Tag: relationships

Book Review: All Day at the Movies by Fiona Kidman – a carefully observed story of siblings through the decades

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

In All Day at the Movies, Fiona Kidman has devised the perfect protagonist to chronicle the story of a family amid the wider social changes of her time. Belinda is a film-maker, known for her sharp eye for detail. Her story is a struggle for survival, for love and for a career, but it’s also one of those sins of the father’s stories too. The events around her arrival in the world are horrific and tragic.

Kidman takes us back to the post-war years, with war-widow Irene, striking out for a new beginning in an attempt to provide a better life for her young daughter, Jessie. Leaving Wellington and the industrial dispute that has put her father off work and caused unbearable tension at home, the two have settled on the tobacco-growing town of Motueka. They have basic housing, a kind of worker’s shack, while Irene does hard physical toil in the fields. Kidman highlights the lack of choices open to Irene, a former librarian, who settles for marriage to the creepy foreman, Jock Pawson.

“There was that girl Iris who wrote books and had babies when she wasn’t married and her life was just all sorrow, mental hospitals and … but her mother couldn’t bring herself to say the word suicide. In the end, dead, anyway. Irene’s mother had known Mrs Wilkinson, the mother of Iris, although she called herself something else, and it had been a terrible thing for her to have to lose a daughter to books. And, Irene’s mother had said, she hoped that Irene wasn’t thinking of writing books. It brought disgrace on a family.”

The story flips forward through the decades, each chapter like a short story in the chronicles of the Pawsons. We’re with young Belinda after her mother’s death and her banishment to live with a grim, sanctimonious aunt, her younger siblings, Grant and Janice left to the mercies of an unloving stepmother and a predatory father. The three siblings each take a turn with the narrative, as they try to make their way in life.

And in spite of an unplanned pregnancy, Belinda finds both love and a career, although there is still much that troubles her. We are in the midst of social change in New Zealand, with events around social justice and women’s rights a part of the wider story. As Belinda attempts to be a good wife and mother to her children, while building a career – thank God for dependable Seth at home – what has become of Janice and Grant?

They’re all walking some dark path, Belinda thinks. The marches have brought out the best and the worst in them all. ‘Are we really marching because black people in South Africa are oppressed by white people?’ she asks Nick. ‘Or are we doing it for ourselves because we have stuff and things and good lives and we feel bad about it?’

Belinda is an interesting character – one of the era when women were encouraged to ‘have it all’, but this also means being pulled in so many directions at once. Grant also seems set on a path that will see him succeed in life, if he can get past the terrible events of his upbringing. He has ambitions of becoming a pilot, and there’s a brilliant scene with four fairly refined elderly women having lunch, and the dramatic effects their actions that day have on Grant’s life to come. Meanwhile Janice seems to have one struggle after another. All three seem to belong to such different worlds – can they ever reconnect?

Fiona Kidman writes with such honesty and naturalness, you are brought into the lives of these characters in a way that seems very real, and so the tragic events that happen hit hard. But there is a wry humour too as she shows the foibles of people, their awkward interactions, their obsessions.

All Day at the Movies is just one novel among a long list of novels that have made Fiona Kidman a household name in New Zealand. As well as a winner of many literary prizes, she’s now Dame Fiona Kidman, and even the recipient of the French Legion of Honour. This book may seem just the story of a family, but probably only Fiona Kidman could write a book like this. Like Belinda she has that telling eye for the detail that captures so much more. It’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng – an enthralling novel about love, duty and writerly inspiration

~ Judith ~ 3 Comments

This book was long-listed for last year’s Booker Prize, but it was the imagining of the life of W Somerset Maugham that caught my eye. At one time Maugham was a prolific and hugely successful author, often setting his books in the exotic locations he visited. The stories are peppered with unhappy marriages and scandals, and here he probably drew on his own experiences. Dozens of movies have been based on the stories, the latest I have come across being The Painted Veil starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts (2006).

His light may have faded in the last few decades, but Tan Twan Eng has brought Maugham to life again as one of two main characters in The House of Doors, set largely in Penang, Malaysia. It’s 1921 and Lesley, the wife of Robert Hamlyn, an old friend of the writer’s, is reluctantly hosting Maugham and his secretary/lover Gerald for an extended stay. Maugham, or Willie, as he’s called here, is at the height of his popularity, but poor investments have left him in a tight spot and desperate for material for new stories. Over the days that follow, Lesley reveals her own story from a decade before.

Lesley’s story takes us back to a visit by Sun Yat Sen, Chinese revolutionary and leader of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), in Penang to raise funds to overthrow a despotic Chinese dynasty. Lesley gets caught up in the cause, a distraction from problems with her marriage. In the meantime her best friend Ethel Proudlock has been charged with murder for shooting an expat engineer. Both stories suggest an uncomfortable relationship between men and women, as well as between the British rule with its wider expat community and the local Chinese and indigenous populations. (The Proudlock affair inspired Maugham’s story “The Letter”, which was made into a movie starring Bette Davis.)

Lesley is an interesting character as being born and raised in Penang she speaks one or two local languages and makes an effort to understand both worlds. So she’s the best person to show Maugham around, but takes a while to warm to the writer, feeling a little unhappy with him when she makes sense of his relationship with handsome and somewhat dissipated young Gerald. With Maugham you have insight into the mind of a writer, a man with his own share of disillusionment and regret.

The silence around us, the very weave of the night itself, felt denser. Even the waves outside, fraying away the margins of land since the beginning of the world, seemed to have stilled into stone. In the hallway the weighted heart of the grandfather clock went on beating, as indifferent as an aged monk thumbing his prayer beads on their long and infinite loop.
‘Where does a story begin, Willie?’ I asked.
For a while he did not say anything. Then he shifted in his chair. ‘Where does a wave on the ocean begin?’ he said. ‘Where does it form a welt on the skin of the sea, to swell and expand and rush towards the shore?’
‘I want to tell you a story, Willie,’ I said. Yes, I thought to myself. Tell him your story. Let him write it. Let the whole world know.
The music I had just played seemed to go on unspooling in the air between us, this song that had no beginning and no ending; the song of time itself.

The novel is a story within a story, bookended again by Lesley receiving a parcel in Africa many years later. You get a sense of a carefully constructed narrative and it all works beautifully, keeping the reader guessing and enthralled. Tan Twan Eng creates a superbly atmospheric setting enhanced by gorgeous writing. There’s a love story here, more than one perhaps, but it is also an ode to Penang in the way the characters experience the lush tropical setting, the sea that seems to brim with a life of its own, the history and culture.

The House of Doors is a beautiful novel, and at only 300 pages, carries a lot of story for its word-count. It’s quite an emotional read too – love and regret, nostalgia for a place and times past. So it really packs a wallop. I loved it and want to read everything by this author, though I see I shall have to be patient as this is only his third book – his first The Gift of Rain coming out in 2007, with a big gap between his second book, The Garden of Evening Mists from 2011 and The House of Doors, from last year. Whatever the wait, it will be worth it, I’m sure. This one’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Lessons by Ian McEwan – an epic read in more ways than one

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

Ian McEwan is usually a reliable author, one I’ve turned to before anticipating a satisfying and intelligent read. And that’s pretty much what you get with Lessons. The story follows Roland Baines from his childhood and delivery to an unusual boarding school – we’re in the late 1950s – through his schooling and into adulthood, and on to the present day. Critical to his story are the lessons he has at school with a predatory and obsessive piano teacher.

Rolande’s experiences, the grooming and sexual predation by Miriam Cornell, have an ongoing effect on his life. At first the story weaves these scenes from school with a police enquiry into the disappearance of Rolande’s wife Alissa in the 1980s. She has left a note and sent postcards from Europe, so there’s no obvious reason to suspect foul play, but DI Browne wants to be sure. Roland has been left holding the baby, literally, seven-month-old Lawrence.

The story meanders through the years bringing the past up to the time of Alissa’s vanishing and beyond and along with Roland’s story we have key moments of recent history. There’s the Cuba Missile Crisis, which is what sends Roland into a spin, cycling towards danger and Miss Cornell. There’s the fall of the Berlin Wall, another key factor in Roland’s life, the rise of New Labour and much more. Roland is a political animal and there are groups of friends around the dinner table, and lively discussions.

Throughout, Roland considers the effects of broader events in history on his path through life. It is obvious that Roland had potential to have a solid career in something, possibly even as a concert pianist. But failing at school and then bringing up a child on his own have led to a working life that is a cobbling together of hotel piano playing, occasional journalism, and tennis coaching. He’s also a terrific dad. He has relationships with other women but most of them don’t stick. Has he been ruined emotionally by Miss Cornell?

Against his chest he felt the baby’s heartbeat, just under twice the rate of his own. Their pulses fell in and out of phase, but one day they would be always out. They would never be this close. He would know him less well, then even less. Others would know Lawrence better than he did, where he was, what he was doing and saying, growing closer to this friend, then this lover. Crying sometimes, alone. From his father, occasional visits, a sincere hug, catch up on work, family, some politics, then goodbye. Until then, he knew everything about him, where he was in every minute, in every place. He was the baby’s bed and his god. The long letting go could be the essence of parenthood and from here was impossible to conceive.

And yet all in all, Roland’s has been a good life. A life rich in people, experiences and love. He hasn’t been a big achiever; he’s had to be a parent, rather like the lives of many women. So there’s a feminist message here too – not only through Roland, but in the stories of Alissa, her mother and Roland’s mother too.

Roland’s a likeable protagonist, which is just as well as we are with him throughout all the things in life that trouble everyday people. What secrets have his parents kept all these years? How will a new government affect things? Or even, are we on the brink of another world war? The tiny things as well as the broader issues. It’s a novel full of wisdom, and the gaining of it, and I suppose these are also the lessons of the title.

For quite a way through I thought nobody, and certainly not Roland, was learning any lessons. He really does seem to bumble along, reacting to things, rather than making decisive steps in any direction. But he mostly gets there in the end and there are some memorable scenes. McEwan creates these beautifully. The scenes with Miss Cornell are somewhat creepy, but affecting.

While not especially long, it’s a monumental work, and I admire Lessons hugely, but somehow it felt at times rather a slog. I think this is down to the lengthy timescale of the book and also the way it lingers on life’s more difficult moments, of life slipping away, of our mortality. You can relate to this for sure, but you long for lightness and hope. In the end I was glad to have read Lessons, but certainly glad to finish it too. So it’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig – a cracking novel of rural England, the plight of the middle classes, with a mystery thrown in

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when you pick up a novel, you just instantly know you are in good hands. I felt like this about The Lie of the Land with its interesting premise – a couple desperate to divorce but can’t because they have no money. So they rent out their London house and find cheaper digs (together!) in the country with their children.

Stories where people ditch the city for the countryside for whatever reason have been around since the novel has, quite probably, or at least since Green Acres appeared on TV in the sixties. But there’s always fresh material to mine, particularly when you’ve got such complex characters as Quentin and Lottie Bredin. Quentin is older than Lottie and his career as a journalist has taken a dive – he’s rude and arrogant and has upset too many people. To make matters worse, Lottie has discovered he’s had several affairs, and all the while she’s been left to manage the home and her children.

Lottie was once an up-and-coming architect, and keeps her home like something out of House and Garden. Perhaps that is what makes her so difficult for Quentin to live with: her fastidiousness, her sharp tongue, plus her ongoing tiredness since the birth of their daughters – Rosie (6) and Stella (8). An opportunity to rent a farmhouse near Quentin’s parents in Devon ridiculously cheaply has them reluctantly leaving London and all its temptations behind.

The novel has a load of interesting plots woven together, with several main narrators. We’re with Lottie, angry and grieving over the way Quentin has treated her, while she tries to balance the books and economise. If they can stick it out for a year, they can clear their debts and sell the London house. This will pay for their divorce and leave enough capital to set up house separately.

Her daily walk includes a visit to the village shop, a Portakabin crouched in the church car park. The design makes her wince, but just to talk to another adult who doesn’t hate her is a relief.
 ’Home-made?’ she asks, pointing to pasties, keeping warm in front of the counter.
 ’Oh, yes. We don’t hold with Humbles.’
 ’It’s good that Shipcott still has a shop.’
 ’It doesn’t make a profit,’ the woman says, shyly. ‘We volunteer, though we all worry about being held up at gunpoint.’
 ’Do you really?’
 ’You’d be surprised. There’s crime here, my lovely, just like everywhere else. But how else are pensioners without cars going to get their food and money each week?’
 She has never known people like this, with their terrible teeth and terrible clothes and kindness. That’s what astonishes her most: the kindness.

We’ve also got Quentin, who can’t believe the nosedive his career has taken, but is still trying to keep in the swim while being a decent father. There’s Xan, Lottie’s eighteen-year-old son, desolate at missing out on a place at Cambridge and at the idea of his London life coming to a halt. Showing us the rural point of view, there’s Sally, a district health nurse with her own quiet grief.

While this seems to be mostly a novel of a marriage, there’s also a grim mystery with the hideous death of the previous tenant at Long Farm, an unsolved crime no one has told the Bredins about. You know you will find out the who and why of the crime by the end of the book, but in the meantime there’s so much character development, as rural life weaves its charm and throws up new challenges for the family.

We get plenty of insight into rural issues, particularly the struggles for farmers to make a living off the land in a competitive market-driven economy. The Polish immigrants that fill in doing unpleasant and exploitative work the locals avoid is evocatively depicted in scenes at Humbles Pie Factory where Xan picks up a casual job. Also the loss of a way of life, the closing of schools as people move away.

Then we’ve got a look at intergenerational relationships, particularly between Quentin and his dying father – the guilt, the disagreements and old scores. And about parenthood, both good and bad, as well as the redemptive power of music and literature. Quite a lot to think about then.

The writing sparkles with wit and vivid descriptions, and is polished and nuanced. You don’t have to like the characters, certainly not all the time – Craigs shows them warts and all – but you can’t complain they’re not interesting. Each finds themselves caught up in difficult dilemmas that give the story plenty of go. Meanwhile all the plates Craig keeps spinning are carefully balanced and then caught at the end for a cracking finish. I loved every minute of it and, although it’s not saying a lot – this being only February – The Lie of the Land is quite my favourite book of the year. A five star read from me.

Book Review: The Wakes by Dianne Yarwood – a thoughtful, contemporary read about life, death and catering

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So we’re back in ‘feel-good fiction’ territory with a novel mostly about Clare, whose husband has had a kind of conniption and decided to leave their marriage. She becomes unhinged by this and takes some long service leave, and this coincides with her meeting a new neighbour, Louisa, who has plans for a catering business centred on funerals. Clare is persuaded to help out – she’s always been a dab hand in the kitchen and her chicken sandwiches are to die for – ha, ha!

Louisa is a larger-than-life character – tall and funny as well as kind. She’s soon in and out of Clare’s kitchen when Clare needs a friend. An accident that has left her face bruised and her front teeth chipped has confined Clare to her home. We find out that Louisa’s bouncy, chatty manner hides a secret heartache.

The story flips to Chris and his own marriage break-up – a relationship that has turned sour when he and his wife found they were unable to conceive. He thinks back to his relationship with Beth when he was in London – was she his one great love? He determines to find out if she is still in Australia – he has a box of her things he’d like to return. Chris is also no stranger to death, being an ER doctor, and it is this that brings about his first meeting with Clare at the caterers’ very first wake.

Clare worked at a very fast pace. It wasn’t until people began streaming through the doors that Louisa admitted how uncomfortable she felt around crowds. Somehow, stupidly, she’d thought mourners would be different. Quieter, less of a strain on her sensibilities. But not so. The opposite, really – all those families. She disappeared into the kitchen as the room filled up. I’ll hold the fort in there, she said with a look of concern and apology. And so Clare moved around the room in something approaching a run: she hovered by groups, raced off to the kitchen, came back, checked on what people had, offered plates and darted off again.

The Wakes makes you aware of the idea that “in the midst of life we are in death” in that it is the passing of loved ones and the proximity of death that makes the characters feel aware of the wonders of life. That we only have one and we must seize the day. But there’s also a lot about the complexities of friendship. Chris’s great friend is Max, who is dying; there are other friends – particularly Paul, who was also in London during the Beth era.

Paul has his own chapters, too, and his role in the story is important as a catalyst for what happens. Paul’s a kind of counterpart for Louisa in that he’s always quick with the ready wit and can rattle off a vast selection of pop culture references at any given opportunity. But Paul’s life is an empty shell. We are not really supposed to like. him – he works in advertising – but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Chris, as an ER doctor, is obviously more worthy.

Perhaps it was these moral undertones that put me off the book a little. That and the funerals. It is difficult to balance the weight of grief with that of the hopeful resolutions that we wish for the characters. Sometimes it just got a bit too much. Or was it just that I liked the more light-hearted scenes better? Perhaps if I’d just lost someone dear to me, I’d have found the book more relatable. The Wakes is a three-star read from me.

Book Review: The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page – a big-hearted novel about letting go

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I’d forgotten why this book was on my list – probably a glowing review somewhere (thank-you, if that was you), but was soon ensconced in the story. I quickly discovered a novel packed with quirky characters and gentle humour – two key ingredients for a pleasant, feel-good read.

The Keeper of Stories takes us to the English university city of Cambridge, where Janice cleans people’s houses and discreetly collects people’s stories. This isn’t for any inclination towards blackmail; it’s just a kind of hobby. Many of these stories come from clients: the famous opera singer who has come from humble beginnings, charming but frail Carrie-Louise, and recently widowed Fiona and her boy Adam who are still grieving. Everyone knows Janice is the best cleaner in Cambridge, but not everything’s plain sailing.

For a start there’s her husband Mike, who is a serial job-quitter, never keeping the same employment for more than a month or two. To make things worse he always leaves on a sour note. He belittles Janice for her humble work even though it’s her earnings that keep a roof over their head, and his insistence on sending their son Simon to boarding school has caused a rift between mother and son.

When two of her more difficult clients, Mrs YeahYeahYeah and her husband Mr NoNoNotNow ask her to clean for the husband’s autocratic mother, Mrs P, it might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Janice. Yet she forms an unlikely alliance over stories with Mrs P. Catching the bus – Mike nearly always has the couple’s car – her attention is caught by one of the drivers who reminds her of a geography teacher.

“How many stories do you think that there are in the world? Seven? Eight? I can’t remember how many. I read in a magazine somewhere that there are only a certain number of stories ever told.”
  Mrs B sits quietly, watching her.
  Janice sighs. “You and I both know what’s coming, don’t we? It’s a predictable story. It has been played out in hovels and palaces around the world since the beginning of time. There are no new stories, Mrs. B.”
  “But this is your story, Janice, and I believe you need to tell it.”
  “Do I? Will it make any difference? I can’t change the ending.”
  “That’s where I think you’re wrong.”

Mrs P’s has determinedly unsettling ways, trading stories, including that of the scandalous Becky, a courtesan from Paris and her rise in society, in her attempts to hear Janice’s story. For we soon realise that Janice’s collecting of stories is her way of avoiding her own, a story that she feels is too dreadful to tell. Through all this, Mrs P also has a battle on her hands to stay in her university flat, while her son wants to throw her out. Janice is soon doing her bit to help.

There’s plenty of humour and whimsy in Janice’s interactions with her clients while the story builds in drama as it seems likely for Janice that change is in the air. This will not be without pain, but Janice has her friends to help her through, as well as Decius, the sweary dog that Janice walks for Mrs YeahYeahYeah, and who patently thinks Janice should be his owner.

We’re in classic ‘second chances’ territory here, and it all comes together nicely for a big-hearted read. The writing is witty enough to avoid being sentimental – often a danger with this type of book. Keen readers will enjoy the references to literature, while the characters are varied are and interesting. Look out for Page’s new novel, The Book of Beginnings, which will be out later this year. The Keeper of Stories is a four star read from me.

Book Review: Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas – a story of melancholy and nostalgia told through the senses

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I confess I had a couple of goes at this novel, which I’d heard such good things about. And it’s not as if it gets off to a slow start. I was soon swept up into the narrator’s story – a woman in her late thirties reminiscing about a relationship from over ten years before, and the man, Jude, whom she’s never quite forgotten.

I imagined some kind of reconciliation, a meeting of some kind. What would they say to each other? How would they feel about each other now? Would such a meeting rekindle old feelings? Would there be new revelations about what really happened?

But that’s not what happens. Thirst For Salt is a journey back to a year in the life of the narrator – do we ever learn her name? – viewed from the point of view of her older self. It’s a journey filled with nostalgia, melancholy and yearning.

Our narrator meets Jude at the beach where she and her mother have rented a cottage for a summer holiday. He’s an older man of 42, compared with the young woman’s 24. She swims a lot on her own and this attracts Jude’s concern – all kinds of creatures lurk in the water, he tells her, and there are no lifeguards at this beach. Sharkbait, he calls her.

The cool shock of the blue. Movement, water, salt, light, heat. I began every day that way, my first week at Sailors Beach. Rising up with the waves and kicking down into the depths, into those sudden cold patches where the sun didn’t reach. Patterns of light on the surface, shadows passing above, water darkening. The fear, sometimes, of something brushing past my leg – a tangle of kelp or a lone gull landing beside me. Rocks seemed to quiver on the silty bed below, and once, I caught sight of a silver ray.


Parallel to their story, is the narrator’s relationship with her mother, who was just 24 when her daughter was born, a relationship that’s almost sisterly. Her mother has always lived a Bohemian kind of life, her long separated father, an itinerant, so learning how a long-term relationship works isn’t easy. By contrast, Jude seems a more solid, settled kind of guy. He’s a man of steady habits, with his own routines. He’s even living in the old family beach house built by his father.

The novel is an intimate portrayal of a relationship that reminded me a little of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. It is also a story that evolves through all the senses – the feeling of the sea on skin, the sights and sounds of the beach, of nature, both summer and winter. There’s taste and scent as well, in the old things Jude has in his house, the meals they prepare together. And the writing is just gorgeous.

As I said, I put this book aside after the first third or so, a little frustrated at the lack of obvious plot. But I still wanted to know how it ended and found myself picking it up again as an audiobook, which in this case was read by the author. It seemed to work and Madelaine Lucas gives a nuanced and engaging performance, capturing perfectly the feelings of loss and sadness that haunt the pages. I’m glad I persevered; Thirst for Salt is a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict – a novel about an extraordinary set of sisters and the politics that divided them

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been fascinated by the Mitfords ever since I saw a British TV adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate which aired in the 1980s. Nancy was a witty novelist who moved in literary circles during the 1930s and ’40s, rubbing shoulders with Evelyn Waugh and his ilk. She mined her family and the upper classes for material for her books, which are still very readable today. Nancy had five sisters and one brother, and with eccentric parents, each sibling seemed to be more extraordinary or oddball than the next.

These are the characters that people Marie Benedict’s novel The Mitford Affair, which concentrates on the years 1932 to 1941, with the rise of fascism in Europe and the opening chapters of World War II. Told from the viewpoints of sisters Nancy, Diana and Unity, you couldn’t ask for more varied characters, each with a very distinctive narrative voice. As the years pass, Nancy watches in horror as Diana goes to ever more extremes to promote the politics of her lover Oswald Mosley, and as Unity heads off to Germany to become a kind of Hitler acolyte. As war becomes inevitable, Nancy has to decide if her loyalty lies with family or her country.

As a reader, you feel very much on the side of Nancy, who seems to be the voice of reason among her sisters. She’s also dealing with a lot personally, in particular a problematic marriage and ever more desperate attempts to bear a child. Meanwhile Diana has ditched an adoring, wealthy and titled husband for a man who is already married and the voice of fascism in Britain. She devotes her energies to his cause even when Mosley declares he cannot offer her marriage or any kind of respectability.

Then there’s Unity. Always the least liked in her family – the only daughter to be sent to school so her mother didn’t have to put up with her – you get the feeling that today, Unity would be diagnosed with a mental condition, possibly as bipolar or a spectrum disorder. Much younger than Nancy or Diana, she’s only in her late teens when we meet her, her half of her bedroom festooned with pictures of Hitler and Mussolini, as opposed to Jessica who on her side of the room has etched the hammer and sickle into the window.

After the Olympia Hall rally and the violence of the Blackshirts inflicted at the slightest provocation, undoubtedly on Mosley’s orders, I could no longer even pretend to be in the same political ranks as my sisters. Did we not live in a society where free speech was guaranteed? Could Mosley not bear the slightest critique of BUF and his rule. The strutting, posturing, flag-waving, and shows of bravado I’d chuckled at privately now seem menacing rather than humorous, and I felt an urge to unmask Mosley and his dangerous army as hooligans through my writing. I also began to wonder if I could use my writing as a way to awaken my sisters from this madness.

Unity’s adoration for Hitler is like any ordinary girl’s crush on a matinee idol, but such is her fervour, that she talks her mother into sending her to a finishing school in Munich and staking out a café popular with Hitler himself. She’s a difficult character to be with, but Benedict captures her intensity with sympathy, despite her anti-semitism and support for a cruel totalitarian regime. Hers is the saddest story of the three, and you can’t help feeling that with affection from her family, and some half-decent parenting, Unity could have had a brighter future. But that’s not to be.

This is one of those books that is so much more extraordinary for being based on real events and real people. I found myself often heading to the internet for more background, and it’s all there. The Mitford Affair is an enthralling read, although not an easy one, considering what Diana and Unity were prepared to do for a political cause that would lead to such terrible events in Europe. But I couldn’t help feeling that the writing could have been sharper – there are some rather convoluted sentences, and a few Americanisms slip through now and then. As a study of how political fanaticism can take someone over, though, it does the trick. It’s a three star read from me.

Book Review: Prettier if She Smiled More by Toni Jordan – another hilarious round with the Schnabels

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I hadn’t realised until I started it, that Toni Jordan’s latest novel features a bunch of the same characters we met in Dinner with the Schnabels – one of my favourite reads from 2022. In Prettier if She Smiled More, we follow the story of Kylie Schnabel who at the start of the book is about to experience three disasters that upend her life – all before Wednesday. By the end of the week, nothing will be the same.

Kylie Schnabel, if you remember, is the oldest sibling, daughter of Schnabel matriarch Gloria. She works as a pharmacist and likes to think she has everything under control. She’s very serious and is a stickler for detail, hardworking and a little abrupt. She’s been working at the same small suburban pharmacy since she graduated, living frugally and planning her life around one day buying the shop from her genial boss Tim who’s approaching retirement.

Life’s all going to plan, until one day it isn’t. Kylie gets to work on Monday to discover that Tim is selling his shop to a chain of pharmacies, a big business conglomerate all set to modernise and refurb. Gail from Pharmacy King insists Kylie reapply for her job – just a formality, and even though Kylie has a work ethic second to none and has won a Young Pharmacist of the Year award, the reader knows it’s going to be tricky. Kylie’s sometimes grim, no-nonsense manner is going to be a problem.

Then there’s Colin, Kylie’s partner, who is supposedly away at a business conference but activity on his Fitbit suggests he’s getting up to some extra-curricular hanky-panky. Kylie suddenly sees unpatchable cracks in their relationship. When Gloria breaks her ankle and needs full-time care, Kylie finds herself back at her childhood home, dealing with a mother who doesn’t want to be looked after and somehow ends up baby-sitting Caesar, a tiny Pomeranian.

There are plenty of funny moments, and Kylie’s internal monologue is always entertaining – she’s such a force of nature. But coming home where the decor is still stuck in the 1980s and there are so many reminders of her childhood, suddenly the past comes back with a wallop. Why has Kylie’s bedroom been turned into a sewing room, while her siblings, Tansy and Nick’s rooms are still intact, just as they left them? Then there’s her parent’s acrimonious divorce and memories of her childhood anguish, of being the eldest and having to be the sensible one when her mother was in pieces.

‘Your … father, is this?’ Ramona said, picking up one of the photos. ‘Is very handsome, but familiar somehow?…
  …In those years before Photoshop, what could be done about David, who was in the centre of many of the said photos and who Gloria wished dead several times a day in a variety of painful ways? Facing the grinning face of her ex-husband every day in her own home was untenable.
  Gloria’s solution had been to cut out a range of Kevin Costner heads of varying sizes from different magazines and glue them over similarly sized David heads. Now the family photos lined up on the mantel were of Gloria and Kevin, standing proudly behind their children, young Kylie, Tansy and Nick.

There’s a lot for Kylie to deal with, all in one week, including a tennis open day for Gloria, who is a children’s tennis coach. There’s finding a nurse who will want to stay with her mother so that she can get back to work when Gloria has other ideas. Kylie’s brother Nick talks her into going on a date with one of his mates. And on top of everything, Kylie has agreed to host the family lunch on Sunday. As the pressure mounts, something has to give.

Prettier if She Smiled More is a smart and often hilarious second-chances kind of novel. The format is similar to Dinner with the Schnabels, with one character having a lot to get done as the days of a single week slip by and each day heralds more problems. The final chapter brings everything to a head and somehow everything gets fixed, but in a way Kylie, the meticulous over-planner, would never have predicted a week earlier. I loved it and wouldn’t say no to another Schnabel novel if Toni Jordan feels so inclined. This one’s gets an easy five out of five stars from me.

Book Review: The Patient by Jane Shemilt – a creepily suspenseful novel with two picturesque settings

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I felt sorry for Rachel from the first page of Jane Shemilt’s latest novel. Rachel’s a respected GP, and lives in the picturesque town of Salisbury with her teacher husband. But things are distant between them – a spark has died and life’s a bit dreary. And then there’s the daughter – Lizzie, who scarcely talks to Rachel, harbouring a grudge about the lack of quality time Rachel was able to give Lizzie growing up.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is Rachel has stepped over the line with a patient and now her world’s in chaos. She wasn’t even supposed to be working when a suicidal patient turned up at the medical centre. Rachel recently lost a patient to suicide, so gives Luc plenty of time, listening as he pours out his heart. When Rachel discovers Luc is a new neighbour, having renovated the old house she remembers belonging to a childhood friend, she also meets his glamorous American wife, Ophelia, and her charming brother and Ophelia’s little boy. The perfect family – or are they?

Luc has a everything, it seems, but he and Rachel are drawn to each other but, as we all know, doctors aren’t supposed to embark on relationships with their patients – especially vulnerable ones with a mental illness. We meet Rachel as she’s recollecting everything that happened in the months preceding – her lawyer has told her to write it all down while she’s in custody. As a reader we realise that Luc has gone off the rails, that a terrible crime has been committed and somehow Rachel’s involved.

The plot see-saws in time, back and forth, filling in the gaps – Rachel’s fear she’s being followed, her tricky relationship with a woman at work, an obsessive patient, her escape to a conference in France and her affair with Luc. It seems nobody’s on her side – apart from her dear neighbour Victoria, but she’s away on photo shoots a lot or off caring for a dying mother.

As the narrator, Rachel is the perfect character for a story like this. She’s intelligent, obviously, but very trusting, so the plot delivers plenty of surprises as facts rise to the surface. As a reader you are in the position of constantly yelling, look out behind you! And why is she so vague about whether or not she locked up her house? She really needs to be more careful. But she also seems to know her stuff as a doctor – you can tell Jane Shemilt’s own work as a GP inspired her story.

The setting is gorgeous. As well as Salisbury it takes you to the South of France, and the countryside around Arles, where Van Gogh painted his sunflowers. Luc’s mental illness is a kind of echo of Van Gogh’s. But inside of a prison cell is not so nice, particularly when you’re on the cusp of losing everything.

The Patient is a well put-together, nicely written addition to psychological thriller genre. There are plenty of surprises and the before and after timeframe maintains suspense nicely. I enjoyed the novel as an audiobook, read by Hilary McLean, who gave the character of Rachel just the right tone. It’s very easy to binge on psychological thrillers like these, they can be so compelling, particularly the good ones. The Patient is a four star read from me.