‘The Muse’ by Jessie Burton tells the story of a young Trinidadian woman Odelle Bastien who lands a job as a typist at the prestigious Skelton art gallery in London in 1967, five years after she moved to the city. Odelle’s new boyfriend Lawrie has recently inherited a painting rumoured to be the work of Isaac Robles, a talented young Spanish artist who mysteriously disappeared during the Civil War in the 1930s. The painting causes quite a stir at the Skelton and Odelle’s enigmatic boss, Marjorie Quick, appears to have a personal interest in the painting as well as a professional one. Odelle sets out to uncover the true origins of the lost masterpiece whose secrets lie with the wealthy Anglo-Austrian Schloss family who employed Isaac’s sister Teresa as their housekeeper in Malaga at the beginning of the war. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Fiction
The Muse by Jessie Burton
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Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
I really enjoyed reading Night Waking by Sarah Moss which told the story of Dr Anna Bennett, an academic living on the Scottish island of Colsay with her husband and young children, who sets out to uncover the mystery behind how the bones of an infant came to be buried in her garden. Her narrative is interspersed with letters written by May Moberley, a maternity nurse sent to the island to investigate the high infant mortality rate during the 1870s. ‘Bodies of Light’ is a very loose sequel which picks up the historical strand of the story focusing on other members of the Moberley family living in Manchester during the 1860s and 1870s. The novel is a coming-of-age tale of May’s older sister Ally who becomes one the first female students to read medicine in London. However, while their mother Elizabeth is a progressive social campaigner devoted to helping the destitute in the slums of Manchester, she is also a deeply repressed woman who offers no warmth at all towards her husband Alfred or her daughters. Continue reading
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The Special Relationship Between American and British English in Modern Fiction
Howdy, do you speak American? Or do you prefer conversing in Estuary English with some Cockney rhyming slang thrown in? The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once observed that “England and America are two countries separated by the same language”. If the modern publishing industry is anything to go by, then this sentiment certainly applies to the large numbers of books edited in both British and American English.
Book marketing and editing often reflects the assumption that British and American readers have different tastes. One of the most famous examples of a book being edited specifically for an American audience is ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ by J. K. Rowling which was published as ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ in the United States to be “more suggestive of magic” than its original title. Numerous other words in the main text were also changed so that Harry and his Hogwarts chums (sorry, friends) ate candy rather than sweets, studied for their exams instead of revising for them and went on vacation rather than holiday. Continue reading
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The Girls by Emma Cline
‘The Girls’ by Emma Cline has been one of the most eagerly anticipated debut novels of the year. Set in California in 1969, it is a semi-fictionalised account of a group of young women including fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd who fall under the spell of Russell Hadrick, a failed musician and Charles Manson-like cult leader. However, it is Evie’s awe towards Suzanne, one of Russell’s followers, which becomes the main focus of the story rather than her encounters with Russell himself. Continue reading
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Epitaph for a Spy and Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
Last year, I went to an event in London to celebrate the work of classic crime fiction novelists Eric Ambler and Margery Allingham and I’ve finally got round to reading two of Ambler’s best known novels ‘Epitaph for a Spy’ and ‘Journey into Fear’, reissued as Penguin Modern Classics for his centenary in 2009. ‘Epitaph for a Spy’ tells the story of Joseph Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee and languages teacher who is on holiday in the south of France. When his camera is swapped with one whose film contains sensitive photos of secret naval installations in Toulon, Vadassy comes under suspicion of being a Gestapo agent. To convince the police that he isn’t guilty of espionage, he must find out which of the guests staying at the Hôtel de la Réserve is the real spy. Continue reading
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The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
‘The Essex Serpent’ by Sarah Perry tells the story of Cora Seaborne, a keen amateur naturalist and recent widow who moves to Colchester in the 1890s with her servant-companion Martha and son Francis and meets the local vicar Reverend William Ransome. There are rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent which once stalked the Blackwater estuary has been spotted again near the coastal village of Aldwinter, and some mysterious deaths have sent the local residents into panic. Cora and Will are both sceptical of the rumours surrounding the return of the beast but for very different reasons with Cora believing the creature could be an undiscovered species whereas Will’s concerns lie in his parishioners’ apparent lack of faith. Yet despite these differences, they start to form a close and intense bond. Continue reading
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All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki
I really enjoyed Ruth Ozeki’s third novel A Tale for the Time Being which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013 and her debut My Year of Meats. Almost two years later, I finally got round to reading her second novel ‘All Over Creation’. Japanese-American Yumi Fuller (or Yummy as most of the characters call her) returns to Liberty Falls, Idaho for the first time since she ran away from home as a fourteen-year-old in 1974. Her elderly parents run a business selling seeds having retired from potato farming several years ago and a group of eco-activists who call themselves the Seeds of Revolution have descended on their home. Meanwhile, her former teacher Elliot Rhodes is now working as a public relations manager for a company producing genetically modified Nu-Life potatoes which the Fuller’s neighbours are using on their farm. Continue reading
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The Man Booker International Prize Winner 2016
It has just been announced that the first winner of this year’s reconfigured Man Booker International Prize is The Vegetarian by Han Kang translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith. A very well deserved win for one of the most startlingly original and surreal works of translated fiction I’ve read this year. Many congratulations to them both!
Myself and my fellow shadow panel members also voted for our winner last week from our own shortlist consisting of Ferrante, Lianke, NDiaye, Oe, Kang and de Kerangal. It was a close run thing between ‘The Vegetarian’ and Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe in the run-off vote but ‘The Vegetarian’ also came out top in the end, meaning that we are in agreement with the real judging panel for the second year in a row (last year, we selected The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck as our winner for the now-defunct Independent Foreign Fiction Prize). While ‘Death by Water’ had its devoted fans amongst our group, ‘The Vegetarian’ had wider support in both the longlist and shortlist stages and also featured in many of our early prediction lists before the longlist was even announced. Continue reading
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The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver
Set in near-future America, ‘The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047’ by Lionel Shriver follows four generations of an American family who had been waiting to inherit the fortune of 97-year-old patriarch Douglas Mandible. However, a total fiscal meltdown in the form of a cyber attack has wiped out the economy along with the Mandible’s wealth and all communications including the Internet. After the “Great Renunciation” when the President of the United States defaults on the country’s massive debt obligations, the Mandibles are all forced to live together under one roof in order to survive. Continue reading
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Man Booker International Prize 2016 Reviews
As the majority of the thirteen books longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize are novellas rather than novels, I finished reading all of them just after the shortlist was announced a couple of weeks ago. Here are my reviews of seven of the shorter books on the longlist:
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler translated from the German by Charlotte Collins has been shortlisted for the Prize and deservedly so. Even though it didn’t make it on to the shadow panel list, this book is one of my personal favourites and I would be very happy if it won the overall prize. It tells the story of Andreas Egger, a solitary man who lives in a remote mountain village in Austria during the twentieth century. The tone is very similar to that of Stoner by John Williams in that while Andreas lives a seemingly simple and quiet life, there are many events which have significant emotional repercussions for him. Seethaler succeeds in capturing “a whole life” in a spare but satisfying novella of just 150 pages.
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The Wellcome Book Prize 2016
Yesterday, I went to an event at the Wellcome Collection in London to hear the six authors nominated for this year’s Wellcome Book Prize discuss their shortlisted books. The annual award is open to works of fiction and non-fiction which engage with some aspect of health, illness or medicine, or “the ultimate human subject” as chair Anne Karpf said in her introduction.
The books on this year’s shortlist are:
- Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
- The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
- NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman
- Playthings by Alex Pheby
- It’s All in Your Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan
- The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
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The Man Booker International Prize Shortlist 2016
The official shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize was announced on Thursday. The six books are:
- A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
- The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
- The Four Books by Yan Lianke translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas
- A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap
- A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
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Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe
Translated from the Japanese by Deborah Boliver Boehm, ‘Death by Water’ by Kenzaburo Oe tells the story of Kogito Choko, an author aged in his 70s reflecting on his long career. For many years, he has struggled to write the “drowning” novel based on his father’s death shortly after the Second World War. Kogito returns to his rural home town to look at his father’s red leather trunk which his mother had instructed him not to open until ten years had passed after her death. However, it soon transpires that the contents of the trunk do not provide him with many answers, leaving Kogito limited time to unlock the secrets he needs to finish his book. Continue reading
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A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk
Translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap, ‘A Strangeness in My Mind’ by Orhan Pamuk tells the story of Mevlut Karata, a yoghurt and boza seller who lives in Istanbul. Melvut arrives in the city at the age of twelve in the late 1960s with his father from a poor village in Anatolia. He later elopes and marries Rayiha despite a case of mistaken identity in which he believed his love letters were being delivered to her sister. Over the course of four decades, he observes the political upheavals in the city and also experiences many personal challenges. Continue reading
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Four Other Books I’ve Read So Far in 2016
Here are some short reviews of a few other books I’ve been reading since Christmas:
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematorium by Caitlin Doughty is an informative and thought-provoking memoir about the death industry written by a mortician seeking to demystify a taboo topic feared by almost everyone. Stories of burial practices, death rituals and cultural attitudes from around the world and throughout history are interwoven with Doughty’s personal experiences including the circumstances which led her to start working at Westwind Crematorium in San Francisco nearly a decade ago at the age of 23. Doughty’s sense of humour is appropriately dark without being disrespectful as she recounts some of her more memorable experiences at the crematorium and challenges readers to confront their own mortality. As much about life as it is about death, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ is a fascinating look at a widely misunderstood career choice, although not a book I would recommend to the very squeamish or recently bereaved. Continue reading
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The Four Books by Yan Lianke
Translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas, ‘The Four Books’ by Yan Lianke is set in a labour camp in the ninety-ninth district near the Yellow River in north China where the Theologian, the Scholar, the Musician, the Author and other disgraced intellectuals are tasked with growing crops and smelting steel as part of their political “re-education”. The camp is led by a juvenile commander known as the Child who is also seeking approval from the “higher ups” in the party. However, as the economy fails and famine sets in, the inmates are left to survive on their own in appalling conditions. Continue reading
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The Vegetarian and Human Acts by Han Kang
Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, ‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang and translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith tells the story of Yeong-hye who suddenly declares she will no longer eat meat after having a disturbing dream. Originally published as separate “novelettes”, the three parts of the story are told from the point of view of her husband, brother-in-law and sister respectively who are all outraged by her decision to become a vegetarian in a society where refusing to eat meat is extremely rare. Continue reading
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Man Booker International Prize: Shadow Panel Official Response
Following some early discussions this week, here is the shadow panel’s official response to the Man Booker International Prize longlist announced on Thursday:
“The Shadow Panel for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize congratulates the official judges on curating a longlist of thirteen fascinating titles, a selection containing many familiar names, but with enough surprise inclusions to keep us on our toes. We are particularly pleased about the geographical spread of the list; with seven of the thirteen books originating from outside Europe, the longlist has a truly global feel, which was certainly not the case with the final Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist. Continue reading
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The Man Booker International Prize Longlist 2016
The longlist for the newly reconfigured Man Booker International Prize has been announced today. The thirteen books are:
- A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola), translated by Daniel Hahn and published by Harvill Secker.
- The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (Italy), translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang (South Korea), translated by Deborah Smith and published by Portobello Books
- Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (France), translated by Jessica Moore and published by Maclehose Press
- Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan (Indonesia), translated by Labodalih Sembiring and published by Verso Books
- The Four Books by Yan Lianke (China), translated by Carlos Rojas and published by Chatto & Windus
- Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo/Austria), translated by Roland Glasser and published by Jacaranda
- A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar (Brazil), translated by Stefan Tobler and published by Penguin Modern Classics
- Ladivine by Marie NDiaye (France), translated by Jordan Stump and published Maclehose Press
- Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan), translated by Deborah Boliner Boem (Atlantic Books)
- White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen (Finland), translated by Emily Jeremiah & Fleur Jeremiah and published by Peirene Press
- A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), translated by Ekin Oklap and published by Faber & Faber
- A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (Austria), translated by Charlotte Collins and published by Picador
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The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2016
This year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist was announced today. The twenty novels are:
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett Ruby by Cynthia Bond The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton Whispers Through a Megaphone by Rachel Elliott The Green Road by Anne Enright The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah Gorsky by Vesna Goldsworthy The Anatomist’s Dream by Clio Gray At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison Pleasantville by Attica Locke The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie Girl at War by Sara Nović The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild A Little Life by Hanya YanagiharaFiled under Books
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