2 "Fast Reads" for International Literacy Day: "Chickenfeed" by Minette Walters and "A Woman Scorned" by James Heneghan

  

Tomorrow, September 8, 2015, is the United Nations’ International Literacy Day; its purpose is “to raise people's awareness of and concern for literacy issues in the world.”

“Whether it’s reading or writing, literacy is an outlet to an untouchable world – your imagination. Not only is literacy a basic human right, it is a fundamental building block for learning as well as a personal empowerment tool. It is the catalyst for social and global progress” (http://internationalliteracyday.org/).

In preparation for the day, I read a novella which was published as part of the British “Quick Reads,” a series of short books by bestselling authors and celebrities “designed to encourage adults who do not read often, or find reading tough, to discover the joy of books” (http://www.quickreads.org.uk/).

Review of Chickenfeed by Minette Walters

   3 Stars

Minette Walters has written over a dozen crime novels.  Her “Quick Reads” novella is based on the real life case of Elsie Cameron, a young pregnant woman who was supposedly killed by her boyfriend, chicken farmer Norman Thorne who was hanged for the murder in 1924.  Walters recreates the events leading up to the crime.

This novella, like the other “Quick Reads” books, focuses on a fast moving plot. Interestingly however, Walters manages to develop strong characters.  Because the reader is given the perspective of both Elsie and Norman, he/she comes to know both people in the relationship.  We can sympathize with both Elsie’s fear of “being left on the shelf – unwanted and unloved” and the feelings of Norman, “a church-going boy of nineteen who was both flattered and trapped by Elsie’s devotion.”

Though the vocabulary is relatively simple, the book does not insult the reader’s intelligence.  It raises some interesting and important issues:  Would Elsie have been diagnosed with a mental illness if she had lived today?  Would the case have had a different outcome if it were tried today?  Was the death penalty appropriate?

This book may have been intended to appeal to reluctant readers, but I think it would be appropriate for anyone who has only a little time to devote to reading.

***************

In Canada, Orca Book Publishers has its own series of similar books called “Rapid Reads.”  On the publisher’s website, the purpose of these novellas is explained:  “Author Ian McEwan once wrote that ‘the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.’  In our increasingly fast-paced world we believe there is a need for well-written, well-told books that can be read in one sitting. Rapid Reads are short books for adult readers. They are intended for a diverse audience, including ESL students, reluctant readers, adults who struggle with literacy and anyone who wants a high-interest quick read” (http://orcabook.com/rapid-reads.com/).

I have read one of these “Rapid Reads”:

Review of A Woman Scorned by James Heneghan.

3 Stars

George Hamilton Nash, a Vancouver councilor, is found dead and police initially rule the death a suicide; Sebastian Casey, a city hall and police beat reporter, is unconvinced and sets out to investigate. Soon the suicide is deemed a homicide.

This novella is intended for ESL or reluctant/struggling adult readers. As a former English teacher/teacher-librarian, I am familiar with the need for high interest fiction for these readers. The language level is appropriate and the book includes a contemporary Canadian setting and adult themes, all necessary elements for this niche market.

My problem with the book is that Casey seems more like a police investigator than a reporter. People often express reluctance to speak to a reporter, but Casey has no difficulty getting people to talk to him; no one ever turns him away and a business partner of the deceased even says, “’I’m glad you’re here.’” His questioning certainly sounds like that of a police officer; he even ends his interviews by saying, “’If you think of anything, please give me a call.’”

The ineptitude of the police is also problematic. The police immediately conclude the death is a suicide, an “open-and-shut case . . . [n]o signs of monkey business,” and don’t even check whether the victim was left- or right-handed though that detail is something that bears directly on the case. Casey emerges as the true investigator and provides the police with crucial information. It is doubtful that an investigation into a death, especially that of a prominent community leader, would be conducted so shoddily.

There is an attempt to provide the reader with more than one possible guilty party. In fact, so many characters are introduced that readers may have difficulty remembering them all. Several people have motives, but the identity of the murderer can be quite easily surmised because of rather obvious clues.

I found myself becoming frustrated because of what is missing in the book. Casey’s relationship with Emma lacks development; the entire relationship is reduced to his waiting for her once weekly calls from Ireland. He also seems insufficiently affected by something Emma tells him she has done. Since this book is intended more as a mystery, perhaps it might have been best to omit this romance interest since it really does not add much to the book as a whole.

What I did enjoy is the references to the politics of Vancouver city council. There are references to urban farming, the Olympic Village financial crisis, and the Falun Gong protests outside the Chinese consulate – all actual topics discussed at Vancouver city council meetings. The discussion of backyard chickens is hilarious and the turns of phrase and puns like “ruffled feathers” and cries of “Fowl” and “eggstrordinary” provide developing readers with an interesting aspect of the English language.

This book needs to be approached as a fast read.  It lacks the character development I look for in a book, but it fulfills a need – providing interesting reading for adults wanting to improve their literacy skills. If it encourages someone to read for enjoyment, then it belongs in all public/school libraries.

To observe International Literacy Day tomorrow, choose a book and read.  Celebrate and share the joy of reading. 

Review of "Malice" by Keigo Higashino

   4 Stars

This Japanese mystery is a must-read. 

Osamu Nonoguchi, a children’s author, discovers the body of Kunihiko Hidaka, a childhood friend and fellow author.  Detective Kyochiro Kaga investigates and soon comes to suspect Nonoguchi though he seems to have a perfect alibi.  The difficulty is identifying a motive.  Kaga begins digging into the past and uncovers startling information about the two men’s school days and their literary careers.  But theory after theory about the motive proves to be incorrect.  Will the case ever be satisfactorily solved?

As a whodunit, the story is a locked room mystery which is solved rather quickly.  It is when the book becomes a whydunit that it excels.  The book could really be identified as a study of the psychology of murder.  And what it reveals is chilling.

This struck me as very much a Sherlock Holmes mystery.  There is little reliance on forensics.  It is the determination and intelligence of the detective that solve the case.  The novel is narrated through a series of journal entries kept by Kaga and Nonoguchi so the reader is given all the information Kaga has at his disposal.  The reader is expected to be observant and try to make sense of the clues.  (Hint:  if something doesn’t seem quite right, it probably isn’t.)  So many mysteries cheat by keeping information from readers; this was a problem with the other Higashino novels I’ve read (The Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of a Saint).  In Malice, however, there is no such ploy so the book really challenges the reader. 

Because we learn so much background about Nonoguchi, Kaga and even Hidaka, they emerge as characters with depth, not the flat characters often encountered in second-rate mysteries.  Kaga certainly earns the reader’s admiration and respect, and both the victim and his murderer will garner some sympathy. 

This book appeared on the 2015 summer mystery reading list compiled by a panel on Shelagh Roger’s The Next Chapter on CBC Radio.  I am certainly happy that it made it to my reading list.

Birthday Reviews - "The Dinner" and "Summer House with Swimming Pool" by Herman Koch

 

Today is Herman Koch’s 62^nd birthday.  He is a wonderful Dutch writer who has written several books.  Below are my reviews of the two that have been translated into English.  Both are highly recommended.

Review of The Dinner      4 Stars

This contemporary family drama is set in a chic, upscale restaurant in Amsterdam. Paul and Claire Lohman meet Serge and Babette for dinner to discuss what to do about their 15-year-old sons, Michel and Rick, who were partners in a despicable crime.

Paul is the narrator. From the beginning he makes it clear that he is not looking forward to this dinner with his brother and sister-in-law and that they have something serious to discuss. Like the meal in a posh restaurant, things progress slowly. Just as the four skirt the issue they have come together to hash out (pardon the food metaphor), Paul initially avoids explaining the specifics of their reason for meeting and, instead, mocks the restaurant and its food and staff for their pretentiousness. He also spends an inordinate amount of time disparaging his brother whom he portrays as pompous, sexist, and hypocritical and possessing the smooth charm and insincere professional smile of the high-profile politician he is.

Gradually, however, the reader begins to suspect that Paul is not a reliable narrator. Flashbacks suggest that Paul is perhaps not as reasonable as he tries to appear. There may be more to the tension between the brothers than just sibling rivalry. The reader’s sympathies will tend to shift away, but none of the four proves to be a likeable character so the reader may face a dilemma in terms of finding someone towards whom to direct his/her sympathies.

Paul’s pre-occupation is the happiness of his family. At the beginning, he quotes the opening sentence of Anna Karenina: “’Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’” Above all else, he wants his family to continue to be happy. When footage of Michel’s crime shows up on the internet, Paul worries about the “connection between the images from the security camera and our own happy family.” When he fears that Michel’s involvement in the crime might become public knowledge, he worries, “Our life as a happy family would never be the same.” At the end, he speculates about whether “a happy family can survive a shipwreck.”

All of these references, of course, point to the novel’s major themes: What comprises a family? What constitutes a happy family? Can a family survive secrets? To what lengths should parents go to protect their children and preserve their happiness? Is nature or nurture more significant in determining the personality and behaviour of children?

I found the examination of the nature versus nature debate particularly interesting. At one Paul seems to be dismissive of both when he mentions Michel’s dislike of sweet desserts: “we would have let him have any dessert he liked, so you couldn’t blame it on his upbringing. It was hereditary. Yes, that was the only word for it. If heredity existed, if anything was hereditary, then it had to be our shared aversion to sweet desserts.” Despite his disavowal of heredity, he does worry about his son inheriting a genetic disease. Paul also refers to heredity when discussing Beau, Serge’s adopted son: “What did my brother know about heredity? All right, maybe when it came to his own children: his own flesh and blood. But what about Beau? When did you simply have to admit that something had apparently been inherited from someone else? From the biological parents in Africa? To what extent could Serge, for his part,distance himself from the actions of his adopted son?” Tellingly, Paul himself never wonders whether he bears any blame for his biological son’s misdeeds; he doesn’t ever consider that Michel might have inherited or learned his father’s tendency to abdicate responsibility for his actions.

Another fixation of Paul’s is the need for normalcy. He sometimes mocks his brother’s need to be seen as normal by the voters: “He was normal, he was human: anyone who voted for Serge Lohman was voting for a normal and human prime minister.” Yet at the same time, he focuses on the importance of a semblance of normality; he thinks the scandal of his son’s crime will eventually be forgotten but “In the meantime, I would act as normally as possible. Do normal things.” When Claire was hospitalized, Paul set himself a goal: “I wanted to keep up the appearance of normalcy.” He wanted a “normal evening” with his son and even the night before she had surgery, he didn’t visit her because he wanted everything for his son “as normal as possible.” Babette says, “’We, of all people, know that you’re doing your very best to make things seem as normal as possible for Michel. But it’s not normal. The situation isn’t normal. . . . you can’t expect anyone to run a normal household.’” The novel’s 30+ repetitions of “normal” emphasize people’s need for a façade of decency and respectability; of course, the Lohmans’ façades are threatened and we see their inner characters as they struggle to prevent them from being shattered.

The book is not flawless. The meeting in a public place to have a meeting to discuss a private family matter seems staged only to allow for comparisons between the five courses of the meal (aperitif, appetizer, main course, dessert, and digestif) and the stages of the discussion that occur. For example, the main course is long in coming just as the real reason for the dinner meeting is not explained until midway through the evening. Is Serge’s way of tackling the entrée a metaphor for his way of tackling the problem? Could Babette’s reaction to the dessert be a metaphor for her attitude to dealing with the problem at hand?

The narrator’s way of withholding information is sometimes annoying. When discussing an illness Claire had years earlier, he says, “I’m not going to say what was wrong with Claire, not here. I consider that a private matter. It’s nobody’s business.” When referring to a medical condition with which he was once diagnosed, he is likewise unspecific: The doctor “had mentioned a name. A German-sounding name. It was the surname of a neurologist who’d had this particular disorder named after him.” Can anyone tell me if amniocentesis testing can detect mental illness?

There are several references to the small portions of food and the large portions of empty plates; that’s how this novel reads. There are portions of the story that are missing, and the reader keeps reading to fill his/her plate, to fill the “two full inches of empty plate away from the actual main course.” In the end, the meal is worthwhile. For some it will not be totally satisfying and others will find it too unsettling, but it does provide food for thought.

Review of Summer House with Swimming Pool            4 Stars

   Having read and enjoyed Koch’s The Dinner, I looked forward to reading his next work of fiction. Like The Dinner, it is an unsettling read but one which I found captivating.

The narrator is Dr. Marc Schlosser, a general practitioner. At the beginning, he is called before a Board of Medical Examiners because of a “medical error” which led to the death of Ralph Meier, a famous actor. Via flashbacks, Marc tells about his meeting Ralph who eventually invites Marc and his family to spend their summer vacation with them at a rented Mediterranean summer house. Marc is infatuated with Judith, Ralph’s wife, and manipulates Caroline, his wife, to accept the invitation. Marc and Caroline and their daughters, 13-year-old Julia and 11-year-old Lisa, stay with the Meiers and their other house guests, Stanley and Emmanuelle, until tragedy strikes.

Marc certainly ranks amongst the most vile of literary characters. He is a narcissist: “I’m more charming than most men (76). He is a misogynist who theorizes that only a “dirty, unwashed dick” with “filthy worthless sperm that smells like a half-finished bottle of fermented dairy drink stuck at the back of the fridge” (56) will have sex with an ugly woman and that “A half rape – women always like that. All women” (243). Though a physician, he does not “worry too much about medical standards. About what is, strictly speaking, medically responsible” (49). He gives his patients “the illusion of attention” (1). He has an aversion to the human body, asserting that “Human bodies are horrible enough as it is, even with their clothes on” (3), so he avoids examining patients except as “you might look at a dead animal in the road” (45). He is a hypocrite who hates men thinking of his daughters in a sexual way, but who joins his male companions in more than admiring three young women, “in fact more girls than young women” (221) and agrees to have his daughter audition to be a teen model in the U.S. His friends are Ralph, a boor with rapacious appetites for food and women, and Stanley, a lecherous soft- core film director whose companion is forty years younger.

The novel addresses a number of issues: the objectification and sexualization of girls, the extent to which a person might go to protect him/herself or to exact revenge. Some of the content will certainly induce discomfort. And there are few answers; even the crime that is committed is left unsolved, so readers who dislike indeterminate endings should stay away.

Though the book is disquieting, I found it difficult to put down. The portrayal of Marc’s psyche is a masterpiece, though at the end the reader may want to take a cleansing dive in a swimming pool.

Birthday Review - "Apple Tree Yard" by Louise Doughty

   4 Stars

Today is Louise Doughty’s 52^nd birthday; in her honour, I’m posting my review of her latest book, Apple Tree Yard.

Dr. Yvonne Carmichael, a middle-aged geneticist, someone with “status and gravitas,” finds herself accused of murder; her co-accused is a man with whom she had a torrid affair. She narrates much of the story in flashbacks detailing the events that bring her to a dock in Old Bailey.

Information is parceled out slowly. The identity of the murder victim isn’t known until midway through the novel. Even the lover’s name is not revealed until two-thirds of the way through the book; Yvonne addresses her lover throughout, but only as “you” or “X.” This technique of withholding information certainly adds to the suspense. And although there is a prologue that hints at the verdict, suspense during the trial is maintained.

This book would probably be classified as a psychological thriller/courtroom drama, but it has more serious elements. It is really a novel about “the stories we tell in order to make sense of ourselves.” In the end, Yvonne’s lover is described as “a fantasist, a person who could only manage his normal life as long as it was propped up by a series of self-flattering tales” but throughout the reader notices that his identity is shaped by what she wants to believe about him rather than what she actually knows about him. Yvonne claims to be self-aware (“Self-awareness: it is one of the chief bonuses of advancing age.”), but the reader cannot help but wonder whether she really knows herself. Is she perhaps deceiving herself about herself as well as about others?

The problem is complicated when someone else is involved: “Relationships are about stories, not truth. . . . the minute you enter an intimate relationship with another person there is an automatic dissonance between your story about yourself, and their story about you.” During the court case, Yvonne also comes to understand that a series of facts can be arranged in a variety of ways: she sees lawyers manipulating the jury through “the misplacement of evidence from context” so they will interpret events in a certain way. She also realizes that “as a scientist, I have told more stories than I ever realized, or admitted to”: “I know how the whole point of presenting a new theory is to anticipate the counter-citations from those who will disagree with you and to have, up your sleeve, a list of counter-counter-citations.”

The novel also examines the treatment of women who are victims of sexual assault. Any woman charging someone with sexual assault must be prepared to have all secrets revealed by the defense attorneys: “’Internet searches, questioning friends and family and work colleagues, starts with that. If there’s nothing in your present life, they will get to work on your past, starting with tracking down your sexual history . . . They can do anything. If they are challenged, all they have to do is give a reason to the judge why it’s relevant to the defence.’”

I would definitely recommend this book. It is a compelling read with a great deal of suspense, and a chilling read because it emphasizes the consequences of choices and reminds us of the human tendency to deceive ourselves about ourselves and others. Yvonne may not be a totally reliable narrator, but how many of us are really reliable narrators of our own “personal mythologies.”

Reviews Archive: "A Marker to Measure Drift" by Alexander Maksik and "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" by Anthony Marra

From Schatje’s Reviews Archive, I’ve chosen two books which examine the role of memory after a civil war.  A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik is about the civil war in Liberia and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra is about the conflict in Chechnya. 

Review of A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik

   3 Stars

Jacqueline is on Santorini, a Greek island, but she is not a tourist. She has escaped from the horrors of civil war in Liberia where her father was a loyal follower of President Charles Taylor (who years later was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity). Alone and adrift, she must grapple with a past that haunts her and find a way back into normal society.

The novel is about memory, specifically how to live with memories: “to live, one must be able to live with memory because memory was the constant. Even for [Jacqueline], even in such a precarious life, when there was danger and uncertainty everywhere, when her immediate life demanded so much of her, still, memory was the constant.” Jacqueline has difficulty separating memories from her current reality: “It was becoming more and more difficult to distinguish what was happening and what had happened. What was memory and what was not.” She sees and hears loved ones who are not there, especially her mother who constantly dispenses advice about how to behave in situations in which Jacqueline finds herself. Understandably, Jacqueline finds herself questioning her sanity: “She was alone. . . . Nothing but memory and memory seemed like madness. . . . she was again having a difficult time distinguishing between madness and memory.”

Jacqueline escaped from horrors about which she has spoken to no one. When she does eventually give voice to her traumas, she finds “the distance between recollection and experience is shortening. It is difficult to distinguish between memory and storytelling, between storytelling and experience, between this present life and the other.” The suggestion is that by telling her story, she begins her healing, though her future is my no means secure. It is significant that she has chosen to live on an island which is in constant threat of an earthquake or volcanic eruption; a woman she meets tells Jacqueline, “’We are not a permanent place.’” Of course, given her past experiences, one can understand why she thinks “And maybe that was the way to live. Always in fear of ruin.”

I found the book a slow read at the beginning; it took me a while to become engaged. Much of the first part is disorienting since we see the world from the protagonist’s interior monologue and so there is little explanation. Facts about her situation and past are revealed slowly as she focuses on day to day survival: satisfying her hunger, finding shelter, and trying to avoid thinking too much about the brutalities in her past. Of course, the reader’s feelings of disorientation are a reflection of Jacqueline’s feelings; utterly alone, homeless, and impoverished, she lives in a perpetual state of uncertainty.

Some of the reader’s questions are never answered. How did Jacqueline come to Santorini? (The beauty of the island serves as a dramatic contrast to the ugly memories that haunt Jacqueline, and the wealth of the tourists contrasts her destitution, so the author’s choice of the location serves a literary purpose, but I would have liked to know how she got there.) Does Jacqueline face real danger from the Senegalese men and, if so, why? (If this encounter is intended to create suspense, why is it not further developed?) Why was Jacqueline, the daughter of a government minister, spared by the rebels? (The rebel leader’s explanation does not seem realistic.) Why does Jacqueline express such hatred for Bernard? (Disappointment and disdain I can understand, but her beating a rock with a “wild violence” imagining she “swung hard enough to break Bernard’s teeth, to shatter his jaw, to crack his skull, to break his fine nose . . . until he was senseless and bloodied” seems extreme.) Why doesn’t Jacqueline call Helen when she believes Helen’s family would help her. (It might be pride or a reluctance to talk that keeps her from making that phone call to London but some clarification would be helpful.)

I found myself getting frustrated with Jacqueline. She tends to see herself as a victim and never really examines her or her family’s culpability. She lived a life of privilege in Liberia and even worked for the government. Having attended an English boarding school, she had opportunities to see the outside world and yet she accepted the status quo unquestioningly. She acknowledges only that she erred by returning to her home country despite her mother’s pleas to the contrary and by not listening to her lover’s many repeated warnings about what was happening. She describes herself and her family as “willful, arrogant, stupid, blind, proud” but never actually considers their behaviour as directly enabling Taylor’s atrocities. She is harsher with her father, but even then she considers his great mistake was that “’He kept us [in Liberia] too long.’” I hoped Jacqueline would demonstrate more personal growth, but perhaps my expectations were too high.

Occasionally, I felt like my emotions were being manipulated as I read this book. This was especially true when reading the climax. A pregnant sixteen-year-old seemed added for extra horror. The graphic nature of the denouement overshadows the rest of the novel; it is distracting and detracts from the overall quality of the novel. “Shock and awe” is not a literary technique.

Despite its flaws, the book has sufficient qualities to recommend it. The lyrical language, for example, is certainly noteworthy. The novel definitely qualifies as interpretive fiction with its serious themes which do indeed give the reader food for thought. Along with A Marker to Measure Drift, I’d suggest reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (whom Maksik mentions in his Acknowledgements as a “partner in writing what we do not know”) which also examines the role of memory in a civil war, and My Heart is Not My Own by Michael Wuitchik which describes the civil war in Sierra Leone, a conflict in which Charles Taylor was involved.

Review of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

   4 Stars

An old Soviet medical dictionary defines life as “a constellation of vital phenomena – organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.” All of these phenomena are witnessed in this novel’s portrayal of life in war-torn Chechnya between 1994 and 2004.

Eight-year-old Havaa becomes an orphan when her father is “disappeared.” Akhmed, a neighbour, takes her to a nearby city to Sonja, an ethnic Russian physician, and convinces her to shelter the young girl if Akhmed works at the bomb-shattered hospital where Sonja is the only doctor. The novel travels back and forth between the two Chechen wars, and the stories of Sonja and Akhmed and Havaa’s family and neighbours are gradually revealed. The lives of the major characters prove to be interconnected in surprising ways, but in ways that appear credible and not just coincidental.

The lives of all the characters are dominated by loss: Sonja is searching for her sister Natasha; Havaa has lost her entire family, Akhmed is losing a wife to illness; Khassan, a neighbour and friend of Akhmed, has lost a son due to his decision to become an informer; Eldar, Havaa and Akhmed’s village, has lost 42 inhabitants.

Memory is one of the few things within the control of the characters and several of them undertake amazing acts of remembrance: Akhmed paints portraits of the villagers who died or disappeared; Khassan writes a history of Chechnya and records memories of Havaa’s family to help her remember her parents; Havaa has mementos from each of the refugees who sought shelter in her family home; Natasha painted a cityscape that no longer exists because of bombings.

The novel is not an easy read. It describes torture, disappearances, betrayals, human trafficking, infidelity, amputations, and constant fear. Some of the images depicting man’s inhumanity to man are harrowing.

Despite the atrocities depicted, there is nonetheless hope. There are people who have maintained their humanity, and it is their actions that provide hope. Acts of goodness in the past affect the future. For example, Havaa’s father is very kind in his treatment of others, including Akhmed; that kindness can be seen as influencing Akhmed’s protection of Havaa and his compassion for even those who intend him harm. The author’s belief that a more positive future will unfold is indicated by the flashforwards that are included: “In twenty-eight years and seven months . . . the girl would meet the man she was to marry nine years later. At the age of forty-six she would have her one and only child . . . At the age of sixty-eight she would hold her first grandson . . . ” And then there’s a scene in The Landfill, “a place of unimaginable torture and pain,” where a man experiences “an immense, spinning joy.”

Most North Americans probably know little about Chechnya and the Chechen wars; reading this book certainly opens one’s eyes to the violence experienced by those caught in the midst of the conflict. In the novel, an informer’s actions are the result of unimaginable violence directed towards him; one cannot help but wonder whether Chechnya’s violent past might be a motive for the Chechen immigrants who were the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings.

This book, written in beautiful language, touches on the best and worst of humankind. It is definitely worth reading.

Review of "Little Black Lies" by Sharon Bolton

   3.5 Stars

This psychological thriller set in the Falkland Islands is divided into three sections, each with a different narrator.  Catrin Quinn is a marine biologist who is grieving the accidental deaths of her two young sons three years earlier.  Callum Murray, Catrin’s friend, is a former Scottish marine who fought in the Falkland War twelve years earlier; he has chosen to make the islands his home.  Rachel Grimwood was Catrin’s best friend; it is she who left Catrin’s sons in a car which rolled off a cliff.  A young boy goes missing, the third in as many years, and everyone becomes involved in the search which brings together these three inhabitants.

The reader comes to know the three narrators very well.  Each is a damaged soul:  Catrin is filled with rage for her former friend, and she has vowed revenge for Rachel’s role in the death of her family; Callum experiences PTSD flashbacks which leave him with gaps in his memory; and Rachel suffers from guilt and post-partum depression.  Each also has secrets.  As each narrates, he/she arouses the reader’s sympathy. 

The setting of the Falkland Islands is part of the appeal of the novel.  The descriptions of the stark beauty are wonderful.  Rachel, for example, says, “I can see most of the inlet ahead of me and so winding and fractured is the coastline around it that sometimes it is impossible to tell where land ends and sea begins.  There are days when the sea seems to hold still and the land to be in constant, undulating motion.  Not today though.  The clear air is exaggerating the colours below me.  The blue ocean, white beach, green, gray and yellow hillside.  There are stagnant pools too, water that can’t quite find its way back to the ocean, and these glow some of the most remarkable colours that nature can produce.  Emerald greens, deep azure blues, even shades of violet.  On a dull day, my homeland looks barren and desolate, but when the sky is shining, these islands seem to have been spun from rainbows.”  The tourism board of the Falklands should be thanking the author. 

There are a number of plot twists which keep the reader guessing.  The one section I found implausible is the scene at the police station when various people make conflicting statements.  At times this scene reads more like a farcical comedy skit.  The last twist takes place on the final page and is a real stunner.  Surprisingly, it is very plausible.

The frequent references to The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge are very effective, especially in conveying Rachel’s guilt.  Of course, she is not the only one who has a figurative albatross around her neck. 

This is the first Sharon Bolton book I’ve read; it is flawed but not so badly that it will stop me from checking out more of her novels.  It is not a demanding read but offers sufficient suspense and character development to make for an interesting interlude from more serious books.

Shakespeare-Inspired Novels

The arrival of September always has me thinking of teachers returning to their classrooms.  When I was still teaching, I taught Shakespeare in virtually all of my classes, and though I no longer teach, I have found myself reading a number of Shakespeare-inspired novels.  It's amazing how much fiction has been written inspired directly by his life and his works.  I guess the trend was started by Charles and Mary Lamb with their Tales from Shakespeare.

Because so little is known of Shakespeare’s life, there is ample room for speculation.  This has led to a number of “biographical” works.  There’s Robert Nye’s pseudo-biography entitled The Late Mr. Shakespeare in which an actor who performed in the plays tells the life story of the playwright.  Nye also wrote Mrs. Shakespeare:  The Complete Works in which Anne Hathaway writes her memoirs after her husband’s death.  Writers have even imagined additional family members.  The Canadian writer, Richard B. Wright, wrote Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard in which the narrator is Aerlene Ward, Shakespeare’s illegitimate daughter.  Perhaps the most unique biography is also by a Canadian, Leon Rooke; in his Shakespeare’s Dog, it is the Bard’s pet who narrates how Anne and Will met and wed.

Many of the plays, but especially the tragedies, have inspired a modern re-telling or a novel featuring characters from the plays.  Here are ones with which I am familiar.

King Lear:

Fool by Christopher Moore is a spoof of the tragedy, though characters from other plays, like the Witches from Macbeth also make an appearance.

Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres re-imagines King Lear in twentieth-century Iowa.

Hamlet:

Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike tells the story of the queen and king of Denmark before the action of Shakespeare’s play begins.

In Dating Hamlet:  Ophelia’s Story by Lisa Fiedler, Ophelia lives to tell what happened at Elsinore.

Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray is a modern re-telling of the play from Ophelia’s perspective.

In Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein, Ophelia focuses on the love story between her and her prince.

Something Rotten by Alan M. Gratz re-envisions Hamlet as a murder mystery set in Appalachia.

Macbeth:

The Third Witch by Rebecca Reisert is a re-writing of Macbeth from the perspective of one of the three witches, a feisty teenager named Gillyflower.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett is a parody of the play.

Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King presents an account of what the life of Lady Macbeth might have been like.

Lady Macbeth’s Daughter by Lisa M. Klein is the story of Albia, a daughter born to the king and queen but thrown to the wolves for having a deformed leg.

In Lady Macbeth:  On the Couch by Alma H. Bond, Lady Macbeth tells her story of what led her to push her husband to commit regicide.

Othello:

Iago by David Snodin tells the story of the villain after he escapes to Venice after the deaths of Othello and Desdemona.

In I, Iago by Nicole Galland, the villain tells his life story and explains how and why he changed from the honest and loyal friend to the master manipulator found in the play.

Romeo and Juliet:

In Juliet’s Nurse by Lois Leveen, Angelica, Juliet’s nurse, tells her life story, especially her years in the employ of the Cappelletti family until Juliet’s death.

Suzanne Selfors, in Saving Juliet, inserts an angst-ridden seventeen-year-old Manhattan actress into Shakespeare's star-crossed romance.

Romeo’s Ex:  Rosaline’s Story by Lisa Fiedler has Rosaline and Benvolio falling in love after Romeo rejects her in favour of Juliet.

Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub has an unwilling pair, Rosaline and Benvolio, being forced to marry by Prince Escalus as a way to end the Capulet/Montague feud.

The Tempest:           

Prospero’s Daughter by Elizabeth Nunez is a retelling of The Tempest set in Trinidad in the early 1960s during the height of tensions between the native population and British colonists.

Ariel by Grace Tiffany is really a prequel to the play; Ariel gives background as to how the characters in the play get to the point where readers find them in the play.

Twelfth Night:

The Madness of Love by Katherine Davies recasts the play as a romantic comedy of contemporary manners.

Henry IV

Falstaff by Robert Nye has the comic figure dictating his memoirs and reliving the events in Henry IV, Parts I and II.

Sonnets:

Dark Aemilia: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady by Sally O’Reilly is narrated by Shakespeare’s lover and sonnet-inspiring muse.

My favourite retelling of all is Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Willard Armour published in 1957 – a comic rendering of Shakespeare’s plays.