Review of OUR NOBLE SELVES by Kate Atkinson

 4 Stars

This novel is set during the build up to the 1951 Festival of Britain, a national exhibition intended to boost post-war morale and celebrate British achievements in science, arts, and design. Harry Flynn, the protagonist, is a former war reporter and survivor of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp where he was forced to work on the Burma Railway. Struggling with adapting to normal life, he ends up working with a group of people in the planning department. Then Harry finds himself a prime suspect when a French woman disappears after being on a date with him.

It becomes clear quite quickly that many of the people Harry works with and encounters are members of MI5, the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, and MI6, Britain’s Secret Service which collects foreign intelligence and conducts covert operations. No one is what s/he seems; everyone has secrets.

The novel begins slowly; it seems aimless at the beginning. Then, with the introduction of the mystery, the plot becomes quite convoluted. Everyone is connected somehow and it is sometimes difficult to remember who is who and how they know each other. The mystery also relies on a lot of coincidences.

Harry suffers from PTSD. He tries to get on with his life “by treating the past as if it barely existed,” but memories are often triggered by everyday occurrences. There’s a time when “he simply couldn’t be bothered with the tiresome business of being alive.” He describes himself in heart-breaking ways: “He wasn’t whole, he would never be whole” and he feels himself “a figure of straw, insubstantial and unenduring.”

It is comforting that Harry does find a new purpose via thirteen-year-old Veronica. The story is really about the power of love and connection, both of which he finds unexpectedly but help heal him. He can perhaps leave behind the “ball and chain of history” and focus on “Pastures new, rather than the old memory lane.”

Despite references to the horrors of war, there are humourous moments, often involving the Boy whose lack of education leads to, for example, his thinking a man named Denholm was once a king named Lear, not realizing Denholm was an actor. There is also banter among the members of the department.

I always look forward to a Kate Atkinson novel and this one, like her others, does not disappoint.

Review of WOLF SEASON by Wesley King (New Release)

3.5 Stars 

This novel blends genres: suspense thriller, detective procedural, romance, and horror.

After a 7-year absence, Everett Johnson returns to his hometown of Killdeer, Montana, when he hears that his father, the local sheriff, has disappeared. Everett joins his brother Connor, the interim sheriff, in the search for their father who was, at the time of his disappearance, investigating the murder of 17-year-old Orsie Armel. Everett reconnects with Bernadine, Orsie’s cousin and the only woman he has ever loved. The remaining six Armels, owners of a large acreage, are a group of reclusive, rather feral women. Since the deaths of three Armel men, the women have not allowed men on their property.

Everett discovers a pattern of mysterious disappearances and deaths, some of which seem connected to hints of supernatural phenomena. As is repeated several times, there is a cost for everything, and it’s soon clear that there will be a cost to uncovering the truth, in this case the tearing apart of both Everett’s family and that of Bernadine.

I found Everett a difficult character to like. Some of his choices and promises, like handing over Orsie’s killer to the Armels, are not commendable. His love for Bernadine has shaped virtually his entire life and continues to do so. This love and loyalty should be admirable, but they do not always allow for a clarity of vision. And for a person who loves someone so much, he knows very little about his beloved and is okay with that?

I am not a fan of supernatural fiction so the inclusion of a supernatural element was not to my liking; I’m obviously not the intended reader. First of all, there’s a reliance on tropes like the malevolent old woman and metamorphosis.  And the novel reminded me of the short story “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs in which wishes are granted but with an enormous price.

A suspenseful atmosphere is created from the beginning through the use of death imagery, descriptions of the menacing wilderness, references to a generational blood feud, and the appearance of mysterious figures like the Hill Man and an ancient woman.

The book is well-written; though it’s the author’s first adult novel, he is an award-winning writer of young adult fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not my type of book though, undoubtedly, others will enjoy it.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HIDEAWAY by Nicole Lundrigan

 3.5 Stars

Readers should be forewarned that this is a disturbing read about child neglect and abuse by a parent.

Gloria Janes is unhappy: her husband Telly has left and is now living with another woman. Gloria blames her son, 13-year-old Rowan, for Telly’s leaving so one stormy night she locks him out of the house. He runs to find Carl, a homeless man he encountered previously. Because Carl showed care and concern for him, Rowan thinks Carl is harmless, but he suffers from paranoia and his sometimes erratic behaviour can put him and others in danger. Gloria tells herself and her 7-year-old daughter Maisy that Rowan will be found and that Telly will return so they will be a happy family again. But then there are reports that Rowan drowned in an altercation with a man in a boat.

The novel is narrated from the children’s viewpoints. Rowan’s sections focus on his adventures with Carl whereas Maisy’s chapters describe life at home without her brother and the search to find him.  Because of their ages, both narrators are not totally reliable; they don’t always understand what they are seeing and hearing. Maisy, in particular, is naive.

The villain of the novel is definitely Gloria. She’s a narcissist who manipulates others to get what she wants. After Telly moves out, she starts stalking him and his new girlfriend. Obsessed with getting him back, she’s always scheming to lure him. She even uses Rowan’s disappearance to try and guilt Telly into returning. It’s obvious she doesn’t really care about Rowan’s being missing because she always makes herself the centre of attention. She gaslights Maisy, often telling her she only imagined what she saw or heard. She uses both love bombing and fear of punishment to gain control and create dependency.

Telly is not as repulsive as Gloria, but he is certainly ineffectual. He too is self-absorbed and so not available when needed. He basically runs away and makes little time for his children; at a crucial time, he pushes Rowan away. It’s understandable that Rowan and Maisy are unaware of Gloria’s duplicity and manipulation, but it’s difficult to comprehend how he wouldn’t be wise to her devious plotting and be concerned about its effect on his children. I suspect that their estrangement might be the result of Gloria’s controlling actions. It is perhaps possible to have some sympathy for him at the end but his virtual abandonment of his children tempers that sympathy.

The characterization of Maisy is interesting. Some of her behaviour seems very authentic. For example, her confusion is understandable: Gloria has told her repeatedly that she has an overactive imagination, so her gaslighting is very effective. And Gloria’s tales of wolves, also repeated frequently, explain Maisy’s bewilderment when events take a dark turn. It’s typical for a child like Maisy to be torn between wanting to please a parent and to keep a sibling’s secret. There are times, however, when Maisy seems older than her age because she makes astute observations, and other times when she seems younger as suggested by her total obliviousness.

The book is not an easy read. Seeing the neglect and abuse to which the two children are subjected makes the reader hope that an adult like Mrs. Spooner will rescue them. The pace is slow and that just prolongs the discomfort the reader will feel. One could hope that people like Gloria do not exist in the world, but that unfortunately is not true.

Review of PASSENGERS by Alexander Maksik (New Release)

 3 Stars

Though the themes are different, this novel reminded me of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot. Because nothing major happens, the characters must find ways to distract themselves through conversation. And even when the characters talk about leaving or taking action, they move very little. Just as Godot never arrives, their flight never takes off.

Ivan, 75, meets his daughter Nina, 29, in the Los Angeles airport. They are travelling to Paris where Ivan lived for a few years as a young man. He wants to show Nina where he lived and to share his early life with her; perhaps the trip will bring them closer together. Their flight is delayed and then delayed again and again. Soon all flights are delayed. Security tightens and no one is allowed to leave the airport terminal. Obviously something is terribly wrong but no one has any information.

The father and daughter spend their time talking. They discuss many issues. They express their grievances and regrets and talk about their relationship. Nora, Ivan’s wife and Nina’s mother who left her husband and child 12 years ago to follow her dreams, is often mentioned. Ivan frequently talks about his memories of Nina as a child. Because the third-person omniscient point of view is used, the reader also learns Ivan and Nina’s thoughts. Ivan, for instance, worries about whether he was a good father: did she inherit his lack of ambition? And Nina has so many conflicting emotions when it comes to both her parents.

The novel is obviously very character-focused. Ivan is nostalgic, often focused on the past. His love for his daughter is all-encompassing, the depth of which he cannot find words to express, matched only by his love of nature. He describes himself as “a sucker for the sweet syrup of nostalgia, a weakness for sentimental reverie, a man more moved by his daughter and the past and the balm of night air than anything else.” He is cautious and unambitious, “more afraid of losing what they had than determined to have more.” Of course it’s interesting to see how they view each other. Nina thinks she understands why Nora left him: “His self-pity, his hunger for attention, his constant reconfiguring of the past, the conviction that he was always being slighted and misunderstood.”

Nina irritated me. She tends to be self-centred, negative and judgmental. She is upset that Ivan “could never just listen to her. When would he come to understand that there was no more advice left to give?” But then “she was furious that her father had run out of useful lessons.” She often behaves like someone much younger. She does admit, “She could not go on behaving like she was fifteen. It was embarrassing. All this petulance.” I could not agree more. She thinks it’s a daughter’s privilege “to be angry without regret, without concern, without responsibility to fairness.” She’s upset with her life “and all its myriad disappointments and dissatisfactions,” but expresses her unhappiness through anger at what she perceives as her father’s faults, including his need to provide constant advice.

Nora, the absent wife and mother, never appears in the novel, but we learn a lot about her too. Clearly she is single-minded, focused on following her own desires and ambitions. In a flashback, Nina remembers her mother telling her, “’There are things I want to do. Just as there are things you want to do. And we should do them because if we stay where we are out of fear, or expectation, or loyalty, well, then we will never do anything at all, and we’ll hate ourselves forever.’” And what Nora wants to do she is convinced she can do only if living alone. Nora and Ivan are clear foils: he returned from Paris and fell into his father’s business reluctantly, out of cowardice, because “Every step [was] in direct opposition to desire.”

There is some suspense. From the beginning, there’s a suggestion that something is wrong. Ivan comments on the peculiar yellow sky. Then there is reference to earthquakes. Later a trio of fighter jets streak across the sky. People in the airport start behaving strangely. And there are guards preventing anyone from leaving. What is responsible: “the president and his goons” or climate change or the arrival of aliens? But readers should not expect an explanation.

I found reading this book to be a slog. I got tired of the endless introspection and inertia. Perhaps the fact that I will soon be travelling and spending time in five airports made this book too unsettling for me at this time. I do not want to be stalled, either physically or psychologically, as Ivan and Nina are.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of MR. WINTERBOURNE by Clara van Houten (New Release)

 4 Stars

This short psychological drama proved to be a real gem.

The novel, set primarily in London, spans 25 years, from 1997 to 2022. Debra Cowdry is an aspiring novelist whose manuscripts are repeatedly rejected so she finally submits one using a male pen name, Alec Winterbourne. The novel is accepted almost immediately and her literary career is launched. By chance she meets a man with the name she invented for her pseudonym and the two start a relationship. As her success builds, there is increasing pressure for public appearances by the author. Maybe Alec could step in and pretend to be the author? What could go wrong?

Having known about George Eliot, George Sand, and Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, male pseudonyms adopted by female writers, I was interested in how this author would approach the issue of women using male names so their work would be judged fairly and be published. Given the short length of this book, I was expecting a light read but was pleasantly surprised to find an in-depth exploration of identity.

Debra constructs an identity and initially she has a literary agent to protect her and help her continue the facade. As more or her novels are published and she receives more recognition, her identity takes on a life of its own. She even overhears women on a bus speculating about why the author is a recluse. Then she wins literary awards and has to watch someone else receiving the acclaim for her talent. She realizes her life is “owned by people who had not lived a single day of it, while she herself receded further and further into somebody else’s account.” When she decides she wants to get her life back, she realizes how difficult, if not impossible, it will be to reclaim her real identity: “I had signed myself out of my own story so thoroughly that proving I still belonged in it might turn out to be the hardest thing I had ever had to write.”

The novel is written in a brisk, understated style. There are no unnecessary details; those details included convey so much. Suspense is built gradually. It becomes clear that the deception is slowly spinning out of Debra’s control and that someone else has power over her life. Then there are the many instances of foreshadowing, things that indicate all will not end well. For example, she observes that “Alec didn’t look at me. That was, afterwards, the detail I kept returning to” and that she has a fear “I couldn’t yet justify.” I predicted some of what happens, but there are unexpected twists that take the plot in an entirely different direction.

I read this book in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. The ending is not what I expected, but it is very satisfying. Like Mr. Winterbourne, I gather that the author’s previous novel released earlier this year, Everything He Never Told Me, is, as described on her website, about “the private battles and public sacrifices of women fighting to define their own lives.” I’m recommending Mr. Winterbourne and adding Everything He Never Told Me to my to-be-read stack.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of FAIR ONES by Lydia Millet (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This novel follows the lives of two friends, Mara and Jen, after the sudden, violent death of a third friend, Claire.  Now in their forties, the three were friends since college.

The first half, narrated by Mara, spans the year immediately after Claire’s death. The focus is on understanding her death and trying to uncover if Jase, Claire’s former boyfriend, may have somehow been connected to the tragedy. The second half, narrated by Jen, is a year later. Grief over Claire’s death is no longer the focus. Instead, we see Mara’s new relationship, Jen’s new job, and Jen’s wrestling with her erratic behaviour immediately after Claire’s death. Both Mara and Jen also have to deal with family issues which require them to support their mothers.

This is very much a dialogue-driven novel so it reads fairly quickly. The conversations are very realistic as topics both serious and frivolous are discussed. There are both heart-to-heart conversations and easy banter. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t find it a compelling read. It didn’t keep my interest so I kept putting it down and then I wasn’t excited to pick it up again.

In many ways the novel feels directionless. Obviously, one of its main themes is grief. The two women have to come to terms with the loss of a dear friend who is taken away suddenly and violently. They struggle with moving on with their lives when someone who was such an integral part of their lives is no longer there. Of course grief feels directionless since it’s such a disorienting state.

The book can also be described as a portrait of mid-life friendships. Mara and Jen remain close and support each other so both can survive a devastating loss. Gradually new relationships are formed with other people, some of whom had connections with Claire (Pavan, Caleb) and others who never knew her (Eli, Josh, Julia St. Alban). These new relationships also become a support system.

Though Mara and Jen do not want children, mothers and their relationships with children are also highlighted. We see June, Claire’s mother, dealing with the death of her only daughter. There’s Emmie whose life is shaped by caring for her neuro-divergent son who requires a lot of care. There’s Josh’s mother Sarah who disappeared. Just as Mara and Jen’s friendship withstands tragedy, their ties to their families, though sometimes not strong, remain unbroken. Fern, Mara’s mother, has early signs of dementia and needs her daughter’s help. Lynn, Jen’s mother, comes to rely on her daughter too but for different reasons.

The message that I will remember is a teenager’s comments about life: “’Life is a gift from death . . . Or, like, a loan. Nature is like, Yeah, you’re gonna die. But first, you get to have this! This totally awesome thing. You might not even know how awesome it is, at first. But open your eyes. Look what you get! The universe!’” But we need to stay engaged; if we don’t live in reality, we don’t really live: “’If you stay sleeping, all you’ll ever have is a dream. Maybe you’ll get to keep the dream. For a bit. But meanwhile you’re losing the best parts of reality. Just letting them fade away.’”

This book did not resonate with me, but I’m certain it will for other readers.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of EVERY STORY IS A LOVE STORY by Imbolo Mbue (New Release)

 4 Stars

This is an emotionally complex novel which examines the messy truth of feelings and relationships.

When the novel begins, Wolo Lifafa has been a widower for three years. His wife Yoma, pregnant with twins at the time, was struck by a car while she was out jogging. Victoria Snow, the woman driving that car, contacts Wolo and asks to meet him. Despite his family’s advice, he agrees to do so because he wants details of the accident which he is convinced were covered up. The first meeting does not go well, but reluctantly Wolo agrees to further contact. He comes to wonder whether he and Victoria are destined “to walk together out of their shared darkness.”

Chapters alternate between the present, where Wolo struggles with grief and wonders whether he can forgive Victoria for her role in the deaths of his wife and unborn children, and the past which gives the backstory of Wolo and Yoma’s relationship and the complexities of his extended family in Cameroon and the US.

The book examines love in its various forms. Wolo thinks of Yoma as the love of his life and doesn’t believe that he can ever love anyone in the same way again. But it’s not just romantic or marital love that is explored. There’s parental love and filial love and familial love as well. There’s love between two men, but that love can never be spoken of. A message that resonated with me is spoken by Yolo’s second mother: “’a person can love you while struggling to deal with the pain you’ve caused them.’”

Grief is another topic. Wolo acknowledges that people mourn differently, though, as his father-in-law tells him, “’some people want your grief to look the way they think it should look, the way they would do it if they were you.’” Wolo’s “journey through grief has been a constant battle to accept, an inability to find a way forward, ignorant of how to move out of this terrible darkness.”

And forgiveness is the third concept explored. Initially Wolo has no intention of forgiving Victoria but later hopes to find a way to forgiveness. He sees examples of others forgiving; Yoma’s father and Nathaniel Lambi are two such people. Wolo realizes that he and his family caused pain and sought forgiveness at one time; his Facebook message to Mary indicates he is still seeking forgiveness. Wolo’s friend Ben tells him that forgiveness is not easy: “’It’s a very hard thing to do. It requires the kind of strength most of us don’t have, that’s why we don’t even try it.’”

I had heard about the stages of grief but never about the five stages of forgiveness. It’s the first stage, “accepting that all who commit wrongs are humans first, offenders second,” that is emphasized in the novel. It’s because Wolo realizes that he too has been an offender wanting forgiveness that he is able to consider forgiving someone else. And Victoria has difficulty forgiving herself so she’s stuck at the second stage: “recognizing that all humans are worthy of forgiveness.”

There are so many characters I learned to like. Yoma’s father, Tata Munyuenge, stands out because of his wisdom. Even Yoma is fully developed; through the flashbacks, we learn about her intelligence, fierceness, ambition, and independent nature. Keka, Wolo’s mother, is problematic for me. Above all, she holds on to her anger against Victoria. At times she strikes me as hypocritical since she seems to have no difficulty forgiving Osi’s behaviour. And it’s interesting that she accuses Victoria of manipulating Wolo while forgetting her own manipulations of her husband to get what she wanted. Her last email to Wolo redeems her somewhat, but it’s interesting that she doesn’t mention Victoria in the last sentence. Of course there is no doubt she loves her son, and there are many different ways to love.

I loved how the novel exposes readers to a culture with which they might not be familiar. I knew nothing about Cameroonian culture so thoroughly enjoyed the glimpses given. The importance of family and family reputation is certainly emphasized.

This novel inspires self-reflection: were you in Wolo’s situation, how would you behave? Would you be like Wolo or like Keka? Personally, I will try to remember that we are all flawed and deserving of love and forgiveness.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.