Reading Matters

'The Harrowing' by Robert Dinsdale

 

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 320 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Into the vast canon of Great War fiction comes another book set in the muddy trenches of France and Belgium. If you're anything like me you will have read novels like this before, you will have come to learn of the blood, the mud, the barbwire, the stink, the mustard gas and the godawful fear of going-over-the-top, and you will wonder if there is anything left untold about this deadliest time in human history. In other words, is there any point in writing yet another First World War novel? Haven't we heard all this before?

Like the best war novels, first-time novelist Robert Dinsdale takes a familiar subject and gives it a new twist, just as Erich Maria Remarque did with All Quiet on the Western Front (telling the story from a German perspective) and Sebastian Barry did with his Booker shortlisted A Long Long Way (telling the story through the eyes of an Irishman caught between two wars). In this case, The Harrowing is about two teenage brothers caught up in a war of their own; the First World War acts as a mere backdrop to their doomed and troubled relationship.

The story opens in Leeds, England, in January 1916. William Redmond, the elder brother, has awoken to find himself in hospital recovering from a nasty head wound. The wound, which plunged him into a long coma, was inflicted by his younger brother, Samuel, who inexplicably stoved his head in with a stone while the pair walked across a deserted moor.

Samuel is then banished, by his parents, to fight in the fields of Flanders, even though he is underage. When William discovers this, he vows to join the Chapeltown Rifles in order to find his brother and bring him back.

'What's the matter with you,' snarls the old man [his father]. 'Don't you understand what we did for you? It's finished. You don't have to go. Your brother is gone, and you're set to stay.'

And so, Dinsdale sets up a rather brilliant question in the reader's mind: why would a brother want to kill another? And, more importantly, why would the wronged brother feel it necessary to go out of his way to help the brother that wanted him dead?

The title alone makes it obvious that this is a story based on Christian theology, specifically the "harrowing of hell" in which Christ supposedly descended into hell to forgive all those of their original sin. In an interview on the Faber & Faber website, Dinsdale says:

The implication, of course, is much bigger than the simple story allows. By the time of Christ’s ascension, Judas Iscariot -- whose betrayal condemned Christ -- was dead by his own hand, and thus damned to his own eternity in Hell. But in his harrowing of Hell, Christ would also forgive the man whose betrayal sent him to his agonising death -- in effect, he would reach out and lead the man who killed him into Heaven.

I think it's important to grasp this concept to understand William's actions, although it's pretty clear within the first 30 or so pages that the siblings are polar opposites: William is the good brother, the saint, while Samuel is the bad brother, the sinner. This is mirrored in their attitudes to the war, established before the incident on the moor, when William states that he wants to sign up because it was "the only good thing to do" but Samuel insists that it's not for him.

And other people note their differences in character: a drunkard tells William that Samuel was "just a little boy when the Devil called his name"; an uncle confirms that William has "always been a good boy" implying that his sibling hasn't. This allows you to build up a clear picture of the two brothers, even if it seems a little too simplistic, a little too stereotyped. But later, as events unfold, both behave in ways that are so out of character, you realise that Dinsdale has offered up two very complex human beings full of contradictions and flaws.

By its very nature this is a somewhat grim and oppressive novel, with barely a glimmer of light to illuminate the darkness. But despite this I found myself reading it compulsively, if only to determine what it was that made both brothers behave so oddly. Ultimately, there is no neat ending here, no cut-and-dried solution, but as an exploration of moral courage and human fallibility, The Harrowing is a superb novel that marks Dinsdale as a writer to watch.

'Kill & Cure' by Stephen Davison

Fiction - paperback; Alice & Fred Books; 320 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Kill & Cure is not your average run-of-the-mill crime thriller. For a start, it's set in the pharmaceutical world and its main protagonist is a chiropractor. But this debut novel, to be published on May 15, is a cracking read, full of murders, betrayals and scientific conspiracies.

The story revolves around David Stichell (Stich), the director of a chiropractic clinic in London, who has sole custody of his four-year-old daughter, Alice. He lives with his fiancée, Susan Harrison, a scientist at Immteck Pharmaceuticals, the same company for which he is taking part in a trial to test a new drug that supposedly shrinks cancerous tumors. But what Stich does not realise is that the results of the drug trial are being fudged -- and that's where his life gets interesting.

When Susan and Stich make a visit to see Susan's Uncle Maxi in the countryside, things begin to go awry. Through the window of Maxi's house they witness him being murdered, then it's Susan's turn to be fatally shot. Stich miraculously escapes with a superficial wound to the leg and goes on the run from the murderer. From here the pace never lets up, particularly when it becomes apparent that the police think him responsible for the deaths, so he must run from both the law and the criminals who want him dead.

Along the way he is accompanied by a trustworthy friend, Vicky, and assisted virtually by a newspaper editor who has contacts in all the right places. When one of Susan's colleagues is found dead with a syringe -- originally full of hydrochloric acid -- sticking out of his arm, Stich is convinced the murders are linked and embarks on a quest to unravel the truth before the hit man finally tracks him down ...

Kill & Cure is fast, furious and incredibly well plotted. I hesitate to use the word compelling but there's no better word to describe this novel. I simply had to race through it, almost cover to cover, because I was so determined to find out what happened. And even then, I still didn't guess the culprits, and the twist at the end came as a real surprise.

The prose style is short and snappy -- in fact most of the narrative moves forward almost exclusively through dialogue -- but that's no bad thing.

There's quite a bit of science in it, but this is all explained clearly and without patronising the reader, no small feat when you're dealing with complicated subjects.I'm not going to jump up and down and say this is the best book I've read all year, but it's an entertaining read that has a touch of the John Grisham's about it. I also very much appreciated the London references throughout, and I rather suspect it would make an excellent movie. ITV, where are you?

'The Gargoyle' by Andrew Davidson

  Fiction - hardcover; Canongate; 502 pages; 2008. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

The Gargoyle by first-time novelist Andrew Davidson defies categorisation, because how do you categorise a book that melds a host of genres into one giant tome? Judging by the title and the pages edged in black, I expected a Gothic horror story. But what I got was a a modern fairytale colliding with a medieval romance and a boy's own adventure story. Think Chuck Palahniuk meets Joanne Harris and throw in a dash of Walter Macken for good measure -- and even then you still wouldn't get close to encapsulating the essence of this strange but decidedly captivating novel.

If I were challenged to reduce the plot into one sentence, I'd say this: it's about a drug-addled pornographer who suffers horrendous third -- and fourth -- degree burns in a road accident, and while in hospital, recovering from his injuries, he meets a psychiatric-patient-come-sculptor-of-gargoyles who claims she was his former lover in medieval Germany (when she was a pregnant nun-on-the-run and he was a mercenary) and takes him home to live with her. Imagine pitching that one to the publisher!

The first third of the book is a curious, beguiling and slightly ghoulish read, as the unnamed narrator contrasts his current existence as a hideously disfigured man dealing with reconstructive surgery and burn treatments with that of his former life as an incredibly vain "sex god":

I was taller before the accident. The fire contracted me like beef jerky during the curing process. I had once been as lean and adorable as a third-century Greek boy, with buttocks ripe like the plump half-melons for which Japanese businessman will pay a small fortune. My skin was as soft and clean as undisturbed yogurt, my stomach was divided into symmetrical pads, and my arms were sleekly muscular. But it was my face that was my coat-of-arms. I had cheekbones that would have been at home in Verlaine's wet dreams.

Did I mention that the author has a certain over-the-top way with words -- or has a tendency towards "extremely silly writing" as one slightly unkind reviewer in The Independent described it? Well, now might be the time to raise Davidson's occasional tendency to write florid, cloying prose. Although I found the style quite engaging and witty, reminiscent of old fashioned fairy tales, that same reviewer in The Independent claimed it occasionally wavered into the same territory as the Mills & Boon Desire range. I don't exactly agree, but I do know what he means.

That aside, the latter two-thirds of the book follows our narrator's new life living with the psychiatric patient who "adopts" him. Her name is Marianne Engel, a mysterious woman who can talk almost every language under the sun and claims to be 700 years old. In between manic spurts of sculpting gargoyles from lumps of stone, she tells stories of her distant past as a scribe and medieval nun in the famed monastery of Engelthal and how the pair first met and fell in love. Interspersed with her own story, Marianne also tells other stories about love outlasting death in countries as diverse as Iceland, Italy and Japan, so that The Gargoyle ends up becoming a multi-layered narrative that jumps between past and present. All the while our narrator is never quite sure whether to believe anything that Marianne tells him, because surely she's just a crazy woman who has lost her marbles, or is she?

But over time he comes to realise the truth of a whole bevy of clichés: that beauty is only skin deep, that there's more to love than sex, that money does not buy happiness...

All this probably sounds rather trite, but there's something about The Gargoyle which makes it feel like you're in the presence of a master storyteller, someone who knows his Dante's from his Eckhart's. In other words, it's not as patronising as you might expect. And, in any case, we must be careful not to confuse the narrator's occasionally arrogant voice with that of the author's.

All in all, The Gargoyle is a truly entertaining rainy-day kind of read filled with quirky but wholly believable characters and a heart-hammering good plot. If it hasn't got a cult following already, I'm sure we won't have to wait very long before it does.

'The Ginger Man' by J.P. Donleavy

  Fiction - paperback; Abacus; 346 pages; 1997.

For someone who has an incurable penchant for Irish fiction, I can't believe I let J.P. Donleavy slip me by for so long. But until very recently he was completely unknown to me. So when my Other Half went on a solo run to Dublin recently and bought me The Ginger Man as a gift I wasn't sure what to expect.

Funnily enough, I recognised the cover of the book, but I'm not sure why. I don't think I have ever picked it up in a book shop. But that's by the by.

The blurb on my edition waxes rather lyrical, calling it a "masterpiece" and "a triumph", but I think that's not credit enough. The Ginger Man is a thoroughly wonderful, riotously funny, head-shakingly brilliant read. I loved it from the very first line to the last.

First published in Paris in 1955, the book was banned in Ireland -- where it is set -- and the USA for obscenity. More than 50 years on, the story is still crude and ribald but certainly not as offensive as it must have seemed in more temperate times in places verging on puritan.

The story follows the adventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, an American Protestant of Irish descent, who is studying law at Trinity College just after the Second World War. Married to an English woman and with an infant daughter, Dangerfield is a chancer who shies away from any form of responsibility, preferring to hang out with his friend, fellow student Kenneth O'Keefe, rather than do any proactive study.

Obsessed with booze and women, he does everything a married man should not do: spends the couple's rent money on alcohol, staggers home drunk and acts violently towards his wife. He also has numerous adulterous affairs in which he treats the women abominably. He is, in short, a thoroughly unlikable and selfish cad. And yet, in Donleavy's hands, Dangerfield is a character you love to hate. I spent most of the time thinking this can't be true, he can't get away with this, surely the man has a conscience? And kept turning the pages, hoping to discover that the man would mend his wicked ways if only he realised his behaviour was so outrageously appalling.

The book is written in a weird mish-mash of viewpoints, effortlessly switching between first person and third person, typical of the following paragraph:

'Come here and sit beside me while I open this bottle.'
She came and sat on the mattress beside him, leaning against the wall, watching him with a flourish of wrist, pop the cork. We lay in the remnants of coal. And a pile of turf. I happen to know that dogs and cats prefer coal and turf. And I don't relish finding myself sitting in it.

There are some scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny; others so shockingly brutal you're not sure you want to read on. I found myself not knowing whether I should be grimacing or chortling throughout. But it's this very fine line between comedy and tragedy that makes The Ginger Man work -- on so many different levels. The beauty of this rather marvellous novel is that it paints a very human portrait of a man so desperately troubled -- financially, emotionally, mentally -- that it's hard not to empathise with him just a little.

For those that want to know more about J.P. Donleavy, there's a wonderful profile of him on the Guardian website. He sounds like a truly fascinating character with whom I must acquaint myself more fully!

'Night Letters' by Robert Dessaix

Fiction - paperback; Picador; 276 pages; 1999.

Night Letters was published in Australia to critical acclaim in 1996. I had long been aware of its existence but had never got my hands on a copy -- until now.

Picking it up, it's hard to work out if it is a fictional story or a real-life travel memoir. This confusion is aided by its subtitle -- A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy -- and the note which claims it is "edited and annotated by Igor Miazmov". But for those who aren't quite sure, this is a novel and Miazmov is none other than Dessaix under another name. (Quite hilarious, then, to see that Amazon.co.uk lists Miazmov as if he is a real editor.)

The book comprises a series of 20 letters written on consecutive nights by an Australian man staying in a Venice hotel. The man, who is named Robert, has been diagnosed with an incurable illness and while the disease is never named one gets the impression that it is HIV.

These letters, which are not addressed to anyone in particular (but are effectively you, the reader), are filled with Robert's wide-ranging thoughts on travel, love, religion and mortality. But the common theme, which threads in and out of the often meandering narrative, is man's search for paradise and whether, in fact, it exists. This is underpinned by references to Dante's The Divine Comedy, which Robert is reading out of sequence, so that when he finishes Paradise he feels "oddly becalmed [...] if that didn't bring you to a point of absolute stillness, nothing would".

As Robert narrates his often mundane, sometimes frustrating and occasionally menacing travels through Locarno, Vicenza and Padua, he offers fascinating glimpses of the people and places he encounters along the way. In Locarno he befriends an English woman wearing a mysterious amulet -- "a hugely endowed male copulating with a large-limbed female, all in exquisitely fine detail, every bead in the bracelets, every toe picked out" -- who spends days telling him about the history of the tiny gold brooch she wears. And in Venice he meets another hotel resident, a German professor, with whom he shares many discourses on history and philosophy, mainly on how the famous Venetian residents Cassanova and Marco Polo represented "completely different ways of travelling -- and therefore of living out your life".

I have to admit that Night Letters initially failed to win me over. I actually considered abandoning it. But I'm glad I persevered, because once I understood this was a novel about storytelling -- there are references to famous novelists throughout, including Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell and Salman Rushdie -- I truly enjoyed it. There are stories within stories, and once you realise that these all combine weight to Robert's search for meaning, you wonder why you didn't "get" this much earlier.

What I loved most about this book -- aside from the gorgeously authentic descriptions of modern Venice and the very funny footnotes by "Igor Miazmov" -- are the insights into human nature and what it is to truly live. There are little gems dotted on every page -- for example, Robert realises that the journey of life is not about getting to the destination, which is effectively death, but in experiencing each moment as fully as one can, and I love this passage, which seems so eloquent and true to me:

Journeying is, after all, so fundamental to the way we humans think of ourselves and assign our lives a meaning. Every second book you read is about some kind of journey, really, isn't it? And we constantly talk about paths in life -- ways, roads, progress, stages and so on -- all travel metaphors, when you think about it.  

In fact, I had to do everything within my power not to underline about 90 per cent of the sentences in this book, because so many of them resonated with me.

Night Letters is an incredibly subtle novel, but it's a wise one too. It won't appeal to everyone, but I loved its intelligence, its humanity and its big-picture look at life, so much so that when I got to the last page I immediately wanted to turn to the front to read it all over again -- and that doesn't happen very often. And do read it if, like me, you have a penchant for anything set in Venice -- Dessaix captures the city so perfectly you'll be rushing to book your air flights!

'School's Out' by Christophe Dufosse

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 400 pages; 2007. Translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.

I'm not sure what it is with modern French novels, because I never really seem to enjoy them despite the fact that the blurb makes them sound fantastic. The cover of School's Out boasted all kinds of glowing reviews from "cool, sexy and sinister" to "forcibly reminds one of Donna Tart's A Secret History". And the note about the author on the first page said it had been translated into 10 languages and was the winner of the Prix Premier Roman, which is a French prize for first novels (I think?), so how could I go wrong?

The story opens with the death of a young teacher at a secondary school. He has killed himself by leaping out of a classroom window and it is largely thought that his class of unruly 13-year-old students are to blame. But when Pierre Hoffman takes over the class for the rest of the school year he finds the students incredibly well-behaved, quiet and submissive. But he soon learns that there is something slightly abnormal about them, as if they are "existing only as a whole, in a group". Cue spooky music here...

Despite this promising start, the story, in my opinion, runs out of steam.

It didn't help that I found the narrator to be incredibly detached and annoyingly philosophical. The prose style reminded me of Michel Hoeullebecq, but without the sense of humour. Perhaps it lost something in translation? Not that it read oddly, indeed some of the descriptions are pitch-perfect, such as this one:

The light outside was starting to fade. It was a few minutes past noon, and the grey sky of Normandy was already turning a shimmering black. The wind couldn't blow away the rain, a fine, solid rain that hurtled down in sudden pockets like the impetuous whirl of a flock of sparrows. It flew at the service station windows and climbed horizontally up the car park, sweeping the asphalt at an oblique angle. From where we were standing, we could hear a faint whistle from the trees and bushes. Time stopped abruptly as though there had been some sorrt of breakdown in our continuity.

But it went off on so many tangents that the crux of the story -- a class of teenagers that have sinister intentions -- got lost in the mix. Not once did I want to furiously turn the page to find out what happened next. Not once did I feel the slow-burn of menace that I had expected to resonate off the page. The entire narrative lacked oomph or any sense of urgency.

The exciting stuff comes right at the very end -- yes, somewhere about page 312 of a 316-page book -- and even then it's not all that exciting. In fact, it seems somehow unreal and a little bit ludicrous. And I won't even mention the epilogue!

Frankly, a disappointing book and one I wished I'd never bothered reading.

'A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance' by Marlena de Blasi

 

Nonfiction - paperback; Ballentine Books; 272 pages; 2002.

I have just discovered that the medication I am currently taking for a chest infection is the same medication given to people with Anthrax, so this might partly explain the snarky review which is to follow. Then again it might not.

A Thousand Days in Venice is one of those lovely-looking personal travel memoirs that promises everything and delivers not very much at all.

There's no doubt that it is well written: the prose is clear, lucid and free from too much 'waffle' and de Blasi definitely knows how to write about food in a wonderfully evocative way.

But the story -- how can I say this without sounding too mean? -- is woefully sappy and overly sentimental, which is fine if you like those things, but terrible if you don't.

Essentially it's about de Blasi's whirlwind 'romance' with an Italian whom she met on a work-related trip to Venice. This man had spied her before on a previous trip, had fallen in love with her profile, and when he spotted her again on her second trip he kept following her around like a lovelorn puppy. Apparantly de Blasi has never heard of the term 'stalker' before.

Strangely enough, when alarm bells should have been ringing, de Blasi, a middle-aged American with a successful career and two grown-up children of her own, decides to give up her entire life for this man -- a banker -- she barely knows. The two of them don't even share a common language and de Blasi hasn't even seen Fernando's house before she's already sold hers and is winging her way to Venice to be with him.

Of course, things don't pan out as de Blasi had hoped (probably because the woman doesn't seem to have a realistic bone in her body) and there are ructions in the relationship from woe to go. But somehow the marriage survives even when Fernando throws in his job because he wants to leave Venice to live elsewhere!

All in all, a fairly cloying memoir that I really only perservered with because I enjoyed the references to particular places in Venice that I've seen or visited. It's a pretty safe bet that I won't be tracking down her second volume -- A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure -- unless my Anthrax medication turns me decidedly loopy!

'Tatty' by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 224 pages; 2006.

This has to be one of the most entertaining, if somewhat harrowing, books I have read about childhood in a long time and I quickly devoured it in the space of 24 hours.

Reminiscent of Roddy Doyle's Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, it tells the story of a young girl growing up in Dublin, spanning the years 1964 to 1974.

Tatty, who acquired her name as an abbreviation of "tell-tale-tattler", is a lonely little girl who makes up stories to gain attention. But because she is the apple of her father's eye, this "alliance" incurs the wrath of her quick-tempered and cruel mother.

Narrated by Tatty, we get shocking but brutally honest glimpses of the unravelling marriage between her beloved but reckless father, who lives to bet on the horses, and her unhappy mother, who is suffering (undiagnosed) depression and drowning her sorrows in booze.

Caught in the middle of this maelstrom are Tatty and her five siblings, the oldest of which is mentally handicapped. When Tatty escapes to boarding school, it seems like she may be protected from the fallout of her family's disintegration, but if anything, it just makes the differences between her safe, secure life at school and the confused, disturbed one at home all that more apparent -- and difficult to deal with.

The beauty of this story is Dwyer Hickey's ability to get inside the head of a little girl. Tatty's voice is so real, so authentic you feel as if she is a living, breathing being that you long to protect.

The writing deftly treads a fine line between tragedy and comedy. It's by no means sappy or sentimental, but it is incredibly moving and, at times, tear-inducing.

I loved this book so much that when I came to the last page I felt totally bereft, not because the ending was unexpected (it wasn't), but because I had grown to know Tatty so well I feared for her future and didn't want to leave her behind.

'The Black Tulip' by Alexandre Dumas

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books; 288 pages; 2004. Translated from the French by Robert Buss.

Set in Holland during the 1670s, this short, cinematic story is essentially a love triangle between two people and a flower - the much sought-after black tulip, tulipa negra.

The opening scenes, bloody and gruesome, put the reader in the thick of the action right at the outset, but this is deceptive: the story is not the ghastly violent one the first chapter may lead you to expect. Instead, it is a gentle, well-plotted romance interwoven with real life events from Dutch history. But on a slightly deeper level it is also a tale about righting wrongs, fighting tyranny and seeking justice.

When Cornelius van Baerle, a humble tulip grower, is (wrongly) thrown into jail it looks like he is going to lose his life - at worst - and lose his chance to grow the perfect specimen of the tulip negra - at best. His tulip-growing rival, the "evil" Isaac Boxtel, sees this as the perfect opportunity to thwart van Baerle's chance of winning the top horticultural prize. But then Rosa, the jailor's beautiful and headstrong daughter, finds a way to help van Baerle achieve his heart's desire despite the odds and the looming figure of William of Orange.

The Black Tulip might sound a little soppy, but the plot is very good and moves along with great momentum. The writing could do with a little judicious editing here and there, and the ending is wholly predictable, but overall this is a simple tale, relatively well told and a fascinating insight into a time known as "tulipmania".

***

This book was chosen for discussion in Reading Matters Online Book Group (Session 2) in September 2005. Click here for reading group questions and discussion.

'The Joy of Letting Women Down' by Natalie D'Arbeloff

Humour - hardcover; Robson Books; 160 pages; 2000. Review copy courtesy of the author.

If you've ever wondered why stunningly ugly men, usually old and quite rich, end up with devastatingly gorgeous super models on their arms, then The Joy of Letting Women Down will reveal all. You see these stunningly ugly men might be rich and they might be old but they are pure specimens of the "Worshipped Male" and they know every trick in the book to attract - and keep - those devastatingly gorgeous super models we admire from afar.

And that's what this book does best: illuminate all the games Worshipped Males (read womanisers) play to seduce and trap members of the opposite sex, and, in doing so, exposes the (staggering) differences between the genders.

It also explores the unspoken rules of engagement when it comes to negotiating that delicate thing called a RELATIONSHIP. (For instance, there's a whole chapter on "punishments and tortures" that Worshipped Males employ to keep their chosen women begging for more. One of these so-called punishments is this: "Phone her very late at night and pour out your troubles at length. She will urge you to come over at once so that she can comfort you. Decline this offer, without saying where you are and hang up with a sigh. She will be unable to get back to sleep, worrying and fretting. You should keep this up for several hours - phoning back, talking some more, hanging up, waiting, calling again, etc.")

I laughed out loud a lot while reading this short "instruction manual". I sniggered too. And occasionally I nodded my head in agreement or recognition (I know a few female work colleagues who need to read this book!)

The black and white illustrations throughout are delightful, but I wouldn't expect anything less from the woman who has given us Blaugustine, an online cartoon alter ego that makes delightful reading.

And while The Joy of Letting Women Down isn't my "normal" reading matter, I quite enjoyed my foray into something a little "off beat".

* * *

The Joy of Letting Women Down, published by Robson Books, is available by mail order via Amazon.co.uk.

You can also purchase signed copies direct from the author for the reduced price of £3 (plus postage) per book. For further information, just send an e-mail to augustine DOT nda AT blueyonder DOT co DOT uk

'Beds Are Burning: Midnight Oil: The Journey' by Mark Dodshon

Non-fiction - paperback; Penguin Viking; 408 pages; 2004.

As far as publicity is concerned, Midnight Oil has always been a closed shop. So to find a book that charts the band's climb from the Australian pub rock circuit to worldwide critical acclaim is a rare treat.

Midnight Oil are an unusual act, not least because they have always played their cards close to their chest, but because they have been synonymous with so many causes - aboriginal land rights and conservation, to name but a few - while achieving commercial and critical success at the same time.

In Australia, their homeland, they have been elevated to iconic status. In fact I know of no other band anywhere that has tapped into the Australian psyche and culture so well. Listen to their ground-breaking 1987 album Diesel and Dust and I swear you can smell the desert, see the heat shimmering in the distance and feel the sand sticking to your skin.

Their lyrics, rich with descriptions of the Australian lifestyle and landscape, were often attributed to the politically outspoken and charismatic lead singer Peter Garrett, but as this book explains, it was the softly spoken Jim Moginie and the "world's best drummer" (who mirrored himself on The Who's Keith Moon) Rob Hirst who wrote the bulk of the words.

This book examines the band's rise from the suburbs of Sydney to their brief but memorable success in the United States and their subsequent slide into obscurity. It looks at the individual members (but not their home lives - this is not an expose of their life outside of music) and how they worked (or did not work) together to create the songs and the albums of their long and varied career.

I thought it was an enlightening read, although there is quite a bit of repetition in the book (I expect so that each chapter can be read as a stand alone), but on the whole this is an excellent history of my favourite Australian band. There's also some great photographs in it, particularly some previously unpublished ones of Garrett with long, flowing locks which are worth the cover price alone!

Interestingly the epilogue entitled As Big as U2 is a thought-provoking analysis of why the band never hit the same dizzy heights as the Irish rockstars, despite the fact Midnight Oil were often compared to them. In light of U2's current "commercialisation" I know whose shoes I'd rather be standing in right now. Integrity and passion were always Midnight Oil's stronger points, although not many people "got" that at the time.

'Transgressions' by Sarah Dunant

Fiction - paperback; Time Warner Paperbacks; 375 pages; 1998.

This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase thanks to Amazon's "Your Recommendations" which, I have to say, can be slightly dodgy at the best of times (I wish I'd never bought books on PhotoShop or Adobe InDesign for the office because I am constantly BOMBARDED with recommendations to buy more of the same, even though I've ticked all the right boxes to say "Please don't use this purchase as a basis for a recommendation").

But I digress . . .

This book is a thriller (recommended by Amazon, I am sure, due to my previous purchase of the odd Nicci French novel or two) but it's unlike any thriller I've read before. Yes, there are some VERY scary moments and some edge-of-the-seat scenes that had me wanting to read late into the night. But - and it's a BIG but - the story was slightly weird, in places the writing seemed contrived and in others the line between sex and porn became blurred. I can't say I enjoyed the book, but it was a pacey and sometimes terrifying read, so I guess I couldn't ask for too much more.

The story centres around Elizabeth, who makes her living translating books from Czech into English. She has recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend and finds herself rattling around the big house they once shared in suburban London. Strange, quirky things begin to happen in the house that disturb her because she can't quite work out whether they are really happening or whether they are a figment of her imagination.

The fear factor goes up a few notches when Elizabeth wakes up in the middle of the night KNOWING that an uninvited guest is in the house. It's HOW she deals with this intruder that readers may find disturbing . . .

Transgressions seems a very fitting title for this weird and slightly seedy book. It's not the best thriller I've ever read, but by the same token it's not a bad read - just a strange one . . .

'The Shark Net' by Robert Drewe

Non-Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 358 pages; 2000.

Robert Drewe is one of Australia's most critically acclaimed writers. In this book he switches his focus from fiction to memoir, with mixed results.

Born in Melbourne, Drewe moved to Perth with his family when he was a young boy. In the most isolated city on earth, he lived a comfortable and carefree middle-class existence by the beach. But then a man Drewe knew murdered a boy he also knew. Before long, a murderer was on the rampage, randomly killing eight strangers. Suddenly life took on a darker twist.

At the same time that Perth was losing its innocence, so, too, was Drewe, who became a teenage father and husband, something his upstanding parents found difficult to deal with.

While I had expected the book to concentrate on Perth's dark underbelly and Drewe's reaction to the crimes happening around him, what I got was a rather uninspiring account of an ordinary suburban childhood. While I found the descriptions of Perth intriguing and could feel Drewe's love of its amazing coastline and the friendliness of the people permeate off the pages, I found the lack of dates annoying (was it the fifties or the sixties?) and some of his writing pedestrian. However, his insights into life as a young cadet reporter were interesting; if only breaking into journalism and then getting a job on Melbourne's Age was as easy now as it was then!

All in all, this is an entertaining account of an Australian childhood in a bygone, if somewhat unspecified, era.