If you are looking for a choice read (or two) over the bank holiday, Nicki reviews some of the most interesting
reads that have come into the shop in the last weeks:
The Stranger’s Child, Alan Hollinghurst (PB, Picador, £8.99)
Alan Hollinghurst has a claim to be one of
the best novelists writing today. He manages to write beautiful books that are
not only worth the effort of reading at a detailed level, but his characters
and plotting are all in tune at the same time.
His latest just out in paperback ‘The
Stranger’s Child’ is an epic story of a group of characters centred around a poet
and the house, Two Acres, where we all first meet Cecil, shortly to die in the
First World War.
As the story progresses, so does the
century, and the fame and literary standing of the poet alters over time – either in tune with the century, or up against
it – a comment on the arbitrary nature of lasting literary reputation. The
fortunes of the family similarly mark and reflect the changes of the twentieth
century, which begins with house parties and closes with Cecil’s house, Corley,
being turned into a school, Two Acres ‘carved into horrible flats’.
It’s big in scope, but also full of
detailed nooks and crannies. Definitely a book to get lost in.
If you want to take a book on holiday that
bears a good, long time to focus, this could be the perfect choice. It’s been
compared to both ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and is probably one
of the best books to be published this year.
You, Joanna Briscoe (PB, Bloomsbury, £7.99)
When
Cecilia returns to her chaotic family home she is forced to confront many
secrets she thought she had left behind. What starts as a story of tensions
between a mother and daughter unfolds as a story of obsessive teenage love.
With
a taut plot, full of unexpected turns and memorable characters, the Dartmoor setting and
hippy-commune childhood memories all create an atmospheric tale which delves
deeply into a period of the characters' lives that resonates to the present.
It
all adds up to a taut and compelling story about how a child can misread
people's intentions, but how it is never too late to put right mistakes of the
past. A story with shifting viewpoints and secrets slowly revealed and understood
– a great one for the beach bag.
Hotel at the corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford
(PB, Allison & Busby, £7.99)
Seattle and the internment of its Japanese residents as seen through the
eyes of a 12-year-old Chinese boy is at the heart of this story of clashing
cultures; between Henry and the Japanese girl he falls in love with and will
never forget.
The memories of Henry, are sparked by the
opening of a long-forgotten cellar in the Panama Hotel (the hotel on the corner
of bitter and sweet). In the cellar where are stored the belongings of dozens
of Japanese families who, of course, never returned to claim them.
In lots of ways reminiscent of ‘The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie, the main thrust of this ultimately
uplifting story is one of how children can put aside the long-held prejudices
of their ancestors and discover their differences are more than outweighed by
what they have in common.
But essentially this is a love story – a
story of first love in the summer, of jazz, and of Henry and Keiko, the girl he
will never forget.
Sanctuary Line, Jane Urquhart (HB, Quercus, £16.99)
Entomologist Liz has returned to the land
on the shores of Lake Erie to further her studies into the migratory patterns of the monarch
butterfly.
Now 40, she returns to a family farm now
crumbling and deserted. Why did the Butlers end up not
being able to spread their wings, grow, and return strengthened year by year?
Full of symbolism, the writing meticulously
paints a growing portrait of an idyll always shadowed by dark, with sadness
never far away, as, through Liz’s scientific eyes we begin to dissect the truth
she only ever saw before as a child.
Liz’s butterflies may have to contend with
sudden changes in weather, even changes in landscape. But she revisits the Butler family
tragedy – having to contend with the much less predictable human frailties -
the ability to make bad decisions or simply fall in love with the wrong person.
‘Sanctuary Line’, by Jane Urquhart, is the
story of returning to your former family home to make sense of your past – and
how humans can sometimes be more fragile than butterflies. It’s a lovely,
engrossing read, beautiful, despite its sadness.
The novel is the seventh for Urquhart, one
of Canada's most popular and respected authors and is wonderful for evoking
atmosphere, exploring the importance of place, even if that place is
overshadowed by a sense of loss.
Smut, Alan
Bennett (PB, Profile Books, £6.99)
Alan Bennett’s comic dissection of middle England
focuses on what happens behind bedroom doors in two stories about sex among the
unsexy. Great if you fancy a chuckle.
Alan Bennett always manages to conjure up
small domestic situations quite blissfully. The main character in ‘The Greening
of Mrs Donaldson, the first of two novella-sized stories, features a widow
looking for ways of bringing in a little extra cash.
The second story features a lot more
conniving and far less innocence, with an interesting quintet of characters all
going on as normal with a growing set of secrets and lies.
Smut is not a word I’ve come across a lot
recently, but is the perfect title for Alan Bennett’s latest book which
features unseemly goings-on, although discreetly behind bedroom doors.
Freeing Grace, Charity Norman (PB, Allen & Unwin, £7.99)
Baby Grace was abandoned by her father
before she was born, her mother shortly afterwards, then her mother died. David
and Leila are desperate for a baby, although not high on the adoption list,
being older parents and of mixed race.
So goes the set-up of this novel about
parenthood and adoption.
There is lots of enjoy, not least Charity
Norman’s writing, in this story about families and parenting. I liked her
language – choice of words, ability to write in a funny and engaging way.
Grace’s dad, Matt, has belatedly decided to
fight the adoption, although the fact that he is still at school, has a drug
habit and no means of supporting himself and the child are, understandably,
held against his chances of successfully calling a halt to the whole proceedings.
Is he ‘good father’ material – and has he any chance of making it for the long
haul and steering a baby through to adulthood? Or is it just a whim?
David is a patient, inner-city curate, his
lovely wife’s had ‘plenty of practice at sticking on smiles since David took
this job’. Lovely Leila finds time for everyone and even neatly sidestep’s
David’s father’s drunken leering, and sneering from her mother-in-law.
Some of the main story is told through the
eyes of Jake – a New Zealander with a passionate hatred of the idea of settling
down, who is unwisely brought in to assist Matt with fighting the adoption. It
all gets a bit too unlikely, but it’s grippingly told with plenty of poignant
moments and charm.
Even so, there is a lot to like. Lots of
thoughtful things about the expectation of what being a parent means when you
hold a tiny, vulnerable new-born that you are responsible for. To finding you
are still responsible for a big, hairy, ungrateful adult some years later who
still demands unconditional love.
Island of Wings, Karin Altenberg (PB, Quercus, £7.99)
The island of St Kilda,
1830. Into a society still living the same ways since the days of the
ancestors, comes single-minded minister, Neil MacKenzie and his new wife,
Lizzie.
Neil is as full of missionary zeal as
anyone going to convert native Africans to Christianity, but isn’t prepared for
the discovery that such a barren part of the Empire is within his country’s own
shores.
Lizzie is prepared to be fashionable and
proud of her position, and is utterly unable to relate to the locals. She
speaks no gaelic, finds their communal and harsh way of life far removed from
her previous life on the mainland.
Swedish author, Karin Altenberg, in
beautifully expressed prose (English is her second language) brings to life the
shared poverty of the burrows where the islanders live, the floors full of
accumulated filth that is shovelled out to fertilise the fields in spring. The
hand-to-mouth lives, seabirds providing the most valuable natural resource,
even to the fulmar oil to provide their lighting. No furniture and with no
wood, only driftwood to provide nowhere near enough coffins.
Expect, like Lizzie, to get drawn, in as we
hear how no trees can withstand the weather and the salt, and the seabirds
provide a sparse but sustainable living on the far outreaches of a country that
has already seen so much change.
As her husband decides that only change
will bring these souls closer to God – sanitary housing, a system of crops, it
is Lizzie who finds she is learning from the locals and considers who is really
closer to God.
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So - do you have any other recommends for new holiday reading? Post suggestions below (you should be able to do this without needing to log in!). Share a great holiday read just published...
Eve Chase’s ‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ has dual
narratives, one set in the present day and one during the heatwave of '59. It’s
a story of how four teenage girls, on holiday in Oxfordshire, are slowly drawn
into the disappearance of their Uncle and Aunt’s daughter, Audrey, five years
before.
