Tag: Books

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Power of humanity

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Peck & Peck is the story about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck of New York City. Batter Gray is worried about his future. Even when he was eleven, his classmates seem to have settled on a goal: doctor, lawyer, broker, engineer. Good jobs that automatically command respect, security, 401Ks. Now Batter is in his early twenties, living in New York City, and he wants something different, something that alienates some readers and bores most. Poetry. And … Continue reading Power of humanity

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He came home every night from the pub using both sides of the road

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Eoin McNamee, Northern Irish writer from Kilkeel, County Down, whose novels are mostly based on real crimes (although his 2007 novel 12:23 was about the death of Princess Diana), The Comets, is his first collection of short fiction, which includes two novellas and 15 punchy shorts. A fairground dodgems ride, “poles struck blue fire from the roof grid and the comets blazed across the rink”. In several stories an abandoned aerodrome acquires sinister, Ballardian quality.  In “Walking North, Walking Home,” a woman, adopted in childhood, sets out to find her birth mother, but finds instead a kindred spirit in a … Continue reading He came home every night from the pub using both sides of the road

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Invigorating survey of British fiction

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Philip Hensher  begins in “A History of the Novel in Britain”, a new history of both an art and an industry, in the eighteenth century, when people began to read in ever greater numbers, seeking words that helped explain their hopes and desires. A new kind of literature was needed for this growing market for readers, one that reflected as many different lives in its pages as there were people to buy them, that could change with the times and do something new: something novel. Hensher describes how the evolutionary scramble by writers and publishers to get attention drove constant innovation … Continue reading Invigorating survey of British fiction

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Alone and betrayed

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THE TURNING POINT  – A short story by Penny Nair Price The newsagent opened his door at 7 am and waited for his favourite and most reliable customer, serving one or two others before his arrival.  At 7.45, or as near as dammit, the white stick poked round the door and Frederick Orange entered, with his familiar expression of a mixture of pleasure and distaste playing round his mouth, as he tapped his way to the counter and bought his lucky dip ticket for the Friday draw, and a pack of his favourite cigarettes, together with some extra strong mints. The newsagent … Continue reading Alone and betrayed

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Psyche of a teenage sniper

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Mathias Énard’s first novel, revolves around an unnamed city completely torn apart by civil war, a teenage sniper has only one goal: to fire the perfect shot. He sublimates himself into his weapon, controls his breath, stays serenely calm, and listen to his body and the beat of his heart. Lying in wait on rooftops, he shoots at civilians amid the movement of seagulls in the dawn sky.  At dawn he finds that the light is perfect- not too blinding, no reflections- and people are less careful. In one scene, he is soothed by the sight of a woman falling “like … Continue reading Psyche of a teenage sniper

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Woman behind the powder and mascara

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Barbara Cartland’s magic made penniless virgins, Reckless dukes, Flappers, Airmen, Suffragettes fall in love. She wrote 723 books without touching a typewriter 750 million sales: instead she reclined on her sofa with a Pekinese on her lap- and romantic fiction billowed out of her. This dazzling biography reveals the woman behind the powder and mascara – a clever socially precarious writer navigating a twentieth-century world of war-damaged men, class conflict and sexual peril. After 49 proposals, she chose the wrong one. What followed was a life stranger than any of her novels. From country house weekends to Fleet Street offices, … Continue reading Woman behind the powder and mascara

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Mammoth’s eliciting a momentary peace

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Novelist Naomi Alderman and her newly widowed father sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parent’ home, a few months after he mother dies, capturing the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground about the size of a badger, flat face, long, trunk-like nose. Suddenly these “mimmoths” are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they’ve come from. Alderman created something curious, messy and unexpectedly comforting. The element of solace serves as a counterpoint in the novel’s emphasis on a world in cataclysm; at its centre is an … Continue reading Mammoth’s eliciting a momentary peace

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Female resilience and solidarity

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Award-winning Iranian-American novelist and filmmaker, Laleh Kahdivi’s  funny novel about a daughter discovering her mother’s secret past. When in Los Angeles, a senior accoutant Heti’s mother, Anahita, dies, she leaves behind a spotless legacy: affectionate parent, modern career woman, and life of the party. Heti moves in a daze until her grief is upended by the arrival of an unmarked package arrives from England, containing photographs of Anahita as a young woman- robed,  (her country of origin appears to be Iran by is unnamed), standing in front of a burning building in a black robe and pointing a gun at a group … Continue reading Female resilience and solidarity

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A nation in crisis: Amphetamine-fuelled trip across the US in the 1960s

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Patrick deWitt’s Dodge City is a novel about a young man Lee Clarke in 1967, Los Angeles, on an amphetamine-fuelled cross-country road trip, fleeing the draft for the safe haven of Canada. He has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical twenty-three-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion- and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him to make the first political decision of his life, and though he’s happy in California and loves his girlfriend, he will leave … Continue reading A nation in crisis: Amphetamine-fuelled trip across the US in the 1960s

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Meet the enigmatic music mistress

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Sebastian Faulk’s  protagonist, Philip Deval, is a quite youth with a degree in philosophy and a soldier recently returned from the beaches of Normandy, arrives in Palestine on a peace-keeping mission in the final days of the British Mandate. The Sea of Galilee glitters in the distance as war-weary troops marvel at the novelty of oranges and sun- a paradise that belies a fierce new conflict about to erupt. Some years later, Philip begins work teaching at a school in the English countryside and meets the enigmatic music mistress, Frances Darwood. Over long evenings spent listening to records in her music … Continue reading Meet the enigmatic music mistress