Review of THE WIVES by Tarryn Fisher

2 Stars

I found this psychological thriller to be far-fetched and manipulative.

Thursday sees her husband only two days a week because he has two other wives.  Though she agreed to a plural marriage, Thursday begins to have reservations about the arrangement and, despite her agreement with Seth, sets out to learn whatever she can about the other women.  She befriends Hannah, the wife who is pregnant, and sees bruises.  Is Seth abusing her?  Thursday becomes desperate to learn all she can about Seth, a man she realizes she may not know that well. 

The book relies on having an unreliable narrator.  This becomes clear very early.  Thursday makes oblique references to things the reader craves to know more about.  What is she hiding?  She admits to relying on what Seth tells her, but is he telling the truth? 

The book begins well, with an intriguing premise.  However, by the second part of the novel, things go awry when there’s a cheap plot twist.  Thursday will remember something for no particular reason, but that memory will be a major revelation.  Strange events are never logically explained.  To say that the plot eventually seems over-the-top is an understatement.  And then there’s the ending which is as schlocky and manipulative as Then she woke up!

Some might consider this an enjoyable summer read, but there are much better books which do not treat the reader with disdain.  Regular readers of my reviews may notice that this review is shorter than most, but I feel this book does not deserve any more of my time.

Review of FOREST GREEN by Kate Pullinger (New Release)

4 Stars

I first encountered Kate Pullinger about a decade ago when her Mistress of Nothing won the 2009 Governor General’s Award for Fiction.  I would not be surprised if Forest Green wins some literary awards.

The book begins in 1995 with a homeless man on the streets of Vancouver.  Via flashbacks, we are told the story of how he came to be in this situation.  The first flashback is to 1934 when Arthur Lunn is seven years old and living with his family in the Okanagan Valley.  His family is largely unaffected by the Great Depression, but there is an encampment of unemployed men nearby.  Art and his sister Peg encounter a man at the camp and that meeting leads to a tragic event which leaves Art with feelings of guilt for the rest of his life.

The novel examines how childhood trauma can shape a person’s life.  Because Art feels responsible for a tragedy, that “what had happened was his fault,” he feels others are always judging him so he makes a major decision about his life “to stop people thinking of him as the boy whose idiocy led to that terrible night.”  When another tragedy occurs, Art feels even more guilt and even less able to escape “the pressure of the past” which he feels most strongly when with his family.  He begins a nomadic existence in logging camps because “Being with his family made Art restless . . . always wanting to leave as soon as he’d arrived.”  He is rescued by love but when yet another tragedy occurs, he is unable to recover.

Art spends much of his life as a logger so the book does provide glimpses into the logging industry in British Columbia and how attitudes to forestry have changed.  Art thinks of trees “as a resource to be taken from the land, always there, infinite” even when the province looks like “a patchwork, as though it’s been scalped by a no-good barber who kept cutting off more hair in the hope of fixing his mistakes.”  But then he encounters the forest green, the rainforest in the Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii), and he finds peace; he wants “to stay there, rooted, breathing the rainforest air.”  And he realizes that “When you felled one of those trees, you were bringing hundreds of years of living to an end. . . . And it turned out that those trees, well, those trees were not infinite.  That got to Art a little at the end.” 

In the end, the forest serves as a metaphor for human life:  “trees in a forest are all connected via their roots, that the forest floor is a kind of communication network made of moss and insects and fungi and all manner of life, and the forest itself a single organism, like a living soul regenerating through an endless cycle of rot and regrowth.”  Art feels like a solitary tree until he re-connects to the forest.  And the message is that we are all part of a single living soul. 

Art emerges as a complex character.  His life is not easy.  Though readers will not agree with some of Art’s choices, they will understand and empathize.  Though Art’s is only one story, it reminds us that there are many such stories among the homeless and addicted.  A book that can inspire people to have compassion for the downtrodden is a good book. 

The book is not especially lengthy, and the plot seems simple and straightforward, but it is thought-provoking and emotionally compelling.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE GOOD SON by You-Jeong Jeong

3.5 Stars

I recently read Seven Years of Darkness by this Korean author (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/08/review-of-seven-years-of-darkness-by.html) and was intrigued enough by it to decide I’d read The Good Son, the first of her novels to be translated into English.

Twenty-six-year-old Yu-jin wakes up covered in blood and finds his mother’s body downstairs.  She was murdered by having her throat slit.  Because Yu-jin hasn’t been taking his medication he suffers seizures and their attendant memory loss.  Could he have killed his own mother?  He remembers nothing from the last six hours and so desperately tries to fill in the gaps as he also tries to figure out what to do since everything points to him as the murderer.

As Yu-jin pieces together the events that might have led to his mother’s death, the story becomes even darker and more disturbing than the beginning with its gruesome discoveries.  He discovers some shocking details about his mother, himself, and the past. 

It is obvious early on that Yu-jin is an unreliable narrator.  In the fourth paragraph, he admits, “honesty is neither my strong suit nor something I aspire to.”  He also says things like “I had always had a gift for reshaping a scene to make it comprehensible, though Mother disparaged this skill, calling it ‘lying’” and “They say that a normal person lies on average eighteen times an hour.  I probably come in a little higher than average, what with my difficulty with honesty.  My extra output makes me very good at it, able to spin any kind of story in a believable way.”  His propensity to lie is compounded by his faulty memory.

Much of the book focuses on Yu-jin’s relationship with his mother.  He begins by stating that his mother “treated me like a seat cushion – something to be suffocated and smothered.”  She stopped him from continuing in competitive swimming which he loved; he felt more comfortable in a pool than anywhere else because “It was the only place Mother couldn’t barge into; it was exclusively my world.”  She nagged him, constantly interrogated him about his whereabouts, gave him a curfew of 9 p.m., and strictly controlled his allowance:  “she might have thought:  he can’t do anything if he doesn’t have money.”  When his mother adopted Hae-jin, a friend of Yu-jin’s, she tended to favour the non-biological son. 

Yu-jin finds his mother’s journal, and it becomes key to helping him unravel the truth.  The journal entries lead to flashbacks to various time periods in the past.  There is perhaps too much reliance on these diary passages, but they are a relief from the claustrophobic effect of being inside Yu-jin’s mind.  The revelations are not really shocking because there are lots of clues which hint at the truth.

This is not a conventional whodunit, but it is compelling.  For me, the interest lay in wanting to know if my deductions were correct.  Readers should be warned that this book is not for the squeamish.  There are some brutally violent scenes that can only be described as soaked in blood and gore.

Review of AFTER YOU'D GONE by Maggie O'Farrell

4 Stars

I discovered Maggie O’Farrell last year.  Thus far, I’ve read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-of-vanishing-act-of-esme-lennox.html) and Hamnet and Judith (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-of-hamnet-and-judith-by-maggie.html) and loved them, giving 4 Stars to both.  This time I thought I’d return to her debut novel, After You’d Gone.  It’s another 4-star book!

The novel focuses on Alice Raikes who for virtually the entire novel is in a coma.  While she lies in this non –responsive state, flashbacks are used to tell Alice’s life story, as well as much about the lives of her grandmother Elspeth and her mother Ann. 

The prologue grabs the reader’s attention, beginning with its first sentence:  “The day she would try to kill herself, she realised winter was coming again.”  Then a few pages later, “she saw something so odd and unexpected and sickening that it was as if she’d glanced in the mirror to discover that her face was not the one she thought she had.  Alice looked, and it seemed to her that what she saw undercut everything she had left.  And everything that had gone before.”  As a result of what she sees, she waits for traffic to start across an intersection and “The soles of Alice’s shoes peeled away from the tarmac, and she stepped off the kerb.”  And that’s just the prologue!

So there’s a mystery throughout:  what did Alice see that influenced her to commit suicide?  I guessed what she saw about a third of the way through, but had to read to the end to have my suspicion confirmed.  But the book is more than just a mystery; it is also a family saga.  Alice’s relationships with her mother and grandmother are detailed; both women keep a major secret intended to protect the family. 

The book is also a romance, a genre I generally try to avoid.  In this book, however, the romance between Alice and John Friedmann didn’t leave me rolling my eyes.  John is immediately attracted to Alice and is determined to win her over despite her reluctance.  A deep passion develops but there is a major obstacle.  The title suggests that John is gone, but what happens is not revealed until three-quarters of the way. 

The structure of the book is complex.  It has multiple points of view and voices.  It moves back and forth between the present and various time periods in the past.  Both first and third person narrations are used.  No breaks are used to indicate a change in time frame or point of view, but I quickly became accustomed to the shifts and actually enjoyed working out the specifics of time and place.  Reading the book can feel like putting together a mystery jigsaw puzzle. 

Readers will find themselves emotionally involved.  There are scenes that are hilarious like the one in the hotel where Alice and John have agreed to meet.  And then there are the heart-breaking scenes.  The novel excels at portraying loss and the “huge, crushing weight of grief”:  “Yes, life fucking well goes on but what if you don’t want it to?  What if you want to arrest it, stop it, or even battle against the current into a past you don’t want to be past?”

There are several strong elements worthy of mention.  Characterization is one of them.  The three women are complex characters.  All are flawed so I found myself sometimes angry and frustrated with someone and then feeling sympathy for her.  And then there’s the lyrical prose:  “Edinburgh was steeped in a coagulating damp and mist; whenever Elspeth tried to conjure her childhood there she envisaged wet, slicked streets at dusk, veiled with sheets of feathery rain and gray buildings.”  And look out for repeated references to mirrors and hair, the latter even alluded to indirectly by mention of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”.

The ending left me wanting more.  My only consolation is that I have five more Maggie O’Farrell novels left to read!

Review of NOTHING CAN HURT YOU by Nicola Maye Goldberg

4 Stars

This book has been called a deconstructed psychological thriller and a social commentary.  I would tend towards the latter description because this is certainly not a thriller in the typical sense.  It lacks mystery and suspense and focuses on the impact of a crime.

Blake Campbell confesses to killing his girlfriend, Sara Morgan.  He is acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity.  Each of the twelve chapters is narrated from the perspective of a different person who is affected by Sara’s death.  We meet people connected to Blake (his sister and his best friend from college), and we meet people connected to Sara (her stepmother, her half-sister, her college roommate, and a girl Sara babysat).  Some of the characters (like a journalist covering the case and a young woman who meets Blake in rehab) are more on the fringes of events. 

The book examines how a murder affects family members, friends, and the community at large.  Each of the characters is unique; once they are introduced, it is not difficult to keep them differentiated.  For me, the creepiest chapter is the one featuring Jessica whom Sara babysat.  Jessica begins a correspondence with a serial killer arrested at the same time as Blake.  The last chapter allows us to meet Sara after an evening spent babysitting Jessica. 

In terms of structure, this book reminded me of Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/01/review-of-disappearing-earth-by-julia.html) which has 12 stories examining the impact of an abduction on the lives of women in a community.  In both novels, there are connections among the characters.  Sometimes a character is the protagonist in one chapter but is mentioned in another character’s story.  There’s a missing person in the first chapter of Nothing Can Hurt You and her fate is revealed in a simple reference in the third chapter.  The difference is that the twelve chapters in Disappearing Earth are all set within a year of the abduction whereas Nothing Can Hurt You covers different time periods, all but one after Sara’s death.  For example, Sara’s half-sister Luna was two years old when Sara was murdered; we encounter her just after she graduates college. 

My mother died very recently and I’ve heard stories from many people about how her life intersected and influenced theirs.  Everyone had different recollections and memories, many of which I was unaware.  Some knew her well for much of her life and some had come to know her only recently, but all had an impression to convey.  Reading Nothing Can Hurt You is a similar experience because the reader meets a variety of people who had different connections with Sara and Blake and so had contrasting impressions and opinions of them. 

Because of the subject matter, this is not an easy, light-hearted read, but it is thought-provoking.  It certainly had me thinking about fairness and justice.  Is the sentence given to Blake a fair one?  Do Sara and her family receive justice?  One character describes justice as an impossibility:  “’There is no such thing as justice.  It’s an idea that makes people feel better, that’s all.  There is only revenge, or mercy.  And you can’t have both.’” 

Pick up this book, though you should be warned that the title is not a guarantee.

Review of THE PULL OF THE STARS by Emma Donoghue

4 Stars

Right now, a novel set during a pandemic might not be at the top of everyone’s reading list, but I found it emotionally compelling.

The narrator is Julia Powers, a nurse working in a Dublin hospital during the 1918 flu pandemic.  The events take place over the course of three days (October 31 – November 2) mostly in a supply room which has been converted into a 3-bed maternity ward/delivery room for pregnant women who have the flu.  Because the hospital is desperately short-staffed, Julia is assisted by Bridie Sweeney, a young woman with no medical training.  Kathleen Lynn - a medical doctor, Sinn Féin supporter, and social justice activist -  also comes to help occasionally. 

Though the book, written before Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, describes events in 1918, readers living through the Covid-19 pandemic will find much that is uncannily familiar.  Schools and shops are closed, people wear masks, and flu victims are “clogging the whole works of the hospital” so there are shortages of medical supplies.  There are attempts at social distancing:  people waiting for a tram “were far enough apart to be out of coughing range of each other.”  Notices offer advice:  “The public is urged to stay out of public places such as cafés, theatres, cinemas, and public houses.  See only those people one needs to see.  Refrain from shaking hands, laughing, or chatting closely together. . . . If in doubt, don’t stir out.”

The plight of women, especially poor women, in Ireland is highlighted:  “Always on their feet, these Dublin mothers, scrimping and dishing up for their misters and chisellers, living off the scraps left on plates and gallons of weak black tea.  The slums in which they somehow managed to stay alive were as pertinent as pulse or respiratory rate, it seemed to me, but only medical observations were permitted on a chart.  So instead of poverty, I’d write malnourishment or debility.  As code for too many pregnancies, I might put anaemia, heart strain, bad back, brittle bones, varicose veins, low spirits, incontinence, fistula, torn cervix, or uterine prolapse.  There was a saying I’d heard from several patients that struck a chill into my bones:  She doesn’t love him unless she gives him twelve.  In other countries, women might take discreet measures to avoid this, but in Ireland, such things were not only illegal but unmentionable.”  The pandemic has a disproportionate impact on the poor:  because the poor are often malnourished, they have little strength to fight the flu.  And since the schools are closed, “slum children . . . couldn’t be getting their free dinners there.”  Dr. Lynn mentions that the child of a poor woman has “less chance of surviving her first year than a man in the trenches. . . . Infant mortality in Dublin stands at fifteen per cent. .  . Such hypocrisy, the way the authorities preach hygiene to people forced to subsist like rats in a sack.”

The treatment of unwanted and illegitimate children in Ireland is emphasized:  “Small children did die, poor ones more often than others, and unwanted ones even more than that.”  An unwed mother gives birth and Julia wonders what will happen to the child; she assumes the baby will be adopted but Bridie says, “Go into the pipe more likely.”  Later she explains, “Mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene laundries, orphanages, . . . Industrial schools, reformatories, prisons . . . aren’t they all sections of the same pipe?”

Birthing is described in explicit detail, so squeamish readers should be forewarned.  Nurse Power admires the strength of women who carry the burden of child-bearing and child-raising.  An orderly argues that women should not be allowed to vote because they don’t pay the “blood tax” by offering their lives on the battlefields of Europe, but Julia argues tells him, “Look around, Mr. Groyne.  This is where every nation draws its first breath.  Women have been paying the blood tax since time began.”

The term influenza comes from the Italian “Influenza delle stelle – the influence of the stars” but Julia does not believe in the heavens governing people’s fates.  Instead, she wonders about “those who opened their eyes and found they were living in a long nightmare . . . who decreed that . . . or at least allowed it?”  Certainly, the lives of the women in the novel seem more ruled by poverty, neglect, and mistreatment than the stars.  And there’s a telling question Julia asks at the end when she has to receive the approval of a priest for a decision she has made about the welfare of a child:  “who’d put us all in the hands of these old men in the first place”?

The three main characters are all interesting.  Bridie Sweeney, though uneducated, is quick to learn and seems caring by nature.  A friendship develops between Julia and her assistant, and Bridie describes her life “raised in a home, lodging at a convent.”  Mentioned in the Author’s Note is the fact that Dr. Lynn is based on a real person who founded a hospital to provide medical care for impoverished mothers and infants and spent her life advocating for nutrition, housing, and sanitation.  Julia changes because she meets Bridie and Dr. Lynn and learns from them.

I wasn’t totally enamoured by the ending which seemed rushed, but I would certainly recommend this novel.  It is dark but compelling.  I think the author of Room has written another must-read. 

Review of THE BEAUTY OF YOUR FACE by Sahar Mustafah (New Release)

4 Stars

Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of the Muslim Nurrideen School for Girls when a shooter attacks.  Interspersed with this plot are many flashbacks to Afaf’s growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.  Hers is not an easy childhood or adolescence; she is an outcast at school and finds little solace at home because her family is shattered after a tragic event.  Much of her life is spent trying to find her identity and acceptance.

The novel addresses the challenges of being a Muslim in the United States.  Though the family is not religious, they encounter discrimination regularly.  Afaf “tried hard her whole life to be like amarkan, only to be rejected and used.”  After 9/11, Muslims went “from towel-heads to terrorists” and Afaf is concerned about her safety and that of her family.  Of course the attack on the school emphasizes the dangers Muslims face. 

In many ways, the book is a journey of self-discovery.  Afaf is largely estranged from her family after a tragedy.  Her father finds solace in alcohol.  Her unhappy mother, who has never adapted to life in America and wants to return to Palestine, suffers from mental health problems and seems unable to connect with Afaf.  Because she is not accepted by her peers at school, she desperately longs for love and attention.  After a traumatic near-death accident, Baba finds comfort in Islam and he urges his children to go with him to the Islamic Community Center.  There Afaf finds acceptance. “a sense of community; the first time, really, she’d felt she truly belonged anywhere.”

Included in the novel are many details about Arab culture and the Islamic faith.  Arabic food is often mentioned; I wish there were an appendix with recipes for the various dishes that are mentioned but not explained, dishes like “mahshi koosa” and “maklooba” and “chicken musakhan” and “fatayir”.  I knew about the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca to fulfill one of the sacred pillars of Islam, but I was unaware of the various rituals performed, other than walking around the Kaaba. 

At one point Afaf decides she will wear a hijab.  From a woman’s perspective, I found her decision an interesting one.  “Beneath the hijab, it’s still her.  And yet a great deal of Afaf is gone, hidden, never to be revealed again in public, and then only in the presence of women.  A pang of something tragically permanent goes through her gut.”  She realizes the hijab comes with a price:  “Is this concealment a high price to pay for her submission to God?  She’ll no longer feel the Illinois winter rushing through her hair, tingling her ears as she leaves the apartment.  Or the sun beating down on her head when she goes for walks with Baba along the waterfront, her scalp warm and moist with sweat.  Afaf will miss her hair, the way it completes her face.”  She is also aware of how Americans will think:  “And what of her hijab?  Do they imagine Afaf’s father or brother, swarthy and dangerous men, had forced it on her?  Behind her back do they whisper, Poor Afaf, another oppressed Arabian woman?"

There are two elements in the novel which left me unsatisfied.  One is Nada’s storyline.  Nada, Afaf’s older sister, deals with the family situation differently than Afaf, but her story is not sufficiently developed.  The other weak element is the perspective of the shooter.  He seems little more than a stock character:  a white man radicalized by online alt-right sites. 

This is a timely novel which offers an interesting perspective, a perspective that might give people pause to think. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of SEVEN YEARS OF DARKNESS by You-Jeong Jeong

3.5 Stars

I came across this writer’s name in an article in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/19/the-best-recent-and-thrillers-review-roundup).  I had not heard of her, but she is apparently South Korea’s leading writer of psychological crime and thriller fiction.

The novel is set in 2011, but much of it deals with events seven years earlier.  Hyonsu Choi, the new head of security at Seryong Dam, is convicted of several murders (including those of an 11-year-old girl and his wife).  He also opened the dam’s floodgates and destroyed an entire village.  His 11-year-old son Sowon survives.  Sowon tries to carry on with his life but as the son of an infamous “crazed murderer,” he and his guardian, Sunghwan Ahn, find little peace.  When Sowon is 18, Mr. Ahn disappears but a manuscript written by him is delivered to Sowon.  That manuscript seems to be a fictionalized account of events surrounding the murders, but as he reads it, Sowon discovers it may contain the truth and that his assumptions about his father’s actions may not have been correct. 

The embedded narrative certainly clarifies what actually happened in 2004.  It also introduces all the people involved and gives backstories for most of them.  The problem is that there is little focus on Sowon’s struggles to understand his father’s actions.  What Sowon learns forces him to drastically change the image of his father that he has carried for seven years, but the reader does not see him having any real difficulty changing his views. 

What I appreciated is that the author manages to arouse sympathy for virtually all the characters. Because information is given about their backgrounds, the reader comes to understand why they behave as they do.  Their dominant traits are often a reaction to something that happened in childhood.  Many of the characters are trapped by family expectations and circumstances.  Hyonsu, for example, feels that “everything in his life was so small and constricting.”

Only one character, the real evildoer, is not given a backstory.  He also has no redeeming qualities.  He is controlling, calculating, and cold-hearted and doesn’t even seem to be capable of positive emotions like love.  As a consequence, he is a stereotypical villain.  When he is first introduced, the reader knows immediately that he is somehow involved in what occurred.

I was fascinated by the village that was submerged when the dam was built.  Mr. Ahn goes diving and we are given a description of what he sees.  I live near the lost villages of the St. Lawrence River, villages that were inundated to accommodate the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  (In some locations, a few remnants of sidewalks and building foundations can still be seen under the water, and some high points of land in the flooded area remain above water as islands.)  I wondered whether finding the name of Yongje Oh on the nameplate of a submerged home was significant.

There are some pacing issues.  The middle is slow and then the ending seems rushed.  Actually, the ending seems written for a film adaptation.

Though not flawless, the book is an interesting read.  I’m interested in writers from around the world and this South Korean one deserves attention.