A lovely novel about relationships and duty told from the perspective of an American expat in Japan. Sedge’s wife has left him, and the novel deals with his predicament and how cultural sensitivities and obligations bear on his understanding and response. The complexities of his relationship with Mariko, a woman he meets at his place of work, make for an interesting love story. Her unsympathetic stepson, Riku, provides a moral test for the protagonists, and an effective element of tension that builds nicely as the book develops. It’s a love story between Sedge and Mariko, but it’s just as much an exploration of Sedge and Riku’s relationship, too, which is far more complex, and compellingly conveyed. The tone and atmosphere are expertly handled - it feels like an English translation of a Japanese novel (something like Murakami, or Banana Yoshimoto). The narrative style is often deceiving in its simplicity, and I think it’s this style that confirms the sense that Sedge is always, and perhaps will always be, an outsider in this Japanese culture. The author is clearly steeped in the culture, and the heron imagery is integrated into the story well, and nicely handled, particularly at the end. All in all, it works brilliantly.
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Hertell Daggett discovers a community, Mustard Seed, living beneath his land. It’s a time capsule of people consigned to their subterranean world in 1963 ahead of an expected nuclear Armageddon, which they assume has actually happened. This is a brilliant premise for a plot which sets the isolated community’s values against those of modern America, exploring various political and philosophical issues - from the morality of abortion to the existence of a parallel universe. Their assumptions about life conflict with modern reality. When they glimpse the world above ground, for instance, some feel that they are about to fall into the sky. The tone is often delightfully comic, and the protagonist, Hertell, is a wonderful creation: a head injury has left metal fragments in his brain which enhance his perception, particularly his sense of connection to the past via inherited memory. The book takes perception as a theme, which is developed in various ways, both metaphysical and moral: most obviously (and entertainingly), perhaps, when the powers-that-be try to manipulate the public perception of Mustard Seed for its own political ends. There are plenty of wonderful set pieces, not least the stage-managed Q&A between the US President and the Mustard Seed residents, which is sharply satirical. There is some delightful dialogue too, and excellent peripheral characters, such as Mister Frostie, the ice cream seller, whose true identity is initially withheld to good effect. Alongside the comedy, the prose is sometimes reflective, sometimes poetic, with several moving passages. It is, in essence, an allegory of political times in the USA - a gloriously inventive and original book.
Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell
A pleasingly unconventional novel about the consequences of control and oppression. The story shifts between two intriguing characters: Neil, the English son of an extremely controlling German father, and Silke, former inmate of a Stasi prison. After Neil’s father dies, Neil travels back to the village in East Germany which belongs to the family and finds it slowly falling apart. He stays with Silke and her brother, and forms an unspoken connection with Silke. They are both emotionally damaged by the past, and the book explores their history in a narrative that gathers momentum as the mystery deepens: who betrayed Silke to the Stasi, and why? What shaped Neil’s father’s cruelly coercive behaviour? The novel considers the psychological legacy of totalitarianism, and the various forms of pathology its victims experience. There is an enjoyable offbeat tone to the novel, with occasional touches of humour, and convincingly eccentric characters. It’s a stylish and very readable novel, extremely enjoyable.
Joy by B. R. M. Evett
This is a propulsive, post-apocalyptic thriller touching on some fascinating philosophical issues. The world-building is subtle and convincing, and its dystopian vision feels troublingly plausible. Fifteen year old Virgo is left in the care of Tender, an android carer, after a weather event destroys a strange ‘spa’ where people go to live in a state of perpetual bliss. What follows is a kind of post-apocalyptic quest narrative in which they meet a variety of different people who seem to offer, and present, different views on humanity and the meaning of life itself. The Elysium Spa, and Tender, Virgo’s ‘guardian angel’, are wonderful creations which allow Evett to flirt with some very relevant questions about reality versus pleasure and what it means to be human. While we know Tender is a robot, we find ourselves deeply emotionally involved with him: it matters little that the ‘human virtues’ that drive him, principally duty, are a product of his programming. The story has a light touch, focused on plot, but it doesn’t lack complexity, offering some nuanced reflections on ethics, aesthetics, and politics. The characterisation is strong too, particularly Tender. Virgo’s struggles to make sense of her new life - her toilet training and self-pleasuring, for instance - are well-handled, simultaneously humorous and discomfiting. There are some nice twists - we never quite know who to trust - and the ending is pleasingly upbeat, championing social engagement over the self-serving pursuit of pleasure.
Momentum: Montessori, A Life in Motion, by E.G. Slade
This is an accomplished book, taking the form of a fictional memoir: Montessori's letter to her son, supposedly written on board ship during an Atlantic crossing. The letter is particularly effective because it gives her the opportunity to explore the stereotypical gender expectations (of the time) and set them against her keen determination to progress her theories and ideas about education. It gives a fascinating insight into Montessori, the character, as well as explaining her educational ideas. We get an informed account of her upbringing, university life, relationships, etc, in a narrative that shifts between past and present. It’s a significant point of transition for her, as she embarks on a new phase of her life, and the moment has much potential, particularly given the unusual relationship between Montessori and her son: he has been brought up by friends and knows nothing about her existence for many years. The book links events and observations in her early life to the development of her theory of education - the way her mother cleaned the floor, for instance, the importance of eye-level exchanges with children, 'difference' as a potential signifier of value, etc - it suggests an understanding of the subject's pedagogical strategies, and constitues an admirable way to ground and explain them in a real life context.
Water Music by Marcia Peck
A story about family tensions told from the perspective of an 11 year old girl, Lily. The Cape Cod setting is atmospheric and well realised, and the story is located well historically, with a parallel drawn between the family tragedy and the real life sinking of the Andrea Doria. The music theme works well too, with tension derived from the upcoming concert at which Lily is to perform: the family's money worries provide further conflict, together with the sibling rivalry between Lily's father, Western, and his brother, George. Lily's limited perspective is exploited effectively, particularly her naïve reading of adult relationships (e.g. George and Gloria), and she has much strength as a character-narrator, not least the fluency of her voice, which reads easily throughout. There are some beautiful descriptions, and the story is compelling, with a strong realisation of the complexity that comes with all families.
Non Fiction
Winner Little Avalanches: A Memoir by Becky Ellis
This memoir about the author's war veteran father includes much to keep us interested. His tendency to relate graphic tales of WW2 to his children would be hilarious if it wasn't so potentially damaging, but the man is a complex, multifaceted character. The book's tone reflects this; indeed, it's not without humour, and Ellis has a flair for comic description (as when she and her brother are ‘pretzeled into the cargo compartment’ of the car, with their knees in their ears). Such imagery keeps the story alive, offsetting some of the darker elements. Her father’s raunchy girlfriend Judy, a delightful, colourful, often topless, pot-smoking character, wouldn’t be out of place in a comic novel, but her liberal attitude is also perceptive and she's kind to Becky and her brother. There are further complications when Judy leaves and her father takes up with Lucy. Domestic conflicts become even more bitter, raising interesting questions about parental rights, not to mention child abuse; certainly the lines between love and self-serving control become blurred. The tone shifts after Becky’s visit to Munich, however, and there follows a fascinating day-by-day account of her father’s combat experiences in the Timberwolf division of the US Army. From here the piece is more sympathetic towards him, and when Becky takes up the narrative baton in the third section we’re offered quite a tender portrait of the troubled man in old age. By this stage we have a deeper understanding of the source of his trauma, his mood swings and intermittent obnoxiousness. He never stopped being at war. The novel is an excellent read, offering useful insights into PTSD from the perspective of the lived experience, but brilliantly avoids self-indulgence – it never swerves towards a ‘victim’ narrative. It's a very well-written, compelling story.
Black on Madison Avenue by Mark S. Robinson
This is a very readable memoir offering an illuminating insight into ‘one of the whitest white collar professions in America’. It’s an entertaining memoir with interesting historical information (for instance, about Pepsi Cola and McDonald’s). There was a real evocation of time and place with the reference to 'Mad Men', and the cultural oppression of the time. The problems Robinson faced as a black person were manifold, from glass ceilings to black-on-black colorism. At UniWorld, after being told he wasn’t black enough, he managed to establish himself among African American creatives, shedding the double-consciousness he’d felt as a black man in a white person's world. The book is full of entertaining anecdotes: a military coup in Venezuela, a lawsuit from Zsa Zsa Gabor; and celebrity references abound, particularly during the year he worked with the film director, Spike Lee, helping to establish his company. In short, it’s a sharp, engrossing book, written by a man who’s achieved much in a world that’s still struggling with institutional racism.
Here, Where Death Delights by Mary Jumbelic M.D.
This memoir of a forensic pathologist tracks the author's career from its beginnings. Her interest in death starts in childhood with the demise of her elderly father, and we follow Jumbelic’s education and developing understanding of death’s causes through school, university, and eventually on the job. The short chapters work well, offering bite-sized reflections on interesting cases alongside references to her own life as a wife and mother. Sometimes cases impact on her own emotional life - it's hard to separate child murders from her love of her own children, for instance, and she's always careful to remind us that she's a human being. Certainly she often underscores her own sensitivities - she breaks down in tears when an unscrupulous lawyer mentions her own child's hospitalisation in court, and her reflections on human relationships are often touching. The cases are related succinctly, and she manages to offer some technical details without undermining the narrative momentum. The book delights in gory details - she stresses the importance of pathologists engaging all the senses - and some sections require a strong stomach, particularly if you don't like maggots. She uses smells imaginatively: the smell of ‘Old Spice’ anti-perspirant and how that brought about considerations of the last day of life for that person; the case of the man who still had an indigestion tablet in his mouth, who died of a heart attack. And some beautiful writing, too: “Everyday smells imprinted in my quotidian catalog of death. The scents traversed the boundary between before and after; crossing the frontier that separates the world outside and inside the morgue. A permeable wall of memory surrounded me… Proustian moments.” It is often moving and always absolutely fascinating.
Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy by Karen Conti
Conti is very honest about her initial reasons for wanting to get involved with the Gacy case, motives not dissimilar to those who crave his artworks, his autograph, and the sound of his voice over the phone. She and her husband eventually join the death penalty defence team, and she doesn’t dodge the moral issues this raises. The book offers a fascinating insight into a lawyer’s mindset, not to mention public opinion about how they should behave: she received considerable vitriol for taking the case. Her portrait of Gacy is compelling and startling, not least his desire to fight an ostensibly trivial civil case against the state, whilst on death row. It tells us much about the power and control issues driving him, as do her descriptions of his behaviour, which reveal his narcissism, sociopathology, and readiness to manipulate. Some details are surprising - his diminutive stature, for instance, given the nature of his crimes, bearing in mind most people’s image of Gacy, will have been shaped by Brian Dennehy’s portrayal in the movie To Catch a Killer. Her account of the legal system and prison life brims with the kind of details everyone craves in books of this kind. The procedures and processes are riveting, and expertly conveyed, particularly when she moves inside the prison walls - interviews were conducted whilst other prisoners roamed free in the vicinity, including unmedicated psychotics like Henry Brisbon, who Gacy himself refers to as ‘nuts’, and who tried to kill him on one occasion. The book has an analytical dimension too, and she strives to understand Gacy’s character, his clowning, his artwork, his constant lying. It explores some of the mysteries that persist beyond his death, particularly his potential accomplices, and the possibility of undiscovered victims. The lawyers' death penalty defence failed, of course, but she makes a good case against capital punishment, and this is another worthwhile aspect of the book - her argument is strengthened by her ability to humanise Gacy, which is an astonishing achievement in itself. The balance between her own career history, and the legal information, set against her and her partner's relationship with Gacy was well-handled, and it’s an articulate, fascinating book.
Message in a Matchbox by Sara Fashandi
The author collects her brother’s stories about growing up in Iran to create a delightful book full of verve and colour. There are some wonderful insights into Persian culture and day-to-day life, including the rituals of birth and death, the details of house purchases, life at local bazaars, with numerous interesting glimpses of Tehran prior to the Islamic Revolution. We see Mohsen’s resourcefulness as a scrap-dealer, a bus fare dodger, an electrician, an eleven year old hospital maintenance worker, and neighbourhood Mr Fixit; we see him climbing street lamps to watch John Wayne movies, misunderstanding childbirth, creating a personal radio station, a homemade incubator, and a makeshift shotgun. He also becomes a go-between in an illicit affair, experiences disappointments in love, endures the frustrations of boot-camp, and finally departs for a new beginning in America. The book, like life, has its share of happiness and sadness, with some hilarious moments (e.g. his trip to get a birth certificate - “she looks like a Fatima to me…We’re calling her that”), alongside inevitable disappointments and tragedies, such as the deaths of Banu and Majeed. Mohsen’s life is by no means spectacular, but we feel his presence in stories; they have charm and authenticity, capturing the wonder, terror, and comedy of youth. Sara Fashandi has perfected the art of, to quote a line from the book, ‘Turning random pieces of trash into entertainment’!
Moments in Focus by Alexis Marie Chute
This is a beautifully produced book of photographs from Edmonton, Canada, reflecting a decade of exhibitions that were set up to give local photographers a space for their work. In her introduction, Chute explains how and why she decided to set up the exhibition, and how in 2017, she realised that with all the technological advances it was no longer enough for photographers to produce excellent imagery, but that there should be meaning, methodology and story ingrained in their work. The result is a fascinating collection of pictures, interspersed with interviews with some of the photographers. The photographs are many and varied: a torn bag snagged on a fence; a glimpse of sky between crowded flats, wide and wonderful Canadian landscapes; an abandoned kitchen; a pathway through a forest; a jumble of tents with skyscrapers behind; a deserted building falling back into the land; lots of patterns from nature and from everyday life, always there, but not always noticed; and, of course, people in all their rich diversity. There is so much here to delight in, a tapestry that reflects all the complexity and wonders of life.
Children & YA
Winner Cries from the Moana by 'Atu Emberson with Melino Bain-Vete & Siale Bain-Vete Illustrated by Auntie Fonu
Cries from the Moana is for older children than one would expect for an illustrated book, with plenty of both pictures and text, rich and multi-layered. The story is based on the traditions of islanders in the Pacific Ocean, who follow the natural rhythms of the world around them to guide them through their lives. When something goes wrong, the village elder assigns two cousins, Mahina and Tahi, to help save their island from environmental disaster. They have to cross the sea and then go beneath the surface to the bottom of the ocean. They encounter many fascinating creatures before they find the source of the problem: machines churning up the seabed ahead of a full scale mining mission that spells disaster. It’s a glorious voyage-and-return story combined with a crash course in marine biology! The relationship between Mahina and Tahi is a treat to read, as is their gripping journey among the myriad of marine wonders. The language is full of energy, with lovely descriptions of the ocean, and the story is nicely complemented by striking illustrations, each interacting with thhe other with a striking originality. It’s a gorgeous book with clear contemporary relevance that will delight a broad range of readers from children to young adults.
Animalia by Shauna C Murphy
Thirteen-year-old Sunday Gråe is admitted to Svalbard School, a secretive school in a mysterious northern location, isolated and surrounded by icy landscapes. The students are trained to become Animalia, which means they learn how to release the skills and instincts of certain animals that are latent within them and use them constructively. Only a few children have the qualities necessary to do this, so they are very carefully selected. Sunday is vividly realised and convincingly motivated by the mysterious way in which her father, also Animalia, died. The Scandinavian elements offer an unusual setting, and there are plenty of intrigues in Svalbard to keep the reader engaged. Sunday’s voice is punctuated by constant reflection and self-questioning and the narrative is pacy and full of entertaining touches: the newt-dragon, Grom, and Sunday's interactions with him are fun and well-presented; Sunday’s new friends are also intriguing and convincing. This is a imaginative Young Adult fantasy, with many pleasing original touches.
Happiness Seeker by Jennifer Burkinshaw
When Allie goes on a trip to the coast with her sixth-form drama group, she is not expecting much from it, particularly because there is considerable antipathy between her and Courtney, one of the other girls on the trip. But then Allie meets Mareno, an Albanian lad who is, it turns out, a ‘modern slave’ who ‘cockles’ at night. This is an excellent way of raising awareness about the plight of ‘modern slaves’, and introducing Mareno humanises the economic slaves from which the novel gets its title. The budding romance between the two of them drives the plot well and the episode where Courtney gets caught in the sand creates an excellent dramatic highlight. There is a strong emphasis on place, with a sense of menace conveyed by the treacherous Morecambe Bay coastline and its shifting sands and dangerous quicksands. This background incorporated into the plot with coherence and a intelligence. The themes of modern slavery and illegal immigration give the story contemporary relevance, and add a nice moral dimension to a worthwhile YA yarn.
Harriet’s Hungry Worms by Samantha Smith and Melissa Johns
It’s not often one comes across books about compost heaps and their inhabitants, for children or adults, using the days of the week to show the amazing speed at which the worms work. ‘On Friday, they feasted on Fred’s fruit from school… quickly, so Mama wouldn’t notice. On Saturday, they scoffed Uncle Sam’s sports pages… without stopping to read the footy scores. The book has fun illustrations, which could perhaps inspire the readers to do their own collages, and it’s full of fascinating facts about things like ‘worm wee’ and their huge benefits for the garden. This book is a clever combination of factual information, vivid and fascinating illustrations and above all a story that will draw children in.
River of Crows by N.P. Thompson
This is a Young Adult fantasy, where the hero, Tyrone, and a crow that seems to adopt him, slips from the mundane world into Arcania, a realm of sorcery that is under threat from the villainous Emperor Blackthorn. He discovers that he has magic powers himself, which he must master if he is to be of use in the battle of good versus evil. The characters are well-drawn, and enlivened by some witty dialogue: the exchanges between the children are particularly sharp and their relationship develops nicely through the book. The plot moves quickly, and the world-building elements are well-done. It’s clear that the author is having fun, and her world is inventive and entertaining. The central plot-drivers (quest; overcoming the monster, etc) are left open at the end, in keeping with the author’s intention to construct a series, but the first instalment is a satisfying read, ending with a scene which will become a trigger for the next book. It has everything a children’s novel should have, including edifying lessons about friendship, self-discovery and courage.
What Will you Make Today by Maura Pierlot and Triandhika Anjani
A book for younger children with only a small amount of simple text. The pictures are big and inclusive, each new thought filling the entire page. It will encourage children to linger, looking for details. It shows a large variety of things that everyone can make. Some are practical: make your bed. Others are more abstract: make a difference; make a plan; make time for others. They are all beautifully illustrated showing how the actions of children, however big or small, can affect other people. It ends with the message that anything’s possible. The tone of the illustrations is calm with gentle colours as it represents the passing of the day, starting with waking in the morning and going to bed at night. There’s a pleasing tone of optimism that should satisfy both the child and the reader.
Poetry
Winner Out in the Field by Patricia Helen Wooldridge
These gorgeous poems are scrupulously observed, with arresting imagery and a keen sense of respect for the natural world. Wooldridge charts the arc of the seasons, noting and celebrating flora and fauna, from sunflowers and orange poppies, to the blooms that Emily Dickinson pressed in her books. Birds are a particular favourite, featuring in numerous poems: egrets, white winged crows, mistle thrushes, pigeons, herons, linnets, and ravens that gorge on the doomed lambs of spring! There are poems about darkness and light, poems celebrating frost, the ‘music of fog’, and the wind’s ‘choral humming’; there are poems about migration and return, poems about the naming of nature: the teeming landscapes she loves and conveys so effectively. They have a lovely painterly feel, always drawn with assured brush strokes - textured and immersive love letters to nature that a reader would certainly return to again.
Civil Twilight by Anique Sara Taylor
This is a short collection of brief poems underpinned by a rather strict constraint (in the manner of oulipo): there are thirty poems, each five lines long, containing thirty words in total. The poems are musical, often with a strong, hypnotic beat; whilst ostensibly minimalist, they frequently create space for long sentences which vary the rhythms, and some have an oddly Tardis-like, spacious interior. As the title suggests, light is frequently a feature, and this clearly has a symbolic function, although the precise meaning is never obvious. The opening poem, ‘Incandescent Constellations' hints at bereavement, for instance, after which ‘only/the brightest stars will ever be enough’. In ‘Mosaic Observations’ the light evokes memories, suggested beautifully with the opening line ‘Streetlights drone loud enough to reactivate/childhood’s foothold again’. As elsewhere in the book, this poem appeals to more than one of the senses; indeed, senses often merge in the manner of synesthesia, as in ‘Quicksilver Lilies’, which ends ‘Shattering gossamer, silencing mist’ - the visual and sonic tensions in such poems create a wonderful texture that is a treat to savour.
Fight or Flight by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
A lovely collection of thoughtful and resonant poems, many of which explore the natural world in delightfully original ways. Often this includes references to wildlife, as in ‘A Trio of Crows’, where the bird imagery expresses a speaker’s desire to feel relevant and needed, if only by the crows (who may very well see him merely as carrion): for me it’s a subtle, poignant poem about spiritual longing. The author reflects on the weather in poems like ‘Want’, where winds ‘throat their earthbound song’; he laments a lost love in ‘Another World’, likening his dreams to the dreams of Saturn, and his sorrow to the imagined sorrows of nature: ‘Does the creek bed weep// When rain returns?’ In ‘Names in Winter’ he talks about the ‘Night’s Braille’, wondering if ‘The trees have shed their one thousand names’. It teems with striking images of this kind, and brims with pleasing emotional integrity.
In the Bare Bones House of Was by Mara Adamitz Scrupe
A book of poems inspired by the history of a house and its environs in Virginia, USA. Many have a wonderfully evocative relationship with place - its atmosphere, heritage, and the stories that sustain it. The book has a clear, cohesive theme, but individual poems work on their own terms, such as ‘Groundhog Laws of Contiguity’, about a community’s duty to engage with its history, and to ‘remember’ and honour its significance. They’re written in a needle sharp, staccato style, and the author has an ability to appeal to all the senses simultaneously, as in poems like ‘in the bare bones of the house’, with lines such as ‘wood smoke slur small hours stir’, which breathe life into her ‘binge blooming’ and ‘rain chastened’ spaces. It's high quality writing and extremely enjoyable.
Slim Blue Universe by Eleanor Lerman
Many of these poems are reflections on life from the perspective of wisdom and maturity: some take the form of cool, ironic assessments of lost loves and betrayal, like the opening poem, ‘Karmann Ghia’, which ends, ‘At least you could have left me / the keys to the car’. In the poem that follows it, ‘Slim Blue Universe’, we learn that it’s thanks to such ‘old grievances’ that she learned how to write. Some poems contemplate alternatives to the past - possibilities that seem to shimmer in the speaker’s mind as she reminisces - ‘A Wave Can Be a Particle’ is a good example, which ends beautifully with the lines, ‘On the flowering lawn a girl you swear / that you once knew is laughing, and / all around her (and not only her), / the windy sky is full of stars’; in this poem it’s almost as if the stars have the potential to be blown into new configurations. Such lines demonstrate the author’s adept use of imagery, a quality evident throughout this thoughtful and intelligent collection.
The Leading Question by Roger Elkin
This excellent collection is part of a larger sequence that takes the Great Irish Famine as its theme, but it works beautifully on its own terms. It opens with a reflection on the potato as a object in the world, augmenting our sense of its significance - the unremarkable thing that we might not value until it's no longer there: ‘this potato, flat in the hand,/its shape filling the palm-bowl,/fully: rounded, smooth pebble-like.’ Poem by poem, Elkin unpacks the consequences and implications of the famine from a variety of moral and political perspectives, inviting us to reflect on and interrogate our humanity. He can do what true artists do - situate us at the heart of the of the ordeal with visceral intensity: in poems like ‘Knowing Hunger’, for instance, he forces us to consider what the word ‘starvation’ means, and how it might feel for those of us who’ve known only the luxury of plenty: ‘No way could she face/a clutch of grubbed-up pignuts or stripped/oak leaves, nettle stems, shards of bark,/boiled roots of dandelion//let alone the hunger pangs/eating out her belly, her chest, her arms, her legs,//her already empty mind’. The Leading Question is an historically informed, politically engaged book that everyone should read.
Short Fiction
Winner Ultramarine by Lucy Weldon
A brilliantly written collection of stories. It opens with ‘A Thousand Paper Cranes’, which sees a dissatisfied diplomat's wife on the verge of a life-changing decision. The writer uses the Jakarta weather to create atmosphere in the story, making clever use of the so-called pathetic fallacy. This becomes a feature of several tales, giving the collection some integration. The focus shifts to Malta in ‘The Sea Between the Lands', referencing a domestic death at sea alongside an account of a crossing of migrants from North Africa: this is subtly done, hinting at the hostility toward migrants whilst simultaneously humanising them by engaging us in their plight. The title piece, ‘Ultramarine’, weaves a terrorist assault on tourists into a story of marital disharmony: the husband that Susan finds so frustrating effectively saves her life, although when she tells him they ‘need to talk’ at the close, her intentions aren't revealed, and the ending is pleasingly ambiguous. I enjoyed the piece about the war photojournalist too, ‘Dear Mr President’: as we learn about Nico’s PTSD we're never quite sure where the story will take us. The author manages to construct a multilayered protagonist, whose final letter to the US President is penned within a context of deep moral complexity. Poignant and captivating, the collection covers several continents, but the final story, ‘Heavenly Phoenix on Earth’, returns to South East Asia, where we began, another intriguing tale from a writer who knows which secrets to keep.
A Learning Curve by Jan Kaneen
This is a compelling novella-in-flash depicting the life of a woman from university to widowhood. Kaneen uses quantum physics both as a theme and a structuring device, creating an interesting interpretive frame for the protagonist's experience, and a linking motif for her short, fragmentary chapters. The latter work as discrete tales, and as a reader, you have to tease out the story in the same way that a person with Post Partum depression might have to tease out their lives. But it builds into a story that has both focus and momentum. The combination of verb tenses and points of view is effective, given the novella form. The book deals with life’s emotional challenges in prose that is consistently sharp, presenting moments of joy and sadness: the delights of childbirth to the trauma of postnatal depression; the bliss of romance to the despair of bereavement. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, the book is riveting right up till the end. It's a stunning example of a novella-in-flash that demonstrates the potential force and flexibility of this increasingly popular form.
Homeless by Jane Bow
This is a thought-provoking, stylish novella about a woman, C, taken into a psychiatric hospital having been caught breaking and entering. The narrative flickers from the perspective of the hospital’s Dr Elaine Price, whose job is to diagnose whether C is criminally responsible, and a transcribed tape of C’s. The book is essentially a mystery driven by C’s refusal to answer questions about her identity and background. Elaine, who is unwillingly separated from her husband, attempts to unpack and diagnose C’s condition, but it impacts on her own thinking. She begins to see the state of her life and her relationship with her husband through the lens of C’s case. The book raises interesting questions about the nature of mental illness, and some of its moral and social consequences. Occasionally such discussions turn philosophical, but they are treated with a light enough touch for the book to remain accessible, and entertaining.
This is my Body, Given for You by Heather Parry
This collection of bizarre stories is definitely not for the squeamish, but the author writes very well, and it will appeal to fans of literary horror. It opens with the curious tale of a girl who begins to menstruate through her tear ducts: there's an interesting subtext hinting at patriarchy’s history of exploiting the female body, implicating ‘fathers’ of different kinds, from her own celebrity-hungry dad who’s keen to make a fast buck, to the Pope, and the virgin worship of the Catholic Church. It's a funny and darkly symbolic story, brimming with verve and mischief. ‘A Small Island’ is also interesting - it’s a gruesome cannibalistic revenge story in which a young woman's compulsion to see the world results in her being abandoned alone on an island and then exacts hideous retribution on the men who abandon her. The book abounds with quirkiness, surrealism, and unsettling, transgressive humour, with high quality writing.
Umbilical by Teika Marija Smits
'Umbilical', is an excellent collection of short fiction which tackles a number of contemporary issues. The opening piece, ‘Death of the Grapevine’, is about the developing intelligence of AI, thwarted in this instance by a maintenance engineer called Dave. The AI unit he’s tasked to service, Marvin, is merging its circuitry with organic matter, making connections which augment its potential to understand the world. Dave intervenes with bleach, returning Marvin to factory settings. However, at the end we’re left wondering if this is a battle which human engineers like Dave will finally lose: the fact that he finishes the job with a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye suggests AI’s potential to affect the emotions, establish relationships, and accumulate knowledge on the ‘grapevine’ of its infinite communication networks. It’s a brilliant, unsettling piece which sets the tone for a great collection of stories. Some of them are very dark; ‘The Wife that Never Was’ offers a gory reworking of the Bluebeard folktale, adding the possibility of redemption for Bluebeard at the end, while ‘Umbilical’ depicts an estranged mother and daughter, reunited at the point of her daughter’s death. At the close of the latter we’re left simultaneously appalled and intrigued at the symbolism, as the ‘afterdeath’ drops from the mother, ‘black as bile’. Characters recur in the book, creating curious connections and deepen our engagement with the collection as a whole, which is dark, weird, and gloriously inventive.
