Reading Matters

'A Very Scotch Affair' by Robin Jenkins

 

Fiction - paperback; Polygon; 191 pages; 2005.

The late Robin Jenkins is a Scottish author, best known for his 1955 novel The Cone Gatherers. But up until last November I had never heard of him. It was only while browsing in Waterstone's in Edinburgh that I chanced upon A Very Scotch Affair, first published in 1968, and liked the sound of the plot -- a man stuck in a miserable marriage decides to leave his wife even though she's been diagnosed with cancer -- and bought it on the spot.

Now, having read it, and laughed along with it, been angered by it, and wept over it, I want to rush out and buy all of Jenkins' back catalogue, which supposedly runs to 30 works of fiction, although not all of them remain in print. If A Very Scotch Affair is indicative of his talent, then the man surely is a genius. In fact, the late Scottish nationalist Sir Compton Mackenzie described him as the "most outstanding novelist that Scotland has produced since the war" and even BBC journalist Andrew Marr has weighed in with this claim on the blurb: "If you are interested in books that are humane and wise, not slick and cynical, then treat yourself this year to some Robin Jenkins".

The book is set in Glasgow in the 1960s. It feels profoundly Scottish, not just because of the strong sense of place but by several of the characters who speak in dialect.

It opens on a dark, snowy January afternoon, and Mungo Niven, an insurance collector with a socialist streak, is in a tearoom with his lover, Myra, discussing their adulterous relationship and the possibility of running away to Spain. But there's something holding Mungo back, despite the fact he clearly detests his wife of 24 years, Bess, whom he describes as "fat, gluttonous, unimaginative, and, in the dark, lecherous".

"As I've said before, Mungo, your wife degrades you."
Yes, it was true, Bess did degrade him, wilfully. All their married life she, who never read a book herself, had sought to stultify his every intellectual ambition.
"Your children will go their own ways soon enough. Why sacrifice yourself any longer on their account? They certainly won't thank you for it. Yes, Mungo, the time's come when you must escape."

And so, by the time Mungo returns to his dingy little house in Minden Street that he shares with Bess and their children -- university student Andrew, 20; sixth-former Peggy, 18; and Billy, 11 -- he's made up his mind to leave that very night. Even when Peggy reveals that Bess is not well, that she's been complaining about a severe pain in her stomach, he's still plotting his escape route.

It's difficult to say much more about the plot without revealing crucial spoilers, but let's just say it explores how Mungo's decision affects everyone in his immediate family.

However, there's more to this story than meets the eye. Jenkins offers a drip feed of information, slowly revealing the strengths and weakness of all his characters, so nothing is ever black and white. This makes it difficult to form judgements about who is in the wrong and who is in the right.  Should Mungo, and his strong conscience and weak willed desire, be condemned for his decision? Is Bess to blame for their seemingly one-sided marriage? Where do the children fit in, particularly Andrew who has his own relationship problems with which to contend? And what of Bess's loyal siblings, and her friend, Florence McTaggart, who is so bitterly opposed to Mungo that she petitions everyone in the neighbourhood to cast him out as a villian?

This is a wonderfully realistic exploration of the far-reaching consequences of a private scandal made public. That Mungo has dreams far beyond his upbringing in a Glasgow ghetto and waits so long to put anything into action speaks volumes. That his overweight, over-cheerful wife does everything to keep him in the dull domesticity to which he's become accustomed also says much about her character.

Jenkins writes all this with a lightness of touch, even though much of the subject matter is as dark and depressing as the city and the time in which the book is set. He has an uncanny ability to make even the blackest situations quite comic. There's a wicked streak of humour running throughout the entire story that made me laugh and wince at the same time.

A Very Scotch Affair is a tragicomedy about love, betrayal, conscience and desire. It was my first Robin Jenkins novel; it won't be my last.

Weekend reading plans

Saturday couldn't come soon enough for me this week. I've been battling a horrendous chesty cough for two weeks that disappears during the daytime but returns with a vengeance as soon as the sun goes down. Consequently, I don't think I've had a proper nights sleep in a fortnight, and I'm as grumpy as hell during the day from lack of sleep.

I was very much looking forward to just slobbing around the house this weekend, catching up on sleep and doing a lot of reading. But I had to get up early this morning to collect a parcel from my local Royal Mail depot (the postman had tried to deliver it mid-week when no one was home), so there went the lie-in.

However, I was looking forward to getting my poor arthritic hands on the package, because I thought it was going to be full of lovely books I'd ordered from Amazon for our Not The TV Book Group. Sadly, it wasn't my Amazon parcel, which means my plans to start reading Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel in time for next Sunday's discussion (to be hosted by Lynne at Dovegreyreader) have been put on hold. 

So... what to read today, then?

 I'm 280 pages into Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, which I'm reading for Riverside Readers, but I'm finding it hard work. Call me a philistine, but I never seem to enjoy reading anything written prior to the 20th century (which might explain why I only review modern and contemporary literature on this blog). I can appreciate the storyline in Dangerous Liaisons but, honestly, it goes on forever, and is full of really horrible characters whom I don't particularly like spending time with...

So, perhaps I'll finish reading A Very Scotch Affair by Robin Jenkins, which I started on Thursday evening and am enjoying enormously. It's set in Glasgow in the 1960s, and despite the depressing subject matter -- a man leaves his wife of 25 years when she's diagnosed with cancer -- it is filled with dark comic moments that make it a joy to read.

What are your reading plans this weekend?

Bookish matters

• Happy belated birthday to one of my favourite living writers, Jennifer Johnston, who turned 80 on January 12. There's a really wonderful interview with her published in the Irish Times, which sums up all the things I love about her work: "Her fiction has explored our ability to make mistakes. Above all, she looks at the small hurts that render us emotionally remote. Her novels are also suspended between the several Irelands defined by social, political and cultural differences. Johnston’s sophisticated, at times deceptively conversational, narratives have drawn on social class as it exists in a country caught between the contrasting Catholic and Protestant cultures."

• Farewell to American writer J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye, who has died, aged 91. 

• Have you heard the theory that the late Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium trilogy, may not have actually written the best-sellers? That's one of the theories floated in this quite comprehensive article about the Scandinavian writer.

• Journalist Toby Lichtig asks where are you supposed to go to do your lunchbreak reading at this time of year? He discounts cafes, because he feels guilty after the food has gone. He's obviously never been to any of the cafes, eateries and coffee shops near my office: they are stuffed to the brim with lunchtime readers (me included) and no one ever asks them to move on. I find lingering over a hot drink (or a cold one) works wonders.

• Swedish writer Henning Mankell seems to be everywhere at the moment, probably because of the second series of Wallander, which has recently been screened on BBC TV and which is going to be released on DVD early next month. This article, by Rachel Cooke, looks at the dilemma the series poses to those people who have read the books: to watch, or not to watch?

• So, have your rushed out and bought your Apple iPad yet? According to this article in the New York Times, five publishers — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster — have signed on to provide e-book content for the new device.

• Congratulations to Australian writer Peter Goldsworthy, who has been awarded an OAM in the Australia Day Honours List, ”for service to literature as an author and poet, through arts administration, and to the community”.  I read Goldsworthy's Honk If You Are Jesus half a lifetime ago, and loved it, and recently bought his more recent Three Dog Night, which I'm looking forward to reading. [Via ANZLitloversLitblog]

'Things We Didn't See Coming' by Steven Amsterdam

 

Fiction - paperback; Sleepers Publishing; 174 pages; 2009.

Serendipity can work in strange and unusual ways. Having just read H.M. Brown's dystopian Red Queen, which is set in Australia, I picked up Steven Amsterdam's award-winning Things We Didn't See Coming to find it, too, is dystopian fiction.

Amsterdam is a Melbourne-based writer, although the story does not appear to be set in Australia. While the location is never specified, it "feels" North American. This isn't particularly surprising given that Amsterdam, according to his website, was "born and raised by lifelong New Yorkers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a rent-controlled apartment". 

What is surprising is that this collection of short stories, set in an apocalyptic world, works so brilliantly. While each of the nine stories can be read as stand alone pieces of fiction, taken as a whole they build into a rather wonderful narrative that spans some 30 years and sees the main character, a petty thief, survive the wrath of the millennium bug (remember that?), fire, flood and desperate food shortages, among other disasters.

And despite the dark, sometimes depressing, worlds presented here, the books feels wonderfully alive and fresh and new. This isn't so much about people dying (although clearly lots of people do die when there's been an apocalypse), but about the canny, sometimes immoral, methods the survivors adopt to forge on in a world wracked by environmental changes, economic collapse and societal breakdown. It has the potential to be a cold, brutal and violent book, but instead it's a heady mix of tenderness, sexiness, hopefulness and wonder.

Amsterdam is a talented story-teller, with a sharp eye for detail and a canny ear for dialogue. But it's his tremendous imagination that makes this book work. Quick thumbnail portraits take us into new and forbidding territory, but he never over-explains, never wastes words on a complicated back story, just thrusts us right into the action from the word go. Here's an example, taken from the second story in the collection, Dry Land, which immediately conveys a world in which it never stops raining:

I was never trained to travel in these long downpours and I'm tired of the damp. But I've got a lot of autonomy. I'm supposed to cover the low areas, look for the shaky light of candles burning in dark houses and evacuate whoever's still thinking the sky's about to clear. Land Management sends me in to protect them from starvation and flooding. Also, my job is to make sure no one gets hurt when the animals on the land nearby finally get so desperate that they stampede through. There's some water-logged cattle one county away that are trapped by a forest and probably close to busting out. They'll either die or find the strength to cross the highway and come through here. I'm clearing people so the animals can push through the suburbs and muddy farms to find higher ground.

While there's no doubt that Amsterdam has a unique voice, there are shades of Chuck Palahniuk here, with a little dash of Stephen King and even some David Vann thrown in for good measure. Oh, and just a smidgen of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Things We Didn't See Coming won the 2009 Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction. It's currently only available in Australia, but will be published by Pantheon in the USA next month and in the UK by Harvill Secker in August. French and Dutch editions will follow in 2011. Do keep your eye out for it.

'Of A Boy' by Sonya Hartnett

 

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Australia; 204 pages; 2009.

It didn't take long for me to discover my first five-star novel for 2010, but with Sonya Hartnett's beautiful melancholy Of A Boy I struck unexpected gold. I cannot begin to describe how incredibly affecting I found this short novel to be. There's something about the slow pacing of this story that gets under the skin and leaves you thinking about it days afterwards. Indeed, it's been two weeks since I finished Of A Boy and I'm still wondering about nine-year-old Adrian and all that happened to him.

The book is set in 1977 and tells the story of Adrian McPhee, who's been abandoned by his parents and is now living with his grandmother and his drop-out uncle, Rory, in an undefined suburb in Australia. He is a shy, timid boy, frightened of almost everything, including "quicksand, tidal waves, fire, monsters, cupboards, being forgotten and going astray". The all-pervasive fear is not helped by the recent disappearance of three young children from a nearby neighbourhood (highly reminiscent of the real-life Beaumont case), which fills the news pages and has teachers and parents on edge.

When a strange new family moves in across the road, Adrian can't help wondering if the three children -- Nicole, Joely and Giles -- are the three children who went out for ice-cream and never came home. When he befriends them his small, closeted and lonely world begins to open up...

The real strength of this story, which is written in plain, languid prose, is Hartnett's uncanny ability to get inside the head of a lonely school boy. She underplays everything, so it is you the reader who comes to understand the pain of his existence. I found the following passage, towards the end of the book, particularly heart-breaking:

He wasn't a gregarious boy, he couldn't push his way into any existing group of friends; he felt that, having nothing to offer, they would recognise him as a parasite and treat him with contempt. The reason he felt he had nothing to offer was that, in his heart, he knew he was dull. Nothing about him gave him value: he was ordinary and dull. But at least he was smart enough to know it: he wouldn't become one of those wretches who lurk the perimeters, who live the hideous role of whipping-boy, lackey, buffoon. He exiled himself ruthlessly, which at least was dignified. He could not be injured if he shielded himself from harm.
But school is a terrible place for a rejected child. The ringing of the lunchtime bell was enough to cool his blood; the lunch hour seemed an endless desert of time. He didn't complain or resist going to school but every day he haunted the gates, hoping against hope that his mother would walk by, discover him, and carry him home.

He is a beautifully drawn character, as is his grandmother, the headstrong Beattie, who doesn't really want him but feels obliged to take over where her own daughter left off. She moans that he rules her days, that she hasn't the energy to look after him. "My mothering days are done," she claims.

"I can't go anywhere. I can't forget myself - I've got to be here every three-thirty, collecting him from school. I get a holiday only when he does. I've got to cook a decent meal for him every night, so he doesn't waste away. He needs cleaning, clothing, carting here and there. It's hard work, rearing a child. It's not work for the old."

Similarly, Uncle Rory is a brilliantly realistic character: a 25-year-old man living with the guilt of a horrendous car accident that left his best mate a vegetable. When most everyone else has written off Rory, it's clear that he has a lot to offer his young nephew. The scenes between the two of them are very touching.

I hesitate to draw comparisons with other novels, because this one is unique, but it did remind me very much of Randolph Stow's The Merry-go-round in the Sea, particularly in its depiction of childhood, albeit it in different parts of the country in different eras. But there's something about the melancholy of the stories that are achingly familiar.

Not surprisingly, Of A Boy has garnered awards and nominations aplenty. It won the 2003 The Age Book of the Year and the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2003 Miles Franklin Award, the 2003 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award and the 2003 Victorian Premier's Literary Award. It was longlisted for the 2003 Orange Prize for Fiction.

For British and American readers looking to secure a copy of Hartnett's novel, please be advised that it has been published under a completely different name: What the Birds See

You can read an extract here.

Not The TV Book Group: Choices and schedule

So, if you've read my earlier post about the newly formed Not The TV Book Group, you'll be wanting to know what books we've chosen to read. Without further ado, here's our choice of 8 titles, whittled down from a long-list of 16, along with the schedule:

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Click on thumbnails above to see bigger images of the book covers.

February 7: Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel (Quercus Publishing, 2010)

February 21:The Girl with the Glass Feet by Ali Shaw (Atlantic Books, 2010)

March 7:Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers (Two Ravens Press, 2008)

March 21:The Illusionist by Jennifer Johnston (Headline Review, 2007)

April 11: The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan (Henry Holt & Company, 2008)

April 25: Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett (Serpent's Tail, 2008)

May 9: A Short Gentleman by Jon Canter (Vintage, 2009)

May 23: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (Hachette, 2007)

Given that we only put this list together in a very short space of time, and it was all done via email correspondence, it turned out to be wonderfully eclectic. Even if you only have the time to read one book with us, you're bound to find something on the list to suit your tastes.

I will be hosting the discussions on March 21 and May 23 because, yes, you guessed it, I nominated The Illusionist by Jennifer Johnston and Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. 

I chose the Johnston novel because long-time readers of this blog will know I'm a Johnston fan. I think she's one of the most under-rated and under-appreciated living Irish writers and whenever I have an opportunity to champion her brilliant books I do so. The Illusionist has been sitting in my reading queue for a year or two, so I'm excited about the prospect of reading it and finding out what others think of it. And maybe, just maybe, a few of you will fall in love with her writing style and become JJ converts too!

From the blurb: "When Stella first meets Martyn, he’s just a stranger on a train. She knows nothing at all about him. But very quickly she is won over by his charm and breathtaking illusions, and when he asks her to marry him, she agrees. However, as they begin their life together, Stella starts to feel uneasy. What exactly is the show-stopping illusion he claims to be working on, locked away in that room? Who are those men that visit the house at strange hours? And why are her questions never answered? As Stella realises that she barely knows the man she married, her thoughts turn to escape."

My second choice is an odd one for me, because Octavia E. Butler isn't normally my cup of tea. She's an African-America writer best known for her science fiction. I've tried to read her books in the past and failed dismally. But I was attracted to Fledgling because it was the last book she ever wrote (Butler died in 2006) and it charts some interesting territory: it's a book about a vampire. 

From the blurb: "Shori is a mystery. Found alone in the woods, she appears to be a little black girl with traumatic amnesia and near-fatal wounds. But Shori is a 53-year-old vampire with a ravenous hunger for blood, the lost child of an ancient species of near-immortals who live in dark symbiosis with humanity. Genetically modified to be able to walk in daylight, Shori now becomes the target of a vast plot to destroy her and her kind. And in the final apocalyptic battle, her survival will depend on whether all humans are bigots -- or all bigots are human..."

To find out why the other books were chosen, I urge you to visit Dovegreyreader, Other Stories and Savidge Reads.

UPDATE: I've now created a separate page with everything you need to know about the Not The TV Book Group, which you can view here.

Not The TV Book Group

One of the best things about keeping a book blog is meeting, both virtually and occasionally in person, so many like-minded individuals from across the world. If there's one thing that unites us it's our love of reading and all things bookish.

So I was delighted last week to be invited to take part in a brand new blogging venture, the Not The TV Book Group. Together with three other lovely UK-based bloggers, Dovegreyreader, Other Stories and Savidge Reads, we will be bringing you a fortnightly book group over 16 weeks that we hope will inspire you to read along with us. In fact, the more of you who take part the merrier it is sure to be!

But first, the science... While the formation of the group has been inspired by last week's inaugural broadcasting of the TV Book Group on More 4, we're in no way trying to denigrate that club or steal its thunder. What we want to do is offer an alternative online version in much the same way as the Guardian very respectfully ran the Not the Booker Prize last year. 

Second, the choices, which will be revealed in a future post, were decided by us and us alone. No publishers or booksellers have been approached about this venture, and all titles selected have been purchased or borrowed by us. This isn't about plugging specific titles or marketing specific publishers and we're not keeping our eyes on the sales figures. The Not The TV Book Club is all about reading for the fun and enjoyment and intrinsic rewards that it brings.

Finally, the selection process, which is still in full swing (you have no idea how many emails have been winging backwards and forwards between us lot over the past few days), has operated under the following criteria:

• The books must be ones that we, personally, have not read before. (My choices have been selected from my ever-burgeoning almost-toppling over TBR.)
• The books must be readily available from libraries and in paperback versions here in the UK at least.
• The books must have been bought, won or borrowed by us. No freebies from publishers allowed.
• The books must have been published within the past five years.

Phew.

Each blog will take turns in hosting the discussions, which will open every second Sunday for a period of 16 weeks. We'd love as many people as possible to take part, so please don't be shy about joining in. When we announce the 8 titles up for discussion we hope you will beg, buy or borrow the books, so you can read along with us. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this...

Joining a mobile library

Today I made a rather rash and spur-of-the-moment decision. I joined a library!

It's a rather shocking admission to make, but the last time I was a member of a library was 1996 and even then it was an academic one, so I don't have particularly fond memories of attending it. If anything, I remember it solely as the one place in Brisbane, Queensland, in which I was able to keep cool: the study corrals were air-conditioned, the flat I rented was not.

I'd have to go back at least another two years, to sometime around 1994, to recall the last time I was a member of a municipal library. That would have been the Malvern Libary in Melbourne, a short walk from where I lived with my sister, and the place I borrowed most of the novels I read at that time in my life.

Effectively, this means it has been at least 16 years since I used a library to borrow fiction.

The funny thing is I have no real need to join a library, because goodness knows I have enough unread novels in my flat to keep me going for about eight years! But when I saw this cute-as-pie mobile library parked outside the office at lunchtime I thought I'd stick my head in and find out whether I was eligible to join and what it might cost.

Two minutes later I'd filled in the paperwork and was given a laminated library card! Another two minutes and I was walking out with a pristine copy of Laura Wilson's Stratton's War under my arm! How efficient is that?

The best part is knowing that the library will be parked outside the office every Thursday lunchtime, so I don't have to worry about library opening times being incompatible with my working life. I'm looking forward to using it, and seeing what effect, if any, it has on my current reading.

Are you a member of a library?

Postage stamps pay tribute to Australian novelists

 

Six Australian novelists are being honoured on a series of postage stamps released by Australia Post today. The six, all living writers, are: Peter Carey, Bryce Courtenay, Tom Keneally, David Malouf, Colleen McCullough and Tim Winton. 

I wonder which British novelists would be honoured if Royal Mail decided to do something similar? Suggestions welcome in the comments below. My first nomination? Ian McEwan. Closely followed by Hilary Mantel.

[Via Matilda]

'Sins of the Brother: The definitive story of Ivan Milat and the backpacker murders' by Mark Whittaker and Les Kennedy

 

Non-fiction - paperback; Pan Macmillan Australia; 535 pages; 2008.

I'm quite partial to true-crime books, especially those that are well researched, put the crime into context and don't sensationalise or dumb-down the story. These books get extra kudos if they are told in a novelistic style. Sins of the Brother, first published in 1998 and reprinted seven times since then, ticks all these boxes.

Anyone who lived in Australia in the early 1990s will be familiar with the backpacker murders, when the bodies of seven young tourists, five from overseas and two from Melbourne, were discovered partly buried in the Belanglo State Forest in NSW. It was a particularly callous and brutal series of crimes that had the nation gripped. Because the bodies were not found all at once, but on separate occasions between September 1992 and November 1993, there was a real fear that a serial killer was on the loose and anyone could be his next victim.

The media went into a bit of a frenzy about it at the time but it took three years before anyone was charged and convicted of the crimes. That person was Ivan Milat, who is now serving seven consecutive life sentences, plus 18 years, for seven murders and the attempted murder, false imprisonment and robbery of another backpacker.

This book, which took almost four years to produce, is divided into two parts. The first painstakingly explores the Milat family background from 1902 to 1989. From the outset it's made clear that Ivan, the son of Croatian immigrants, had a rather poor upbringing, both physically and psychologically. He and his various brothers turned to criminality at a young age. Before long petty crime gave way to crimes of a more serious nature. In 1971, for instance, Milat was charged with the abduction of two women and the rape of one of them, although the charges were later dropped.

The second part of the book focuses on the police investigation and how Milat, after many investigative mistakes and false leads, became the chief suspect. It diligently tells the stories of the individual victims -- Brits Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters, German couple Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied, fellow German Simone Schmidl, and Victorian couple Deborah Everist and James Gibson -- each of whom met their brutal end by shooting or stabbing. And it follows the amazing testimony of Paul Onions, a British backpacker, who escaped Milat's clutches in January 1990 and then realised, several years later, that the man who pulled a gun on him wasn't simply after his wallet. It concludes with Milat's arrest, high-profile court case and subsequent conviction.

At more than 500 pages, a book like this really has to hold the attention. Whittaker and Kennedy do this superbly by telling the story in a detailed, frank and gripping way. It's not exactly pleasant reading (in some parts it's literally stomach-churning) but it's completely fascinating in the same way that passersby are unable to tear their eyes away from a car crash or a bad accident: you know that the events are horrific, that the victims met a unimaginably gruesome death, but you keep looking (or reading) regardless.

I think the most impressive thing about Sins of the Brother is just the sheer amount of detail in it. Given that most of it is based on exclusive interviews with members of the Milat family, key police investigators, witnesses and lawyers, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to sort it into chronological order let alone turn it into something effortlessly readable.

While painting a rather disturbing portrait of Milat, a fastidious loner with a penchant for guns, the book also highlights the possibility that he may not have acted alone. There are serious hints that his younger, wilder brother played a part. "It is a story about murder, but there is no murder in it," Whittaker and Kennedy write in their authors' note at the beginning of my edition. "That can only be told when Milat confesses to what went on in the forest, and who, if anybody, was with him."

'Red Queen' by H. M. Brown

 

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books Australia; 268 pages; 2009.

I'm always intrigued by dystopian fiction so when I stumbled upon this debut novel, set in Australia after a deadly virus has ravaged the world, I couldn't resist buying it.

Red Queen is the name of the constantly mutating and highly infectious virus which has wiped out most of the human population. The only survivors are "in small groups or families in the country and on farms". 

Brothers Rohan and Shannon Scott are two of those survivors. They live in a secluded cabin in the Australian bush designed specifically as a hideaway should there be an apocalypse. It was built by their now-dead father, who had "a different end-of-the-world theory every week". It's alternatively powered and accessible by four-wheel-drive only. The brothers grow their own fruit and vegetables and keep chickens and sheep. And just in case they run out of food and supplies they have a secret bunker (built, again, by dad) stuffed to the brim with canned goods, flour, sugar, wine, clothing and anything else they could possibly need to survive that little bit longer.

But they're extra cautious about protecting their territory, defending it at all times with loaded guns, until one evening a strange woman, Denny, slips in under the radar and makes herself at home. Her presence changes everything, as a power struggle develops, and the two brothers find themselves falling for her charms.

But all is not as it seems. There's a slightly menacing overtone, helped in part by Rohan's frank and rather bullish admission that if Denny leaves "and tries to come back again, or puts us under any risk whatsoever of contamination, I'll shoot you".

The tension increases when it becomes clear that Denny's actions could put all their lives in jeopardy. But because the story is narrated by Shannon, the softer of the two brothers, we only ever get his take on events, making it difficult to determine whether Denny's intentions are innocent or malicious.

Sadly, I found the characters, particularly the brothers, to be poorly drawn: Rohan is the stereotypical older brother, a bully with a raging temper, while Shannon, with his pony-tail and penchant for playing the guitar, is his weak-willed sibling. Denny is pretty much unknowable, although I suspect that's deliberate in order to give her an air of mystery.

Fortunately, the cracking narrative pace more than makes up for these faults, although the ending, with everything all neatly wrapped up, does feel a little rushed.

But overall this is an entertaining, sexy read, more psychological thriller than dystopian novel (although someone clearly thinks it's also a horror novel, because it won best horror novel at the 2009 Aurealis Awards -- go figure). And because Red Queen is chiefly told through dialogue I'm guessing it won't take long before it's adapted for either the big or small screen very soon. I rather suspect it would make excellent edge-of-your-seat viewing. 

'Small Island' by Andrea Levy

 

Fiction - paperback; Headline Review; 530 pages; 2004.

Small Island is one of those books that has been sitting in my reading queue for two or three years. I was prompted to dig it out when Simon wrote a rather glowing review of it. The deal was cemented when several more of you chipped in on this post and said it would make a good read for a long-haul flight. I promptly packed it in my hand luggage and began to read it on that horrendously long plane ride to Australia.

The story is a complete delight from start to finish. It's set in London in 1948 but jumps back in time to the Second World War (and earlier) when Jamaican men joined the British forces to fight for the Mother country. There are four main characters -- Brits Queenie and Bernard Bligh, and Jamaicans Hortense and Gilbert Joseph -- whose individual stories are told in separate sections. The 1948 narrative links them together. 

The story begins with Hortense, a highly strung young Jamaican woman, arriving in London to be reunited with her husband, Gilbert. Former air serviceman Gilbert had immigrated months earlier in order to pave the way for their new life together in a new land. But when Hortense finds him living in a tiny ill-equipped room in a lodging house her high expectations are rudely lowered.

But little does Hortense know that the lodging house is presided over by a very fair and open-minded landlady, Queenie Bligh, who ignores her fellow neighbours who don't approve of her accepting black tenants. Although Queenie doesn't have much choice -- her husband never returned from the War and she has no other means of supporting herself -- she's determined to treat the Jamaicans that live under her roof as equals.

For Hortense and Gilbert it could have been much worse.

Small Island (the title, I assume, could equally apply to both Britain and Jamaica) shows how circumstances and history thrust these two women together, and how the partners they marry come to change their lives too. It adds up to a wonderful historical family-type drama that perfectly captures what it must have been like to live in post-war London when the cultural make-up of the city was undergoing rapid change.

What I appreciated most was Levy's ability to show the alarming racism that occurred in England at the time. Despite the fact that Jamaica was part of the British Empire few Brits knew where Jamaica was located (several characters believe it's in "Africa somewhere") and fewer still wanted to see black faces on the street when Caribbean immigrants started landing on British shores. (There are parallels here with Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners, which gives voice to the Caribbean immigrant experience in the 1950s.)

They speak the same language, and yet can never be understood on the streets of London. Or, as Gilbert points out in one stand-out scene towards the end of the novel, they had fought a common enemy but were not treated as equals.

There's a lot here, too, about the Second World War and the role that Jamaican men played in it, an intriguing slice of history that's not widely known.

Levy is, of course, a master storyteller but she never preaches or comes across as if she is pushing a message; there's a lightness of touch that belies the seriousness of the content. She has an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue. Her characters are believable -- the uppity Hortense, the progressive Queenie, the striving-to-always-do-better Gilbert, and the stubborn-but-weak Bernard -- and so very human. 

Small Island won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004, the Whitbread Book of the Year in 2004 and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize in 2005. It has also been adapted into a two-part television drama which screened on BBC1 last month.

Fans of Andrea Levy may like to know she's got a new book in the offing -- The Long Song -- which is published in the UK on February 4.

A stocktake of last year's reading efforts

I know I'm slightly late in taking a stocktake of my 2009 reading year, but I'd feel like something was missing if I didn't. And, anyway, it's better late than never, right?

2009 was another wonderful year of reading for me. I read 91 books, the most I've ever completed since I started keeping records, although I'm cautious not to jump up and down too much: it's not a race, after all, and some of the books read were novellas or very short books, so probably shouldn't be counted.

Here's a simplified breakdown of what I read, with the equivalent figures for 2008 in brackets.

Fiction: 83 (72)
Non-fiction: 8 (13)

Female authors: 45 (39)
Male authors: 46 (46)

Translated fiction*: 13 (9)
Australian: 10 (13)
Irish: 17 (14)
American/Canadian: 19 (22)
British: 28 (23)
Caribbean: 2 (0)
New Zealand: 1 (0)
Mexico: 1 (0)

The list doesn't particularly surprise me. It's not radically different from the previous 12 months for a start, although the split between male/female writers seems to have evened out by accident rather than design. (In the past, my reading tastes have tended to favour male writers.)

But how much of what I read was new releases? How many were older books? What genres did I favour? And how many scored favourable reviews?

Here's the breakdown of my fiction reads:

Five-star reviews: 11 (13.6%)
Four-star reviews: 49 (60.5%)
Three-star reviews: 21 (25.9%)
Two-star reviews: 0
One-star reviews: 0

150 pages and under: 7 (8.6%)
151-250 pages: 27 (33.3%)
251-350 pages: 31 (38.3%)
351-450 pages: 13 (16.1%)
More than 450 pages: 3 (3.7%)

Modern classic: 11 (13.6%)
Science fiction: 3 (3.7%)
Horror: 1 (1.3%)
Crime/thriller: 12 (14.8%)
Chick-lit: 2 (2.4%)
Western: 1 (1.3%)
YA: 1 (1.3%)
Short story collection**: 4 (4.8%)
Literary fiction: 46 (56.8%)

Published in 2009: 46 (28 provided by publishers) (56.8%)
Published in 2000s (exc. 2009): 16 (19.7%)
Published in 1990s: 2 (2.4%)
Published in 1980s: 2 (2.4%)
Published in 1970s: 4 (4.8%)
Published in 1960s: 5 (6.1%)
Published in 1950s: 4 (4.8%)
Published in 1940s: 1 (1.3%)
Published in 1930s: 2 (2.4%)
Published in 1920s: 1 (1.3%)

So...60.5% of the novels I read in 2009 garnered four-star reviews, 80.2% were 350 pages or less in size and more than 50% were literary fiction. The big surprise was discovering that more than half of what I devoured in 2009 was actually published in 2009. Do I really read that many fresh-off-the-presses books?

* Germany (3), France (2), Japan, Sweden (2), Norway, Italy, Iceland, Czech and Hungary.
** One of these collections could also be classified as YA.

'The Likeness' by Tana French

 

  Fiction-paperback; Hatchette Books Ireland; 696 pages; 2009.

The Likeness is a hugely entertaining if slightly preposterous crime story set in Ireland starring Detective Cassie Maddox, first introduced to us in French's startling good debut novel In the Woods.

This time Cassie's taken her career down a notch: she's no longer working in the Murder Squad but is enjoying the regular 9-to-5 grind of the domestic violence division. But when a woman is found murdered in a ruined Wicklow cottage, Cassie is brought in to do some very special undercover work. In a strange twist of fate it turns out that the victim is her doppleganger. She even has the same name Cassie used when she did some undercover work early on in her career -- Lexie Madison.

The idea is that Cassie pretends to be the murdered woman so that she can return to the house Lexie shared with four other post-grad students -- Daniel, Rafe, Justin and Abby -- all of whom are under suspicion for her murder.

Despite the ludicrous idea that it would be possible to pick up where the original Lexie left off without anyone realising the switch, The Likeness comes across as a fairly solid if not truly believable psychological thriller come who-dun-it. It does, however, take its time getting to the crux of the matter, as French spends almost 200 pages explaining how Cassie prepares for her undercover assignment. But once she's in the house, the narrative kicks off into high-gear, exploring the cultural and social tensions within and without the tight-knit group of five. The  pace is pretty much relentless from then on.

At 696 pages this is a perfect holiday read, because you only need take one book with you. It's not highbrow literature by any stretch of the imagination but it's a good meaty read that will have you guessing all the way to the very end. I very much enjoyed it, especially the tinges of Barbara Vine and Nicci French which give it that special page-turning quality.

My only quibble -- and it's a small one -- is the romance between Cassie and a fellow detective that underpins the main narrative. While it might serve to make the characters appear more human, more rounded, it actually comes across as a writer trying too hard to appeal to a generalised chick-lit type audience. And, for me, the sappy romantic ending almost made me choke on my toast, ruining what had otherwise been a pretty fabulous (in all sense of the word) read.

Book lust: William Trevor's 'The Collected Stories Giftset'

   

Isn't this the most gorgeous looking two-volume boxed set you've ever seen?

I'd been eyeing this one up for a couple of months and when I dropped a few hints -- oh, okay, I actually ASKED my Other Half if he'd be kind enough to buy it for me for Christmas -- I really didn't expect to receive it.

Come Christmas Day I was handed an envelope. Inside was an A4 sheet of paper. Printed on the sheet of paper was a photograph of this book with a short message: "Merry Christmas, Kim. This gift was too heavy to travel."

I was delighted! A brilliant gift!

When we got back home on Sunday night I finally got to unwrap the actual books, run my hands over the gorgeous binding and drool over the contents: every single short story William Trevor has ever written is included here. That's 1,827 pages worth of fiction to work my way through. My only dilemma, aside from finding the time to read both volumes, is how on earth do I review them?

10 kilos of books

 

When your airline baggage limit is 20kg, it's no mean feat carting a 10kg haul of books from Australia to London in one fell swoop? I mean, who needs clothes anyway?

Yes, as you can see from the above picture, I went on a bit of a book splurge while I was away. For those of you who didn't know, or hadn't guessed, I went back home to Australia for Christmas hence the lack of posts on this blog. It was my first Christmas with family in five years, and my first visit since March 2006. That's a long time between wickets, to use a bit of cricketing lingo for you. (Speaking of cricket, I went to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG on December 27, but I won't bore you with the details suffice to say it would have been the perfect opportunity to do some reading if I'd remembered to bring a book!)

It was lovely to go home, catch up with my family, friends and old work colleagues, soak up some sun and enjoy a lot of cool beers and good Aussie tucker. And as much as I love blogging, it was wonderful to have a break from it, and not be tied to a computer every single day. 

Of course, no trip to Australia would be complete without hunting out books that cannot be obtained in the UK. I only spent four days in Melbourne (my folks live 140km out of town) but I managed to sneak in a few book-buying sessions at Angus & Robertson, Borders and Dymocks, in the CBD, and the Mary Martin Book Store in Southbank. Once I'd got over the initial shock at the price of books -- I'm talking the equivalent of £14 per paperback, which is pretty much TWICE the price in the UK -- I had a fun time searching the shelves for books on my wishlist, as well as discovering quite a few of which I'd never heard.

Here's what's in the haul:

• Alex Miller's Landscape of Farewell 

• Charlotte Wood's The Children

• Peter Goldsworthy's Three Dog Night

• The Best Australian Essays 2009

• Cate Kennedy's The World Beneath

• Christos Tsiolkas The Slap

• Helen Garner's Monkey Grip

• Ruth Cracknell's Journey from Venice

• Sonya Hartnett's Of A Boy

• Literary Melbourne: A Celebration of Writing and Ideas

• Mark Whittaker and Les Kennedy's Sins of the Brother: The Definitive story of Ivan Milat and the backpacker murders

• Randolph Stow's Tourmaline

• Randolph Stow's To the Islands

• Elizabeth Jolley's The Georges' Wife

• Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming

I think that should keep me going for awhile, don't you?