Reading Matters

'Let The Great World Spin' by Colum McCann

Fiction - paperback; Bloomsbury; 349 pages; 2009.

Anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning documentary Man on a Wire or read Philippe Petit's To Reach The Clouds will know of Petit's daring high-wire act between between the Twin Towers in New York City on August 7, 1974. It was an act that stunned the world but has taken on extra significance now that the Twin Towers are no longer standing.

Adding to the mythology of Petit's incredibly daring stunt (he walked the wire for 45 minutes, making eight crossings between the towers, and was arrested shortly after) is Colum McCann's equally ambitious novel. I say ambitious because it's fairly staggering in its scope, telling as it does the individual stories of a diverse group of characters living in New York, using Petit's walk as a kind of bridging link between them all. Does he pull it off? In my opinion, not quite.

Long-time readers of this blog will know I have a penchant for Irish writers and stories set in New York, so I rather suspected that Let The Great World Spin would be right up my street, seeing as it ticked both boxes. But there was something about this book that didn't gel with me and I've spent the best part of a week trying to figure it out.

I think the problem is not so much the scope and the huge canvas that McCann uses, nor the diversity of his characters -- an Irish monk, a prostitute and an Upper Eastside housewife among them, all expertly drawn -- but that the book reads very much like a collection of short stories strung together (pun not intended) by Petit's high-wire act. Some of these stories interconnect, others, such as the very brief chapter about Fernando, a 13-year-old subway graffiti artist, do not. And, as ever with books of this type, there is a danger that the reader will like some characters better than others, so that certain chapters become more exciting, or more dull, than others, leading to an inconsistent read.

But I don't want to sound too harsh, because there's no doubt that McCann knows how to write beautifully, painting pictures in just a handful of words, as this example shows:

I watched a long pink boa scarf get caught up in the wheels of a patrol car. It wrapped the wheelbase as if in affection, and bits of tufted pink spun in the air.

Similarly, his ability to get into the skin of so many different characters -- a rich house wife who's grieving over her son killed in Vietnam, a Jewish judge called to deal with Petit's legal case, a black hooker fighting to see her two grandchildren, a reformed drug user guilty of a hit-and-run fatality -- without chiming a wrong note is impressive. And his "bridging" segments about Petit are also a delight to read, particularly the section describing the high-wire itself:

The shouting, the sirens, the dull sounds of the city. He let them become a white hum. He went for his last silence and he found it just stood there, in the precise middle of the wire, one hundred feet from each tower, eyes closed, body still, wire gone. He took the air of the city into his lungs.

Interestingly, when I saw McCann at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last week, he confessed that he wanted the book to contain two very strong fictional characters, mirroring the Twin Towers, but that he accidentally killed one off before he really got started -- and he just couldn't bring him back. Whoops, I hope that wasn't a plot spoiler.

'I Served the King of England' by Bohumil Hrabal

Fiction - paperback; Vintage Classics; 288 pages; 2009. Translated from the Czech by Paul Wilson.

It's not very often I read a book and feel completely ambivalent about it, but that's how I felt when I finished Bohumil Hrabal's I Served the King of England. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, but I enjoyed reading it and am glad I tackled it, even if I'm in no hurry to read the rest of Hrabal's back catalogue.

The story, which is set in Czechoslovakia during the late 1930s, is narrated by Ditie, an ambitious busboy at the Golden Prague Hotel, who dreams of becoming a millionaire. He supplements his income by selling frankfurters at a railway station but cheats customers out of their change by waiting until they've boarded the train.

Then I'd fumble about for the change, and the fellow would yell at me to forget the coins and just give him the notes. Very slowly I'd start patting my pockets, and the dispatcher would blow his whistle, and very slowly I'd ease the notes out of my pocket, and the train would start moving, and I'd trot alongside it, and when the train had picked up speed I'd reach out so that the notes would just barely brush the tips of the fellow's fingers, and sometimes he'd be leaning out so far that someone inside would have to hang onto his legs, and one of my customers even beamed himself of a signal post. But then the fingers would be out of reach, and I'd stand there panting, the money still in my outstretched hand, and it was all mine. They almost never came back for their change, and that's how I started having money of my own, a couple of hundred a month, and once I even got handed a thousand-crown note.

With this kind of initiative, it's no surprise that Ditie does, eventually, make his fortune.

He changes jobs several times, moving to more prestigious hotels where he's exposed to more affluent guests and comes under the tutelage of a maître d' who once served the King of England. He has various affairs with different women, including prostitutes along the way. Indeed, he has a penchant for brothels, and spends a lot of his money on prostitutes whose laps he adorns with lavish displays of flowers -- peony petals, daisies, sprigs of fir or mistletoe.

He later gets the chance to serve the Emperor of Ethiopia and is presented with a blue sash and a medal, the highpoint of his career as a waiter, but then almost loses the plot -- and his life -- when he is accused of stealing one of the gold teaspoons used at the event.

It's these farcical moments which makes the novel a delight to read. Much of it is incredibly funny, and even in moments of potential tragedy, it's hard not to laugh. 

But when the Germans invade Prague the narrative takes on a new, sinister dimension, in complete contrast to all that has come before. Ditie falls in love with a German gym teacher and becomes a Nazi sympathizer. It takes awhile to come to grips with this strange turn of events, but it only serves as a taster to a whole series of weird and surreal twists in the narrative ahead, including Ditie's imprisonment for being a millionaire.

I Served the King of England is a strange, witty novel about one man's fantastic journey from rags to riches and back again.

The book was first published in 1971 but has recently been reissued by Vintage Classics in quite a striking purple cover designed by Japanese artist Mio Matsumoto.

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This book was chosen by Claire from Paperback Reader as part of our London-based face-to-face book group. Here's some other posts written about the book by fellow members, which I'll update as they are published:

• Claire's review

• Novel Insight's review

• Simon's review

'The Texicans' by Nina Vida

Fiction - paperback; Soho Press; 304 pages; 2006. Review copy courtesy of the author.

I can't remember the last "Western" novel I read; it's not a genre I find particularly interesting, but I put that down to a childhood filled with F-Troop re-runs on TV!

Nina Vida's The Texicans is set during the mid-19th Century, about 18 or so years before the American Civil War. The story spans 12 years in the life of Joseph Kimmel, a Missouri school teacher, who decides to give up his job in order to tie up his deceased brother's business interests in San Antonio, Texas. Somewhere along the way, he gets distracted and never quite makes it to San Antonio. He spends four years in the newly established Castroville instead, where he marries a German immigrant, Katrin, not because he loves her, but to save her from the local Indian chief.

The couple head for the mountains to make a new life for themselves, acquiring a handful of misfits, including two escaped African slaves and their families, along the way. This is risky business for Joseph, because having negro sympathies could earn him a lynching. However, as a Jew born to Polish immigrants, he knows what it is like to be cast aside and treated as not quite human.

Much of the story revolves around the adventures and dramas as Joseph begins to establish his own town known as Kimmelsburg. It's a tough way of life and there are many battles to be fought with local Indian tribes, including the Comanche and Tonkaways. 

Meanwhile, as Joseph struggles to love the woman he married, he falls for Aurelia Ruiz, the daughter of a Mexican man and his Anglo wife. But Aurelia, who has made a name for herself as a healer (or witch), is already married to one of the runaway slaves and is therefore out of bounds. But this thwarted love affair adds an extra dimension to a story that is already ripe with drama and intrigue.

Sadly, I think the book, while eloquently written, suffers a little from its odd structure. It opens with the story of Aurelia, and explains how she developed her healing talent, was later married off to a cruel white man and eventually lives with a tribe of Comanche indians. It's a rip-roaring narrative that I thoroughly enjoyed, but then, oddly, her story seems to end and we're suddenly thrust into the world of Joseph Kimmel, never to truly return to Aurelia's point of view.

The characters are also perplexing, in the sense that I found it very hard to identify with them. Joseph is a complete enigma: he seems so socially liberal and kind-hearted and generous, but the ways in which he treats his wife, barely acknowledging her and showing no love or fondness, is hard to reconcile. 

Equally, Katrin seems incredibly strong and resilient in all matters except where her husband is concerned, and Aurelia, by far the most interesting person in the whole book, seems to flit around the periphery of the story, never taking centre stage.

But what I liked most about The Texicans is the refreshingly honest presentation of history, free from political correctness. This is a world where settlers -- white and black -- must learn to live with the fear of being scalped by Indians and lynched by the Texas rangers. In some ways it reminded me of Kate Grenville's The Secret River, although Vida tends to paint the pioneers in a rose-coloured light that would make Grenville quake at the knees.

'Arctic Chill' by Arnaldur Indriðason

Fiction - paperback; Harvill Secker; 352 pages; 2008. Translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb.

This is the fifth book in Arnaldur Indriðason's police procedural series set in Reykjavík that has been translated into English. As usual it stars the morose detective Erlendur and his colleagues, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg, and revolves around two separate investigations -- the murder of a young Thai boy and the disappearance of a married woman.

The first (and main) storyline poses a shocking question up front: was the murder of Elias, the schoolboy, found dead from a knife wound, racially motivated? As the police officers make their inquiries they uncover racial tensions within the local school community -- one teacher holds strong views about immigration, for instance, and immigrant pupils are rumoured to be ostracized and bullied by their Icelandic counterparts -- which belies Iceland as a cosy, welcoming and liberal nation.

But there are other possibilities too: a suspected paedophile has been spotted in the area and may be responsible. Or was it Elias' older brother, Niran, who has gone into hiding? And what about Elias' mother, a Thai divorcee, who is rumoured to have a secret lover -- could he be the murderer?

I'm obviously not going to give the plot away, suffice to say that over the course of some 350 pages Erlundur and his co-horts dig around every conceivable lead, uncovering the odd red herring or two, which makes for an exciting read.

The second narrative thread, in which a husband reports his second wife's disappearance, takes a back seat to the murder investigation, but it adds an additional layer of interest and ratchets up the excitement level by a notch or two.

Despite the cracking storylines, I found this book slightly wearisome. I'm beginning to think I may have just read one too many in this series, because the back story associated with Erlundur's troubled past -- the death of his younger brother when he was a child, his marriage split, his daughter's drug addiction -- was so familiar to me. Of course, Indriðason has to work these references in for the benefit of first-time readers, so he's forgiven, but it does wear thin if you've read the four preceding novels, even with the slight character development that's apparent. 

Still, if you're looking for a crime novel that's easy to read, entertaining and has a social conscience, this will tick all the required boxes.

'Not Untrue & Not Unkind' by Ed O'Loughlin

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 288 pages; 2009.

The 2009 Booker shortlist gets announced this coming Tuesday, so I thought it was about time I reviewed one of the long-listed titles -- Ed O'Loughlin's Not Untrue & Not Unkind. I read it more than a month ago now but haven't been able to muster up enough will power to review it because, to be perfectly honest, I found this an incredibly disappointing book.

I actually bought it long before the long-list was announced, having spied it at Dublin Airport back in mid-April. I was attracted by the story of a foreign correspondent working in Africa and liked the fact that O'Loughlin was a former foreign correspondent himself, so would no doubt know what he was talking about in the novel. Anne Enright's coverline describing it as "the most exciting first novel I have read in many years" sealed the deal.

The story opens with Dublin-based journalist Owen Simmons riffling through the papers of a dead colleague and discovering a photograph that makes him reflect on his time, 10 years earlier, as a foreign correspondent in Africa. He then recounts an endless succession of events -- genocide, war, corruption -- that wouldn't be out of place in Evelyn Waugh's delicious satire about journalism, Scoop but that's about where the similarities end.

Instead of delivering a novel about those fascinating news events O'Laughlin chooses to focus the story on the people covering those events, so what we get is a kind of dry account of the camaraderie between an eclectic mix of foreign correspondents, freelancers and photographers. All of these people face enormous news-gathering challenges and experience some incredibly disturbing situations, but this tends to take a back seat to shifting love affairs and petty rivalries.

This would be perfectly fine if any of those characters were remotely interesting, but I found most of them dull, shallowly drawn and, occasionally, morally dubious.

Sadly, the narrative suffers from a lack of drive, and the only time I felt it getting exciting -- when a reporter, getting worn down by the news cycle, goes off the rails in his bedroom and throws a gorilla doll out the window in a fit of blind fury -- it slides back into its normal plodding pace, with journos lolling around hotel pools or boozing up in hotel bars waiting for the next story to break.

What this all amounts to is a story that lacks emotion, which is difficult to square given the fact it's set during some of the most devastating and violent conflicts in recent times. This is such a shame, because the book had all the right ingredients for a really powerful, hard-hitting and devastating read and what you get is something as dreary as watching grass grow.

Despite this, it's clear that O'Laughlin can write: his prose style is clear and direct, and when he describes the landscape he really comes into his own, as the following passage demonstrates:

The wind chased us to the edge of town and there it halted. It was the strangest thing. Looking back, I could see a brown spire rising over the hills and rooftops, flecked with shreds of paper and plastic, and dust devils played like stray children on the scrub at the edge of town. But ahead of us the hot vacant road shimmered in the sun and there was no wind to trouble the massive indifference of the bush.

But beautiful writing isn't enough when the story you're telling lacks oomph. The only saving grace is the twist at the end, when Owen realises that sometimes your past can come back to haunt you...

'The Gift' by Pete Hamill

Fiction - hardcover; Little, Brown; 153 pages; 2005.

Coming in at just over 150 pages, Pete Hamill's The Gift is a quick-to-read novella set in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950s. The Americans are mired in a war with Korea, and Pete, the first person narrator, is a teenage sailor on leave for the Christmas holidays. It's a bittersweet return, for as much as he's happy to see his family again, there are two heartaches he must deal with: the father that he feels does not love him and the girlfriend who has replaced him for another.

In typical Hamill style the writing is eloquent and the narrative appealing, but having just read his memoir, A Drinking Life, it's plain to see that this story is actually thinly veiled autobiography. Indeed, The Gift, originally published in 1973, was Hamill's first novel, and he claims to have written it for his father, a man he wanted to impress in order to win his approval and love.

Taking that on board, and noting that all the characters have the same names as Hamill's real life family -- his mother Anne, his father Billy and so on -- it almost feels voyeuristic to read this. It comes across as a kind of love letter to his dad, an Irish immigrant, fond of the drink and handy with his fists, which, at times, threatens to cross the line officially known as schmaltz. The twee cover of a Brooklyn brownstone adorned in Christmas lights doesn't particularly help.

But, in short, this is a lovely heartfelt book that showcases Hamill's ear for dialogue, his flair for nostalgia, and his uncanny ability to chart the innermost workings of the human heart with honesty and candour.

'The Pages' by Murray Bail

  Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 208 pages; 2009.

It's been 10 years since Murray Bail's last novel, the oh-so wonderful Eucalyptus, which is one of my all-time favourite books. I was anxiously awaiting this new one and had it on pre-order from Amazon for what seemed like forever. When it thudded through the mail box late last week, I devoured it hungrily. Unfortunately, I was slightly disappointed by it.

I'm not sure why. The writing is exquisite, with touches of modernism (Patrick White came to mind on more than one occasion), and the characters are wonderful: well drawn, believable and quirky. The narrative, however, is vague, and there were times when I wondered, where is Bail going with this?

The story is told from two intertwining perspectives. The first is largely from the point of view of Erica, a 45-year-old unmarried philosopher from Sydney, who is sent to a sheep station in the NSW outback to appraise the work of another philosopher, Wesley Anthill, who has died and left all his papers in his writing shed. The second is told from Wesley's point of view, first as a young man, who leaves the farm and moves to Sydney in search of "experience", before wandering through the UK and Europe, and then returning home to toil away on his life's work.

It's made clear from the start that Erica is a fish out of water. She's city born and bred, and the prospect of going over the Blue Mountains into the outback fills her with dread. To alleviate the boredom, she takes along her good friend, Sophie, a psychoanalyst. The dynamic, and the unspoken tension, between this pair certainly enlivens the narrative, particularly when they arrive at the sheep station and find their hosts, Wesley's siblings, Roger and Lindsey, are reclusive country bumpkins not used to talking, much less entertaining two "sophisticated" guests.

There are some funny moments throughout, a kind of laconic humour that brings a smile to the dial, along with some lovely homesick-inducing descriptions of the landscape and interesting turns of phrase, such as this gem:

Also on the table was a bottle of tomato sauce, almost finished, the leftovers clinging to the insides, like the remnants of the British Empire.

And this:

Men in the square were happily playing boule in the face of their fast-approaching deaths.

Much of the book is a kind of treatise to philosophy -- and posits that the Australian climate and landscape do not generate the kinds of conditions necessary to develop philosophical thought.

Hot barren countries -- alive with natural hazards -- discourage the formation of long sentences, and encourage instead the laconic manner. The heat and the distances between objects seems to drain the will to add words to what is already there. What exactly can be added? 'Seeds falling on barren ground' -- where do you think that well-polished saying came from?

And he juxtaposes this with the idea that Sydney may not be a philosopher's city but it is "the most psychological city in the world" where people go into therapy to talk about themselves.

What is going on here? The skies are blue, forever cloudless -- is that it? A great emptiness sending people back to themselves. Now that the city is up and running, no longer a country town, there's been a transference from the landscape and its old hardships to the self?

There are some big ideas here, and I suspect anyone who's studied philosophy (I haven't) will love it. But I was left wondering whether I had missed anything. Was Wesley's philosophy anything more than the average Australian youngster who backpacks through Europe and returns home feeling as if they've discovered themselves and the world?

The Pages is one of those books that asks more questions than it answers, and I suspect it's one of those novels that requires a second reading to fully appreciate. I think this quote by the Independent, on the back of my paperback, sums it up perfectly: "This book is as hard and sparse as that landscape, but no less beautiful for that."

The Pages was shortlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Award but lost out to Tim Winton's Breath.

'Netherland' by Joseph O'Neill

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 248 pages; 2009.

Joseph O'Neill's Netherland was famously long-listed for last year's Man Booker Prize, attracting a flurry of support from mainly North American critics who loved the cricket element of the book. (The Vulture section of the New York Times has quite a good summary of the acclaim it garnered upon release. And President Obama also turned out to be a fan. )

But on the other side of the pond the response was more mixed. And if you dare check the Amazon.co.uk reviews you'll see the broad spectrum of views it's attracted which range from glowing five-star accounts to less-than-complimentary one-star assessments.

Thinking that the novel was about cricket, I picked it up at the start of the Ashes series last month hoping to get myself in the mood for a summer of competitive sport between two old rivals, Australia (my homeland) and England (where I now reside). Six weeks on, the five-match series is now at level pegging and the deciding final match will be played this coming Thursday, so what better time to review the book?

While Netherland could be regarded as a paean to cricket, this is not a novel about cricket. This is a novel about what it is like to be an outsider and living in the fringes, or as O'Neill's apt title suggests, in a state of being neither here nor there -- the netherland.

For while the protagonist, Hans van den Broek, chooses cricket as his refuge, there's a lot more going on here than the "gentleman of sport". Hans is an immigrant -- Dutch-born but educated in Britain and now residing in Manhattan, with his wife and young son. He's desperate to fit in and goes through the whole rigmarole of gaining his US drivers' license, if only to become that little bit more embedded in the culture. Connecting with people who play cricket in New York is yet another way he can "connect", albeit with an immigrant underclass. And, tellingly, the one man with whom he forges a tentative friendship, Chuck Ramkissoon, winds up being pulled out of a New York canal with his hands tied behind his back. (Note, this isn't a plot spoiler: O'Neill reveals this fact up front and much of the novel is about Hans recalling his relationship with Chuck, trying to pinpoint what it is about that man that could have resulted in someone wanting to murder him.)

Netherland has also been described as a post-9/11 novel, but again, this label has been slightly misconstrued. While the book reflects the kind of "netherland" residents in Manhattan might have felt in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, a kind of eerie state of no longer feeling comfortable in their homes, this isn't the sole premise of the book. O'Neill uses it as a vehicle to explain the disintegration of Hans' marriage, for while Hans is content to be "carried along by the dark flow of those times" his wife is not. She no longer feels safe in the city and decides to return to her native England, taking their infant son with her. Hans, unable to commit to such a move, finds himself living a kind of transatlantic lifestyle, dividing his time between New York and London. Again, it's a netherland existence, neither a New Yorker, nor a Londoner; neither a married man, nor a bachelor.

Ironically, having read this book, I, too, felt kind of ambivalent about it, not quite sure if I loved or loathed it. I finished it maybe a month ago but simply haven't had the time to review it, but strangely, with the passing of time, the story has coalesced in my brain and I've found myself thinking about certain elements. I wonder now what was holding Hans back, why he was passive on so many different fronts -- his friendship with Chuck, who clearly had a lot of dodgy things happening in his life; and his foundering marriage -- and let events wash over him without really taking any action himself. Was it a psychological netherland that constrained him, or would that be taking the netherland theme a step too far?

One of things that has stuck in my head is the sense of belonging Hans achieved by playing cricket in New York, even though some of his fellow sportsmen could not speak English and he refused to adapt his batting style to the "American way" which meant "the baseball-like business of slugging and hoisting". I loved that each weekend was spent in a van, travelling around the five boroughs, to play a "friendly".

We sat mostly silent in the van, absorbed into the moodiness that afflicts competitors as they contemplate, or try to put out of their minds, the drama that awaits. What we talked about, when we did talk, was cricket. There was nothing else to discuss. The rest of our lives -- jobs, children, wives, worries -- peeled away, leaving only this fateful sporting fruit.

As an aside, I was watching BBC Newsnight a week or two back which featured a story about the NYPD running a cricket competition to help improve relations with the city's ethnic minorities.  "That sounds just like Joseph O'Neill's Netherland," I told my Other Half, who was watching it with me. Then, lo and behold, the presenter Gavin Esler interviewed, via satellite, O'Neill, who came across as one of the most articulate, gentlemanly and genuine author interviews I've ever seen. You can watch it here. It was enough to make me want to read more of his work, so if you've read any of this other titles, I'd love to hear your thoughts...

'Personal Velocity' by Rebecca Miller

Fiction - paperback; Canongate; 224 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Seven women, seven stories. That's the best way of describing the latest book from Rebecca Miller. Although this isn't actually Miller's latest book. Personal Velocity -- a collection of short stories -- was first published by Doubleday in 2002; Canongate republished it last week.

I didn't expect to like it very much, based on two reasons: short stories tend to leave me cold; and Miller's runaway success, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, didn't really do it for me when I read it last year. But I was prepared to be convinced otherwise, and so I took it to work and over the course of a week or so read a chapter each free lunchtime. (Interestingly, each chapter is perfectly digestible within an hour, which has me wondering whether I've been missing a trick when it comes to short stories: perhaps I should be reading them one at a time rather than back to back, as I usually do, which means they all run into each other and nothing seems to stick.)

The blurb of my edition claims that the stories here are a "brilliant portrait of the multi-faceted lives we all lead" but I didn't particularly recognise myself -- or any woman I know -- within the pages. What I found here were women trapped, whether by circumstances, marriage or insecurity. Most are troubled, even though it might not be immediately obvious. For example, my favourite story, the opener dubbed Greta, about an editor of rather lame cookbooks who scores the biggest coup of her career, has a rather sad tale about a disappointing, one-sided marriage at its heart. Greta finds the courage to leave her husband in the end, but it doesn't feel like a victory to be celebrated.

I found myself very much enjoying many of stories in this collection, particularly the tale of Delia, who escapes her abusive husband, and the inter-connected tales of rich and beautiful Julianne and her dowdy housekeeper Bryna. But, like any collection, not everything appeals and there were a couple of stories that had me going, so what?

For that reason, I found Personal Velocity a little hit and miss, but if you liked The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and enjoy short stories, it will probably appeal.

'Hot House Flower' by Margot Berwin

Fiction - paperback; Hutchinson; 288 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Having read Susan Orlean's classic non-fiction title, The Orchid Thief, and Eric Hansen's similarly acclaimed Orchid Fever, I had high hopes that this fictionalised account of a woman hunting for rare plants in the tropics of Mexico would be something I'd really enjoy. And while it ticked all the botanical boxes, I'm afraid Hot House Flower was slightly too girlie for me. In fact, the cover image and the cursive font should probably have served as a big warning: this is chick lit and I should read at my peril!

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no objection to chick lit. If it gets people reading and makes people excited about books, then it can only be a good thing. But it's not a genre I enjoy, for a whole host of reasons. And while Hot House Flower may dish up something slightly more exotic than a girl meets boy romance, when you get right down to it, it is essentially a cosy story about a 32-year-old divorcee looking to find a new man.

Bearing that in mind, it is imminently readable, and I consumed it in two sittings, so eager was I to follow Lila Nova's journey from high-flying advertising executive in Manhattan to her reinvention as a flower hunter in the luscious rainforest of the Yucatan peninsula.

The first-person narrative is easy to follow and there's plenty of adventure and thrills and spills to keep you entertained, along with a dash of romance and a bit of magic and witchcraft thrown in for good measure. It's a fun, light-hearted read and definitely won't sap the brain power.

However, the magic realism, highly reminiscent of Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells, means you need to suspend belief for much of the story, but especially the latter-third which involves Huichol shamans and herbalists working their supernatural powers. It's fascinating, if slightly too far-fetched for my liking, but if you're looking for some sheer escapism this summer, Hot House Flower will fit the bill perfectly.

'All Names Have Been Changed' by Claire Kilroy

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 288 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Claire Kilroy is a young Irish writer whose debut novel, All Summer, published in 2003, garnered much critical acclaim and earned her the 2004 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. It was also shortlisted for the 2004 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.

Her second novel Tenderwire (2006), a literary thriller set in New York, was shortlisted for the 2007 Hughes and Hughes Irish Novel of the Year but lost out to Patrick McCabe's Winterwood.  I read it last August and thought it was such an intelligent page-turner I was eager to read more of her work. So when I found out there was a new one on the way I asked Faber and Faber if they'd be kind enough to send me a proof copy, and they obliged.

Sadly, I found it very difficult to "get into" All Names Have Been Changed and I put it aside, hoping I might find it more rewarding if I picked it up at another time. And so it lay abandoned on my bedside table for almost two months, until I picked it up last night to give it another try. This time the book seemed more readable and I eagerly made my way through the remaining 100 or so pages, but ultimately I found it disappointing in comparison to Tenderwire.

The book is set in 1980s Dublin and is about a group of creative writing students at Trinity College who become dangerously obsessed with their tutor, the world-famous PJ Glynn. It is narrated by Declan, the only male student in the class of five, but not much seems to happen and before long, as harsh as this will sound, the reader begins to wonder whether there is any point in ploughing on.

Because this is a book about group dynamics and personalities, it seems odd that none of the characters, bar Glynn, a stereotypical drunk Irishman, and Declan, the impoverished student, are particularly memorable. Perhaps it was just me, but the others -- Antonia, Aisling, Faye and Guinevere -- seemed indistinguishable from each other, so I could never quite remember which one was the mature student, which one was the Goth and which one was rumoured to be abused by her husband. This seems a fundamental flaw given this is essentially a story about writing.

But, in a way, it is this examination of what it is to be a writer that makes All Names Have Been Changed such an interesting read. If you have ever participated in a writing class or idolised a particular author, then much of the content will resonate.

There's a lot of literary in-jokes here, too, and probably far too many of them went over my head, but it becomes apparent as the story moves on that the participants in the group find themselves acting out roles in a novel. Indeed, at one point, Declan realises that he is no longer aping Glynn but the characters in Glynn's books.

And Kilroy takes it further by giving each chapter a title taken from a real-life Irish book or song -- for example, I don't like Mondays; The Book of Evidence; The pipes, the pipes are calling; and Tarry Glynn -- half the fun of which is identifying their source.

Such a gloomy, sombre novel -- remember, this is set during a time when the length of Dublin's dole queues were notorious and the city was in the grip of a heroin epidemic -- begs for this light relief, but I'm not sure the dark humour truly works.

While Kilroy's prose cannot be faulted (the oft-used phrase "beautifully written" has never been more apt) and the tone is measured and the atmosphere suitably claustrophobic, it feels as if something is missing. I suspect it might be a tighter plot, because even as a character-driven novel I don't think All Names Have Been Changed quite pulls it off. You might beg to differ.

'The Second Plane' by Martin Amis

Non-fiction - paperback; Vintage; 224 pages; 2009.

Martin Amis is best known as an English novelist with some 10 titles to his name. But Amis is also a short story writer, literary critic and essayist, and this book comprises a collection of 14 pieces -- two short stories, eight essays and four reviews -- around the theme of September 11, 2001. These pieces were written between 2001 and 2007, and have been produced in the order in which they were written. Amis says he has added to them, but cut nothing, although he was briefly tempted "to cover my tracks".

Now, this is where I put up my hand and confess that I'm not well versed in Amis's work. I read Times Arrow many moons ago and it did not convince me to try any of his other stuff. My sister, who doesn't read as much as me, enjoyed London Fields, but I'm still not convinced.

Reading this collection I'm still no closer to understanding Amis or what makes him tick other than I now know he's an atheist turned "weak-agnostic" and he doesn't think much of Islamists, George Bush or Tony Blair. Join the club.

There's something about these pieces that seems too dry and too highbrow for one to truly engage with them. At times it felt like I was reading a novelist pretending to be a journalist -- and on that basis, he fails, because there's too much style and too many literary flourishes getting in the way of the facts.

A case in point. Or four cases in point, actually. He reviews three books and one movie -- United 93 directed by Paul Greengass; The Looming Tower: Al Quaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright; State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward; America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn; and The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left by Ed Husain -- in this collection and with the exception of the book by Steyn, whom he describes as an "oddity" who "writes like a maniac", I'm not really clear where he stands on them: did he like them or not? In many ways, he simply summarises the contents, adds his two-bits worth on the subject and refuses to tell us what he really thinks of the works in question.

So, putting aside the reviews, how do the other pieces fare? By far the best piece here is his opening essay entitled The Second Plane which was first published in The Guardian just seven days after the attacks on the World Trade Center. There is raw emotion here and a desperate attempt at comprehending the incomprehensible. (In his author's note at the start of the book Amis describes the piece as "hallucinatory" because it was "fevered by shock and by rumour".) But it's the opening sentences that really sets the scene, for this short chapter as well as the book as a whole:

It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment. Until then, America thought she was witnessing nothing more serious than the worst aviation disaster in history; now she had a sense of the fantastic vehemence ranged against her.

In The Voice of the Lonely Crowd, first published in The Guardian in 2002, he makes a salient claim, later championed by many others, that the event had brought literature to its knees. He argues that "many novelists chose to write some journalism about September 11" because "they were playing for time". I think, in this instance, he may be right.

I think he's also right about a lot of the stuff in the rest of this essay, not the least his theory that religion is a sham.

... religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward -- and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.

Similarly, The Wrong War -- written in March 2003, before the invasion of Iraq -- is a strong piece about how America is "behaving like someone still in shock" and that the "axis of evil" is a theological construct invented by Bush because it "makes him feel easier about being intellectually null". 

As you can see, Amis doesn't pull his punches. But what he says makes sense.

I especially like his claim that the Coalition planned to go to war because there was a lack of weapons of mass destruction, not the other way around:

The surest way by far of finding out what Iraq has is to attack it. Then at last we will have Saddam's full cooperation in our weapons inspection, because everything we know about him suggests that he will use them all. The Pentagon must be more or less convinced that Saddam's WMDs are under a certain critical number. Otherwise it couldn't attack him.

On the whole this is an interesting collection, although it probably won't tell you anything you don't already know or haven't come to figure out on your own. But what it does do is provide an insight into a dreadful time in our recent history and shows how the public realm has been shaped and altered by terrorism and war.

'Monster Love' by Carol Topolski

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 272 pages; 2008.

It's been quite awhile since I've read a book as dark and oppressive as Monster Love, which was long-listed for last year's Orange Prize. In fact, I found myself in a bit of a funk all week, for no good reason, and the only thing I could put it down to was reading this highly disturbing book. It's almost as if the story within had resonated off the page and enveloped me in a cloud of gloom.

I think the most chilling aspect of Monster Love, which tells the story of a married couple accused of killing their four-year-old daughter, is that it could have been lifted from today's newspaper headlines. It reminded me very much of the the Baby P case (still ongoing), which readers in the UK will know well, and for that reason it seemed a little too authentic for comfort.

This realism is helped, in part, by the way in which the story is recounted through a series of testimonies -- monologues, letters and official reports -- made by people -- neighbours, social workers, family members, jurors and prison officer -- who have been affected by the crime in some way.

The parents, Brendan and Sherilyn Gutteridge, recount their side of the story too, and I am not revealing any crucial plot spoilers by saying that they are perhaps the least realistic of the narrators because they appear so damn weird. Their "perfect love" comprises a strange telepathic connection and, in the latter third of the novel, a series of simultaneous sexual fantasies which stray into sheer kookiness. Still, the author, Carol Topolski, is a practising psychoanalytical psychotherapist, who's probably treated clients much odder than these two.

There's no doubt that Monster Love is a fascinating, if wholly unpleasant story, but it's not nearly as thought-provoking as it could have been. This is partly because the narrative is so fragmented that you don't get a proper overview of the case. You know from the outset that the accused are guilty, so you know what happens in the end, too. And the huge cast of characters all sing from the same hymn sheet so there's no room for ambiguity or doubt of the couple's guilt. It also doesn't help that so many of the testimonies are recounted in the same voice -- there seems little to distinguish one character from another.

Structurally, this is a poor novel, but in terms of subject matter you will be hard pressed to find anything so startling and dark.

'The Preacher' by Camilla Läckberg

Fiction - hardcover; Harper Collins; 422 pages; 2009. Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Camilla Läckberg is yet another Scandinavian crime fiction writer making it big on the international scene. The Preacher, her second to be translated into English, is set in Fjällbacka, the small Swedish fishing village where she was born.

The book opens with a six-year-old boy discovering the naked body of a young woman in a local beauty spot known as the King's Cleft. When police and forensics are called to the scene they discover the skeletons of two other women, who disappeared 20 years ago, lying underneath the body. Are these murders, committed two decades apart, linked and, if so, in what way? This is the puzzle that local detective Patrik Hedström must try to figure out. And, just to heighten the tension, he must do it before another girl, recently kidnapped from the area, turns up dead.

Suspicion is immediately cast on two warring branches of the Hult family, a clan of misfits and religious fanatics descended from Ephraim Hult, a distinguished and charismatic preacher and healer.

But Hedström's investigation is not straight forward. It's hampered by several red herrings, a long list of suspects, and a cast of hapless and incompetent colleagues from Tanumshede police station. 

This is a wonderfully refreshing take on the crime novel, not the least because Hedström lacks the bitterness and darkness which characterise so many other detectives in Scandinavian crime fiction. In fact, he's a committed family man -- he's about to become a father as his girlfriend Erica is heavily pregnant during the course of the story -- and much of the novel revolves around his contented, if occasionally chaotic, home life as a succession of unwanted house guests drop by to make the most of the hot Swedish summer.

Unfortunately, as much as I appreciated such a domestic focus because it allowed light moments to balance out an otherwise disturbingly dark story, I found it slightly cloying and cliched in places, and, at times, clumsily written. This could easily have been solved with some judicious editing (the book, at 422 pages, is very long) but I suspect there will be other readers who will disagree and claim this is what makes the Hedströms so likable and believable, because you get to know them quite well and see what makes them tick on the home front.

Either way, this is an intriguing crime story, with plenty of atmosphere -- you get a real feel for the hot Swedish summer and the idyllic tourist-driven community in which it is set -- and enough riddles to keep you guessing until the very end. 

According to Läckberg's own website, some 80,000 copies of the The Preacher have been sold in "pocket version" in Sweden alone. I rather suspect when this English translation becomes available in paperback those figures will skyrocket -- and, quite deservedly so, I might add.

'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 Gates' by Jennifer Johnston

Fiction – paperback; Headline Review; 167 pages; 1998.

First published in 1973, The Gates is Jennifer Johnston's second novel, although at just 167 pages in length it feels more like a novella and can be easily consumed in one sitting.

It has a very simple linear narrative in which Minnie McMahon, aged 16, returns home to Ireland, where she is in the care of her elderly uncle, "The Major", and his forthright housekeeper, Ivy. Having completed her "expensive education" in England it is now time to decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life. 

Here, free from the domineering clutches of her English aunt who keeps thinking that "if she tidies me up a bit, and shoves me into the London social whirl, some ghastly chinless wonder will lose his head and marry me," she unwittingly falls for Kevin, the local lad from a poor family who works for The Major. When Ivy points out that she's wasting her time and would be better to return to England and a secretarial college, Minnie insists that she is merely following in the footsteps of her late father, a socialist journalist, who married "beneath him" and was ostracized from the family because of it.

When she hatches a plan to help Kevin steal the extravagant gates that belong to the English Italianate-style mansion house in which she grew up you know there's a disaster in the offing...

In fact the gates are rather symbolic of her family's slide from Protestant Ascendancy, 150 years earlier, to the current situation in which The Major struggles to pay for the whiskey that keeps him functioning while the estate falls into a state of "peaceful decay":

Ornate, flamboyant, garlanded with carved flowers, they hung eight feet high between two stone pillars, topped by smiling lions. [...] Nowadays the gates hung open, pale with weather and age. The avenue that curved for half a mile under the tunnel of elms, was rutted and overgrown. The tiny pillared gate lodge had not been lived in since 1922, when it had been the scene of one of the Civil War's minor incidences. Nettles grew up now through the empty windows and in the height of summer foxgloves peered over the walls. No one any longer bobbed and smiled, or passed the time of day as the Major drove  in and out.

This is a book about youthful naivety and misunderstandings between people. But it also explores the uncertain role of the Anglo-Irish in the new independent Ireland and how they grappled with changing attitudes to religion, wealth and class.

It is far from being Johnston's most accomplished work, but it gives glimpses of her future talent and there are some passages in which Minnie talks to the ghosts of the house (a kind of metaphor for her troubled conscience) that are reminiscent of the magic realism in 1998's Two Moons.

Please note, other Jennifer Johnston books reviewed on this site include: Foolish Mortals, The Christmas Tree, The Invisible Worm, The Old Jest and The Gingerbread Woman.

'What To Do When Someone Dies' by Nicci French

 

Fiction - hardcover; Penguin; 352 pages; 2009.

I'm a sucker for a good psychological thriller and there's no one better to deliver a thoroughly entertaining romp than Nicci French, the pseudonym for the writing partnership of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French.

The duo's latest novel What To Do When Someone Dies delivers what you would normally expect from the French "franchise" -- a suspenseful story that keeps one reading late into the night. But in this instance the narrative, while tautly written and providing all the French trademarks -- a paranoid woman whom no one believes is telling the truth -- there's something slightly unbelievable about it all, with very little ringing true.

The premise is a good one though. A 34-year-old woman, Ellie, is told that her husband has died in a car accident. A female passenger, thought to be his mistress, has also died. But Ellie, wracked by grief, is convinced that Greg could not have been having an affair and embarks on an elaborate "investigation" to prove to her family and friends that he was murdered. Along the way her behaviour becomes increasingly paranoid and abnormal, to the point where the police consider her a suspect in a separate crime that develops in the latter third of the story.

Typically, Ellie is your normal Nicci French character -- young, articulate, domesticated and surrounded by lovely friends -- which makes the drama of her situation all the more heightened. But for the most part I had to totally suspend belief otherwise I'm afraid I might have thrown this book against the wall from sheer frustration. Ellie not only does a whole lot of stupid things -- and seemingly gets away with them -- she doesn't really behave as one would expect a grief-stricken widow to behave.

And there are little holes in the plot that annoyed me. For instance, Ellie runs out of money and food, but still manages to travel on the London Underground every day and go for drinks with her friends. She's also lost her husband but her parents are nowhere to be seen. And the family of her husband's supposed mistress don't seem in the least interested in her -- surely they would be just as curious as her about the affair?

Finally, the book also takes a damn long time to get going, although when it does take off, about two-thirds of the way in, it is relentless in increasing the tension to almost unbearable proportions. The ending, when it comes, is not so much predictable but kind of lame, as if the writers had reached their page quota and need to wrap things up quickly.

On the whole, this is an exciting if somewhat implausible thriller. And without wishing to damn it with faint praise, What To Do When Someone Dies kept me entertained in my sick bed earlier this week, which is more that you can say for a lot of other thrillers on the market.

'The Other Hand' by Chris Cleave

Fiction – paperback; Sceptre; 378 pages; 2009.

Chris Cleave's The Other Hand was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award. It is one of those books I kept picking up in bookstores and then putting down. I was intrigued but also skeptical. The blurb, surely, was a marketing ploy?

This is what the blurb on my edition says:

"We don't want to tell you what happens in this story. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it so we will just say this: This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they meet again -- the story starts there... Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

And then Valerie, who reads my blog emailed me, to suggest I might like it. "I expected to see it listed as one of the books you have reviewed," she wrote. "And when I didn't, I decided to email you.  It is one of those books you want to tell a friend about..."

I relented and bought myself a copy the next day. I'll admit I still wasn't convinced, and the letter from the editor, on the very first page, only raised my hackles. "Dear Reader," it began. "You don't know me. I'm Chris Cleave's editor, and I'm writing to tell you how extraordinary The Other Hand is. As publishers, naturally we only publish  books that we love, but every now and then something comes along that is so special it gives us goosebumps."

She then compares the novel to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark. By this stage the phrase "she doth protest to much" was running through my head.

Still, I was prepared to banish my preconceptions and give the book a fair go, and I raced through it in a matter of days.

Obviously, I can't tell you much about the plot, but I can tell you what I thought of the story.

Quite frankly, I didn't think it lived up to the hype. It's an interesting story and it moves along at a fair old pace. There are scenes that are truly shocking and others that are good for a giggle. The characterisation is good, although not entirely believable, and there's enough social commentary to give the illusion that you're reading something deep and meaningful.

But on the whole this is a book that feels manipulative. The "reveals" -- almost one per chapter -- are cheap tricks designed to give you a fright or challenge your assumptions. While they might add some excitement to the novel, they end up trivialising quite important subject matter -- illegal immigration, suicide and violence, to name but a few.

Perhaps Cleave didn't want to write a hard-hitting novel and that's fine, but as soon as your editor starts comparing you to Schindler's Ark, one of the most hard-hitting novels of the past 40 years, it creates a pretty monumental and, dare I say it, unrealistic expectation in the average reader's mind.

I suspect The Other Hand, which has been published in the USA and Canada under the title Little Bee, will resonate with readers who like quick, accessible reads about unfamiliar subjects, but for me it was too superficial, too cartoonish and too calculating to deliver on its promises. If you've read it I'd be interested in knowing what you thought. I've got a sneaking suspicion I may well be the only person in the world who didn't love it to bits...

'In a Summer Season' by Elizabeth Taylor

Fiction – paperback; Virago Modern Classics; 224 pages; 2006.

Before I discovered the wonderful world of book blogs I had never heard of the English writer Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975). I simply associated the name with the Hollywood actress. 

I made a mental note to read something from her extensive bibliography, but it wasn't until very recently that I acquired my first Taylor novel. I'm not sure why I picked In a Summer Season, her eighth novel (first published in 1961), to begin with, but I spied a cheap copy on Amazon Marketplace and the deal was done. (Apparently the book is regarded as her raunchiest, although I did not know that at the time!)

The story revolves around a wealthy widow, Kate Heron, who marries Dermot, a man ten years her junior. The couple live in a large house in the picturesque Thames Valley, within sight of Windsor Castle, with Kate's elderly aunt, the housekeeper Mrs Meacock and Kate's two children, Tom, 22, and Louisa, 16.

But despite this cosy little world, it is clear that all is not well, that Dermot views the arrangement as claustrophobic and that Kate is all too aware of this:

At this time of evening Kate felt that he was restless. He had too many years of pubs and clubs and pleasing himself. Not be free to walk out of the house when he wanted to must seem a monstrous tyranny. She, herself, sometimes in the course of this second marriage, found it a tyranny, too; found other people's presence irksome.

While nothing much seems to happen -- there's no real plot to speak of -- the narrative inches forward by a series of largely domestic scenes that are filled with delicate nuances and innuendo. You soon learn that everyone is working at cross-purposes, that everyone is wearing a mask to protect others from their real feelings. These tensions build and build until a rather tragic, and unexpected, climax is reached.

But while the story might lack a certain -- how shall we say it? -- page-turning quality, it is a wonderful psychological portrait of a middle-aged woman coming to terms with a new identity, because within In a Summer Season we find the protagonist desperate to be true to herself rather than conform to society's unwritten moral code. Her friends cut her off because they regard Dermot as a parasite only interested in her money and even her Aunt Ethel thinks the marriage will last "five years at most". Her teenage daughter sums it up even better:

I think my mother gets jealous [of my brother's girlfriends], and that's why she married Dermot; perhaps she thought that she would be getting someone quite young; who would be a bit like her son, but who would have to take her everywhere with him.

But Kate feels she can overlook the gossip and rumours about her because she's found a man with whom she can enjoy a passionate sexual life. Her lust is such that she can even overlook Dermot's flaws: his lack of career, his drinking, his lack of "cultural awareness".

But what Kate refuses to acknowledge is that erotica is no substitute for companionship and a peaceful domestic life. It is only when her old friend Charles -- refined, cultured and now widowed -- returns to the village that she can begin to see what she might have lost...

In a Summer Season is a fascinating portrait of domestic life from another, more innocent era and how the choices we make impact on our own lives and the lives of others.

'Something Childish But Very Natural' by Katherine Mansfield

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Classics; 110 pages; 2007.

I'm not a great fan of the short story, but knowing that New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) is widely regarded as one of the best short story writers of her generation, I was keen to read some of her work.

This collection, published as part of Penguin's Great Loves series, seemed the perfect opportunity to acquaint myself with her writings. Each of the eight tales revolves around the theme that "love can be innocent" and features one of her more famous short stories, "Something Childish But Very Natural", which was written in 1914 but published after her death.

In this sweet story we meet Harry, a young man ("nearly eighteen") who falls in love with a girl ("over sixteen") on a train, and begins a relationship with her. Unfortunately Edna is very distant with him and shies from his touch. "I feel that if once we did that -- you know -- held each other's hands and kissed, it would all be changed," she tells Harry. "And I feel we wouldn't be free like we are -- we'd be doing something secret. We wouldn't be children any more...silly, isn't it?"

This characterises the rest of their friendship: Edna wants to keep it purely platonic, but Harry, patient and caring, is desperate to take it to the next level. He must always keep his feelings in check, despite the fact he is desperately in love with Edna "with the marigold hair and strange dreamy smile that filled him up to the brim".

One day the pair stumble upon a lovely little cottage in the countryside and fantasise about living in it together. When Harry, in his eagerness to move in immediately, says,  "I have a feeling that it's dangerous to wait for things -- that if you wait for things they only go further and further away" you get the impression he's not just talking about the house.

I won't reveal how the story ends, but the course of true love does not run smoothly!

The other short stories in this slim volume are: "Feuille d'Album", "Mr and Mrs Dove", "Marriage à la Mode", "Bliss", "Honeymoon", "Dill Pickle" and "Widowed".

They are all quite similiar in showing how love can be one-sided and that even in the strongest of relationships there is always one person who loves his or her partner more than is reciprocated.

I particularly enjoyed "Bliss", about a 30-something mother who believes her life in London is completely perfect, until she hosts a dinner party for a small collection of haughty friends and unwittingly discovers that her husband is cheating on her with one of the guests. When she comes to realise what is going on beneath her nose, the reality of the situation is like a strong blow to the stomach. I thought it was a pitch-perfect story and I think I might have actually gasped out loud when I got to the denouement.

All in all, I enjoyed this brief introduction to Mansfield's work, but it hasn't made me rush out to read everything else she's ever written. I'm afraid my bias towards novels is too strong for that.

You can find out more about Katherine Mansfield here and here.