Four blimmin' good reads (fiction)
Stories that move at a decent pace, family dynamics, characters I can empathise with and vivid descriptions that help me to paint the picture in my head. These four all delivered.
The Immortalists: Chloe Benjamin
A total spur of the moment purchase in Cardiff Waterstones at Christmas while my sister was off shopping with my 13-year-old. I grabbed that hour or so and headed straight to Waterstones, and struck lucky in their Christmas / New Year sale, managing to limit myself to just two purchases. This and Elizabeth Strout's Lucy by the Sea (featured below) before heading straight up the staircase to the cafe.
On face value The Immortalists is a novel route into telling a family story and whilst it grabs your attention from the get-go, the whole ‘young children go to visit a psychic who tells them when they’re going to die’ moves backstage as you sink into each of the four children’s stories.
It is the thread that binds the family story and never disappears completely, but despite struggling to get through the opening scene setting sections, once I got into Simon’s story, I was hooked, and it turned into the texture-full page turner I wanted and needed it to be.
It's so richly described with quirky characters and enough pace to keep me interested. I love how the different characters came in and out of each other’s lives and stories. Not just the siblings but other characters too, the thread that pulled the story together was there but not overly so. It’s clever, but so very readable.
Don't let the whole psychic 'I'll tell you when you're going to die' put you off. Each time I've described this book I've been greeted by scrunched up faces. I mean, who does want to know when they're going to die...but if you want a richly described story of a gloriously dysfunctional family and be transported from east coast New York to west coast free loving San Francisco via Las Vegas then go for it.
Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
I adore Lucy Barton, I have every single one in the series. I love the cover sketches, reminding me as they do of a sketch, I have on my wall that mum did many years ago. Lucy by the sea is set on the cusp of the pandemic, and the protagonist is being persuaded by William, her ex-husband and the father of her daughters, to leave Manhattan for a house he’s found on the coast near Maine. It was strange reading about a period so recent yet feeling so long ago. It’s that Covid playing havoc with our concept of time again.
We follow Lucy and William as they adjust to living together as not-quite husband and wife again. We walk alongside them as they both cope with and reflect on the lives they've lived independently of each other since divorcing years earlier, yet still always connected by their daughters. A situation a great many people can empathise with. Life is messy, isn't it?
What I love about the Lucy Barton books is also what frustrates me when I start reading them. Lucy’s voice. She is so uncompromising as a character and the books are written totally, absolutely 100% in both her spoken and internal voice. It always takes me a while to adjust at the beginning of a read because it can feel clunky, pedantic.
Each. Word. And. Each. Thought. Separately. Written. And. Communicated.
But it’s not the writing, it’s Lucy and it’s so, so clever. The detail and minutiae Strout goes into in order to bring Lucy (and William) into the reader’s head is quite something. It can also feel suffocating because we are most definitely in Lucy’s head and I’m not sure that’s somewhere I really want to hang out. At least, not for too long.
That said, I love Elizabeth Strout and I’ll always make space for her and Lucy on the bookshelf.
Sarah Winman, Still Life
This had been on my to read list for most of last year as a succession of friends raved about it but I held off as I worked my way through other reads, but finally the cover drew me in. It is beautiful and that certainly helped my buying decision, but in all honesty, it was a read of three thirds. The middle third I was hooked, having got to know the ensemble cast and followed them post-WW2 from the east end of London to Florence. I really was with them, and it was an absolute joy spending time in their company. Especially the chapters in Florence where I was truly transported and found myself on the verge on more than one occasion of buying myself a one-way ticket. But getting to that point and the ending left me frustrated. I just wanted to stay in that middle third. In fact, it almost felt like a couple of books that had been shoehorned together.
I felt Evelyn was a strong enough character to hold a story and book in her own right and so did Ulysses. I can see how their lives entwined and how that gave the story hooks and angles, but I felt the story ended naturally with Ulysses in Florence. It was a jolt to then start reading about Evelyn and Miss Skinners' lives and honestly, I gave up. I wanted to be in Ullysses' Florence. That said, I was absolutely transported to Italy and thank Sarah Winman for that escape during a dark, dank British winter.
Small things like these, Claire Keegan
I was late to the Claire Keegan party and in all honesty, I need to read 'Small things like these' again. I think I slipped it in between other reads, and because it’s such a short book and because I read so quickly, I don’t think I took enough time to savour the sparseness of the writing.
The confidence and ability to tell a whole story in fewer than 120 pages is a lesson in how to give the reader time and space to take in the words that have made it onto the page. To linger with them and the space around them. To fill the gaps themselves and tap into their own world and imagination to picture the characters, setting and feel the emotions themselves. I’ll read it again but next time I’ll take my time and make sure I read each individual word.
Honourable mentions
I found myself in a Val McDermid mood the other weekend and read 1989 and Still Life in quick succession. I’d read Still Life before - a Karen Pirie story if you’ve seen the ITV series and not to be confused with the Sarah Winman Still Life mentioned earlier in this blog.
I’d also read 1979 the prequel to 1989, introducing a new McDermid character, journalist Allie Burns. With storylines less murder focused and with more of a social and historical angle, there was still that classic Mc Dermid underbelly and the knowledge that death and intrigue would appear before long. Classic weekend page-turners.
I’ve also just finished The Fear Index by Robert Harris (picked up in the library), which was a new one for me, but I went for it after some book club chat. A perfect page turning read.