It is hard to get to know longlists. When there are twenty books, and you've only heard of half of them, I think becoming acquainted is daunting. So I thought I'd do a 'close-up', and think about each of the books in turn. First so that they don't become an undifferentiated mass of stuff to read in my mind - all of these by June 7th, eep - and second so that I can keep track of my longlist reading. I'll pop a link to it in the side-bar and cross each book off as I go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rosie Alison - The
Very Thought of You (Alma Books)
Of all the books on the longlist, it is this one which has received the least national press attention to date. Before this week it hadn't received a single review in the broadsheet press. (Of course, it has now.) But you wouldn't know it from the plaudits on the cover: shortlisted for Amazon's Rising Stars award 2009, longlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year 2010, longlisted for the Le Prince Maurice Prize for Literary Love Stories 2010. Obviously people out there have been reading this debut novel, and liking it too.
I must admit that it was entirely off my radar; I'd never heard of it. A quote from The Bookseller on the back promises me that it is 'Perfect for fans of Sadie Jones and Ian McEwan', which is a rather startling pronouncement. Rather like saying that if you like chocolate and chips you're sure to like cheese, but you know how these things are: the sellers need to market books at some imaginary, hybridised audience. Because it isn't the kind of book I would ordinarily read, I'm eager to dig into it, like a tourist. My copy has been very kindly sent by Alma Books and will be my next read after The Wilding.
Synopsis: England, 31st August 1939: the world is on the brink of war. As Hitler
prepares to invade Poland, thousands of children are evacuated from
London to escape the impending Blitz. Torn from her mother,
eight-year-old Anna Sands is relocated with other children to a large
Yorkshire estate that has been opened up to evacuees by Thomas and
Elizabeth Ashton, an enigmatic childless couple. Soon Anna gets drawn
into their unravelling relationship, seeing things that are not meant
for her eyes – and finding herself part-witness and part-accomplice to a
love affair, with unforeseen consequences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eleanor
Catton - The
Rehearsal (Granta)
This book has had a little more coverage in the UK press (and on the blogs), all of it positive as far as I have seen and the general consensus seems to be that it is an confident, controversial and original debut. The adjectives 'amazing' and 'extraordinary' have been kicked about. I have to admit that the synopsis doesn't set me alight with excitement, it doesn't sound promising, but the critical momentum and the reputation of the publisher are enough to convince me it must have quality. I'm looking forward to it and a copy is on its way to me now from the Book Depository.
Synopsis: A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency. The sudden publicity seems to turn every act into a performance and every space into a stage. But when the local college decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clare Clark - Savage
Lands (Harvill Secker)
The first of many historical novels on this Orange longlist, much to my pleasure. I've never read Clare Clark, although both her previous novels - The Nature of Monsters and The Great Stink - have found their way onto my TBR. The reviews I've read of this book, though, have been muted in their praise; the consensus apparently that Clark is too forensic and clinical a writer for her genre. But in my experience it is usually a lack of these qualities which makes for the poorest historical fiction. It remains to be seen but I do like the cover. Prettily muted. It will be interesting to see how it compares with Mantel and Maria McCann in terms of style and texture (texture, I think, is one of the most important qualities of historical fiction).
Synopsis: It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging to its
new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes
Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry
men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth
is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her
husband, infantryman Jean-Claude Babelon. But Babelon is a dangerous man
to love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amanda Craig - Hearts
and Minds (Little, Brown)
Aha, an immigration novel, of a sort. There had to be at least one. I know I shouldn't judge, but I do feel like we've been here before with the Orange Prize. Several times. At least this one has a mysterious corpse to spice things up a bit. I sound really cynical, don't I? I am, I suppose, just a little. Can anyone reassure me that it isn't a 21st century cliche?
Synopsis: Entrepreneurs and cooks, au pairs and cleaners – London’s immigrant
population floods into jobs and spaces unwanted by the legitimate
majority. Against the backdrop of the city’s elegant terraces and
conspicuous wealth, these men and women are powerless, invisible, and
untraceable. So when a girls’ corpse is fished from Hampstead Ponds one
morning, she could be anyone…
Rich or poor, five people,
seemingly very different, find their lives in the capital connected in
undreamed-of ways. Job, the illegal mini-cab driver whose wife in
Zimbabwe no longer answers his letters; Ian, the idealistic supply
teacher in exile from South Africa; Katie from New York, jilted and
miserable as a dogsbody at a political magazine and fifteen-year-old
Anna, trafficked into sexual slavery. Polly Noble, an overworked human
rights lawyer, knows better than most how easy it is to fall through the
cracks into the abyss. Yet when her au pair, Iryna, disappears, Polly’s
own needs and beliefs drag her family into a world of danger, deceit
and terror.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roopa Farooki - The
Way Things Look to Me (Pan Books)
Roopa Farooki was nominated to the Orange New Writer's Award in 2007, for her first novel Bitter Sweets. I gulped it down like juice and thought it was very pleasurable but didn't really rate it as literary fiction. Since then Farooki has been enormously prolific; this is her third novel and her fourth is coming out later this year. Either she had a nice stack of manuscripts waiting for the publisher, or she writes at a devilish pace. The Way Things Look to Me sounds a bit zeitgeisty to me - its main character is autistic - but I seem to remember that Farooki has a light, humourous touch and I hope that means she won't be twee or earnest about it.
Synopsis: At 23, Asif is less than he wanted to be. His mother's sudden death
forced him back home to look after his youngest sister, Yasmin, and he
leads a frustrating life, ruled by her exacting need for routine.
Everyone tells Asif that he's a good boy, but he isn't so sure.
Lila
has escaped from home, abandoning Asif to be the sole carer of their
difficult sister. Damaged by a childhood of uneven treatment, as
Yasmin's needs always came first, she leads a wayward existence,
drifting between jobs and men, obsessed with her looks and certain that
her value is only skin deep.
And then there is Yasmin, who has no
idea of the resentment she has caused. Who sees music in colour and
remembers so much that sometimes her head hurts. Who doesn't feel happy,
but who knows that she is special. Who has a devastating plan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rebecca Gowers - The
Twisted Heart (Canongate)
I like the sound of this very much: an historical murder mystery involving Charles Dickens, mixed with a little romance thrown in. It sounds like a guilty pleasure, and I trust Canongate as far as literary quality goes. Has anyone else read it? The Independent calls it 'singularly convincing and genuinely moving...[an] ultimately strange and lingering novel.' Canongate are very kindly sending me a review copy, but I may save it until closer to the end of the Orange reading challenge. Something to really look forward to.
Synopsis: Kit, a work-obsessed literature student, decides, on a whim, to go to a
dance class. And for a while it looks like Joe, the shadowy figure she
meets there, may tempt her to put her books aside and live a little.
But
as Joe’s world becomes increasingly threatening and Kit’s research
leads her to stumble on a complex historical mystery, she is faced with a
choice. Should she hide herself away in her studies or make the leap of
faith that could change her existence forever?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M.J. Hyland - This
is How (Canongate)
I'm both suprised and pleased to see this book on the Orange longlist. It stands out for me, because Hyland is one of those novelists who has managed to escape her gender, and inevitable pigeonholing because of it. Her books aren't conceived of as 'women's fiction', I don't think. Like A.L. Kennedy, she has those gender defying initials and has slipped the net. Because of this, fiction like hers usually falls foul of the Orange Prize, probably I think because the judges (consciously or unconsciously) privilege 'women's fiction' or fiction written for women - an amorphous category, but I think we know what it is - above the wider field of fiction written by women. I think this is an important distinction, and that it is important for books like This is How to be included. It makes a very clear statement that the Orange Prize isn't just a prize for books with certain themes - like domesticity, love, motherhood - that don't get recognition by other prizes (although this is an important function) but rather exists to reward all excellent fiction by women. I want to write more, and more coherently about this, as I read the books themselves.
Saying all of that, I have tried and failed to read This is How already. It is a psychologically demanding book, and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to tackle it last year. Second time lucky I hope.
Synopsis: When his fiancée breaks off their engagement, Patrick Oxtoby leaves home and moves into a boarding house in a remote seaside town. But in spite of his hopes and determination to build a better life, nothing goes to plan and Patrick is soon driven to take a desperate and chilling course of action.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sadie Jones - Small
Wars (Chatto & Windus)
Sadie Jones' debut novel, The Outcast, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008, and I thought it was an impressive piece of work. It was tight and atmospheric and I liked Jones' style of writing - the long conjunctive sentences, built out of a limited and stark stock of monosyllables. There were parts of that novel which have stayed with me in that powerful way that scenes sometimes do. But there were also things about it that I didn't like: the ending, for example, which I thought was tired and old. In many ways Small Wars sounds as though it tackles very similar themes to The Outcast, although it takes us a little further back in time and gives us a fresh setting. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Jones' has developed as a writer.
Synopsis: Hal Treherne is a young and dedicated soldier on the brink of a
brilliant career. Impatient to see action, his other deep commitment is
to Clara, his beautiful 'red, white and blue girl', who sustains him as
he rises through the ranks.
When Hal is transferred to the
Mediterranean, Clara, now his wife, and their baby daughters join him.
But Cyprus is no 'sunshine posting', and the island is in the heat of
the Emergency: the British are defending the colony against Cypriots –
schoolboys and armed guerrillas alike – battling for enosis, union with
Greece. The skirmishes are far from glorious and operations often rough
and bloody. Still, in serving his country and leading his men, Hal has a
taste of triumph.
Clara shares his sense of duty. She must
settle down, make no fuss, smile. But action changes Hal, and Clara
becomes fearful of the lethal tit-for-tat beyond the army base and her
increasingly distant husband. The atrocities Hal is drawn into take him
further from Clara; a betrayal that is only part of the shocking
personal crisis to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara Kingsolver - The
Lacuna (Faber and Faber)
I have read two Kingsolver books up to now - The Poisonwood Bible, which is wonderful and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 1999, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction diatribe against food consumerism. I noticed The Lacuna when it came out and put it on my wishlist - the mention of Frida Kahlo captured my attention - but it was crowded out by the many other books I put on there every week and I barely thought of it in connection with the Orange. Now I think it may be serious contender, and I'm eager to get reading it. The comments I've read online are overwhelming positive; the consensus seems to be that the novel takes you by surprise. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that will interest you, but then it knocks you over.
Synopsis: in the US and reared in a series of provincial households in
Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is mostly a liability to his social-climbing
mother, Salomé; his fortunes remaining insecure as Salomé finds her rich
men-friends always on the losing side of the Mexican Revolution.
Harrison
aims for invisibility, observing his world and recording everything in
his notebooks with a peculiar selfless irony. Life is what he learns
from servants putting him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs on the
streets. Then, one day, he ends up mixing plaster for famed Mexican
muralist, Diego Riviera – which leads to a job in Riviera’s house, where
Harrison makes himself useful to the muralist, his wife Frida Kahlo and
the exiled Bolshevik leader, Lev Trotsky.
A violent upheaval
sends him to the US. In Carolina, he remakes himself in America’s
hopeful image and finds an extraordinary use for his talents of
observation. But political winds continue to volley him between north
and south, in a story that turns many times on the unspeakable breach
– the lacuna – between truth and public presumption.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laila Lalami - Secret
Son (Viking)
When I saw this book on the longlist I knew the name immediately: Morrocan born Laila Lalami is a book/lit blogger, as well as a novelist and a journalist. Back in the days when I read mostly the big American litblogs, before Eve's Alexandria was even thought of and the Britlit blogosphere was very small indeed, I used to visit her site occasionally. I knew she was writing a novel but knew very little about it, and now here it is. I have to admit that it doesn't sound like the kind of book I would ordinarily pick up, but that is one of the joys of reading prize lists. It forces you to sample and discover novels outside of your usual fare.
Synopsis: Casablanca’s stinking alleys are the only home nineteen-year-old Youssef
El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, the
only glimmer of hope in his frustrated dream of escape is offered by the
film stars flickering on the local cinema screen. Until, that is, the
father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive.
A shady
businessman with wealth to burn, Nabil is disenchanted with his daughter
and eager to take in the boy he never knew. Soon Youssef is installed
in his penthouse and sampling the gold-plated luxuries enjoyed by
Casablanca’s elite. But as he leaves the slums of his childhood behind
him, he comes up against a stark reality…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrea Levy - The
Long Song (Headline Review)
Now for an admission: I've never read Small Island. I own it, but I've never got around to reading it. This is despite the fact that in 2004 it won the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year (now the Costa), followed in 2005 by the Commonwealth Writer's Prize. And then it also won the Orange Prize Best of the Best in 2006. It is one great fat gaping hole in my Orange knowledge. So The Long Song will be my first encounter with Levy as a writer, and I'm apprehensive about it. Whenever I read a much-lauded author for the first time I always feel nervous: what if I don't like her? What if I can't see what all the fuss is about? I shall soon find out, as Headline Review have very kindly sent me a copy of the hardback (at my cheeky request).
Synopsis: July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amity and
it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the
Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was also present when slavery was
declared no more. My son says I must convey how the story tells also of
July’s mama Kitty, of the negroes that worked the plantation land, of
Caroline Mortimer the white woman who owned the plantation and many more
persons besides - far too many for me to list here. But what befalls
them all is carefully chronicled upon these pages for you to peruse.
Perhaps,
my son suggests, I might write that it is a thrilling journey through
that time in the company of people who lived it. All this he wishes me
to pen so the reader can decide if this is a book they might care to
consider. Cha, I tell my son, what fuss-fuss. Come, let them just read
it for themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Attica Locke - Black
Water Rising (Serpent’s Tail)
Attica Locke? I'd never heard of her until this week. I think it's safe to say that Black Water Rising was amongst the least anticipated of Orange longlisters, coming straight out of left-field. It is a thriller, for a start, not a genre widely noted for winning literary prizes, for second it is published by a small press (though admittedly a small press with an Orange history - Serpent's Tail also published Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin), for third it sounds distinctly un-Orangey. How many Orange longlisters have had washed-out criminal lawyers with past demons as their heroes? Not many I warrant. And because of this I'm looking forward to it; a bit of something different does you good.
Synopsis: On a dark night, out on the Houston bayou to celebrate his wife’s
birthday, Jay Porter hears a scream. Saving a distressed woman from
drowning, he opens a Pandora’s Box.
Not the lawyer he set out to
be, Jay long ago made peace with his radical youth, tucked away his
darker sins and resolved to make a fresh start. His impulsive act out
on the bayou is heroic, but it puts Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a
murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family and
even his life. But before he can untangle the mystery that stretches to
the highest reaches of corporate power, he must confront the demons of
his past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maria McCann - The
Wilding (Faber and Faber)
I'm over two-thirds into The Wilding as I type, and will probably finish it off this evening, and so it is difficult to comment on its longlisting without giving an opinion. Its appearance suggests rather strongly (if we hadn't guessed already) that there are some fans of historical fiction on the judging panel, which I like to see. But whether The Wilding is the best example of that genre of fiction is a matter for discussion. I did know of McCann before - her 2000 debut As Meat Loves Salt has met with wide critical acclaim and I've always meant to read it. Commenting on my last post Jodie called it 'fantastically dark and bitter', and I've read a lot more praise for the writing and the atmosphere over the last few days. It has taken 10 years for this, her second novel, to appear and I wonder what resemblance it bears to the first? At the moment I don't predict a shortlisting, but we shall see how the ending unfolds.
Synopsis: 1672. A generation after the Civil War, England is still struggling to
return to normal. In the village of Spadboro, Jonathan Dymond, a cider
maker who lives with his parents has enjoyed a quiet and harmonious
life. But the death of his uncle leads Jonathan to secrets that have
lain dormant since the war.
Jonathan discovers his dying uncle’s
letter to his father, hinting at inheritance and revenge and he becomes
determined to unravel the mystery. Under the pretence of making cider,
Jonathan goes to stay with his newly widowed and strangely hostile aunt.
While he tries to make sense of his own family, Jonathan becomes
involved with his aunt’s servant girl, Tamar, who soon reveals that she
has secrets of her own…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hilary Mantel - Wolf
Hall (Fourth Estate)
I think Wolf Hall has to be on the shortlist this year. You already know what I think of it: it is a tour-de-force, a big fat slab of literary genius. Will it win overall? If it did then Hilary Mantel would be the first author to have won both the Booker and the Orange Prize for the same novel. For my own part I think she entirely deserves it. But I imagine the judges will be wary of a foregone conclusion; they would have to be quite brave to give the prize to Wolf Hall. God forbid the Orange winner should be dismissed with a bored shrug from the literary community and a groan of 'oh, that again'.
Synopsis: England in the 1540s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies
without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry
VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the petulant
king’s freedom destroys his advisor, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and
leaves a power vacuum and a deadlock.
Into this impasse steps
Thomas Cromwell. Son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a
briber, a bully and a charmer, Cromwell has broken all the rules of a
rigid society in his rise to power, and is prepared to break some more.
Rising from the ashes of personal disaster – the loss of his young
family and of Wolsey, his beloved patron – he picks his way deftly
through a court where ‘man is wolf to man.’ Pitting himself against
parliament, the political establishment and the papacy, he is prepared
to reshape England to his own and Henry’s desires.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nadifa Mohamed - Black
Mamba Boy (HarperCollins)
I'll be honest, I'm not looking forward to this very much. In the first place I think it is difficult to do this kind of novel - the child on an epic war-torn journey to find his family - in a fresh and interesting way, without being sentimental. It feels like a Hollywood movie at the outset; I can see the sweeping vistas and hear the orchestral crescendo. I know, I know, this impression is probably the fault of the synopsis and the Khaled Husseini-esque cover more than anything else. But there is another thing putting me off: the story is based on the real-life journey of Mohamed's father and partly composed from taped interviews with him. I don't know what I think about this; it makes me feel emotionally manipulated. Criticise the fiction and you stand in danger of belittling the real-life experience. It makes me feel boxed in, and I don't like that.
Synopsis: 1935, Aden. Jama is ten years old and has grown up in the slums of this
ancient city, learning to survive amongst the cosmopolitan ragamuffins
and vagabonds of the port. When he loses everything in Aden, his only
chance of survival lies in finding his father, who disappeared years
before.
But between him and his father lies a dangerous, lonely
expanse and just ahead is the war that will test the world to its
limits.
So begins an epic journey by foot that will take Jama
through war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt, Palestine and finally to
the icy realms of Britain that he’d heard about in Aden.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lorrie Moore - A
Gate at the Stairs (Faber and Faber)
This is Lorrie Moore's third novel and having only sampled some of her short stories up to now I'm anticipating very good things. Strange then that I can't think of more to say about the book at this point. Perhaps it is because my impressions of it are amorphous, and barely formed; plain and unassuming, like the cover. I have the sense of it as a claustrophobic book, one of those uncomfortable family dramas that the Orange is so famous for highlighting. Closely-observed, tense, slightly edgy, revealing the dirty heart of our most treasured institutions, that sort of thing. Probably that is entirely wrong; we shall find out soon enough though, as Faber have popped a review copy in the post for me.
Synopsis: With her government quietly gearing up for war in the Middle East,
twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, a ‘half-Jewish’ farmer’s daughter from
the plains of the Midwest, has come to the university town of Troy – a
girl escaping her home to encounter the complex world of culture and
politics.
When she takes a job as a part-time nanny to a couple
who seem at once mysterious and glamorous, Tassie is drawn more deeply
into the life of their newly-adopted child and a household that steadily
reveals its complications. With her past becoming increasingly alien to
her – her parents seem older when she visits; her disillusioned brother
ever more fixed on joining the military – Tassie finds herself becoming
the stranger she has at times imagined herself to be. As the year
unfolds, love leads her to new and formative experiences, but it is then
that the past and the future burst forth in dramatic and shocking ways.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monique Roffey - The
White Woman on the Green Bicycle (Simon and Schuster)
This is another book that had passed me by until now. Reading the synopsis I feel like we're in relatively familiar territory for the Orange Prize and in previous years I'd have said that (if turns out to be well-executed) I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the shortlist. As it is, what with the thrillers and other surprises this year, who knows what the shortlist will look like? Usually it would the kind of Orange book that I would run to the library for, but there are some difficulties with that this year - my branch is closed for refurbishment and I'm dependent upon the vagaries of the tiny mobile library's stock. Who knows how I'll lay my hands on a copy.
Synopsis: When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself to send. As the years progress, George and Sabine's marriage endures for better or worse. When George discovers Sabine's cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets she's kept from him - and he from her - over the decades. And he is seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with tragic consequences...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amy
Sackville - The
Still Point (Portobello Books)
Isn't that one of the most beautiful book covers you ever saw? So beautiful that I had to dash onto the Book Depository and order a copy immediately. Everywhere I look online I bump into litbloggers who are utterly smitten with Sackville's prose and I think I will probably save this one until the end of my longlist reading because of it. That way once the fatigue has set in I'll have something to look forward to. (I have to admit though that I can't suppress that little flowering of envy: Amy Sackville is just two years older than me and she has a novel on the Orange longlist. Not that I have any ambitions to write a novel, but this is yet another reminder that I'm a grown-up, and my peers are grown-ups. Scary. When Eve's Alexandria was born I was 22 years old; now I'm 26. Oh how time marches relentlessly onward.)
Synopsis: At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley
sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape
without a trace. He leaves behind a young wife, Emily, who awaits his
return for decades, her dreams and devotion gradually freezing into
rigid widowhood.
A hundred years later, on a sweltering
mid-summer's day, Edward's great-grand-niece Julia moves through the old
family house, attempting to impose some order on the clutter of
inherited belongings and memories from that ill-fated expedition, and
taking care to ignore the deepening cracks within her own marriage. But
as afternoon turns into evening, Julia makes a discovery that splinters
her long-held image of Edward and Emily's romance, and her husband Simon
faces a precipitous choice that will decide the future of their
relationship.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kathryn Stockett - The
Help (Fig Tree)
I think I must have been asleep to miss the hype around The Help before now. It seems like everywhere I look now there are reviews of it, and an Orange Prize survey has just placed it second most likely book to make the shortlist after Wolf Hall. This is another first novel - debuts abound on the list this year - and I wonder if it might get shunted over into the New Writer's Award shortlist instead of the main shortlist?
Synopsis: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Black maids raise white children, but
aren’t trusted not to steal the silver. Some lines will never be
crossed.
Aibileen is a black maid: smart, regal, and raising her
seventeenth white child. Yet something shifted inside Aibileen the day
her own son died while his bosses looked the other way.
Minny,
Aibileen’s best friend, is by some way the sassiest woman in
Mississippi. But even her extraordinary cooking won’t protect Minny from
the consequences of her tongue.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter
returns home with a degree and a head full of hope, but her mother will
not be happy until there’s a ring on her finger. Seeking solace with
Constantine, the beloved maid who raised her, Skeeter finds she has
gone. But why will no one tell her where?
Seemingly as different
as can be, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny’s lives converge over a
clandestine project that will not only put them all at risk but also
change the town of Jackson forever. But why? And for what?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah Waters - The
Little Stranger (Virago)
I said before that I think this might be Sarah Waters' year for winning the Orange and I still think that, to an extent, although I see now that the competition is fresh and tough. I know there are people out there who would vehemently disagree with me, but I really, really do believe that this is her most successful novel yet. I don't mean that it was the most enjoyable - Fingersmith would take a whole world of beating on that count - but of her five novels The Little Stranger is the one that accomplishes everything that it set out to. It has a creepy assuredness about it, a precision that both terrifies and excites me. Sarah Waters has always inhabited her characters but she inhabits Dr. Faraday completely and absolutely. If there is such as thing as a perfectly executed novel, then this is it I think.
Synopsis: In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a
patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two
centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in
decline, its masonry crumbling, its garden choked with weeds, the clock
in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners –
mother, son and daughter – are struggling to keep pace with a changing
society, as well as with conflicts of their own.
But are the
Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?
Little does Dr Faraday know how closely and how terrifyingly their story
is about to become entwined with his.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There we have it. Twenty books, two months. Now all there is do is read them, which is what I'm going to do right now. The final 80 pages of The Wilding here I come.
~~Victoria~~
Great idea Victoria, thanks for this. It's an exciting list, which is just as well, given our bright idea of reading the lot... :)
Posted by: Kirsty (Other Stories) | Monday, March 22, 2010 at 12:09 PM
What a terrific post: I really enjoy the mix of publisher's info/synopsis with your personal reflections, especially whether or not you've tried the author before, and whether you're anticipating or a bit hesitant.
You've read more than I (just two), and including Wolf Hall, which is lucky for you! I've read The Twisted Heart, which I thought was a delightfully quirky romance; I also ended up enjoying Lorrie Moore's book than I thought I would (based on the reviews I'd scanned/read) because Tassie was such an interesting observer.
I'm almost unbearably excited about this year's reading, hardly able to sit still long enough to finish my March reads with some of the Orange-ness taunting from across the room!
Posted by: Buried In Print | Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 07:18 PM
The Little Stranger is an immensely fascinating novel. Sarah Water's most psychological and political one!
Posted by: kamagra | Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 09:26 AM