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Reviews by Cloggie Downunder

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Us Against You: A Beartown Novel
by Fredrik Backman

Moving and thought-provoking (7/21/2018)

Us Against You is the second novel in the Beartown series by Swedish blogger, columnist and author, Fredrik Backman. It is translated from Swedish by Neil Smith. Midsummer in Beartown and there’s no ice hockey to be played, but the events of spring, “the scandal” as some …more

Happiness
by Aminatta Forna

a marvellous read (7/16/2018)

“When he was in London, going to see plays and eating in fine restaurants, the city itself began to feel like a stage set, whose denizens enacted their lives against its magnificent backdrop. A theatre of delights, where nothing surely could go wrong, and if it did, all …more

The Winner Stands Alone
by Paulo Coelho

a rather tedious read. (6/24/2018)

The Winner Stands Alone is the eighth stand-alone novel by Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho. It is translated from the original Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. The Cannes Film Festival: Ewa is there with her fashion-designer husband Hamid Hussein for showings and some high- …more

The Weight of Ink
by Rachel Kadish

Stirring and captivating (6/21/2018)

“Nothing of the building’s exterior – not even the stone walls, with their once-giant wingspan – had prepared him for this. The staircase was opulence written in wood. The broad treads ascended between dark carved panels featuring roses and vines and abundant fruit baskets; …more gazing down from high walls, their faces full of sad, sweet equanimity, were more carved angels. And halfway up the stairs, two arched windows let in a white light so blinding and tremulous, Aaron could swear it had weight. Windows to bow down before, their wrought-iron levers and mullions casting a mesmerizing grid across the carved wood: light and shadow and light again.”

The Weight of Ink is the third novel by American author, Rachel Kadish. In 1657, nineteen-year-old Ester Velasquez and her brother Isaac accompanied Rabbi HaCoen Mendes from Amsterdam to London. The rabbi, tortured and blinded by Inquisitors, was going to minister to London’s Jewish community; the siblings had just been orphaned in a house fire.

Late in the year 2000, history professor Helen Watt is asked to examine a cache of books and papers discovered under a staircase in a 17th Century London mansion. Written in Hebrew and Portuguese, the papers appear to date from the mid-seventeenth century, and concern Jewish refugees from the Inquisition. This is potentially an important find, and Helen engages a young American post-graduate student, Aaron Levy to assist her. Unfortunately, they don’t have exclusive access, and find themselves in a bit of a race to uncover the secrets held within.

As they examine the trove of papers, Helen and Aaron are surprised and excited to find that the scribe for the blind rabbi might have been a woman. Then, in between the lines of letters about false messiahs written in Portuguese, they discover the story, in Hebrew, of Ester Velazquez, a young Jewess educated by HaCoen Mendes (not quite accidentally, because the rabbi sees much despite his blindness), a young woman with an almost unquenchable thirst for philosophical knowledge and for discourse thereon. It’s a thirst so deep that she engages in subterfuge to attempt to satisfy it.

What a superb piece of historical fiction this is. Kadish carefully constructs her tale so that the reader shares the excitement of the small but significant discoveries, of facts slowly revealed, all the while bringing to life the daily routine of London’s seventeenth century Jewish community. The astute reader will, early on, catch the hint of “a gossamer-thin connection” that develops into quite a lovely irony by the end of the story.

Her characters, not necessarily likeable at first, slowly gain in appeal: Helen’s gruff exterior (a colleague describes her thus: “Behind the words she could read his regret that the one to make such a find had been Helen Watt – a dried-up scholar, inconveniently unphotogenic, on the cusp of a mandatory retirement no one but her would rue”) mellows somewhat; Aaron will initially strike the reader as arrogant and self-absorbed but his time with Helen definitely matures him: “How had he ever overlooked shy girls? It struck him that the fact that he wasn’t attracted to them might represent a flaw in his character, not theirs.”

Kadish gives the reader some exquisite descriptive prose: “She looked at him with the directness of someone making an inner calculus over which he was to have no influence” and “Today, when he’d peered under the staircase, it was as though what he’d starved for all these lifeless months of dissertation research had been restored to him. History, reaching out and caressing his face once more, the way it had years ago as he sat reading at his parents’ kitchen table. The gentle insistent touch of something like a conscience, stilling him. Waking him to a lucid new purpose” are examples. Stirring and captivating, this is not a short read, but is worth every minute invested. (less)

How to Stop Time
by Matt Haig

a marvellous read! (6/9/2018)

“…now I often want to climb back into that time before. Before I knew Rose, before I knew what would happen to my mother, before, before, before… To cling to who I was, right at the beginning when I was just a small boy with a long name who responded to time and grew older …more like everybody else. But there is never a way back into the before. All you can do with the past is carry it around, feeling its weight slowly increase, praying it never crushes you completely.”

How To Stop Time is the sixth adult novel by British author, Matt Haig. Progeria is a condition in which the sufferer ages much faster than normal. Tom Hazard has the opposite: anageria. He ages much more slowly than the rest of us. It's 2020, he's just taken a job as a history teacher in a London high school, and he looks about forty-one. He's actually 439, so he has experienced some of the stuff he's teaching, first hand.

Living so long perhaps sounds like it could be advantageous, but even in the twenty-first century, when witch finders are no longer a threat, failure to develop wrinkles and other signs of ageing attracts notice, and not all of that is benign. This necessitates a nomadic lifestyle, moving on before close ties can form and questions begin to be asked. Falling in love is definitely not a good idea.

“For years now I had convinced myself that the sadness of the memories weighed more and lasted longer than the moments of happiness themselves. So I had, through some crude emotional mathematics, decided it was better not to seek out love or companionship or even friendship. To be a little island in the alba archipelago, detached from humanity’s continent, instead.”

The premise is certainly original and intriguing, and fans of Claire North’s work may notice some plot similarities (high praise). The narrative races around in time and place, but each time and location is clearly stated so this does not lead to confusion, but does allow Haig to give the reader a taste of Elizabethan London, the Roaring Twenties in Los Angeles and Paris, and late 19th Century England, as well as London and Byron Bay in the near future. Tom has brushes with fame, and there are a few star cameos (Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald). Surfing, a variety of musical instruments, the Plague, and 18th Century Pacific explorers all feature. Tom’s take on the history of “fake news” is particularly interesting. Captivating and moving, this is a marvellous read! (less)

Paint Your Wife
by Lloyd Jones

a delightful read (5/30/2018)

“When you are drawing you are actually learning how to see. You do this through looking. Looking is untarnished glass. No green bits of judgement hanging from the lens. In order to draw you must to learn to see how things are – not how you wish they were, or once were”

Paint …more Your Wife is the 10th fiction book by New Zealand author, Lloyd Jones. It starts with the mayor of New Egypt, Harry Bryant returning from a visit to his son in London. It is the late 1990s, and Harry’s town, on the North Island of New Zealand, has fallen on hard times. The paint factory has closed up; ideas for tourist attractions fail to gain funding; long-time locals are beginning to abandon the town for more prosperous places. In a last ditch attempt to attract attention, Harry gets Alma Martin to reproduce his old portraits of the town wives in a public space: it generates some outside interest, but also acts as a sort of catalyst for the locals, as does the arrival at Harry’s place of business (Pre-Loved Furnishings and Curios),of a young couple with twins, looking for accommodation.

Alma Martin lives in the old Fire Warden’s cottage on the hill near Harry’s mother’s farm. He has tried his rather talented hand at quite a few things: colour technique at NE Paints; teaching; wartime rat catching; and, in lieu of payment for said rodent extermination, sketching and painting the wives of the town.

His most constant model was his neighbour, Alice Hands, but all the women, once they got the hang of sitting (“It is hard to know what to do with yourself the first time you sit. You are suddenly aware of your arms and legs, too aware, and as soon as that awareness slips into place it’s as if those limbs were never really an integral part of you at all, but clumsy add-ons”) were happy to do so: “As far as the rest of the women in the district were concerned, to be looked at or observed as rare as sugar or chocolate. They could have looked in the mirror, of course. But there is nothing like another’s eyes to set us alight, to make our nerves stand on end, to tell us, in effect, who we are”

They learned to be silent because: “When a sitter begins to talk the pose loses all its binding; arms and legs fall away, the mouth widens, the tongue waggles, a sense of form withers” and enjoyed his attention (“You know something, Alma, when you are drawing I feel like you’re touching me”) and even his talks on art and artists (“It was the war years and everything was in short supply – including stimulation. Like plankton eaters they sat with their mouths and minds wide open”).

Jones gives the reader a cast of charming and often quirky characters; the vignettes that fill in their backstories are captivating; there is plenty of humour and a fair share of wisdom; the feel of the town is well-rendered; the descriptive prose is a joy to read, making it difficult to choose just a few quotes to illustrate this. “In quick time the surrounding farmland revealed itself, straw-coloured, the black flecks of telegraph poles; and on the far edge of everything stood the ranges, in shadow at this time of day, but their jaws dropped open in the February heat” and “Some strain told on the window panes - a tension where the floor went one way and the windows another; it was an arrangement that made the ordinary blue sky sing in the way glass achieves in chapels and courtrooms” and “He tells her that it’s like trying to nail a fast-moving cloud to the one spot in the sky. Hopeless if the sky is moving about too” are good examples.

Alma’s advice on drawing is also superbly expressive: “Light and shadow, he liked to say, are in constant negotiation as to which parts of the world the other can have” and “…seeing is not the same as looking. And in learning how to draw what you really learn is how to see. Once you learn how to see, good or bad or better doesn’t come into it” are just two illustrations of this.

This offering by Jones is a delightful read, moving and uplifting, and loaded with gorgeous prose. This book was originally published in 2004, two years before the prize-winning Mister Pip, but this new edition by Text Publishing has wonderfully evocative cover art by W.H.Chong. Highly recommended. (less)

The Dark Lake
by Sarah Bailey

an excellent debut novel (5/30/2018)

The Dark Lake is the first book in the Gemma Woodstock series by Australian author, Sarah Bailey. When Rosalind Ryan’s body is found in the lake by Smithson Secondary College, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock wants to be on the case, even though it might dredge up some …more

The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian
by David Dyer

a moving and captivating read (5/19/2018)

The Midnight Watch is the first novel by Australian teacher and author, David Dyer. While the story of the sinking of the SS Titanic in April 1912 will be familiar to most people, the part played in the drama by the master and crew of the SS Californian is probably less …more

Please Ignore Vera Dietz
by A.S. King

A moving and thought-provoking read. (5/12/2018)

Please Ignore Vera Dietz is the second novel by American author, A.S. King. We first meet Vera Dietz when she is almost eighteen, a Senior at High School and working forty hours a week as a Pizza Delivery Technician. Her ex-best friend-since-age-four, Charlie Kahn is just …more

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Funny, moving and thought-provoking, this is a great read! (4/17/2018)

“It would be easier to be a criminal fairly prosecuted by the law than an Indian daughter who wronged her family. A crime would be punishable by a jail sentence of definite duration rather than this uncertain length of family guilt trips.”

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows …more is the third novel by Singapore-born author, Balli Kaur Jaswal. Twenty-two-tear-old Nikki Grewal has found a job teaching creative writing to Punjabi women for the Sikh Community Association at the Southall Temple. This is a welcome development in her life as, with half a law degree and a job in a pub that looks less that permanent, she can do with another source of income. And facilitating these ladies in finding their creative voices speaks to her sense of promoting women’s rights.

But the woman who employed her, Kulwinder Kaur has perhaps been less than honest: it turns out that most of these women can’t read or write at all, Punjabi or English. When her basic lessons apparently bore the widows, they begin telling stories they know, have heard or made up. And not just innocent little tales, but erotic stories, just about the very last thing Nikki would have expected from the mouths of these respectable ladies. One of their number is literate enough to be their scribe: could their tales be published?

As Nikki becomes more familiar with her students, she realises that despite their candid talk, there is something they are not revealing. It has to do with a young woman whose death, fourteen years earlier, is still a mystery. Or is it really? As Nikki gains her students’ trust, she learns of another death, labelled accidental, and then the recent purported suicide of Kulwinder’s daughter, Maya.

One of her widows says: “All those people who say, ‘Take no notice of those widows. Without their husbands, they’re irrelevant.’ We’d be invisible in India; I suppose it makes no difference that we’re in England.” But news of the classes spreads among the women in the community and far beyond, and more students join the group; Nikki worries that the real content of their writing will attract the wrong sort of attention.

Jaswal’s novel explores many topical subjects for Indians living in Britain: parental pressure regards career or marriage partner; the vital importance of status and reputation in this community; and the powerlessness of women in the community are but some of these. She describes a culture that, in twenty-first century London, still condones or even promotes arranged marriages, bounty hunters and honour killings; a culture that is slow to react to modern times and difficult to change while is it perpetuated by the men in power and by some of the older, uneducated and often illiterate women.

While these are serious topics, Jaswal also gives the reader plenty of humour, much of it quite black, charming characters, natural dialogue and a rather exciting climax. As for the sexy little stories, they can easily be skipped if mild erotica is not to the reader’s taste, without affecting the flow of the main story. Funny, moving and thought-provoking, this is a great read! (less)

The Radleys: A Novel
by Matt Haig

intelligent, clever and blackly funny. (4/13/2018)

“I can control myself. Look, for God’s sake. Look at everyone. Everyone represses everything. Do you think any of these ‘normal’ human beings really do exactly what they want to do all the time? ‘Course not. It’s just the same. We’re middle-class and we’re British. …more Repression is in our veins.”

The Radleys is the third adult novel by British author, Matt Haig. Another novel featuring abstaining teenaged vampires? Well, yes, but this is Matt Haig’s creation, set in a North Yorkshire village: a world away from Twilight.

Seventeen years ago, Peter and Helen Radley became abstainers. They now eschew human blood, surviving on animal products, even if it means a reduced life expectancy, continual migraines, depression and low energy levels. With their two teenagers, Rowan and Clara, they try to live a normal, middle-class life in Bishopthorpe.

Despite their efforts to blend in, not everyone around them is convinced. Their next-door neighbours sense something, and Clara’s new friend, Eve Copeland, is recently arrived from Manchester with her ex-CID father who is casting a suspicious eye on the Radleys.

Rowan and Clara are themselves completely unaware, knowing only that something is not quite right: they’ve no energy, get skin rashes from sun exposure, can’t sleep, animals avoid them and the kids at school think they’re weird. Recently, Clara has undertaken to become a vegan, exacerbating the chance of an attack of OBT (Overwhelming Blood Thirst), a condition to which she has no idea she might be prone.

Then circumstances place her in a field on a Friday night with an insistent and very drunk young thug, and the inevitable happens. And when Peter’s older brother Will, a charismatic, practising vampire with an insatiable and indiscriminate bloodlust, turns up to help deal with the family’s crisis, things really get complicated.

In this tale, Haig gives the reader an original plot that showcases his talent for portraying everyday characters facing not-so-everyday situations. He describes the English village life to a T, even if Bishopthorpe only thinks it is: “A place which fools itself into believing it is the epitome of a quaint English village but which, like most places, is really just one large fancy-dress shop, with more subtle costumes.”

The narrative, taking place over four days in May, is from multiple perspectives and is supplemented by quotes from The Abstainer’s Handbook. There’s plenty of dark humour, including the irony of a vampire who would be most people’s nightmare, actually having nightmares himself. Haig’s cops monitoring vampires (the Unnamed Predator Unit) though, are chillingly pragmatic when it comes to vampire kills.

Haig’s characters develop and mature under the pressure of events, and he gives them some insightful observations: “The kind of thrill people get when something devastating happens, a thrill they never admit to, but which dances in their eyes as they talk about how bad they feel.” and “It felt strangely grown-up too, as though that’s what being an adult was – the ability to know which secrets needed keeping. And which lies will save the ones you love.” are examples.

Certain Australian beer drinkers will be delighted to learn that VB (in this case, Vampire Blood) is a revered tipple in vampire society. Another brilliant offering from Matt Haig, this one is intelligent, clever and blackly funny. (less)

Census
by Jesse Ball

a wonderfully moving tribute to an obviously loved sibling. (3/13/2018)

4.5?s
“My wife and I always spoke of making a trip together to show our son the country, but it never came. For one reason or another, it never came, and so I felt when my wife passed, when the idea rose in me about the census, I felt finally it was time to take out the …more Stafford, to drive the roads north. In her death, I felt a sure beginning of my own end – I felt I could certainly not last much longer, and so, as life is vested in variety, so we, my son, myself, we had to prolong what life we had by seeing every last thing we could put our eyes upon.”

Census is the seventh novel by American poet and author, Jesse Ball. In his introduction, he explains the dedication to his older brother, Abram Ball, who had Down syndrome and died, aged twenty-four, in 1998. The surgeon and his son travel north in their (unnamed) country from City A to the town of Z in their Stafford Carriagecar, taking the Census.

In that role, they meet a large number of people, many of whom are welcoming and hospitable, whilst some others are quite the opposite. The surgeon asks his questions and hears many stories, some first-hand, others more removed. Most are kind to his son but: “It is easy for humans to be cruel, and they leap t it. They love to do it. It is an exercise of all their laughable powers.”

The father notes that his son’s behaviour is not always easily explicable, but “I have never sought to change what is essentially to my eyes, a basic resourcefulness that finds at any moment something profound. My wife was of the same opinion, but surely we did suffer for it. The long apologies we would have to give to the legions of helpers. But strangely, no one was ever angry about it. People became fond of him very quickly, and that has always helped.”

A couple with a now-deceased Down syndrome daughter told him: “There is a kind of understanding that can grow in a place, and then everyone, every last person can be a sort of protector for them. This is a thing she can confer on others – a kind of momentary vocation, and that is a real gift… Some people were cruel to her, but here, something grew. It was a fine place for her to live, and when she died, she was missed”

There are no quotation marks for speech, which may annoy some readers, although any speech is usually apparent from the context. Similarly, for almost three quarters of the book, characters are not given names, and are distinguished only by descriptors: my wife, my son, a boy, the man, the doctor, an old man. In a way, it reflects on the anonymity of the census and is partly explained by the father’s musings on our desire to name things.

Where Ball has the father saying “…we felt lucky to have had him, and lucky to become the ones who were continually with him, caring for him” it could not be clearer that this is what he and his family felt for his brother. This is a wonderfully moving tribute to an obviously loved sibling. (less)

American by Day
by Derek B. Miller

funny, moving and thought-provoking novel is a brilliant sequel to Norwegian By Night. (3/6/2018)

American By Day is the second novel by award winning American-born author Derek B. Miller which features Chief Inspector Sigrid Ødegård of the Oslo Politi. Sigrid first appears in Miller’s debut novel, Norwegian By Night (another excellent read!). Readers with any intention …more of reading Norwegian By Night are strongly advised to do so before reading this one as there are significant spoilers for NbN in American By Day.

Paternal pressures and concerns see Sigrid Ødegård travelling to upstate New York to make contact with her suddenly-incommunicative older brother, Marcus. She discovers that Sheriff Irving Wylie is looking for him too, wanting to question Marcus about the death of his (black) lover, Professor Lydia Jones.

There on the scene, Sigrid also learns that Lydia’s young nephew was, weeks earlier, shot and killed by a police officer in what could have been a racially motivated attack. All this against a backdrop of the country gearing up for an election that may deliver America’s first black President.

How then - with a black community demanding justice for their dead, a pacifist sheriff (with a divinity degree, no less) under pressure from the county commissioner, a SWAT team, a gang of white supremacist bikers, a trigger happy SERT squad leader, a couple of Molotov cocktails and a Norwegian police chief who is certain her brother is innocent - how will this not end up in a bloodbath?

Readers looking for an action-packed crime thriller are in the wrong place. Miller gives the reader a piece of literary crime that is punctuated by thought-provoking discussions between the characters as they wait. And that’s realistic, even if that’s the bit, all the waiting between dramatic events, that the thrillers omit. That said, there are definitely exciting bits.

Miller’s characters are mostly appealing, for all their flaws, and even the ones who are there to be despised are not complete stereotypes. It’s difficult not to care about what happens to these people, and Irving is likely to be a favourite. He continues to surprise throughout the story, and his speech to the black congregation is wonderful.

Miller gives his characters opinions on a myriad of issues, both topical and perennial: politicians and election campaigns; guns and gun crime; institutionalised racism; the pressure to be seen to be taking action; sadness and depression; individualism vs cooperation; fatal police shootings. The debate is usually balanced, always intelligent, and yes, sometimes the characters get a bit preachy, as people do on any controversial issue about which they are passionate.

As with Norwegian By Night, this novel features a protagonist who is a stranger in a strange land. Sheldon could speak no Norwegian. Sigrid speaks good English, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she fully understands all that is being said, or can always make her own meaning clear. And America, she has decided, is definitely a weird place. Her observations about America are insightful and often amusing.

The characters’ dialogue and their inner monologues are consistent sources of humour. It is sometimes subtle, often dry, occasionally tongue-in-cheek and at times, very dark, but Miller gives the reader plenty of laugh out loud moments. He also treats the reader to some marvelous descriptive prose: “She fires up the bus, which rumbles to life with the enthusiasm of an old man passing gas. The hydraulic doors seem to suck the passengers inside; like a giant vacuum it clears the platform and removes all traces of humanity except the lingering smell.”

Rather than being numbered, the chapters are meaningfully titled from the text. Enclosed within an evocative Hopper Nighthawks-esque cover, this funny, moving and thought-provoking novel is a brilliant sequel to Norwegian By Night. (less)

The Beatrice Letters: A Series of Unfortunate Events
by Lemony Snicket

Disappointing. (2/16/2018)

The Beatrice Letters is a short book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by American author, Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler). It consists of twelve items of correspondence between Lemony Snicket and Beatrice Buadelaire, who is apparently the sister of Violet, Klaus and …more

Terms & Conditions
by Robert Glancy

an outstanding debut novel (2/2/2018)

“Doug’s head sagged and I felt him give up on me. That feeling of people giving up on me, that’s a physical sensation now. As if we’re tied by a million soft strings and when I disappoint a few thousand strings stretch and break, as my connection to that person is severed …more by yet more thin slices of disappointment.”

Terms and Conditions is the first novel by Zambian-born, Malawi-raised New Zealand author, Robert Glancy. A car accident has left Franklyn Shaw with a brain injury, the immediate effect of which is total amnesia. He is apparently married to Alice, a Human Resources expert, model-thin and hard, immaculately tailored; he has an older brother, Oscar, who runs the family law firm; he has a younger brother, Malcolm, a free spirit and maybe a bit of a hippie, judging by the emails Frank receives from various Asian locales.

Assured that his memory will gradually return, Frank gently eases back into the life he apparently had before the accident. But when the memories begin to return, some are quite disturbing: the emptiness of his life is disappointing; he is dismayed by his own weak response to challenges; his marriage is not all he had hoped for; and his brother’s management of the family firm would not meet with their father’s, nor their grandfather’s, approval. And why will no one tell him about the “episode” he had before the accident?

Glancy’s characters are easily believable and realistically flawed. Most have some appeal, for all their faults, but there are two who are not difficult to despise. Of one is said: “You make my heart grow small” by a youngster with a perceptiveness belied by his years. It is this person who “…smiled a smile so thin it could slice eyeballs.” Glancy gives many of his characters words of wisdom and insightful observations about human behaviour. It is satisfying to see that the amnesiac Frank’s instinctive assessment of those he “meets” stands the test of the regained memory.

Glancy’s protagonist is a corporate lawyer specialising in the Terms and Conditions of Contracts (those bits we all ignore at our peril), so it is entirely fitting that his story takes the format of the Terms and Conditions of a Contract. It is divided into Clauses (rather than chapters) and the Terms and Conditions come (of course) with footnotes, although when those footnotes generate footnotes of their own, which also generate footnotes, the eyesight of readers of a certain vintage is bound to be challenged. (Footnote: Are you wearing your glasses? OK, then good lighting and a magnifying glass may be needed.) But it is worth the effort to read every one of those footnotes.

Glancy wraps his tale in some wonderful descriptive prose. This is an outstanding debut novel, full of humour and wit, moving and ultimately uplifting. Readers who enjoy it will be pleased to know that Glancy has written a second novel, Please Do Not Disturb. (less)

The Plea
by Steve Cavanagh

Another page-turner (1/23/2018)

The Plea is the second book in the Eddie Flynn series by American author, Steve Cavanagh. Eddie Flynn is a former conman turned lawyer. He was, formerly, not too choosy about whom he defended. On Sunday March 15th, Eddie Flynn arrives at his office to find the FBI and the …more

Slumberland: A Novel
by Paul Beatty

Original, incisive and funny. (12/28/2017)

“The Schwa ruffled the pages of the book over his pant seam, and the resulting sound rivaled that of the best Max Roach brushwork. I nearly fainted. He lifted the book to his mouth and played chapter seven like a diatonic harmonica; blowing and drawing on the pages like …more leaves of grass in the hands of Pan. Who knew a Signet paperback was in the key of D? For the more percussive sounds he rapped the spine on his elbow, thumb drummed page corners, pizzicatoed the preface, flutter tongued the denouement and bariolaged the blurbs.”

Slumberland is the third novel by Man Booker Prize-winning American author, Paul Beatty. Ferguson W. Sowell, aka DJ Darky has a talent for DJing, and says “I compensate for a lack of skills and Negritude with a surfeit of good taste and a record collection that I like to think is to DJing what the Louvre is to painting.” He has spent months trying to compose his perfect beat, and it’s almost there: in the parlance, it is “presque parfait”.

The Beard Scratchers, members of his record pool, agree. After much analysis, they hit upon the missing element: it needs to be ratified by their ultimate beat break, the elusive Charles Stone, aka the Schwa. Coincidentally (or perhaps not quite?), Ferguson comes across a porn tape sound-tracked with music certain to be the Schwa’s. The trail leads to East Germany and, with some help from the Beard Scratchers, Ferguson finds himself engaged as a Jukebox-Sommelier at the Slumberland Bar in Berlin.

It is a Berlin about to tear down its Wall, and Ferguson is somewhat surprised to find that others share his love of the Schwa’s music: he is assisted in his quest by a bartender, a journalist, a Stasi agent, a pair of German negro sisters, and, eventually, the clientele of the Slumberland. Through a number of quirky characters and some crazy, laugh-out-loud events, Beatty examines the experience of the negro in Germany.

One World have produced editions of Beatty’s four novel with themed covers and this one has LP discs on the cover. A knowledge and appreciation of jazz is bound to enhance the enjoyment of this story, but is not essential, because the plot and characters are strong enough to draw the reader in. The musical descriptions certainly make the reader wish to hear the Schwa’s music. There’s plenty of wit and black humour in Beatty’s lyrical prose. Original, incisive and funny. (less)

Real Tigers: A Slough House Novel
by Mick Herron

More excellent British spy fiction! (12/24/2017)

Real Tigers is the third book in the Slough House series by prize-winning British author, Mick Herron. Slough House, that “administrative oubliette” of the intelligence service, is a repository for inconvenient or incompetent spooks: the spies who have caused embarrassment …more

The Perfect Girl
by Gilly Macmillan

Brilliant (12/5/2017)

“Adults like to put a name on everything you feel, as if a name can neutralise it. They’re wrong, though. Some things settle under your skin and don’t ever go away, no matter what you call them”

The Perfect Girl, also titled much more evocatively, Butterfly in the Dark, is …more

Uncommon Type: Some Stories
by Tom Hanks

Very enjoyable. (12/3/2017)

Uncommon Type: Some Stories is the first print book by American actor, filmmaker and author, Tom Hanks. This is a collection of seventeen quite diverse stories. They vary not only in subject matter, but also format. Many are straight narrative, but there’s also a screen …more

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Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

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Raising Hare
by Chloe Dalton

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, and loss through one woman's friendship with a wild hare.

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The Dream Hotel
by Laila Lalami

A Read with Jenna pick. A riveting novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

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Girl Falling
by Hayley Scrivenor

The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

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Fagin the Thief
by Allison Epstein

A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London's most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue.

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