I've just realised that this is a landmark Orange anniversary for me: I've been avidly reading the Prize for 5 years, ever since I was hooked in by the glorious shortlist of 2006. What began with reading the shortlist in 2007 and 2008, quickly morphed into a determination to read the whole longlist in 2009. I didn't manage it the first time, but I did complete it last year, and what a wonderful, joyful experience it was. Each year since 2007 I've also written a version of this post: a grand overview of the 20 longlisted books, to clarify them in my mind. It helps, I think, when setting out, to know the terrain over which you're trekking. (The synopsis are quoted from press releases or Amazon and various other places.)
Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Sudanese; 3rd Novel
I've read Aboulela's second novel Minaret - it was on the Orange longlist in 2006. In fact, I think it may be the first Orange book I ever wrote about at Eve's Alexandria. I remember it as an emotionally and psychologically challenging read, because of the determinedly religious dynamic and the moral journey of the central female character Najwa. It will be very interesting to compare and contrast with this, Aboulela's third novel. Not only is it a historical setting, but a family saga structured by the relationship between a father and son, a husband and his wives. It has garnered excellent reviews, and I'm anticipating some fine writing. I shall be interested to see whether the core theme of Minaret - women's role in the life of their family and community - is as strong. My library has a copy; onto the holds list it goes.
Synopsis: Set in 1950s Sudan, it is the story of the powerful and sprawling Abuzied dynasty. With Mahmood Bey at its helm, the family can do no wrong. But when Mahmood's son, Nur - the brilliant, charming heir to his business empire - suffers a near-fatal accident, his hopes of university and a glittering future are dashed. Subsequently, his betrothal to his cousin and sweetheart, Soraya is broken off, another tragedy that he is almost unable to bear. As British rule is coming to an end, and the country is torn between modernising influences and the call of traditions past, the family is divided. Mahmood's second wife, Nabilah, longs to return to Egypt and leave behind her the dust of 'backward-looking' Sudan. His first wife, Waheeba, lives traditionally behind veils and closed doors and resents Nabilah's influence on Mahmood. Meanwhile, Nur must find a way to live again in the world and find peace. Moving from the villages of Sudan to cosmopolitan Cairo and a decimated post-colonial Britain, this is a sweeping tale of loss, faith and reconciliation.
Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate) - British; 10th Novel
Carol Birch's tenth novel, and I haven't read a single one of them up to now, although I think I have a copy of Scapegallows somewhere. But this sounds truly wonderful. A 'great salty historical adventure'? Yes, please. I'm in just the right mood for taking a ship from 19th century London to the Dutch East Indies: I'm expecting a richly descriptive novel, seductively strange and yet deliciously familiar. Alex Clark's review in the Guardian piqued my interest in this several weeks ago. I liked the idea of a novel that unashamedly used the tropes of historical adventure fiction - small boy plucked from obscurity for high octane overseas adventure - while also telling a subtler story. This might have to be a purchase for me - no copy in the library yet (no hardback or trade paperback purchases at the moment for them I fear), and it sounds like a keeper. I have very high expectations.
Synopsis: 1857. Jaffy Brown is running along a street in London's East End when he comes face to face with an escaped circus animal. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach - explorer, entrepreneur and collector of the world's strangest creatures - the two strike up a friendship. Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the Dutch East Indies, on an unusual commission for Mr Jamrach. His journey - if he survives it - will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits. Brilliantly written and utterly spellbinding, Carol Birch's epic novel brings alive the smells, sights and flavours of the nineteenth century, from the docks of London to the storms of the Indian Ocean. This great salty historical adventure is a gripping exploration of our relationship to the natural world and the wildness it contains.
Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
This must win the prize for the least-suprising inclusion on the longlist. I read lots of the predictions across the blogosphere before the announcement on Wednesday, and everybody included Donoghue's Booker shortlisted novel. It's the book that most people have already read coming into the list. Not me though; I've been steering away from it until now. Probably because I find the idea of the book emotionally exploitative; and I don't have a huge store of patience for writers who take clear inspiration from a recent real-world event, and then insist on distancing the act of writing from that event. Then there is the fact that I didn't get along with the only other Donoghue novel I've read - Slammerkin - which should have been precisely my cup of tea (18th century setting, murder in Wales) but which I couldn't finish. A lively comments debate over at dovegreyreader (prompted by Lynne's inability to get past page 50) suggests that, despite its popularity, Room is a 'marmite' book. But I'm going to try to go into it now with an open mind. Because I've already got a copy - bought last week when I was in an intensely Orange-y book-buying mood, and relatively sure it would be on the list - it will probably be one of my earlier reads.
Synopsis (not that you need one!): It’s Jack’s birthday, and he’s excited about turning five.
Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside . . .
The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury) - Indian; 1st Novel
The first novel on the longlist that I hadn't heard of until this week. I must somehow have missed the piece on it during my weekly perusal of the Saturday Review, because now I come to look, there it is. The review tells me that the book is 'a tribute to Tishani Doshi's parent's marriage' or at least takes inspiration from it, and that it is 'gentle, funny and readable'. Which is lukewarm praise I think. But the Orange always turns up at least one book that can be described in that way: the pleasant sounding one, that more often than not turns out to be enjoyable and soothing and ultimately forgettable. This one has the added benefit of a lovely cover design, and perhaps it will surprise me by being much more than the sum of its mellow synopsis. Has anyone read it yet?
Synopsis: It all started in August 1968 when Babo, with curly hair and jhill mill teeth, became the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras and fly on a plane all the way to London to further his education. His father should have known there would be trouble: on the morning of the departure he had his first and only dream, in which strange ghosts threw poison-tipped arrows and all his family was lost...But off Babo went, and now here he is, in a flat off the Finchley Road, untraditionally making love to a cream-skinned girl from Wales, Sian Jones, who he fell head over heels for as soon as he saw the twirl of red ribbon in her hair. Ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom-boom-boom. Theirs is a mixed-up love in a topsy-turvy world, and their two families will never be the same again. Meet the Patel-Joneses: Babo, Sian, Mayuri and Bean, in their little house with orange and black gates next-door to the Punjab Women's Association.
Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber) - British; 6th Novel
Aha! I've read this one! And I feel very guilty, because I specifically asked Faber for a proof copy and then never followed through by publishing a review of it. I wrote one, but just as I was finishing if off my laptop fell prey to a fatal error (caused by a virus I later learned) and because I hadn't saved it, the whole thing was lost. What with one thing or another, and the feeling of demoralisation that comes with losing 1500 words on anything, I never got around to re-writing it. It's a shame too, because the novel surprised me mightily. I requested it out of sheer curiousity. I'd heard Louise Doughty speak at a couple of events but I'd never read her, and for whatever reason had marked her in my mind as 'not for me'. Whatever You Love didn't sound like it was me either, but I read it compulsively over the course of a weekend. At the time I thought it was a deeply moving book, and managed to avoid all the cul-de-sacs of cliche that attach themselves to novels about the death of children. It will be interesting to see how it feels a second time round - I intend to re-read it so that I can post about it. Will it grow or shrink in my mind?
Synopsis: Two police officers knock on Laura’s door. They tell her that her nine-year old daughter Betty has been hit by a car and killed. When justice is slow, Laura decides to take her own revenge and begins to track down the man responsible. Laura’s grief reopens old wounds and she is thown back to the story of her passionate love affair with Betty’s father David, their marriage and his subsequent desertion of her for another woman. Haunted by her past and driven by her need to discover the truth, Laura discovers just how far she is prepared to go for love, desire and retribution.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair) - American; 4th Novel
This is one of those novels I read about, but never usually read. I have a notion it's a state-of-the-nation sort of book, and about the cacophony of lives in the late 20th and 21st century, and that it garnered incredibly good reviews in the States last year and is getting the same treatment in the UK. I have dutifully read some of then, without having the slightest inclination to the read the book itself. The point of reading a longlist like the Orange - and especially like the Orange, because it is so diverse - is to tackle exactly these disinclinations. Given the consensus, it seems probable that here is a good book that I need a nudge to try. And I'm ecstatic to discover that, without realising it, I've read a Jennifer Egan book before. I knew that I recognised the name! She's the author of The Keep, and I lapped that up a couple of years ago. The two books couldn't sound more different, but my previous encounter settles my mind about trying A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Synopsis: Interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury) - British/Sierra Leonean; 2nd Novel
I'm really, really looking forward to this. I've read excerpts of Aminatta Forna's work online, and sought them out in other venues, and I've had her first novel Ancestor Stones on the TBR pile for years. I've also got her memoir The Devil that Danced on Water on there. It suggests that I want to read Aminatta Forna quite a lot, doesn't it? And I do. I've heard high praise of The Memory of Love amongst bloggers, and I think the synopsis is very promising: a shortlist contender already? The library copy is sitting snuggly on my expanding hold list. Fingers crossed it comes back quickly.
Synopsis: Adrian Lockheart is a psychologist escaping his life in England. Arriving in Freetown in the wake of civil war, he struggles with the intensity of the heat, dirt and dust, and with the secrets this country hides. Despite the gulf of experience and understanding between them, Adrian finds unexpected friendship in a young surgeon at the hospital, the charismatic Kai Mansaray, and begins to build a new life just as Kai makes plans to leave. In the hospital Adrian encounters an elderly and unwell man, Elias Cole, who is reflecting on his past, not all of it noble. Recorded in a series of notebooks are memories of his youth, the optimism of the first moon landings, and the details of an obsession: Saffia, a woman he loved, and Julius, her fiery, rebellious husband. As their individual stories entwine across two generations in a country torn apart by repression and war, some distances cannot be bridged.
The London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape) - British; 4th Novel
I love the idea of trains as narrative spaces. Their liminality gives them such thematic potency; they're like the space of the novel itself. At a remove from the life of the world, containing a bustle of personalities and stories, and carrying them all forwards with purpose. Or something like that. Anyway, this was another novel that appeared on every prediction list, and mine too even though I haven't read it yet. It just sounded promising, and (here is where I reveal the critical shallowness of my predicting) it has a lovely, graphic cover. Admittedly, the subject matter isn't my usual fare at the moment. I'm on such a relentless historical fiction kick that anything set in the 21st century is an almost instant turn-off. Yet another reason that the Orange is good for my literary diet - it drags me firmly into the present. I've never read any other Tessa Hadley, though I've heard of The Master Bedroom and picked it up once or twice at the library.
Synopsis: Paul lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife Elise, and their two young children. The day after his mother dies he learns that his eldest daughter Pia, who was living with his ex-wife in London, has moved out from home and gone missing. He sets out in search of Pia, and when he eventually finds her, living with her lover in a chaotic flat in a tower block in King's Cross, he thinks at first he wants to rescue her. But the search for his daughter begins a period of unrest and indecision for Paul: he is drawn closer to the hub of London, to the excitements of a life lived in jeopardy, to Pia’s fragile new family. Paul’s a pessimist; when a heat wave scorches the capital week after week he fears that they are all ‘sleep-walking to the edge of a great pit, like spoiled trusting children’.
In the opposite direction, Cora is moving back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, and the constrictions and disappointments of her life in London. At work in the local library, she is interrupted by a telephone call from her sister-in-law and best friend, to say that her husband has disappeared.
Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre) - British; 1st Novel
Yes, yes, yes, I love it when a book appears on the list that I've been anticipating as much as this one. It's the second of many debut novels, and sounds right up my street: experimental narrative voice; off-beat love story; historical setting. I had it out from the library when it was first released, but it was much-requested and I didn't manage to get to it before it had to be returned. It's the first of the Orange titles that I've found 'on shelves' on the library's catalogue today; but unfortunately, it's on shelves at the women's prison library (well, unfortunately for me anyway), so I can't just pop out and get it. Onto the holds list it goes, and hopefully they'll have an opportunity to send it over to the main library for me soon-ish.
Synopsis: This isn't an ordinary love story. But then Grace isn't an ordinary girl. 'Disgusting,' said the nurse. And when no more could be done, they put her away, aged eleven. On her first day at the Briar Mental Institute, Grace meets Daniel. He sees a different Grace: someone to share secrets and canoodle with, someone to fight for. Debonair Daniel, who can type with his feet, fills Grace's head with tales from Paris and the world beyond. This is Grace's story: her life, its betrayals and triumphs, disappointment and loss, the taste of freedom; roses, music and tiny scraps of paper. Most of all, it is about the love of a lifetime.
The Seas by Samantha Hunt (Corsair) - American; 1st Novel
This is a bit weird: a debut novel longlisted for the Orange Prize after the second novel has already shortlisted (back in 2009). The Invention of Everything Else was Hunt's first novel to be published in the UK, whereas this is her first novel ever. I'll be honest: I'm not really looking forward to it. I tried my very best with The Invention of Everything Else but it simply wasn't the book for me and I couldn't finish it. I could see that the writing was good, but on the whole I found the novel slow and it's appeal befuddling. So when I read that The Seas has themes in common, including 'a fascination with science' and 'the appeal of old men', I feel quite put off it. Another reviewer calls it over-ambitious and whimsical. Oh dear. I can feel my prejudices rising. But still, it's about the sea, and sea myths too, which makes it sound more interesting, and how can I resist the startling tone of the synopsis below. It's like the voice-over for a action thriller movie trailer, stirred up with a recipe for an angsty novel: Mix one alcoholic (!) seaside town, with 100g of unrequited love and a good dollop of growing pains. I find myself almost looking forward to it.
Synopsis: The narrator of The Seas lives in a tiny, remote, alcoholic, cruel seaside town. An occasional chambermaid, granddaughter to a typesetter, and daughter to a dead man, awkward and brave, wayward and willful, she is in love (unrequited) with an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior. She is convinced that she is a mermaid. What she does to ease the pain of growing up lands her in prison. What she does to get out is the stuff of legend.
The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber and Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
Phew. Book 10: we're half way there. Are you still with me? I always feel bad for the books towards the end of the longlist, when fatigue is setting in and I have less and less to say. Good job I feel very enthusiastic about The Birth of Love. If you cast your minds back, you may remember that her first novel, Inglorious, won the Orange New Writer's Award in 2008. I was slightly bitter about that at first, because I didn't get along with it instantly. But as good novels are want to do, it has grown and grown in my mind until it has become one of the most impressive and memorable debuts of the recent years. When I saw The Birth of Love in Faber's catalogue, I was very keen for it, especially when I realised it was a) about childbirth (a subject I find endlessly fascinating, probably because I don't intend to experience it for myself) and b) told in several narrative strands, one historical and another sf. Don't you just love that cover as well? I think I might save it for towards the end of my longlist reading, as something to look forward to.
Synopsis: Vienna, 1865: Dr Ignaz Semmelweis has been hounded into a lunatic asylum, ridiculed for his claim that doctors' unwashed hands are the root cause of childbed fever. The deaths of thousands of mothers are on his conscience and his dreams are filled with blood. 2153: humans are birthed and raised in breeding centres, nurtured by strangers and deprived of familial love. Miraculously, a woman conceives, and Prisoner 730004 stands trial for concealing it. London in 2009: Michael Stone's novel about Semmelweis has been published, after years of rejection. But while Michael absorbs his disconcerting success, his estranged mother is dying and asks to see him again. As Michael vacillates, Brigid Hayes, exhausted and uncertain whether she can endure the trials ahead, begins the labour of her second child.
Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking) - American; 3rd Novel
Another familiar name to the Orange Prize: Nicole Krauss' novel The History of Love was shortlisted in 2006 and I'm oh-so-glad it was as I would never have read it and enjoyed it so much otherwise. I'm very much looking forward to Great House, even though it sounds like a thoroughly depressing read - Nazis, dying wives and dictators seem to abound - and has a desk for a main character. Like A Visit from the Goon Squad, Great House has gathered enormous critical momentum in the US prior to its UK publication and it's difficult not to pre-judge it as this year's Freedom, the book that can do no wrong. I had in my mind that it was a beast of a book, but it's actually not that huge at just over 300 pages. In fact there are no doorstoppers on the longlist so far, which bodes well for me.
Synopsis: During the winter of 1972, a woman spends a single night with a young Chilean poet before he departs New York, leaving her his desk. It is the only time they ever meet. Two years later, he is arrested by Pinochet’s secret police and never seen again. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers a lock of hair among her papers that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer has spent a lifetime reassembling his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis from Budapest in 1944; now only one item remains to be found.
Connecting these lives is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. And as the narrators of Great House make their confessions, this desk comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.
The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & Windus) - American; 3rd Novel
The second novel on the longlist that I hadn't heard of. It sounds from the synopsis as though this is a book that will rise or fall on the character of Na Ga: it's a 'journey' novel, and if you don't like the main character in a journey novel then I think all is lost. It also sounds pretty grim, what with all the yearning and betrayal, torturous paths and sinister towns, but one of the best novels I've ever read associated with the Orange Prize - Karen Connelly's The Lizard Cage - was also very, very grim, and also set in Burma. Lynne has very kindly offered me her spare copy, so I'll be able to get reading soon and find out if Na Ga ever makes it home.
Synopsis: Na Ga, a young woman long alienated from her people in the hills of northern Burma, finds herself in Wanting, a sinister town on the Chinese-Burmese border, waiting to re-enter a home from which she was cast out as a child. Why then is she so reluctant to return? Born into a tribe about whom she remembers almost nothing, raised by an American family in Rangoon, lured to Thailand as a teenager, Na Ga is caught in a cycle of yearning and betrayal that sets her on a tortuous but inevitably home-bound path. This is the haunting story of her journey: from the remote Burmese countryside, to the pulsating streets of Bangkok, and finally to the Chinese frontier, where the wounded but spirited Na Ga is forced to ask herself why it is that, until now, she has fiercely resisted the road home.
The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Serbian/American; 1st Novel
I hadn't heard of this debut novel until a few weeks ago, but I've made up for it now. Blimey. Every where I go Tea Obreht's novel is waiting for me, online and offline. The hype around it is now at fever pitch, and is so loud that it almost puts me off. I hate it when a book becomes more of a phenomenon than a novel. Anyway, my first impressions are both good and bad. It sounds interesting - perversely I like it when a book can't be adequately synopsised by reviewers - but it also sounds like it might be a bit whimsical for my taste. Books with anthropormorphised tigers in them (are there enough now to constitute a sub-genre?) remind me of The Life of Pi. They come cloaked with an aura of animal-fable moralism. But undoubtedly I'm being too hasty; I'm quite looking forward to finding out what all the fuss is about.
Synopsis: The time: the present. The place: a Balkan country ravaged by years of conflict. Natalia, a young doctor, is on a mission of mercy to an orphanage when she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death far from their home under circumstances shrouded in confusion. Remembering childhood stories her grandfather once told her, Natalia becomes convinced that he spent his last days searching for "the deathless man," a vagabond who claimed to be immortal. As Natalia struggles to understand why her grandfather, a deeply rational man, would go on such a farfetched journey, she stumbles across a clue that leads her to the extraordinary story of the tiger's wife.
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking) - American; 1st Novel
I've heard of Julie Orringer because of her short stories, and her debut novel seems to be getting lots of love in the blogosphere and elsewhere. So I should be excited about it, but I'm not. Is it bad that my heart sinks because its over 600 pages long and a Holocaust novel? I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the Holocaust very, very difficult to read about. It's not simply that I find it depressing, because I often read depressing novels with great relish, but that I find it gut-wrenchingly terrifying. Horror novels aren't my thing, and all novels about the Holocaust are to a greater or lesser extent horror novels. The reason I don't like horror novels is that you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something bad is going to happen, and when its the Holocaust something bad is going to happen big. And nothing can mitigate against it; the horror hijacks and brands everything else. I know that this is why authors must be drawn to it - it's one of those wounds that can't be healed, and to which we are compelled to return again, and again. I'll have to steal myself.
Synopsis: Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. As he becomes involved with the letter's recipient, his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena, their younger brother leaves school for the stage - and Europe's unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. From the Hungarian village of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the lonely chill of Andras's garret to the enduring passion he discovers on the rue de Sévigné, from the despair of a Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in forced labor camps and beyond, The Invisible Bridge tells the unforgettable story of brothers bound by history and love, of a marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family's struggle against annihilation, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.
Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile (Serpent's Tail) - British; 1st Novel
I like the idea of a 'fever dream' of a novel (which is how the synopsis below describes Peile's debut). I also like the idea of a transgressive love story, and if I'm reading correctly between the lines this sounds like it might be an incestuous, and thus very transgressive, love story. And it's published by Serpent's Tail, who have good form as far as the Orange Prize is concerned. All that said, I'm still pretty apathetic, because it sounds like this is one of those novels you have to start reading before you really start to anticipate it. Can anyone recommend it?
Synopsis: This is a transgressive love story by a singular new voice. A secretive child by nature, Susanna makes a covert list of everything she knows about her absent father, waiting for the day that she is reunited with him. Deeply unhappy at home, living with her overbearing mother and promiscuous sister, she stays out of the house as much as possible. When she finally discovers her father's name and seeks him out, in the free and unconventional atmosphere of 1970s Chelsea, she conceals her identity, beginning an illicit affair that can only end in disaster. "Repeat it Today with Tears" is in many ways a traditional love story, as well as a skilful evocation of radical times and desires. It is a fever dream that examines our need to be loved and accepted and a piercing portrait of madness.
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Chatto & Windus) - American; 1st Novel
I would have been very upset if this book wasn't on the longlist. This would have been true even before I started reading it last week. I believe so very much in Karen Russell's alchemic talent, based on my reading of her short-story collection St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. That book was a showcase of a mind on fire with language; every word in it was a bizarre delight, every story was an entirely fresh, and odd, way of seeing the world. Read the synopsis of Swamplandia! to get a sense of just how odd, and beguiling, fiction can be.
Synopsis: The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline - think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades - and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamp landia!'s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Serpent's Tail) - British/Nigerian; 1st Novel
Another book from Serpent's Tail, but one that I'd a) heard of, and b) marked for the TBR. I'm fascinated by the dynamics and practicalities of polygamous marriages - how do the women feel about one another, how do they relate to one another? The publicity I've read makes the book sound like one of those light-hearted not-light-hearted takes on a potentially tragic situation, with the sinister husband who is also a bit of a fool. I might save this one for later on in the longlist extravaganza, perhaps to lighten things up after The Invisible Bridge!
Synopsis: To the dismay of her overbearing mother, Bolanle marries into a polygamous family, where she is the fourth wife of a rich, rotund patriarch, Baba Segi. She is a graduate and therefore a great prize, but even graduates must produce children and her husband's persistent bellyache is a sign that things are not as they should be.
The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (Harper Press) - British; 4th Novel
Roma Tearne? Who? 4th novel?? I feel positively embarrassed never to have heard of her, especially given that her debut was nominated for a Costa in 2007. So obviously I have no preconceptions about the book, or about Tearne as a writer. I'm going to change the format here slightly and put in the synopsis now, and then continue chatting about it afterwards. Here it goes:
Synopsis: Forty-three year old Ria is used to being alone. As a child, her life changed forever with the death of her beloved father and since then, she has struggled to find love.That is, until she discovers the swimmer.Ben is a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka who has arrived in Norfolk via Moscow. Awaiting a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he is discovered by Ria as he takes a daily swim in the river close to her house. He is twenty years her junior and theirs is an unconventional but deeply moving romance, defying both boundaries and cultures - and the xenophobic residents of Orford. That is, until tragedy occurs.
Aww, why did there have to be that bit about tragedy at the end? I thought I was in for a happy book for a minute there. By the way, has anyone else noticed a bit of a trend for romances between partners of disparate ages on this longlist? The Seas, The Invisible Bridge, The Secret Lives... I wonder if that signifies anything. Despite the whiff of tragedy, I'm quite looking forward to this one. I feel as though it's the wildcard in this year's list, and it could go either way.
Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape) - Canadian; 1st Novel
This is another yes, yes, yes book. Ever since I first read about it (when it was shortlisted for the Giller Prize last year) I've been expecting it to be longlisted, and here it is. It's no secret that I love fiction about gender and sexuality, that engages with concepts of masculinity and femininity. And since Ali Smith was on the judging panel that picked this for the Giller shortlist, I have to believe that Annabel is a very good example of it. And the consensus of the blogosphere seems to be in line with that too. I just can't wait. Another early shortlist contender?
Synopsis: In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of the remote coastal town of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret--the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy's female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as "Annabel,' is never entirely extinguished.
So. Here we are, finally at the end of the longlist. I've been sat at my desk typing and reading and hunting down cover images, on and off, for four hours now. I know, completely sad and on my day off too. But it's been very exciting to get a better idea of what I'll be reading over the coming three months. My initial sense of the list as well balanced has been born out by closer examination I think. No crime this year, and a lot less historical fiction, and just a toe dipped into the speculative end of the market, but overall a really interesting and diverse list.
I'm very glad to know that I'm not the only one making the journey through the longlist again this year: I think that nomadreader, BuriedinPrint, Jackie from farmlanebooks and Lynne from dovegreyreader are all along for parts or all of the same ride. Anyone else on the Orange 2011 binge bandwagon? If you've made it to the end of this post, I think you've proven your appetite and stamina already. It won't be easy, but away we go...
~~Victoria~~
I've been avoiding Room for similar reasons. I haven't been able to put my finger on why (sounding emotionally exploitative is as good a reason as any), but there's something about the summary that rubs me the wrong way. I feel like, if I'm not immediately fascinated by the idea that they're stuck in this room, there won't be much else in the story for me. Judgemental, I know.
Posted by: Weirdaffectations.blogspot.com | Friday, March 18, 2011 at 04:29 PM
I've tried to read Room and if it makes it to the shortlist I will try harder, but I think I just don't get on well with this particular child narrator. I am reading The Pleasure Seekers, however, as it seemed a good book to load onto my ereader. I wasn't sure at first but I am enjoying it. It does indeed seem a gentle funny sort of story--not sure a shortlist contender with so many other heavyweights on the list, though. I'm not always a very critical reader, however, so am reading it for entertainment first rather than in trying to predict or compare books. There are several I do hope to read and am trying to get copies from the library including Swamplandia which I think I would have passed up had I not read your enthusiastic comments on it. Have fun reading the list!
Posted by: Danielle | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 02:12 AM
I read and reviewed the Doshi book here and thought it was pretty terrible.
I'm starting Swamplandia soon and very much looking forward to it - I loved St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves.
Posted by: Bluelullaby.blogspot.com | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 07:09 AM
I'm slightly tempted to jump on the bandwagon too, but I don't think I have the stamina. It does sound like a diverse list though, so I'm sure it'll be a great experience.
I really like the sound of Jamrach's Menagerie, Swamplandia, and the The Birth of Love, so perhaps I'll just aim to read those.
Posted by: Karen | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 12:42 PM
As always, I get so tempted by a new awards list, but I know I don't really have time to take this on. A couple of these were on my list already, but I'm going to look into all of them now because they sound excellent. The only one I've read is Great House, and I loved it. I actually liked it more than I did History of Love, but I've gathered that I'm sort of an odd duck on that score.
Posted by: Teresa | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 01:23 PM
Weird Affectations and Danielle - It's funny isn't it, I've heard nothing but good things about Room until it was longlisted, and then all of us come out of the woodwork with our scepticisms and dislike. That said I just read a comment elsewhere that claimed Room was the only good book on the longlist!
Bluelullaby - I've just read your review with a sinking heart. I have a dislike for 'sound effects' like that in fiction... Based on what I've read so far Swamplandia fulfils the promise of St Lucy's Home for Girls - Russell is a fantastic stylist.
Karen - You never know, start with three and you might end up reading them all. ;-) You've picked out the three I'm most excited about.
Teresa - I'm so looking forward to Great House. It sounds like it shares a lot of themes with The History of Love.
Posted by: Victoria | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 06:04 PM
It is nice to see your detailed thoughts on each book. It is amazing how some authors just pass us by and despite short listing etc we fail to notice them. I had heard of Roma Tearne, but only because of the TV Book Club. I hadn't heard of Leila Aboulela before, so am excited to try her books. Everyone seems to love them so I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
I'm not keen to try The Seas either. Let's hope it is better than her 1st/2nd?! That is confusing!
Good luck in your Orange mission!
Posted by: Jackie (Farm Lane Books) | Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 08:27 PM
Thanks for this post. I've only read The Secret Lives of baba Segi's Wives . I want to read the Egan, Forna and Orbrecht books. Its really an interesting longlist. Can't wait to see who makes the shortlist!
Posted by: Kinna | Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 09:50 AM
Thank you so much for this; I've bookmarked it and will be referring to it as the shortlist approaches. I'm particularly looking forward to The Memory of Love and The London Train
Posted by: Claire (Coffeeandirony.org) | Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 06:12 PM
Fantastic post! I love how you have gotten so excited and enthralled in the list and all this years contenders and how you have been and hunted them down. Rest assured many of us did the same we just didnt write such eloquent posts afterwards.
I too am in the readathon bloggers group, look forward to sharing thoughts.
Posted by: Simon (Savidge Reads) | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 10:52 PM