant and haunting moments.