Newest Literary Fiction Reviews
Literary fiction
The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel) by Khaled Hosseini
A confession. If there's one book I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else is reading. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all the left-wing chattering classes to rave over, then that's just more grist to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunity. I'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing White Teeth by Zadie Smith. But at least, through the medium of the graphic novel, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptation, by Italian artists, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novel. Full review...
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
West Virginia, 1970. We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredom. Into things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too to help out, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and won. Full review...
Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant
Religion kicks off this book, even before the first page. The title is from a passage from the Book of Ruth. The only female central character, Yona is travelling from her home in America to visit her sister and large family. She's not really looking forward to it. She's nervous. The two sisters live very different lives and haven't seen each other for a decade. Leegant tells us all about the massive rift in their relationship. Full review...
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
If you have read Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain', or indeed seen the film, then you'll have a fair idea what to expect from his latest offering - 'Nightwoods'. As with 'Cold Mountain', the landscape of the Appalachians is the dominant character, this time set in the 1950s. He even manages to get his requisite bear into the story although thankfully it fares rather better than the unfortunate beast in his first book. The dark, oppressing majesty and beauty of the mountains and woods pervades the whole story. Full review...
Villain by Shuichi Yoshida
Well, I suppose I'd better begin with the bad which was there were moments at the start of this novel when I thought I couldn't possibly read it right to the end. It's written in such a stilted, factual style with details about the road networks of the local area and exactly how much anyone pays for anything they eat or buy or rent! Faced, for example, with the paragraph cars setting out from Nagasaki that take the pass road to save money take the Nagasaki Expressway from Nagasaki to Omura, then to Higashi-Sonogi and Takeo, and get off at the Saga Yamato interchange. Intersecting this east-west Nagasaki Expressway at the interchange is Route 263 I thought I'd never manage to read more than a couple of lines before falling asleep! Still, I persisted and actually, I'm glad I did. Full review...
The Ascent of Isaac Steward by Mike French
Isaac is married to Rebekah. They have sons, Esau and Jacob, naturally. There is a half-brother Ishmael and a back-story of marital betrayal and the out-casting of sons. Full review...
The Beautiful Torment of a Dream by A Portsmouth
This is a beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover and equally enigmatic title. After reading the blurb on the back cover I was left with a feeling of wishy-washiness however, as regards the storyline. Unfortunately, the contents confirmed this for me. Full review...
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havoc. Full review...
Nemesis by Philip Roth
1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there is, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun? Full review...
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
I'll hold my hands up right now and say that no, I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed The Bonfire of the Vanities. I've heard a lot about it, over the years, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I have read it, mind you. So I'm really pleased to have the chance to read this much-awaited novel. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of prose, It's a veritable feast for readers. Full review...
Scenes From Provincial Life by J M Coetzee
'Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published in 1997, 'Youth' published in 2002 and Summertime published in 2009. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition and yet they were initially published separately. What strikes the reader of this compilation is the change in style and focus of the third book in the series. Full review...
Daniel by Henning Mankell
A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dull, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friends. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost? Full review...
Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
Alice is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shout. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc. Full review...
Good Offices by Evelio Rosero
Here is a church in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it is a large group of the elderly, given a weekly, tasteless meal from the charitable funds, but bitterly refusing to quit the place, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivity. In part two it is the congregation, as a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old women. Full review...
The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
'The Quality of Mercy' picks up the story of the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first book, you won't be greatly disadvantaged as the relevant story lines are explained. What you might miss out on is some of the feeling for a few of the main characters, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates of the slave ship, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracy. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequel, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to poverty, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durham. Full review...
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Some books sneak up on you. Others are thrown at you from every corner of the media to the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read them, or at least, not yet. Let the furore die down. If they're still around in a few years, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll go see what all the fuss was about. Full review...
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
For the first half or so of this book, which sees an 11 year old boy called Michael (or Mynah to his friends) leave his home of Ceylon to travel to school in England, I wasn't really sure if it even had a plot. Focusing on his journey in the 1950's aboard the ship to England, although occasionally leaping forward to his later life where he gives us tantalising glimpses as to what happened to his fellow passengers after the voyage, this originally seems to be nothing more than a series of incredibly well-drawn character sketches. In fairness, I should say that nothing more is rather harsh in this case – the men, women and children Ondaatje creates, from a supposedly cursed rich man seeking a cure, to a friendly thief, to Michael's beautiful cousin Emily, are so beautifully conjured that I could have lived without a plot perfectly happily. However, we eventually realise there's a little more to this narrative, and that this skilful author has been foreshadowing the events at the novel's climax all along. Full review...
The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
'The Last Hundred Days' in question here are the final days of Ceausescu's Romania in late 1989. Narrated by an unnamed young British expat who has a job offer from the English department of Bucharest University, despite never having interviewed for the job, we get an insight into the life under communist rule as Eastern bloc countries all around start to open up after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are told that McGuinness lived in Romania in the years leading up to the revolution, and this is no surprise as there is an authenticity here that could only have come from some level of inside knowledge. Full review...
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
The subject matter of 'The Testament of Jessie Lamb' ensures that this is not a comfortable read. Set in the near future, Rogers has imagined a truly terrifying virus that affects pregnant women, known as Maternal Death Syndrome or MDS. Everyone carries this illness but the effects, a cross between AIDS and CJD, ensure that all pregnant mothers will die - without exception. Scientists have found a way to save some of the unborn children, but only by placing their mothers in a chemically induced coma from which they won't recover. Now though, the scientists have also discovered a way of immunising frozen, pre-MDS embryos which, if they can be placed in a willing volunteer, may ultimately allow the survival of the human race. However, the volunteers need to be under 16½ or the likely success rates are too low. Step forward one Jessie Lamb. Full review...
On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry
Each chapter of 'On Cannan's Side' represents a day after the death of the narrator, Lilly Bere's, grandson, Bill. Initially the reader is bombarded by a stream of half thoughts but soon Lilly begins to outline her own life story from being the daughter of a police officer in Ireland at the end of the First World War, her subsequent flight to the USA, to ultimately living in retirement as a domestic cook to a wealthy American. It's a remarkable story, full of tragic events, but for all its hardships, Lilly is from a time when such things are to be endured rather than dwelt on. Full review...
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
'Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison'. I'm a spunky, lively tweenage girl, except I'm a dead one, and I'm in Hell, to my surprise. While I'm here I'll find out just where it is all those cold-calling telegraphers ring you from just while you're settling down to your evening meal, and where the world's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch up. I'll have very hairy encounters with demons of Satan's and mankind's making, and with some superlative plotting and flashbacks I'll find a clearer approach to why I was put here in the first place. Full review...
Far to Go by Alison Pick
At the risk of sounding trite, a story set in 1938 Czechoslovakia on the eve of Nazi occupation, centred on a Jewish family is always going to put the reader through an emotional journey. Add in a young child and it's almost certain that you are going to be reaching for the Kleenex at some point. But Alison Pick makes some interesting creative choices that add more layers to this story. Some will surprise the reader but the overall impact is a wonderfully moving story with wholly believable characters. Full review...
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Before I started the book, I looked out my copy of Homer's The Iliad and skim-read its one page introduction (yes, yet another book in my 'must-read' pile but it's been on it for about ahem, ten years). Having said that, it is rather dry and scholarly which didn't really inspire me to get on with this book as I wasn't really looking for a 'heavy' read, especially on a nice summer's day. Onwards ... Full review...
Stabat Mater by Tiziano Scarpa
Translated by Shaun Whiteside from Scarpa's 2008 Italian original, 'Stabat Mater' is set in a Venetian orphanage for girls run by nuns in what would have been around the 1700s. The girls at the 'Ospedale' are trained as musicians and singers who play from a hidden gallery in the adjoining church for the patrons of the Instituto della Pietà. However, this is a highly stylised little book, bordering on the almost poetic, narrated from the point of view of one of the orphans, a young violinist named Cecilia who goes on to tell of the impact of the appointment of a new in-house composer, one Don Antonio, or Vivaldi as most of us know him. Full review...
A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind by Christien Gholson
The front cover is lovely with its blue and turquoise suggesting languid waters. The author of 'The Jane Austen Book Club' (which I've read incidentally) 'fell in love with this novel.' High praise indeed. I'm hoping to do the same.
Everything about this book stinks (and I use the word explicitly). All of the chapters have the word 'fish' somewhere or other and there's a quote right at the beginning which gives the book its quirky and unusual title. (As I'm a fishy Piscean does that bode well for a good or sympathetic review, I wonder). Full review...
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Invariably, the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that is more on the side of light reading than the more worthy and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated with. 'The Sisters Brothers' is the 2011 choice. Set in the US in 1851, it details the adventures of two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, who are hired hands for a mysterious boss known only as the Commodore. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more of a conscience than his older brother, the story starts with the Commodore ordering a hit, for reasons unknown, on a certain Hermann Kermit Warm. Full review...
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst's Booker-nominated and long-awaited 'The Stranger's Child' is without doubt, as one might expect from this writer, beautifully written. Almost every page offers something to smile about either in terms of the comments of his characters or, more often, the wry descriptions that the author offers. The structure of the book is episodic, split into five parts covering pre-World War One, the 1920s, the 1960s, the 1980s and finally the early 2000s. It offers a thoughtful and well observed picture of changes in society and culture over this period and in particular of attitudes to homosexual relationships, although admittedly Hollinghurst's subjects tend to fall into a narrow band of well educated, artistic and often aristocratic members of society. Writers, poets and artists are the subject matter rather than the man on the street. His male characters are invariably homosexual while his females mostly either remain unmarried or have dysfunctional marriages. Full review...
Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
It's the late 1950s, and America's teenagers (the very idea a brand new concept) are beginning to live the all-American dream. For some of them however it isn't all 'Happy Days' diners and rock'n'roll. For the second generation Chinese immigrants there's an alternative: back 'home' there's a brave new world being forged, a world where 'we'd work in the fields and sing songs. We'd do exercises in the park. We'd help clean the neighbourhood and share meals. We wouldn't be poor and we wouldn't be rich. We'd all be equal.' Full review...
The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christine Dwyer Hickey
I reviewed Hickey's Last Train From Liguria so was keen to see if I'd enjoy this book too. The front cover says that Farley unravels the warp and weft of his life which is a great phrase - wish I'd though of it. Hickey lives in Dublin so I'm kind of expecting good characterization (as the book's location is Dublin) and a nice line in put-me-down wit. But will I get it? Time to find out ... Full review...
Bricks by Leon Jenner
Let me start on a positive: this slim volume is exquisitely presented and has a lovely 'traditional' feel about it. Very covetable for book lovers. The front cover is also a bit of a paradox - what with the workmanlike one-word title Bricks and the almost mystical/biblical-esque graphics. Will this all help to draw the reader in, well, I'm not too sure. Full review...
The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond
This tale is told by 1 that died at birth by 1 that came into the world in days of endles war & at the moment of disaster... I am not cleva, so forgiv my folts and my mistayks. I am Billy Dean. This is the truth. This is my tale.
The Monster Billy Dean tells the story of Billy, a boy born into the dystopia of a war-torn town and the product of an illicit liaison between a young woman and her priest. His birth coincided with an apocalyptic bombing and his parents have hidden him away from the ruins and the catastrophe in a single room, both out of shame and in the belief that his coming into the world and surviving at such a violent moment signifies a sacred future. Full review...
The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman
It all begins with a bank robbery. Only this isn't your typical sort of bank robbery since the robber demands not money but instead each person in the bank must give him the item of most sentimental value that they have with them. These range from photographs and a key through to a calculator...and on taking these items he says he is also taking fifty percent of their souls, and it is up to the victims to find the way to get their souls back, or to die trying. Full review...
A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
He just knocked, that was all, knocked and the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since I'd killed my mother hadn't happened...
Jinx is cold and she knows it. She cleans obsessively - a largely pointless task, since there is little mess to clean since her husband and young son, tired of her frigidity, moved out. She cooks beautifully balanced meals that look aesthetic on the plate. But her food offers sustenance, not comfort. In fact, Jinx feels most at home amongst the dead people she works with as a funeral home cosmetologist. Full review...
The Breakers by Claudie Gallay
The book is in the first person, told by a woman who is a relative newcomer to this tiny village, no more than a cluster of homes and a few basic amenities. The story opens in the lead-up to a horrendous storm. The narrator has seen nothing like it before and is both afraid and excited. The locals take it all in their stride. They're a hardy bunch of disparate individuals and we get to know more them, one by one, as the story develops. Full review...
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Arthur Kipps is a young solicitor working in a fog-bound London and soon to be married. All looks rosy for Arthur until one day he is called into his boss' office where he is tasked with the affairs of the deceased recluse Alice Drablow. Alice Drablow had lived in the melancholy village of Crythin Gifford in an isolated house on the remote Eel Marsh, a house only accessible by a strange causeway when the tide is out. It is here Arthur must travel to firstly represent his firm at her funeral and then to sift through Mrs Drablow's house to ensure all her legal paperwork is in order. Full review...
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
'The Sense of an Ending' is almost more of a novella - it's a slim volume but exquisitely written, as you might expect from Julian Barnes. It starts off describing the relationships between four friends at school, narrated by one of the friends, Tony Webster, but quickly it becomes clear that this is written many years later. Barnes has long been a terrific observer of the English middle classes and his style invariably contains satire and dry humour. And this being Barnes, this school clique is intellectual in interest, as the narrator recalls English and History teachers and student philosophising. Full review...
The Instructions by Adam Levin
Now, I know that size isn't everything, but the first thing that strikes you about 'The Instructions' is that it is a brick of a book. It comes in at a wrist-challenging 1030 pages that almost encourages me to invest in an e-reader. It's also hugely ambitious for a first time writer not least that the book's action takes place over just a few days and the narrator is a ten year old child. While it starts encouragingly, it too rapidly becomes repetitive and dull and I found it a slog to get through. There are some great passages but these get too easily lost in this huge tome. Full review...
