Reading Matters

'Things the Grandchildren Should Know' by Mark Oliver Everett

Non-fiction - hardcover; Little Brown; 256 pages; 2008.

To survive the tragic deaths of your entire family is one thing, to become a critically acclaimed musician is another, and yet  44-year-old Mark Oliver Everett has done both. Now, with the release of this memoir, he can also added talented author to the list.

Everett, better known as 'E' from the Eels, an alternative rock band which is essentially Everett and an ever-changing cast of musicians, seems to be the current flavour of the month here in the UK. He recently starred in a BBC 4 documentary called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives about his father, the late quantum physicist Hugh Everett III, who was the originator of the many-worlds theory. Then his book was published and just last week he played a special gig at St James's Church in Piccadilly to promote it.

The beauty of Things the Grandchildren Should Know is its easy-to-read narrative style and Everett's tongue-in-cheek self-deprecating humour. This is surprising given the largely sad story contained within its pages. Not only does Everett lose a succession of family members under various tragic circumstances -- his father of a heart attack aged just 51, his mother of lung cancer, his drug-addicted older sister of suicide and his air stewardess cousin in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 -- but many of his friends and colleagues in the music business have also died before their time.

Understandably Everett wrestles with many demons, including depression, but he never loses sight of his goal, which is to make the best music he can make without sacrificing his integrity. Getting the first record deal was tough. Keeping the record company happy was even tougher.

What you gather from reading this book is that Everett has a wonderful ability to roll with the punches. Ever pragmatic, he states that it is only by experiencing terrible lows that he can appreciate the highs, such as his critically acclaimed success. "I can get overwhelmed with situations sometimes," he writes towards the end of the book. "But it's not as bad or as often as it used to be, and I think living through so much crazy shit really has made me stronger. Just like they say it should."

Things the Grandchildren Should Know is the kind of thought-provoking memoir that makes you thankful for the good things in life -- and you don't necessarily have to know anything about Mark Oliver Everett or be a fan of the Eels to appreciate its universal message.

'The Gathering' by Anne Enright

Fiction - hardcover; Jonathan Cape; 261 pages; 2007.

Grim and disturbing are the first words that spring to mind when describing Anne Enright's Booker shortlisted The Gathering. But admid the dark, often depressing, subject matter there are chinks of light that make the novel surprisingly witty and, in a perverse kind of way, uplifting.

The story, which is set in Dublin, revolves around Veronica Hegarty, a 30-something wife and mother, who has escaped the clutches of her huge Irish Catholic family -- she has eight siblings -- only to be dragged right on back when her wayward brother, Liam, kills himself. Closest to him in age, Veronica is the one who must pick up the pieces -- and bring back his body from England, where he drowned himself off Brighton Beach.

The first-person narrative is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner from Veronica's perspective. She flits backwards and forwards in time, exploring her family's dark history. She goes as far back as her grandparent's generation as she tries to unravel the nub of the story, which is laid bare in the book's opening lines:

I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen. I need to bear witness to an uncertain event. I feel it roaring inside me -- this thing that may not have taken place. I don't even know what name to put on it. I think you might call it a crime of the flesh, but the flesh is long fallen away and I am not sure what hurt may linger in the bones.

During the course of the book, which spans Liam's death through to his funeral, Veronica traces the sexual history of the family. There's a lot of shocking stuff here -- crass descriptions of love-making and the like -- which may be too much for prudish readers to bare.  But through this crude language we glimpse Veronica's obsessions and see how her personality has been slightly damaged by her rough-and-tumble crowded childhood. Her pain and her anguish is never expressed to the outside world (she cannot even communicate with her husband), but is buried deep inside where it finds expression in Veronica's self-loathing. If nothing else, The Gathering is a portrait of a lost woman coming to grips with her past, her present and her future.

This is a complicated book, one that requires more than one reading with which to fully come to grips. There's a lot going on here, about family, about the ties that bind, about the fact we can never escape the past. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, it's too grim and rambling and unfocussed for that, but I'm a big fan of Irish fiction and found this one did not disappoint. I don't think it will win this year's Booker, but it's inclusion on the shortlist is a worthy one.

'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides

Fiction - paperback; Bloomsbury; 529 pages; 2003.

This book has received rave reviews, been an international bestseller and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And no wonder - it is BRILLIANT. Middlesex is wholly original and unlike anything I've ever read before. Just look at the opening line:

I was  born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

How could you not be intrigued?

The narrator, Calliope Helen Stephanides, tells an amazingly entertaining story, tracing not only her own incredible history but that of her entire family's, beginning with her emigre grandparents, who have their own secrets to keep. By unravelling this secret, Cal is able to understand who she is and where she comes from.

This illuminating book not only explores the notions of sex and gender identity, but what it is to be a Greek-American in a racially-troubled society (a large portion of the story is set during the times leading up to and surrounding the race riots of 1967).

All in all this is a wry, humorous, moving, exhilarating and fascinating read. And it will do wonders for raising awareness of those born with this surprisingly common but largely hidden genetic mutation now referred to as "intersex".

Eugenides is definitely giving American darling Jonathan Franzen a run for his money!

'The Visit of the Royal Physician' by Per Olov Enquist

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 309 pages; 2003. Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally.

This historical novel is set in Denmark at the height of the Enlightenment. It tells the story of the half-wit king, Christian VII, whose behaviour swings between outrageous violence one minute and confused innocence the next. His advisors capitalise on the young king's madness to run the country as they see fit, controlling not only the so-called ruler but the nation state as well. This creates many dangerous political battles between rival advisors.

To complicate matters further, the king is unable or unwilling to consummate his relationship with his wife, Caroline Mathilde. She then turns to the arms of another and conducts an adulterous affair with Christian's most trusted adviser, Struensee — the royal physician of the book's title. It does not take long before she falls pregnant to him, risking scandal and expulsion from the kingdom, which, in turn, threatens to undermine the very stability and security of Denmark itself.

All in all this is a dark and somewhat astonishing story reminiscent of Rose Tremain's award-winning Music & Silence but set 140 years apart. The Visit of the Royal Physician is imbued with the same sense of drama, romance, betrayal and political intrigue that characterised Tremain's wonderfully mesmerizing book. But Olov Enquist, a Swedish author, has written it as reportage, which adds an extra layer of authenticity to the story.

If you like your historical novels to resonate with passion and suspense, you won't go far wrong with this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it — though Tremain's foray into Danish history is still the best one I've come across.

'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

Fiction - paperback; Black Swan; 382 pages; 2002.

Put succinctly, this is a superb whodunit. It's also a superb spoof on reality TV — in particular the Big Brother phenomenon — and the way in which the culture of celebrity pervades modern day life.

The 10 contestants on House Arrest are vacuous, self-obsessed 20-somethings who are naively manipulated by the show's producer to boost ratings and advertising revenues. Before long the contestants all have a reason to hate one another, and then the unimaginable happens — "It's Day 27 in the House Arrest house and there's a murder in the toilet". Despite all the hundreds of cameras recording the housemates 24/7, there is no evidence to show who committed the crime. Consequently, ratings soar as viewers try to determine who is the killer.

Elton's story sounds like a straightforward plot, but it's not. He very cleverly withholds the identity of the victim until you are at least half way through the novel. This means that while you know someone's been killed, you begin to analyse every housemate, looking at their potential to kill or be killed. You end up turning the pages at a furious pace and, if you're like me, you may find yourself reading this book in one sitting.

If you're a Big Brother fan, you will love this book. It's clever, wry and funny, but above all it is hugely entertaining. It's just a pity it was written by someone so annoying and full of himself as Ben Elton.