Tag: recommended reads

Book Review: May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry – a poetic and original novel from the Booker shortlist

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I don’t often get around to reading the entire Booker shortlist but I do like to read at least one or two before the winner is announced. This year there are several that have caught my eye, and this one looked particularly interesting. May We Feed the King is set in a palace over two time frames. Beginning with an unnamed museum curator, we follow her work bringing to life the home and world of a largely forgotten king. She takes her time dressing the rooms, which she aims to look as if someone from the period has just walked out.

We’re in the Medieval era and the work is to commemorate the 750-year anniversary of the palace. There’s a lot of research involved and the curator is devoted to getting everything just right. She has recently suffered a personal loss, and she’s a withdrawn sort of person, which at times makes the people paying her nervous. Only the archivist seems to inspire any softening of her reserve.

In this way she is not completely dissimilar to the King, the reluctant monarch, unprepared and suddenly on the throne following the death of a brother. Both his brothers seem to have taken to leadership with gusto, the eldest having a reputation for bravery and a willingness to go to war, the middle brother learning the ropes and following his advisors’ suggestions. But our new King would rather stroll through the garden, avoiding calls from his advisors to act.

We follow the King’s story which is told in snippets, often asides of what a courtier saw, what an attendant heard. Facts and the truth are hard to pinpoint, while rumour and gossip run amok. And you can hardly blame people, when the King is so reluctant to put himself forward, to make a declaration or even to present an opinion. Just one attendant seems to have earned his trust, a young man who was there when his brother died.

When the King’s shock has settled, he finds that his other feelings come into focus.

Loneliness, like a terrible cave.

His companions from before he was King, select though they were, now bow to him, and won’t turn their backs to leave a room. When he is able to receive their company in his chambers, they are stiff and uncomfortable, despite his assurances.

There are men who seek to attach themselves to power, and there are those who do not. For some, a King is the cure, and for others, he is the disease.

We feel for this king, suddenly having to do a job he has no aptitude or ambition for, as well as the curator trying to find the truth of his time. Was it really like this? How can we be sure that this or that happened as it has been portrayed? These are the thoughts that the author seems to be playing with. It’s a different kind of story that might make you rethink what you imagine when you visit a museum or heritage site or even think about history.

May We Feed the King is beautifully written in a straight-forward, elegant style that suggests thought has been given every word as well as the way the text is arranged. Dialogue is mostly revealed as reported speech. Paragraphs are separated by spaces. So it’s easy to rattle through the book quite quickly, but I felt I could easily read it again and find more to enjoy and more to think about, and with such lovely language, why not? A five-star read from me.

Book Review: Country People by Daniel Mason – a quirky tale of family, friendship and finding your way

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

It is so refreshing when you come across a writer who is just such a good storyteller, has a wonderful way with language, and a completely original idea that just works. This was the case for me with Daniel Mason’s new book Country People.

The story is told from the point of view of Miles, forty-something, a man who has never quite finished his PhD, which is something to do with Tolstoy, but keeps shifting its focus. When his wife Kate is offered a visiting professorship at a college in Vermont, the idea is this will be the perfect opportunity to complete that dissertation. So they pack up the kids (Wesley and Olive) and their dog Giuseppe, which is the kind bred for truffle digging, and leave California.

The story follows their time in Vermont, through the seasons, as Miles finds endless distractions and slowly builds a sense of community. Kate, a warm-hearted and engaging teacher soon makes friends among her colleagues. But she worries about Miles, who is charming and can strike up a conversation with anyone, but seems a bit lonely. She never seems frustrated at his failure to complete his studies, or build a career, which might upset other spouses.

A colleague of Kate’s suggests he visit her husband, who has an orchard and who shows Miles how to scythe a field, which he can justify as research – Tolstoy’s peasants scythed. He helps out with the school production of a Shakespearean play directed by a flirty young thespian and meets a random collection of odd characters who are committed to discovering a hidden world. But none of these people are the kinds of people he imagines Kate would approve of, so he finds himself keeping secrets from her.

Seventeen miles away, at a gas station, they found themselves in a land of culinary abundance. What exotic flavours! What strange delectations! Raised in the land of the unprocessed and organic, attending public schools that maintained their own gardens, never had the children tasted of the Slurpee, the Twinkie, or the Pepperoni Pizza Cracker. Pringles they knew, but only at a distance. The friendly werewolf smiling on the chicken-flavoured puffs was still a stranger. Could they guess the central ingredient of the Corn Nut? Who was this Sara Lee of such extraordinary industry? Or “Slim Jim,” and why were his meat sticks packaged in the same colour scheme as Pennzoil?

One thing I really liked about the book was that in spite of some of their odd ideas, all the characters are kind. Miles and his family are all good sorts too, which makes a welcome change as often contemporary fiction is peppered with characters who have issues, who rage or who are just unpleasant. But here the author, like Miles, seems to find the good in everyone and yet still make them really interesting. And when disaster strikes, they all come together when they need to.

The other thing I really enjoyed was the way you read through the seasons and the setting changes to suit that, along with the local activities. Swimming in the river, autumn harvesting to skiing lessons and everything in between. It kind of meanders a little, but in an enjoyable way, and is never boring, before building up to a brilliant conclusion. Maybe this is also because Miles is good company, and that Mason is such a witty writer. All in all, this was a great read, and a new author for that must-read list. Country People is a five-star read from me.

Book Review: My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor – terror and courage in German occupied Rome

~ Judith ~ 3 Comments

My Father’s House has been on my radar since it was short-listed for the Walter Scott Prize. With a second book in the trilogy already out (The Ghosts of Rome) and the third (The City of Echoes) due early next year, it was high time to pick it up. I was fascinated by the story of the daring escapades of the Escape Line, the underground network of unlikely comrades, knowns as The Choir, who worked to get Allied escaped prisoners, diplomats and refugees out of Rome during the German occupation. But also just as interesting were the characters of those involved, in particular, the Vatican priest who led their mission.

The occupation began in September of 1943 led by Gestapo chief, Obersturmbannfüher Paul Hauptmann, who is under pressure from Himmler to get results. It doesn’t take long for him to notice that one particular priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, gets about a lot and has some interesting friends. Among them singer and the Irish diplomat Delia Kiernan, Jo Landini a countess, and Sir D’Arcy Osborne, a British envoy to the Vatican. It’s fascinating that the Vatican City was a safe haven, a tiny, neutral and independent state within Rome. This made it a kind of bolt-hole when a bombed and terrorised Rome became unsafe for so many escapees.

The book opens with Delia driving through the night to get one of The Choir, Major Sam Derry, to hospital when he falls dangerously ill with appendicitis. He’s dressed in a Nazi uniform, the car is struggling and there’s a curfew on. So plenty to ramp up the tension. Derry is an important cog in the wheel of their work, as an important mission looms – the Rendimento. Money accumulated by the group needs to be dispersed among the safe houses around Rome to get the escapees out before an expected clamp-down by Hauptmann in the new year. Dated for Christmas Eve, there’s an expectation that German forces will be a little thin on the ground, so a good time for the plan.

Presently Ugo would call the group to order and play the keynote on a harmonica. As the singing began, which usually happened ten or fifteen minutes after the last of us had arrived, sometimes white-faced and breathless, up the haunted steps, his practice was to systematically make his way around the table, from one of us to another, talking in whispers or showing scribbled notes on lavatory paper, which he would tear up and burn in the stove when we had memorised them. Rome was of course a nest of spies in those months; Hauptmann’s Gestapo had planted microphones widely. It was common knowledge that they had taken over the telephone exchange, that every operator was now an SS agent, every call monitored, every meeting of more than six people covertly photographed. A secured radio transmitter at Nazi Headquarters in the fashionable hotel neighbourhood had a direct channel to Hitler’s lair, the Berghof at Obersalszberg.

With Derry ill, Hugh is anxious to find a replacement for the Rendimento, and this becomes a part of the plot, leading up to the night itself. But the story is told in an unusual way, swapping between the characters of The Choir and even a bit with Hauptmann himself. Some of these appear as transcripts from BBC interviews, parts of a memoir, as well as regular narrative. It keeps things interesting and also gives insight into the lives and characters of the key players.

I also really enjoyed the dialogue. Hugh, a big-hearted man, can be blunt and witty, Delia has the charm of the Irish, D’Arcy the languid insolence of someone of his class. Then there’s the Italian candle-seller, Enzo Angelucci, who knows Rome as well as anybody and has the passion of a man whose city is under siege. Hauptmann himself is well-imagined – a ruthless narcissist – but with an ability to shake off the horrors of his day by vanishing to his bolt-hole, a lakeside house in woodland, dreaming of catching his priest.

While Joseph O’Connor admits in his author’s note that this is a novel and that he has fictionalised much of what happens to suit the story, you can tell he’s done a heap of research and knows his subject well. You get an authentic feel of what Rome was like, its cobbled streets and dark alleyways, the bomb craters and riverside. While we get a satisfying ending – a glimpse of The Choir two decades later with a This Is Your Life TV episode – there’s still a way to go with the war. So plenty more work for the Escape Line. I will very much look forward to the next two books.

My Father’s House handily suited one of the tasks in the 52 Book Club challenge – a book “inspired by the top-grossing movie the year you were born”. For me this was Spartacus (yes, I know that’s a long time ago), similarly set in Rome and also with rebels and fugitives. The book was the perfect choice for me – and a terrific five-star read.

Book Review: The Newer World by Sebastian Barry – life beyond the American Civil War for a man born into slavery

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Sebastian Barry is one of those writers who can create such perfect sentences you pause in your need to find out what happens next just to enjoy them again. So I was happy to throw my hat in the ring for his new book, The Newer World, when it was offered on Netgalley.

The story kind of follows on from Barry’s earlier books set in America around the time of the Civil War (Days Without End and A Thousand Moons). Characters from those books cross paths with our main character in this one – Tennyson Bouguereau, a man born into slavery. We’re in rural Tennessee, where Tennyson grows up with his twin sister Rosalee, losing his parents in one act of brutality after another. The Civil War and the end of slavery brings hope of freedom, but there are many in the area who supported the Confederate cause and don’t see the freed slaves as anymore deserving of a decent life than before.

The farm where Tennyson and Rosalee work is owned by the Magan family, who only just make a living from their land. But at least they are more kindly than other landowners. Luther Magan even allows the children to be educated and passes on a patch of land to the twins when he dies. His son Elija (Lige) however signs up for the Union during the war, which marks the Magans out among their neighbours. The war seems to bring out the worst in them, and when Tennyson defends the Magans property and his new friends (Lige has opened his home to Cole, McNulty and Winona, from the earlier books), he must leave abruptly, or risk being lynched.

So begins a tale of new beginnings and abrupt departures as Tennyson attempts to make a life for himself. A sympathetic lawyer named Briscoe helps him on his way and Tennyson makes the journey to Nashville where his singing voice lands him an opportunity to join a touring choir. A new friend, George, helps him adapt to his new life. As a reader you realise how basic a slave’s life could be as Tennyson learns about cleanliness and to dress in a suit, his old rags thrown away.

Still, it seems that whatever Tennyson learns and however much he adapts, freedom doesn’t equal acceptance in a white dominated society, and danger and injustice hover around him. But you can’t help feeling hopeful, particularly when he falls in love and is appreciated for his singing voice. Nothing is plain sailing, though, and Tennyson must make a terrible choice, between love and the obligations of friendship.

Barry does an amazing job of recreating the period and the people, his main character feels truly authentic and his struggles really tug on your heart. He’s also a witness to an America putting its colonial stamp on its land which is truly illuminating. For all he endures, he’s a survivor and by the end of the book, you can’t help but feel that there might be another story for Tennyson, and another book. I’d certainly be keen to see how his story continues. Another masterly work from Sebastian Barry, The Newer World is a five-star read from me.

The Newer World can certainly be read as a stand-alone novel and is due for publication on 10 September. With thanks to Netgalley and Faber & Faber, in return for an honest review.

Book Review: The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean – a novel about life in a Scottish town on the brink of change

~ Judith ~ 4 Comments

This book could almost be titled Love in the Time of Cholera, or possibly The Book Group if those titles hadn’t already been taken. The Cromarty Library Circle takes us to 1830 and a small coastal town in the north of Scotland, where a group of its more genteel citizens decide to start a small library, a kind of book group where each member chooses a book. These are purchased, read and passed on to the next in the circle, which also meets regularly to discuss them.

I must say I quite like the idea of this kind of book group. The circle includes the minister, Alasdair Mackay and his younger wife Rachel; the local gentry, Sir William Mackenzie, also with a younger wife, Charlotte, who is a friend of Rachel’s. There’s Janet Cameron, the hotelkeeper, and her bank-teller son Ludovic, and the spinster sisters Elspeth and Anna Rose. There’s a quaint old antiquarian and a young romantic-minded schoolteacher. The Hossacks, representing new money, are the owners of the rope works.

The story follows the problematic marriages of the Mackays, which is mostly happy, and the Mackenzies, which isn’t. We’ve got the predatory Farquhar Hossack, a thorough ne’er do well, and also medical student, making life uncomfortable for Ludovic, whom he’s bullied since childhood, and Ludovic’s sister, a young black girl brought back from a sugar plantation by Sir William. In the background, an abolitionist bill is slowly making its way through parliament, and this drives some dire predictions around future prosperity by those who have made their fortunes on the back of slavery.

Ludovic is friends with John, the schoolteacher, and Stanislaus, the clockmaker’s apprentice. Stan’s a refugee from Poland following the Russian quashing of an uprising, a former count now making his home in Cromarty. I enjoyed their discussions about the wider world – Ludovic dreaming of America, Stan dreaming of home, while John mostly seems to dream about the fine-looking ladies of the library circle.

‘But why are you not there?’
Despite the young man’s great intelligence, James often had to remind himself that Stanislas had much to learn about life in a Scottish town. He laughed. ‘Me? Because I am neither great nor good. And there are amongst the chosen ones a goodly few whose memories stretch back forty years and are not inclined to forgive what they have been so careful not to forget.’ What they would neither forgive nor forget was James’s youthful enthusiasm for the French and their revolution that had, in his younger days, drawn him to Paris itself.
‘But you have read more than those people. You have read more than anyone in this town.’
James took out his eyeglass and pointed it at Stanislas. ‘Not quite, Stan. Miller, the stonemason, has read more than anyone else in this town, and I can assure you, they haven’t invited him to join their number either.

The story is charming in its portrayal of these characters, all brought to life in a believable way, with their worries and foibles. But the issue of wealth from plantations worked by slaves casts a dark shadow. Also in the background there’s the emigration ships, preparing to take people to Canada and beyond. These are people who have lost their crofts due to the land enclosures – sheep replacing small-scale farming. Also in the harbour are the quarantine ships – an attempt to stem the spread of cholera which has been slowly creeping up the British Isles.

I loved these characters, their stories each coming to dramatic points throughout the book in a more than satisfying way. The stranglehold on people’s lives by duty and a strict social hierarchy, which I kind of expected. And also the power of the minister and his barbed comments about behaviour from the pulpit, which I hadn’t. But I’m also impressed by MacLean’s dept of research into the politics and concerns of the time which adds depth to the novel and creates an interesting world.

There is both joy and sadness in the story, and the feeling that while our characters have been through a lot by the end of the book, they have much more to face. But perhaps they are finally strong enough to weather the storms coming. The Cromarty Library Circle is a terrific historical novel and a five star read from me.

Book Review: This Is Happiness by Niall Williams – a coming of age story set when electricity comes to a small Irish town

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been reading these Faha novels out of order, but as we follow different but connected characters from this small Irish town in the middle of last century, it doesn’t seem to matter. Having read Time of the Child and loved it enormously, I picked up This Is Happiness, which I’d attempted once before. It had been a little slow and I didn’t have the patience for it at the time. Niall Williams has a very rich, unhurried and idiosyncratically Irish writing style that you have to take your time with it. But once you do, it’s rewarding and immensely entertaining reading.

The story begins with Noel, or Noe as his family call him, a seventeen-year-old who has just abandoned his studies to be a priest. He doesn’t return home to his father’s quiet house in Dublin, but decamps for his grandparents home on the outskirts of Faha, a backwater in County Clare. His grandparents, Ganga and Doady, live in a simple cottage that hasn’t caught up with technology or modern comforts, apart from the fact they have a telephone. It is because of the phone that Christy, a man working for the company soon to install electricity in Faha, asks if the elderly couple can give him room and board.

And so begins an unusual friendship between Christy and Noe. Christy is a terrific character, a striking man in his sixties with a white beard, a blue linen suit and no inhibitions, it would seem. He has worked all over the world and has lots of stories, but is very kind too, gentle with the old people and indulgent of Noe. The two strike out by bicycle in the evenings in search of music, and Christy regales Noe of how his life has one lingering regret, one that involves the widow of the Faha chemist.

Romantic inclinations also shape Noe’s story, in particular his admiration for the doctor’s three elegant daughters, although he receives little encouragement either from the girls or their buttoned-up father. The two romantics, young and old resort to various madcap plans to win the objects of their desire, which gives the story tension and humour. There’s heartbreak too, and Noe learns a few lessons, while in the background the work on the delivery of power goes on .

Christy was considerably shorter than me, but in deference to his bulk or age took Ganga’s taller bicycle and I the smaller one of Doady. There were bicycle clips somewhere, if only they could be found. Your right sock did emergency duty and was the better for being black and taking the streaks of oil without comment. See us then, a mismatched little and large, pedalling uncertainly out the yard.
The lamps on the bicycles had long since conked out. The small ambit in which my grandparents lived made them redundant, but less so for us, and we met each bump and pothole and progressed into the falling night by jolt and glide.

The writing is very descriptive, Williams capturing every sensation and immersing the reader in Noe’s world. The rain, which seems to be a continual presence in this part of Ireland, suddenly gives way to an unseasonably warm spring, bringing everyone out of doors to experience the sunshine. In 1950s Faha, we see a dying way of life as electricity is set to bring change. While this promises comfort and opportunity, the reader can’t help feel a touch of nostalgia for the old ways.

This was such a charming book, I found myself once again chuckling as I read, or reading sentences aloud to anyone who would listen, because Williams has such a lovely way with words. I am glad there’s a new book in the Faha series to look forward to – O Now! comes out in October. This Is Happiness is a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Bone Lands by Pip Fioretti – first in an Outback Noir series and a cracking good story

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Pip Fioretti writes a kind of genre blending crime novel with Bone Lands, which combines everything that we love about Outback Noir – the big skies and harsh, dry landscapes, the Aussie battlers who live there – with a hardboiled policeman and puts it all in the historical setting of 1911. And as a character, mounted trooper Senior Constable Gus Hawkins has a lot going for him. He’s complex in that he’s well-educated and sounds it, with several tours in the Boer War behind him which have left him with both mental and physical scars. He’s smart and resourceful, but that old PTSD means he drinks too much and gets into fights.

But then, everyone here seems to get into fights, well, just about. It’s a hardscrabble existence out in the back-blocks of New South Wales. Hawkins’ little town of Calpa is a ‘blink and you miss it’ kind of place, with a pub, a post-office, the police station and not a lot else. It’s a one-man station, with tasks often concerned with managing unrest – there’s not a lot to do in Calpa but drink your wages away – local admin like gun permits and the like. But riding home from monitoring behaviour at a dance honouring the King’s coronation, Hawkins comes across a serious crime – three young members of the same family brutally murdered.

The Kirkbride family are well-off landowners, running a huge sheep station, and not well liked in this haves and have-nots kind of place. With the endless work required to make money from wool, they have a huge labour force of hardened men of the land. Life is cheap and violence comes easy. But when the violence is against their own, the grim landowner and patriarch Robert Kirkbride is oddly reluctant to have Hawkins nosing around too much, preferring to believe in the ‘robbery gone wrong’ theory. It doesn’t help that Gus has had a romantic connection with the remaining daughter, Flora.

It was a six-hour ride upriver to Bourke. In summer it was a bastard of a ride, one I preferred to do at night if I had a choice. The thing to do was carry a tin of Josephson’s Australian Ointment. Buckskin breeches were made so you didn’t chafe, but six or more hours in the saddle on a hot day and everything chafed, from balls to brain. The glare was blinding but our official hat was a jaunty pillbox affair, which would be just the thing for a Parisian gendarme but was ridiculous out here. I shoved it in a saddlebag and wore a cabbage-tree hat like every other man in the bush.
The sun was on its way across a vast blue sky, a westerly wind blowing. I noticed a shape ahead in the distance, moving slowly. Dancer stopped at the sight of it. He didn’t like things that moved, nor did he like things that didn’t move. So there we were, his ears pricked forward, completely still, every muscle tensed and ready to flee.
‘How’d you get into the police force, mate?’ I said, stroking his neck. ‘Bribed someone, eh?’

But Gus is determined to find out what happened. These were his friends and he wants to bring some closure for Flora, too, who has become unhinged by the deaths of her siblings. It doesn’t help when two detectives arrive from Sydney with their own way of doing things, but none of the nous for dealing with the locality or shifty farm labourers. If conflict is the linch pin of a good story, then this one has it in spades. You can’t help but feel for Gus, even if he is, quite often, his own worst enemy.

Other characters are interesting too, particularly in relation to Gus. His initial dislike of Trooper Lonergan, a somewhat wet behind the ears type, sent from Bourke to manage the station while Gus looks after the detectives, mellows into friendship. Other characters are lightly drawn but the author captures their essentials in a way that makes them immediate. The few female characters – this really is a man’s world – have to manage as best they can, and we can’t help but sympathise over how they’re treated. The plot steams along towards some surprising revelations to make for a very satisfying mystery.

Bone Lands is atmospheric and absorbing, with sentences that are nicely honed and laced with wit, making Gus Hawkins good company. It’s a great start to a series – there’s already a second book (Skull River) with another due out next year, which is good news. Bone Lands is a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Buckeye by Patrick Ryan – a sweeping and emotional historical read

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

Patrick Ryan’s novel, Buckeye, haunted me for days after I finished it. The story takes us to the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio, starting off during World War II. We follow the lives of two couples, Becky and Cal Jenkins, and Margaret and Felix Salt, through the events of the war, and on to the lives of their children. Events of the twentieth century, wars certainly, but social changes too disturb their lives, but nothing compares to how they deal with events themselves.

All four of them have something that makes them different. Cal has one leg shorter than the other. This exempts him from military service, so he drifts into marriage with Becky, who has a gift. She can communicate with the dead. Astonishingly beautiful Margaret hides the secret of being abandoned as a baby at an orphanage, while Felix, who is gay, tries to lead a conventional life with her. The war shakes them all up, well and truely.

The story begins on the day victory is declared in Europe (VE Day), 1945, with a young Cal working in his father-in-law’s hardware store. He’s interrupted by the arrival of Margaret who has to know what all the commotion is all about and asks if Cal has a radio. They listen to the news together and exchange an unexpected kiss. From there we dip back into the past to discover Cal’s story and Margaret’s, each of which is tragic in its own way.

When he read, heard, and watched the news, he wondered how many people were out there doing the same thing he was—scratching their heads as they tried to figure out how to prioritize their worries and confront their prejudices; drawing their own maps with their fingers crossed.

Cal’s father Everett lives out of town, traumatised by a previous war as well as the loss of two children and his wife to illness, becoming irascible and a hoarder. I really enjoyed the character of Everett, particularly the way he writes angry letters to whichever president is in office at the time. His war service has made him fiercely against war and this theme recurs during the book as more wars upend people’s lives.

Margaret is an interesting character in that she never reveals anything about her upbringing, determined to appear ordinary – if only she knew what that looked like. And it’s hard to quietly figure that out when everyone, particularly men, see nothing but her stunning good looks. So she has secrets from Felix, who likewise hopes for a normal family life. If only the war hadn’t got in the way, he might have kept up the pretence.

Cal keeps on trying to make the best of things, dealing with a demanding father-in-law, as well as his own difficult father, who never shows him any affection. He struggles to understand his wife’s talent which puts her in demand for readings with people who have lost loved ones, some from WWI, and more when the next war rolls along. The complications of children put the characters through even more, with more secrets, but also possibilities.

Therein, she thought, lies the unbearable solitude of a lie: you’re alone when you tell it, alone when you live it, alone when you try to dismantle it.

Like many who lived through the twentieth century, the characters of Buckeye have had their lives overturned by world events. There’s trauma and the tragic losses incurred by war. The prosperous post-war period that imagined a bright future for people but with that a restrictive social order. The changing times with the Civil Rights movement, while gay rights and feminism also get a look in.

It all adds up to a gripping read and an emotional one, certainly enhanced by characters you sympathise with. And then there’s the fine writing. I shall certainly be looking out for more by this author. Buckeye is a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Tata by Valérie Perrin – an evocative story with a complex web of family secrets

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Valérie Perrin is well-known for her bestseller, Fresh Water for Flowers, a book that’s been on my to-read list for a little while. So when Tata popped up on Netgalley, I grabbed the chance to read it. And I’m so glad I did. Tata (which means Auntie) is such an engrossing story, bringing us into the world of Agnès Dugain, a film director who has been unable to work since her actor husband left her. A phone call out of the blue from a small town in Burgundy informs her that her beloved Aunt Colette has died. Which would be sad news, indeed, except Agnès believes her aunt was buried in the Gueugnon cemetery three years ago.

It soon transpires that Colette lived quietly in a secluded house for the last three years, carrying a secret. Agnès leaves Paris to view the body and to discover anything she can about her aunt’s final years to solve the mystery of who is buried in her aunt’s place. The story flips back to the 1950s and the farm where Colette grew up with her little brother, Jean. There’s not much parental love, and the children are expected to work, rather than further their education. But, in spite of this, Jean is discovered to be a musical prodigy.

Colette will do anything to protect Jean, but fortunately there’s help from Blaise, both her friend and the landowner’s son from the chateau, where there’s a magnificent piano. We learn of her apprenticeship to a cobbler in the town, and where Colette finds a niche and some happiness. Meanwhile, Agnès receives from Colette’s good friend and co-conspirator a suitcase full of cassette tapes and so listens to her aunt’s story in her own words.

There are numerous plot threads, and more secrets are slowly revealed. We’re taken to Gueugnon in the 1960s, and its football team, back further to events of the war and its legacy. You read about Agnès’s own career and how she met her famous actor husband. As she looks into the past, Agnès is forced out of the slump that has taken over her since her divorce and reconnects with old friends and makes new ones. She starts to think about a new story.

Throughout are numerous cultural references, including the movies that have inspired Agnès, the music of her father, the popular fashions and songs that evolved over time. I loved coming across film titles of movies I’d also loved, such as La Double Vie de Véronique, The Piano, and Un Coeur en Hiver, which I remember from a film festival. There are scenes in cafés, although Agnès doesn’t often have any appetite, but others eat and we’re treated to that as well. But at heart it’s a story about what we will do to protect the people we love, about friendship and the ties that make us a family. It’s heartbreaking – there are cruel characters as well as terrible historical events – but it’s also hopeful, charmingy written and full of wit.

Tata seemed to me a quintessentially French novel, and while I knew nothing of this particular small town, it was easy to imagine the stone houses, the narrow streets, the little shops and cafés. And the style of storytelling seems very French as well. I loved it. I could happily have started back at page one and read it all again. Tata is due for publication on 23 June, and I read it thanks to Netgalley and Europa Editions. It’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Love Lane by Patrick Gale – part two in the Harry Cane story

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

Patrick Gale has long been a favourite author of mine, so of course I’d read A Place Called Winter when it came out in 2015. I’m pretty sure it was one of my top reads for that year. Its story was inspired by the life of the author’s own great-grandfather, a man who had left his wife and young daughter to become a farmer in the Canadian prairies. The novel, set in the early part of the 20th century, describes a secret love, the effects of the Great War and following flu epidemic on its characters, as well as the difficulties of building a life out of nothing. It’s both fascinating and moving and like all Patrick Gale’s novels, beautifully written

In Love Lane, Gale picks up Harry Cane’s story when he sells his farm and makes a visit to his long lost family in England. A kind of mythology has grown up around Harry, known as Cowboy Grandpa, his grandchildren imagining an ageing Gary Cooper. And it isn’t surprising as no one has seen him for most of half a century. His daughter Betty has been brought up by a grandmother and a bunch of formidable aunts – her mother having died when she was twelve. As a young woman engaged to Terry, she feels the urge to write to Harry out of the blue. Terry has asked about Harry and getting married seems the right time to get in touch.

So begins a correspondence that doesn’t result in a visit from either side until Harry sells his farm and, wheat prices being down, has to accept a low offer. He turns up at the Liverpool docks, a shabby elderly man with few teeth and wearing a string tie. At first Betty doesn’t know what to do with him, Terry has a stressful job as a prison governor, but she determines to look after her father. Her flighty daughter Whistle takes a shine to him and so does the dog. There’s also something about Harry which makes women want to talk to him about their problems.

Harry had never gone so long without fresh air, walking the turbulent corridors, from the acid stink of his little, wood-veneered cabin to the bottomless, empty talk of the dining room to the echoing whoops of the bar and – now that he knew the way – down the service staircase to the cosy snug on the deck below. He was having, or listening in on, conversations that left him as dizzy as an inexperienced climber on a mountainside. It gave him the curious sense that – in transit from a young world to an older one – he had stumbled onto yet another, that was altogether older and wiser than either. By the time they had passed Ireland and were nosing into the mouth of the Mersey on a dazzling April morning, he was left with the slightly panicky feeling of someone worrying they’d bought a ticket to quite the wrong place.

The story flips between the points of view of Harry and Betty, as well as Terry, whose prison is one where executions are still performed, something which is hugely stressful. Harry goes on to stay with Pip, their elder daughter, so we get her narration as well. She’s married to Mike, also in the prison service and a man with secrets. Harry is, as ever, perceptive and inspires confidences.

The author does a terrific job of capturing post-war England, still with rationing, and even though both Mike and Terry have important jobs, there’s not a lot to spare. Women of their class didn’t work after marriage, and we get a lot of societal expectations in the 1950s on wives and young mothers in a patriarchal system. It was also a difficult time to be gay, with men outed for homosexual acts given stints in Terry’s prison, among them the tailor he brings Harry to for a new suit and shirts.

But best of all are the characters. Gale has done plenty of research on the one hand, but has had a wealth of letters and diaries, as well, no doubt, as his own memories of old family stories to sift through to inspire the novel. You get to know the characters and really empathise with them, which is something I always like about any of Gale’s books, he’s such a perceptive writer, perhaps having something of his own great-grandfather’s gift.

You can read Love Lane as a stand-alone novel, but I would really also recommend starting with A Place Called Winter, which I recall as a beautifully intense and emotional read. Love Lane is a welcome return to Harry’s story, and a four-and-a-half star read from me.