Friday Five: Books Read in January

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham (Sphere) - Male authors seem to think that all women want babies and will do anything to have them. Apparently, baby fever drives us crazy, which must be comforting for them to think that it isn't their oppressive patriarchal behaviour which has this effect. Meghan has a baby and Agatha wants it, so she befriends her to steal it (not a plot spoiler because it's obvious from the cover design). Despite being from supposedly different cultural backgrounds and socio-economic circumstances, the two women are written interchangeably in the first person, and its fortunate that each alternate chapter is introduced by their name or there would be no distinction between the two. Apart from the fact that one has a baby and one doesn't. Because, lest we forget, it is motherhood, or lack thereof, that defines the status of women. One of the characters, let's call her Megatha, literally says, "I am not a real woman because I cannot have a baby." Tedious. 

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (Tinder Press) - Maggie O'Farrell has written a story about grief at the death of a child. That's a tricky subject and one she addresses well. She has made the child the son of William Shakespeare, although her refusal to name him as such and refer to him as the playwright in London or the Latin tutor or the son of a glove-maker seems perverse and artificial. There are wildly overblown sections of prose as she tries to talk about Shakespeare without talking about Shakespeare, including descriptions of the layout of the home of his birthplace, the attitude to ghostly figures, the very essence of iambic pentameter. The novel includes several quotes and themes from Shakespeare's plays and is written in the present tense, which becomes cloying as many things are revealed that are obvious with contemporary hindsight. In trying to diminish William Shakespeare and elevate Anne (called Agnes here) Hathaway, Maggie O'Farrell has done a disservice to both them and us in what feels like little more than fan fiction.

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Penguin) - Richard Osman created the wildly popular Thursday Murder Club, and now he has published a standalone novel, We Solve Murders, which looks perfectly set to be the beginning of a new series. The main characters are Amy Wheeler, an assassin/ private security officer to billionaires and her father-in-law, Steve Wheeler, who used to be in the business but now likes spending time with his cat, Trouble, and his quiz team down the pub. It is a fast-paced thriller packed with guns and humour. Influencers are being murdered in a spat between money launderers, but no one really cares about influencers because they are so shallow, until we meet Bonnie Gregor, one with a family and a conscience. Amy is meant to be protecting famous author, Rosie D’Antonio who loves flirting – with danger and men – as they encounter lots of action in multiple locations. There is a cast of hundreds and it’s quite hard to keep track of who is whom. It doesn’t really matter though, as the action, locations and opportunity for cameo roles all combine to make this novel a dying-to-be-made-into-a-film script, with actors queuing up to play the characters. It’s a very decent book with a central character who talks to his dead wife while sitting on a small bench by a quiet pond and is trying to come to terms with his grief and her absence.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber) - There is so much weight in such a small book (114 pages) as Claire Keegan questions, what is decency and humanity? "Was there any point in being alive without helping one another?" Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant trying to do the best he can for his family in a small, rural Irish town where half the population is emigrating. The Catholic Church dominates the village, the schools and the workforce, and folk turn a blind eye to some of their more insidious practices, such as the Magdalen laundries. With a solid nod to Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Bill has his eyes forced opened just before Christmas, and he has to make a decision rather than merely going with the flow. The language is exquisite as it settles into natural rhythms and their inevitable outcomes, with a beautiful Irish tilt. "So many things had a way of looking finer, when they were not so close. He could not say which he rathered: the sight of the town or its reflection on the water." In this instance less is definitely more.

Friday Five: Books Read in August

1. Roseblood by Paul Doherty (Headline) - In 1455 as war approaches, the House of York and Lancaster battle things out with a sick Henry VI on the throne. There is a lot of assumed knowledge about who is on which side before we even get to the multiple turncoats. The plot revolves around a secret diary containing incendiary claims - “A chronicle of scandalous secrets affecting the royal family as well as that of the good duke [York]. It is the work of a former royal physician.” Many people are searching for it, to claim legitimacy or otherwise to the throne. The villain of the piece is LeCorbeil (French for crow, which is depicted on the standard), “LeCorbeil is many things: a town in Normandy, the place of a hideous massacre; the name of a Frenchman who hates the English Crown, and Beaufort in particular; as well as a group of mercenaries skilled in the crossbow.” Besides the death and slaughter, there are many historical descriptions and set pieces, but they are no substitute for strong characterisation, leaving this a difficult novel with which to engage.
2. Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi (Picador) - For this magical realism in a dark-fairytale-that-could-easily-cross-to-horror sort of way rather than the twee and sparkly kind, the comparisons with Angela Carter are well deserved. Perdita Lee, a girl who is depressed and may take her own life (and whose name literally means 'lost'), lives with her mother, Harriet, in West London. She has a strange quartet of dolls in her bedroom, who are partly plants (elms, palm trees, crimson petals and living hair), and other furnishings also seem alive. Harriet bakes gingerbread with magical and potentially healing properties, as she tries to ingratiate herself with the PTA. Perdita is in a deep coma: has she taken an overdose, eaten too much gingerbread, or visited Druhástrania? This is a fantasy land where Harriet's best friend, Gretel, lived. Perdita goes to find Gretel and experiences adventures with wells, magic beans and a world of characters that may or may not come from Harriet's past. Gingerbread is an orginal, compelling and disturbing work from a bright British talent.
3. The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin (Picador) - Bruce Chatwin was a journalist for the Sunday Times. He wrote Songlines in 1987 as part of his fascination with travel and nomadic lifestyles. Songlines connect the land and its stories for Indigenous Australians and each tribe has their own way of singing the land to understand its past, present, future and the way it connects us all. The book blends fiction and non-fiction and is part memoir; part travelogue and part anthropology, as a fictional character named Bruce travels to Alice Springs and joins a land surveyor mapping a proposed rail route to Darwin. Although beautifully written with marvellous descriptions, the tone is very much of the time and feels inappropriate now as an 'otherisation' of Indigenous Australian culture and a certain white superiority in trying to describe it: while trying to ascertain the sacred sites which should not be touched by the railway, he climbs Uluru, which he calls Ayers Rock, without apparent irony. It is a bold attempt to explain a culture, but it is an impossible task and problematic at best.
4. The Wife's Secret by Barbara Hannay (Penguin) - While travelling in Townsville, this was recommended to me by a bookseller, due to the fact that Hannay is a local author. I would not have read it otherwise. It's what's known as a 'second-chance romance' as Lisa and Rolf have divorced; he has moved north to be an author, and she has remained in the coastal town to do something-or-other wholesome. When Dave sets up a restaurant, Lisa may find love again, but when Rolf returns with a glamorous actress and young publicist, she may not. This is played out against the background of a cyclone and a community coming together. It's supposed to be feel-good and heartwarming, and according to many reviews on Goodreads, it is.  
5. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell (Tinder Press) - With over 400 pages, this novel takes a long time to say not very much, but it does so with clear images and descriptive prose. Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici d’Este was married to Alfonso II in 1558, aged 13. She died three years later of pulmonary tuberculosis, but almost immediately after her death there were rumours that she had been poisoned on the orders of her husband. Maggie O’Farrell has taken this concept and expounded upon it, with imagined emotions and a twist or two. She makes much of the fact that women had no autonomy and were the chattels of their male relatives, forcing a feminist revisionism into an anachronistic historical period. The portrait, which is a major plot point (and didn’t actually exist) is painted by several different people who specialise in different aspects – one does cloth; one does hands; another the landscape. The supposed twist is obvious, and the ending is unsatisfactory.