Book Review: 33 Place Brugman by Alice Austin – an engrossing read set in WWII Brussells

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

Some stories are so much about the setting that it is like a main character. This is the case for 33 Place Brugman, an apartment building in Brussels whose residents are adjusting to life during World War II. As we know, German forces invaded Belgium in 1940 and began an occupation that would last another four years. In this novel, we are treated to a glimpse of normal life before that, and how that changed with the Occupation. The fear and the pressure to conform, to dob people in or risk your life, or else to take courage and resist – to say nothing of food shortages and loss of work.

On the fourth floor of Number 33 are two families: Francois Sauvin, an architect and his daughter Charlotte, and their neighbours the Raphaëls. Leo Raphaël is an art dealer who lives with his wife Sophia, and their children, Esther and Julian. Losing his wife in childbirth, has left Francois to raise his daughter alone, but he’s been lucky to have support from the Raphaëls, particularly Sophia, who has her nanny help out with Charlotte’s care so that Francois can work and sleep.

The children all grow up together, and the two families dine together regularly. So when the Raphaëls disappear one night, without word to anybody, it’s a bolt from the blue. They are a Jewish family, and with stories about Nazi atrocities and the likelihood of another war, the Raphaëls have been lucky to get out when they could.

The Raphaëls leave in the middle of the night, and they leave everything behind.
The sofas and chairs and beds and lamps and heavy carpets and the dining table. The films we made are in a box together with the projector, a set of oil paints, and a blank canvas. On it is a note that reads, For Charlotte. I gasp, the air coming in tight and sharp. I might have thought I was dreaming, but for that note. When I see it, I know the Raphaëls are truly gone.
In their wake, rumours swirl through the building. The Raphaëls haven’t left everything. They took their silver. And the paintings? The paintings simply disappear.

The novel follows the first years of the war and how it affects both the Raphaëls and those that remain at Number 33 – not just Francois and Charlotte, but also Masha, the Russian emigré who lives in the attic, making a living as a seamstress. There’s an elderly widowed Colonel with his dog Zipper, and nosy and unlikeable Miss Hobert – both live below the Sauvins. Next floor down are the DeBaerres whose son Dirk is an old school friend of Julian’s. Each has a part to play in the story as each has to examine their conscience and decide what is the right thing to do.

And this is what the story is so good at. It throws unheard of challenges at its characters, who are complex enough for their decisions to be difficult ones. To keep in the good books of your oppressor, to look out for your neighbour, or to fight back? How to feed your family and to keep them safe.

The novel is also a love story. Firstly, there’s Charlotte, who meets Philippe at art school, where she’s talented and able to see the world in a different way, being quite colourblind. But then there’s Julian, who has always loved Charlotte, which worries his mother. The story also brings in the work of the French Resistance in Paris, through the nefarious Harry, a friend of the Colonel, as well as the war in the air, with Julian signing up for the RAF. This gives the novel plenty of strands, and adds some excitement to balance out the quietly tense periods of the plot, as pressure slowly builds.

For me, 33 Place Brugman was an engaging novel and I was soon swept up in the lives of Charlotte, Julian and their families. It’s quite nail-biting at times, when the reader knows more about the danger around the corner than the characters. The story is also threaded with philosophy, particularly that of Wittgenstein, who is discussed quite a lot – but not knowing a lot about him, I found these references somewhat beguiling. The writing is beautiful though; the characters come to life on the page, as do the settings.

I would have loved to learn what happens to the characters by the end of the war, as the story finishes even before D-Day. An epilogue, maybe? But overall I really enjoyed this original view of the war, and its splendidly evoked setting – so it’s four-stars from me. 33 Place Brugman is to be published on 11 March, 2025 . This advance copy was provided by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Book Review: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld – a warm and witty novel that explores the affairs of the heart

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I loved Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld’s modern interpretation of Pride and Prejudice, written for The Austen Project and published in 2016. It was smart, funny and romantic, and a very clever update. So I was expecting a similar vibe with Romantic Comedy, a novel about a sketch writer for a late night TV show and an unexpected romance.

Sally Milz has been writing comedy sketches for The Night Owls for almost ten years and has seen a lot of talent come and go. When fellow writer Danny starts dating Annabel, a beautiful actress who is also super talented and bright, Sally is peeved. Why is it that fairly ordinary guys like Danny can date and even plan a future with women who are way out of their league, when it never happens the other way around? There have been several Danny/Annabel type matches at the studio alone but you never see an ordinary-looking woman, or even a mildly pretty one, catching the eye of handsome star in his prime.

The arrival of Noah Brewster, a hugely successful and drop-dead gorgeous music star, as a guest host on the show gives Sally the perfect opportunity for a sketch to highlight this anomaly. The Danny Horst Rule would star Noah as the gorgeous guy who tries to date an average girl. Sally gets more of her skits voted in for the show that week, and so gets to spend more time with Noah at rehearsals. She finds him surprisingly nice, and what’s more, he apparently likes her. He’s easy to talk to and seems to seek her out.

The story follows their interactions and Sally’s growing attraction to Noah, a relationship that she discounts, because there’s no way a guy like that would ever think of her romantically, is there? We meet other people on The Night Owls, particularly fellow actors like Viv and Henrietta, who are Sally’s friends and sounding boards, whose advice is sometimes helpful, and often hilarious. Viv herself has met an eye doctor she’s attracted to so there’s advice going both ways. And we get a bit of Sally’s backstory – a failed marriage, the colleague who broke her heart.

Working on The Night Owls, Sally works excruciatingly long days, and nights, taking naps in her office, but then she’s a perfectionist and gives her work her all. She has decided never again to date a colleague, and has no time for more than an occasional night spent with someone she doesn’t care about. When Noah upsets the applecart of her carefully managed feelings, she doesn’t know what to do.

I heard someone say my name, but at first I was so deeply asleep that I incorporated the voice into my dream. I thought it was Bernard, the janitor, coming to empty my trash can, and, seamlessly, I mumbled, “You can leave the molluscs.” I felt a hand lightly pat my shoulder, and the person said, “Sally, I’m really sorry to bother you” – not a commonly uttered phrase at TNO – and I pulled the T-shrit off my eyes and the earplugs from my ears, sat straight up, and said, “What do you want?”
Hunched over the couch at such an angle that my sitting up had brought our faces within a few inches of each other was Noah Brewster.

This was a fun read for the most part. I found the look behind the scenes of a television show fascinating and Sittenfeld peoples it with plenty of interesting characters and scenarios. Danny’s and Annabel’s relationship has its ups and downs and so there’s plenty going on. There are ups and downs for Sally and Noah too, and a lot of the story has the reader wondering: will they or won’t they? There’s Covid and the lock-downs, long-distance communication and a lot of soul searching. So while this is in many ways a romantic comedy, it’s also at times a serious look at love and life.

Curtis Sittenfeld has written a smart, thoughtful and very romantic novel which has moments of laugh-out-loud humour. My only quibble is that Sally can be difficult company at times, with a tendency to shoot herself in the foot to make a point. Sometimes I wanted to give her a good telling off. So while I didn’t enjoy Romantic Comedy quite as much as Eligible, it’s still entertaining and clever – and a three-and-a-half-star read from me.

Book Review: In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan – a police pairing that breaks the mould

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I always like to check out the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year awards – the shortlists are full of my favourite mystery authors (Elly Griffiths, Ruth Ware, Abir Mukherjee, and that’s just for starters). This year’s winner was Jo Callaghan’s debut novel, In the Blink of an Eye, which breaks new ground in that there’s a new police officer on the team, and it’s AI. The premise of this novel was just too good to ignore.

DCS Kat Frank has been away from the Warwickshire police on bereavement leave, and her husband’s death is still a bit raw. Her son, Cam, who has just completed his A Levels, has been having therapy, his anxiety over losing a second parent who has a dangerous job never far from his thoughts. So Kat has requested a safe option for her return to work, something less on the frontline. Her boss and mentor Chief Constable McLeish has a surprise in store. He’s signed Kat up to run a missing person’s cold case team that also will be trialling AIDEs (Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entities).

Kat is not happy. She’s an intuitive cop who follows her gut. You can’t solve cases with an algorithm, she declares. Meanwhile the scientist who has designed the AIDE, Professor Okonedo, with her own axe to grind, is sceptical of Kat’s skills and of the police in general. Reluctantly Kat agrees to the trial, taking on ambitious DI Rayan Hassan and shrinking violet, yet empathetic, DS Debbie Browne. Okonedo introduces AIDE Lock, a bracelet-type band that you can talk to like Siri, and which can whip up facts, statistics and probabilities in seconds. In holographic form, it’s remarkably like a person.

With hundreds of cold cases to chose from, Lock determines that recently missing young males will be more easily found. But Lock and Kat disagree over which. Kat’s preferred case is Tyrone Walters, a high-achieving young black man from a deprived area. Lock prefers Will Robinson, a young white male not much older from a wealthy home. According to Locke, statistics suggest the Robinson case would be easier to solve because he’s white. Kat is appalled as this racial bias and has a feeling that Tyrone has been a victim of foul play..

Ultimately, Hassan suggests the trial review both cases, and Professor Okonedo assures Kat that Lock can “perform the functions of many officers in just a fraction of the time”. This makes Kat only bristle more, but she reluctantly agrees. If only the team realised that what starts out as a test, a case chosen by statistics versus one chosen by gut feeling, will converge into a single case that is still active.

Picking up her briefcase, Kat paused at the door. She needed to leave her new team with something more motivational than her obvious irritation. ‘Remember, less than one per cent of missing people turn up dead, so we still have a good chance of finding both boys alive.’

‘Just to clarify, that figure represents one per cent of all the missing,’ said Lock’s voice from her wrist. ‘Only four per cent of adults are still missing one week after being reported, which is the category that Tyrone and Will fall within. So, in actual fact, there is a twenty-five percent chance that both boys are already dead.’

This really was an edge of the seat read, as woven into the narrative are scenes from the point of view of someone who has been kidnapped, drugged and immobilised. The clock is ticking and we can only hope that Kat and Lock will sort out their differences enough to solve the crime and save the missing lads. While Kat is learning how to manage Lock and use its obvious skills – downloading data, scanning social media for clues, extrapolating info, etc. – Lock is learning too. And it needs to, particularly with reading body language and developing social skills.

This makes the book really interesting as it takes time before Kat and Lock gel enough to be useful together. For a lot of the time they’re the angry cop and the irritatingly rational cop. Slowly, Kat’s team start to come into their own: Hassan in spite of his confident manner has a softer side and stuff going on at home, while Browne has a big problem to deal with, but fortunately Kat has enough patience to bring her out. Although mostly Kat is on edge, drinks too much and tends to fly off the handle.

It will be interesting to see how Kat and her officers, as well as Lock, evolve over the course of this series – there’s already a second book, Leave No Trace, plus a third to be published in April next year. Quite the feast. Whatever your thoughts on AI, In the Blink of an Eye illuminates it in real-world scenarios. Jo Callaghan has done a lot of research on the subject and how she imagines AI in a policing environment is fascinating. It’s a four-star read from me, and I can’t wait for the TV series. It would be a cracker.

Book Review: Back Trouble by Clare Chambers – an oldie but a goodie from a favourite author

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If you enjoyed Clare Chambers’s last book, Small Pleasures, as much as I did, you’ll be pleased to know her new book, Shy Creatures, is out soon. I’ve always loved this author’s particular way with empathy and humour, so when I found an earlier book by Chambers at a second-hand bookshop, I was delighted, in spite of having read it years before.

Back Trouble, first published in 1994, is about Philip, who is about to turn forty, and his life for the most part seems to have gone to custard. We first catch up with him at an awkward family New Year’s celebration. His insurance broker brother Raymond is over from Canada with a new batch of photos of his children, recounting their successes (the football and the gymnastics), while Philip has never felt less like celebrating. With the failure of his publishing company he is in debt up to his eyeballs and the love of his life having gone home to New Zealand, life couldn’t get any worse, could it?

A cold chip from an overflowing municipal bin sends Philip head over tail and the ensuing back injury leaves him bedridden. There’s nothing to do but to fish out the notebook and pens from under his bed and begin to write the story of his childhood – a New Year’s challenge flung out by Raymond, to be completed in three months – just a thousand words a day – no probs. We are reminded that this is the 1990s and the Internet is in its infancy, although probably a more modern-day Philip wouldn’t be diverted by technology as he’d be out of data anyway – he’s that strapped for cash.

The story alternates between scenes of Philip’s growing up in a working class home in London – baths once a week in a tin tub in the kitchen and gristly stew for dinner – with the year he spends falling in love with Kate. Kate’s a health worker from New Zealand on a limited working visa and a breath of fresh air for Philip and the problems. Each chapter concerns a pivotal point – a bit like a short story – a visit with Kate to Philip’s father’s sheltered flat by the sea; a childhood family holiday by the sea; a wedding; home improvements – ordinary things in themselves, but with significance to the whole.

The kitchen was the first room to be tackled. One of the men from the building site had given Dad and industrial-sized drum of bottle green paint from the batch which his brother, who worked for the Council, had been using to paint the park railings. Cost was Dad’s only criterion in selecting materials. This meant garish rolls of wallpaper from the bargain bucket outside the DIY shop, the top six inches of every roll faded by the sun, and brushes which moulted into the paint. He had an idiosyncratic way of decorating. Being both nervous and impatient he didn’t believe in preparing surfaces, always fearing that something terrible might be lurking beneath a layer of bubbly paper or flaking paint. So instead of stripping paintwork, or even washing it, he would set straight to work, brushing gloss over old gloss, dust, mould and even, in one instance, a dead spider which lay preserved like a Pompeian relic in its shell of green paint.

Philip is such a self-deprecating narrator – he has no illusions about where he’s at as he approaches forty – and his story is warmly humorous as it rattles along to a nicely surprising ending. There are some poignant moments too, particularly in Philip’s childhood, with adults not behaving as they ought to and the weight of knowledge that falls on a young boy growing up. It is easy to blame Philip’s careless yet penny-pinching father, but other adults also turn out to be unreliable or even predatory.

Odd allusions to Great Expectations add an interesting twist. There are a raft of curious characters, quirky, helpful or otherwise, which may be another nod to Dickens, particularly the scene at Philip’s grandmother’s house – the blind matriarch and hoarder of useless furniture, including four unplayable pianos, terrifying in her fierceness; the black-toothed Auntie Florrie smoking her woodbines; Punnet the obese black labrador. It’s like stepping back in time.

For a small book, Clare Chambers packs quite a lot in and it’s hugely entertaining. I know she can always be relied upon for an original and big-hearted read so I am so looking forward to Shy Creatures, released on Amazon at the end of the month. Back Trouble is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Night Whistler by Greg Woodland – a new cop in a small town that’s simmering with secrets

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Readers of these posts will know that Aussie Noir is one of my favourite sub-genres. Having recently read Greg Woodland’s debut crime novel, I am pleased to have discovered what looks like a promising new series. The Night Whistler has all that readers have come to enjoy about Aussie Noir: an evocative, rural Australian setting; small town secrets; and a cop that’s up against it. Set in the 1960s, the story evocatively conjures up the era – the music, the social order plus the edgy restlessness of a long, hot summer.

Mick Goodenough (pronounced like “no-good” backwards, as opposed to “good enough”) has been sent to Moorabool, a smug little town that’s something of a culture shock. A former Sydney detective, he’s been busted down to the rank of Probationary Constable after a case went horribly wrong. Falling foul of his superiors and with a drinking problem that has cost him his marriage, Mick has hit rock bottom but, fortunately, it seems, you can’t keep a good cop down.

The narrative alternates between Mick’s story and that of twelve-year-old Hal, similarly a new kid in town, along with little brother Evan. The two boys are investigating a creek near their house when they come across the body of a mutilated dog. The boys are understandably upset, but go on to give the animal something of a burial, little knowing that the dog is one of a string of such killings that the police won’t take seriously. That is until Mick Goodenough recognises the traits of a perpetrator that will likely take a more serious turn. When the dead dog turns out to be Mick’s, it only spurs him on.

While there’s a killer just getting up steam, Mick is having to deal with arrogant Sergeant Bradley who is wary of Mick’s city cop ways, and lords it over his team. This includes a fellow Probationary Constable who sucks up to Bradley and world-weary Senior Constable Bligh, who becomes an unexpected ally. Meanwhile Mick is desperate to see his teenage daughter again, if only his ex-wife will agree to send her down on the train.

Hal’s father is the bright new spark at Prime Foods, which is why the family have moved to Moorabool. He’s got a fancy new car and wandering eyes. At the Prime Foods Christmas Picnic, we see a microcosm of the town, the braying and overbearing Mayor Dianne Curio, and her bombastic husband, as well as the racism carelessly handed out to Jenna, a young Aboriginal woman who is friendly to Hal and his mother.

Finding the dead dog sets Hal on a mission to uncover the killer – he’s been reading Sherlock Holmes. He gets a hand from young Allie, an Aboriginal girl who teases him relentlessly but shows him how to fish for yabbies in the creek. The two make a great pairing, but obviously they are soon going to be out of their depth. Worse still, Hal’s mother begins getting nuisance calls from someone whistling “Are you lonesome tonight” and making threats. Sergeant Bradley ignores her call for help, even when Mick suggests this isn’t just a snowdropper.

Greg Woodland quickly creates a simmering sense of menace as the story builds towards a gripping ending. But there’s also plenty of banter between Hal and his brother and with Ally, between the kids and their parents and other adults that adds some humour and light relief. Then there’s all the pressure on Mick: the pressure not to probe too much in a town where it pays not to ask too many questions.

For a debut novel, The Night Whistler is expertly constructed, the characters well drawn and interesting, while bringing the setting, both time and place, to life. But we shouldn’t be surprised. Greg Woodward is an experienced screenwriter with a bunch of award-winning films under his belt. The second book featuring Hal and Mick, The Carnival Is Over, is already on my ever-growing list of must-reads. The Night Whistler, excellently narrated by Nic English in audiobook format, is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles – a story of love, friendship and making the right connections in 1930s New York

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If I had a list of authors who can make a laundry list sound interesting, Amor Towles would surely be near the top of it. (If anyone has already curated a list like that, I’d love to see it – just saying.) Rules of Civility is Towles’s first novel and the writing is just as good as the later books that have made his name: A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway. There’s the same nuanced prose, the characters that seem to breathe on the page, the originality of the storyline.

In this novel we’re in New York City, mostly over a year that begins on New Year’s Eve 1937. Twenty-somethings Katherine Kontent and her roommate, Eve Ross, are out to celebrate, finding themselves in a lacklustre nightclub, where complicated jazz solos make it kind of interesting. Here they stumble upon Tinker Grey, a slightly older, impeccably dressed and very handsome young man.

The three strike up a friendship that pulls them all in different directions. Both girls are drawn to Tinker, but he’s just so enigmatic, it’s hard to tell if either can win his heart. In the meantime they just hang out together, enjoying the vibe they create as a small group of friends. An accident pushes a guilt-ridden Tinker towards Eve, and Katherine shrugs off her disappointment and gets on with life.

It is Katherine’s voice who narrates the story and we follow her progress from a typing pool, to a publishing house and then the competitive world of a society magazine. She’s sharp, witty and hard working, but then she needs to be – she’s rubbing shoulders with an Ivy League-educated elite, while she herself is from fairly humble beginnings. Everything she has she’s had to earn herself. In the background Tinker and Eve waft in and out of her life, while other relationships come and go.

The book is peopled with lively, colourful New Yorkers – the drinking buddies Katherine makes through the girls she works with; well-heeled and influential friends and acquaintances of Tinker’s; the raw, working class guys who hang out with Tinker’s artist brother. Katherine has a gift for fitting in and adding to whichever group she meets and in this way is the perfect narrator.

In front of the boardinghouse Tinker was standing beside a Mercedes coupé as silver as mercury. If all the girls at Mrs. Martingale’s saved a year’s pay, we couldn’t have afforded one.
Fran Pacelli, the five-foot-nine City College dropout from North Jersey who lived down the hall, whistled like a hard hat appreciating the hem of a skirt. Eve and I went down the steps.
Tinker was obviously in a good mood. He gave Eve a kiss on the cheek and a You look terrific. When he turned to me, he smiled and gave my hand a squeeze. He didn’t offer me the kiss or the compliment, but Eve was watching and she could tell that she was the one who’d been short-changed.

A lot happens in just one year, and you can’t help thinking that for many in 1938, times were tough. But not among the glittering social set of New York. The story builds to some surprising revelations, particularly about Tinker but also about others who pass through Katherine’s orbit, the main action of the story bookended by her visit to a photographic exhibition decades later and a kind of catch-up with what has happened in the meantime.

It all makes for a satisfying read: the brilliantly rendered view of 1930s New York, the story of a woman determined to make her own way, the glorious writing. Rules of Civility is just as good as the other books by Amor Towles, and I look forward to his collection of short stories, Table for Two, as well as whatever else he’s got in the pipeline. I know they’ll all be five-star reads, just like this one.

Book Review: The Library by Bella Osborne – a feel-good read about an unlikely friendship and a library in trouble

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A public library can be one of those places that offer a respite from the anxieties of everyday life. And while they’re not the silently bookish places they used to be, hosting community groups, classes and story times, they can still be a place of refuge in a way a shopping mall just isn’t. Bella Osborne has taken this idea to create a story around two lonely people and a friendship that develops at the library.

Maggie is seventy-two, a widow who runs a small holding on the outskirts of town. It’s a lonely life but she fills it with her love for her livestock, yoga and books. Her membership of a book group that meets every Saturday is the highlight of her week. Sixteen-year-old Tom is struggling to keep everything together at home where he lives with an alcoholic father. It’s a battle to make ends meet, and his dad wants him to give up school to join him at the factory – they could use the extra wages. But Tom has his sights on a better life, and Farah, a cute girl, if only she’d look his way.

Tom has as an odd idea that Farah uses the library and visits on the pretext of choosing some romance books for his mother. Soon he’s lugging home a pile of books he has no intention of reading. Maggie gets mugged outside the library on her way to her bus-stop and Tom helps her to her feet. Over time an unlikely friendship forms and Tom discovers the wonders of reading, farm life and finally has someone supportive in his life. Maggie has a glimpse of what having a family of her own might have looked like and feels less alone.

They sat side by side on the cool metal seats and waited for the bus. ‘I think this week’s book club read will be more up my street.’
He was looking about. He seemed to have lost interest in her. She got the book out anyway and showed it to him.
‘The Fault in Our Stars.’ He nodded. ‘You might like it,’ she said. He nodded again before realising his mistake.
‘Nah. Doubt it.’ Tom looked away.
‘It’s okay, Tom. The others don’t know and I won’t be telling them.’
‘Know what?’ He pulled his shoulders back and stared her down.
‘That it’s you reading the books and not your mum.’
His shoulders sagged with every word, until he was back to his rounded-shoulder posture. ‘How’d you know?’
‘The way you read the blurbs before choosing the books. The conversation about Me Before You.’ She gave a shrug. ‘I’m a bit like a dog with a bone when something doesn’t add up.’
He turned to look up the road for the bus, as if willing it to arrive, but there was ages yet. ‘Well done, Miss Marple.’

When the town council announces plans to shut their library down, Maggie reignites the feisty young woman she was in the sixties, demonstrating at marches, holding placards and making a nuisance of herself. She ropes in young Tom and her book club pals, but it’s an uphill battle when the library door-count has probably been dropping for decades. But as the Joni Mitchell song goes: “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” and a library is more than just books, it can be the heart of a community.

You can guess how the story will pan out, but there are a few surprises along the way. Maggie is hiding a secret, and so is Tom’s dad. Meanwhile Tom’s issues with his father add complexity as he faces extra pressure when he needs to focus on study if he has any hope of university. But it’s the humour in the odd little mishaps and misunderstandings that makes this a fun read. Maggie and Tom’s friendship is not always plain sailing so there’s some tension there too. Plus, there are puppies.

The Library is a light but engaging read, and anyone who has a fondness for libraries will relate to the characters and their campaign. There’s plenty of book talk too, especially when Tom, with nothing better to do, discovers that romantic fiction is a whole lot better than he expected. This is a warm, feel-good sort of story, cheering and heartfelt and a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt – a quirky and heartfelt novel with a memorably unmemorable main character

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Working in a library, of course I was drawn to this book, with its cover showing an old-fashioned library book date-slip. But what the heck is a librarianist? How did that one slip past me, of all people? I just had to find out.

Bob Comet is the librarianist of the title, an everyman kind of character who has always lived for books. Maybe that’s what librarianist means. He is described as “not unhappy” and seventy-one years of age, a solitary man who fills his days with simple pleasures, such as reading, cooking, and walking.

We catch up with Bob in 2005 when he rescues an elderly woman he bumps into at a 7-Eleven, where he’s gone for coffee. The young cashier doesn’t know what to do with her; she’s been staring at the chilled drinks fridge for getting on for an hour. Bob reads a label attached to her clothing and discovers her name is Chip. He manages to get her home to a care facility and before you know it he’s a volunteer, expanding his world and getting to know the residents.

A coincidence at the care facility occurs that shocks Bob and propels the story back to Bob’s youth. We’re back in the 1940s and 50s when Bob’s love of books begins. You get the impression that it is books that rescue Bob from the reality of the hurly-burly of school, his life at home with a mother that doesn’t understand him, and his general aloneness. He becomes a librarian, and takes on his mother’s house when she dies. You imagine a quiet, solitary, bookish life for Bob, and he does too. And then he meets Connie.

The book describes his relationship with Connie, similarly a person who doesn’t fit in but for quite different reasons. There’s also his sudden friendship with Ethan, who turns up at the library carpark one day, too afraid to go back to his apartment across the road, and the angry policeman inside it. Bob’s life has suddenly a friend and some romance in it – until suddenly it doesn’t.

Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone. Sometimes an author’s voice is familiar to us from the first page, first paragraph, even if the author lived in another country, in another century.” Bob held up his stack of Russians. “How can you account for this familiarity? I do believe that, at our best, there is a link connecting us.

But before we catch up with Bob in 2006 again, where the story left off, there’s an odd chunk of the novel that takes us back to 1945 and an eleven-year-old Bob running away from home. Where he gets to and the people he meets makes for an entertaining enough interlude, full of memorable characters, but I couldn’t help asking myself what it was all about. I couldn’t help wondering why it didn’t seem to have an impact on the Bob we meet later, who returns home eventually, remarkably unchanged. Years later, however, he sometimes wistfully dreams about the seaside hotel that took him in for four days..

The Librarianist might not follow the usual rules for novel plotting in some ways, and the ending is perhaps a little odd, too. But it’s a diverting read, and you can’t help getting to like Bob and the people we meet as seen through his eyes. Patrick DeWitt’s prose is delightful, witty, wry and perceptive, bringing Bob and his times to life.

The novel reminded me a little of some of Anne Tyler’s earlier fiction with its characters that don’t fit in, and the events that pull them out of their lethargy or solitary habits. I’ve always got time for a novel like this, particularly if it’s as nicely written as this one. I’ll pick up another DeWitt novel sometime, I’m sure. The Librarianist is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Pachinko by Jin Min Lee – an immersive family saga of a Korean family over generations

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I’d heard so many recommendations for this novel, and spotting it was available to watch as a TV series, decided I needed to read the book first – and I’m so glad I did. Pachinko is such a memorable novel, taking you into a world I had little knowledge of – a Korean family through the generations and their attempts to survive Japanese invasion of their homeland, a world war and making a new life in Japan.

The main character through it all is Sunja, who lives with her mother in their boarding house in an island fishing village. There is an obvious presence of the Japanese – harvests taken to Japan, rules that must be obeyed and any hint of insurrection severely punished. Times are hard, but the women do well enough until Sunja finds herself pregnant at sixteen to handsome trader, Koh Hansu. Sunja looks likely to suffer a terrible disgrace but rescue comes from an unlikely direction.

Baek Isak arrives ill with tuberculosis, looking for shelter, seemingly on death’s door. Sunja and her mother nurse him back to health, saving his life. But Isak is a good man, a young missionary who is passing through on his way to a church in Osaka. He suggests marriage would be good for both him and Sunja. She will travel with him to a new life in Japan.

In Osaka, Koreans struggle to make a living, and few landlords will rent them houses, so they live in a kind of shanty town of cobbled together dwellings. It’s a culture shock, but Isak’s brother Yoseb and sister-in-law Kyunghee are so welcoming, Sunja slowly imagines a future where there is both family and love. The story follows Sunja and Isak, and the generations that follow, through at times terrible hardship as World War II takes hold and life becomes even tougher. In spite of what happens, Sunja shows grit and determination to give her sons, Noa and Mozasu, a better life.

The story takes its name from Pachinko parlours, a form of gambling that is tolerated in Japan, a bit like a penny arcade where there are rows of slot machines. Perhaps this is a metaphor for the story in the way that characters are at the mercy of fortune, struggling to take hold of their own destiny in a country where there is so much discrimination. Women too, both Japanese and Korean, are also assigned roles that are hard to break out of. The story takes you up until the late 1980s – before K-pop and fusion cuisine, which have made Korean culture popular in the west.

There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa’s small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.

And yet it is the Pachinko business that gives the younger generations of Sunja’s family a chance to build a future, perhaps even a small fortune. Before that, Sunja and Khyungee sold home-made kimchi and sweets to help put food on the table – a hard-scrabble life, but which forges a bond between the women.

This is an at times harrowing story, and you can’t help feeling for the characters and what they’re up against. There are world events taking place in the background that impact on them, as well as changes in culture and the way people live that give the story a sense of scope. It’s all fascinating, moving and riveting while Sunja is a character you won’t ever forget. It’s one of those both beautiful and sad books that stay with you, and a five-star read from me.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint – a retelling of the Sophocles tragedy for a modern audience

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

These retellings of stories from Ancient Greek classics can be oddly compelling. The latest to hit my bedside table is Jennifer Saint’s Elektra, a new version of the tragedy by Sophocles. If you haven’t met her before, the eponymous heroine is the youngest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. You’ll remember Agamemnon as the leader of the Greek fleet that waged war on Troy – the thousand ships that sought revenge on Paris for making off with Helen – the world’s most beautiful woman, and also Agamemnon’s sister-in-law.

The story starts off with Helen choosing her husband. All the suitors have gathered at the court of her father, the king of Sparta, where she chooses the adoring Menelaus, a second son who will let her stay in Sparta to help rule her father’s kingdom. At the same choosing party is Helen’s sister Clytemnestra. She is impressed by the two brothers from the House of Atreus, particularly the powerful energy emanating from Menelaus’s brother, Agamemnon. After the marriage of Helen, the brothers set sail for the home they have lost to the uncle who’d murdered their father, and with the Spartan fleet behind them, enact vengeance.

It is this house that Clytemnestra marries into, and discovers the terrible curse on the House of Atreaus, one that just won’t leave them alone. It involves murder of innocents, fratricide and revenge – an on-going intergenerational battle for the throne. Things may have settled down after Agamemnon took back his kingdom – if only Paris hadn’t stolen Helen and spirited her away to Troy. You know how it goes.

Jennifer Saint tells the story from the point of view of three women: Clytemnestra, her daughter Elektra and Cassandra, a daughter of Trojan King Priam. Clytemnestra witnesses her husband sacrifice their eldest daughter Iphigenia so that the gods will grant him a wind to take his fleet to Troy. In her grief, she vows to kill Agamemnon on his return, but that’s another ten years away, and her grim decision takes over her life.

When I had been back at home, just a girl laughing with my sister, I had dismissed the legendary curse upon the House of Atreus. Now, shaken from my roots, I could not stop the thought rustling in the back of my mind, like the stirring of dry leaves swept up in the first chill of autumn. Cursed or not, this was a palace where father had murdered son, where brothers had drawn swords against one another, where Agamemnon had drawn his dagger across his uncle’s throat and let the blood drain across the fragmented tiles of the mosaic floor. I knew the slaves had scrubbed it clean, but if you looked closely, you could trace the bloom of the stain where it had spread. Now that I knew where it lay, I could not prevent my eyes from being drawn to it, could not keep myself from picturing Agamemnon in the full blaze of his avenging fury. I could not quite reconcile that image with the man who shared my bed.

Elektra is a child when her father sails off to vanquish the Trojans, and misses him terribly. She is fierce, loyal and ignored by her mother. Clytemnestra’s intentions will set in motion a vengeance of her own. In Cassandra we have the story from the Trojan point of view. Badly treated by Apollo, Cassandra is cursed with a gift to predict the future, but to have her warnings disbelieved. Everyone therefore thinks she is mad – even when she predicts the fall of Troy and sees what’s hidden in the Trojan horse. Taken as a war prize by Agamemnon himself, her story will connect with that of Clytemnestra.

It surprises me just how readable and compelling this novel is given the content. Jennifer Saint does a brilliant job of envisaging the war, the plotting and scheming, the cruel indifference of the gods. One terrible deed just seems to lead to the next, and the characters have few redeeming features. So much bitterness and fury. All three women are trying to make a stand in some way, to determine their future, to make changes – difficult in a world run by power-hungry men and unreliable gods. Humming in the background is the question: if we leave one evil deed unpunished, do we not show contempt for the victim, for human kind and also for the gods?

The ending is brutal, but allows for a small glimmer of hope that the curse has finally come to an end – but who knows? Perhaps that’s another story. Elektra is another excellent addition to the genre, well-researched, intense and atmospheric. A terrific read for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in classical legends – four-stars from me.