To Free the Captives - by Tracy K. Smith

To catch a poet dipping their toe in the world of prose is a risky business, the verbosity alone could sink you like a stone . And so I came to the curious memoir of US poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, by way of an introduction to her poetry and what I found was a perfectly blended text - part prose, part poetry - that reveals Smith to be a master of both forms.

Smith maps the landscape of her life and world, which is familiar to readers of her poetry, but in the form of a book, she has the time and space to dive into the stories of the past, into the lives of those who came before her. ‘To Free the Captives’ gives her imagination full reign, the space to follow metaphor wherever it leads, to chase logic and ask questions, free from the strictures of poetic meter. Smith picks at the fabric of her history and pulls the threads gently, coiling the stings in her patient hands, feeling the heft of their weight, remaking their lives in her own words. She tells us, there is a difference between the free and the freed. She considers, ‘The framing of the past serves to shore up and justify existing hierarchies of worth, power, and belonging’. 

And so it is that she wanders through the past, introducing us to her ancestors and kin, searching for who she is. She tells us of a nightmare she once had. Waking, ‘I remain afraid of something elemental as my safety and the sanctity of my family. And that this fear extends from history’. In this way Smith explains that is haunted by the collective memory of her ancestors, her people. ‘We repeat’, she tells us. ‘Our voices, our features, our names’. When meditating, they come to her:

     ‘They rise as if from the ground… They grow tall and draw near… One by one they climb down into             me … reclining there like a low boat before them. They flood in.’

Still, in some ways, this book feels like a poem. There is a wisdom in almost every line, echoes that you at once recognise from your own life but which are uniquely part of an American life experience, and especially an African-American life experience.  Through her use of rich imagery, Smith is able to grapple with such metaphysical concerns that another autobiographer might baulk at. But she leads the reader down a path that is fearless, brutal and blindingly truthful, in her search for who she is, and who we all are. 

Similarly, the antithesis of the book’s title, ‘To Free the Captives’, captures something of the poet’s sensibility, constantly balancing, swaying, to an innate rhythm of ebb and flow, that pulls a poem to its ultimate conclusion. Here Smith considers the present and the past, the free and the freed, love won, love lost, despair and hope, endings and beginnings. 

‘Where is the past?’, she asks us. ‘Behind us or up ahead?  It is here. Beside us and within.’ Lines like this, poetic in their shape and form, cannot help but echo in our imagination, lingering for days, as only lines of verse can do.

And in the end, she makes the plea, as if to ask a question that is answered in the book’s title, ‘Oh, My country!… Is there yet a chance that certain words, uttered in the right ways , will land? And detonate?’ For me, this is the key concept in this book. She writes to explore self identity, yes, but also to remake, renew; to reimagine a new America, where change is possible. But first, the past must be dealt with, realities faced. ‘What would you do if I were to tell you that we are, all of us… the Free and the Freed - equally captive in our collective enterprise?’ 

She gives what she seeks a name, calling it ‘hope’. ‘What will save us?’, she asks and then answers, ‘We will save us. We must.’ Smith use of the inclusive ‘we’ unites America in all its diversity, with an imperative energy that is captured in the breathless repetition of ‘w’s and the certainty of sibilance. And when she says it, we believe her. She is a poet, after all, and she knows which way truth blows. 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

I came to George Saunders’ novel ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ fresh from a few weeks re-reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and while the latter presents death as essentially a lonely, personal experience, Saunders creates an afterlife that is populated with the numberless, riotous dead. Angry, bitter, regretful, people inhabit the Bardo, lingering, for various reasons, in limbo, seemingly with unfinished business tying them to the place.   

His story is concerned generally with the early death of young Willie Lincoln, son of the Civil War President, but it is really the story of Everyman. Like the central character of the medieval play, who is suddenly faced with the character of death calling time on his life, Willie Lincoln too is not ready to leave his life behind. The collection of souls, or beings who the president’s young son meets on the other side, try to convince him that he should move on, but he delays. This is only one part of the problem, the other is how reluctant his father, President Lincoln, is to let him go.

The real genius of this story is how Saunders manages to dazzle us with many truths and realities of life, while presenting the story in a fantastical reality, which is, let’s face it, bizzare and unknowable. Yet, it is because the story is so surreal, that we can focus on the struggles of the characters, as they tell their stories and jostle for position in the cruel life that is the afterlife. In this way, the book reminded me of Samuel Beckett, with a multitude of Didi and Gogos, all waiting for something to happen. And like Beckett, Sauders’s novel feels very like a drama, consisting mostly of conversations, and monologues - it would not be out of place on the stage - although with a cast of thousands - the actors looking like extras straight from the set of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

Towards the end of the book Roger Bevins III says:

‘None of it was real; nothing was real.

Everything was real. Inconceivably real, infinitely dear.’

This line, when all is said and done, is everything you need to know about ‘Lincoln and the Bardo’, and everything we need to know about life, if you think about it - and THAT is the power and magic of this book. It will make you want to hug your kids, hold your partner’s hand, and wake up in the morning and feel like you have a million more mornings to wake up to, and also like this is your very last day. The emotion is startling.

Emily Dickinson wrote feverishly during the American Civil War, especially during 1962-3, and so it is no wonder that her poems deal with death, when the war took so many. The character of Miss Isabelle Perkins, who writes letters to her brother about the dead souls that she sees wandering in the cemetery - ‘angels of various shapes and sizes’ - reminds me of Emily Dickinson. Like the poet, she is immobilised in her bedroom, and watches the world go by from her window. I like to think that Saunders was inspired by the reclusive poet, and endowed her with the ability to see those lingering in the Bardo, ‘comfortable having these Dead for company’. And by the book’s end, we feel the same way too. 

If the zombie apocalypse is your thing, you won’t find it in ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’, but you will find a boy and man by the name of Lincoln, struggling to make sense of death in life, and life after death - just like the rest of us really. 

In a World Full of Toads

Come midnight the new year will begin and so too will a new wall calendar. This year’s choice is themed on Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.  There is something very soothing about following the journey of Mole and Ratty, as they move through the seasons, avoiding adversaries, side-stepping danger, and learning to accept one another’s foibles and differences along the way. 

And of course, there is also the problem of Toad. 

It seems to me that Toad’s narcissistic tendencies are reminiscent of some of today’s world leaders, who also like to have their way in all things.  Imagine a world run by Toad - heaven forbid.  Yet…  

Consider, who can control Toad’s wild outbursts, his recklessness, his thoughtlessness? He steers his motorcar with abandon, caring nothing for innocent pedestrians who might cross his path: the selfishness is the point. I’ve always felt that luck was too much on Toad’s side - his escape from justice dressed as a washer woman fleeing his prison cell always made me worry - has he really learned his lesson? 

It seems fair to assume that he has not, if past is prologue, and we can only imagine that Toad continues to rain down havoc everywhere he goes, leaving his kindhearted friends to pick up the pieces. 

As 2025 rips through the 12 pages of my calendar, I know that I will take some reassurance from the timeless characters in Grahame’s book, celebrating the group of friends who are the real heroes of the story - Ratty, adventurous and resourceful, Mole, prone to hide away until the worst has past, and old Badger, grumpy and complaining. Who will we be in the days ahead?  I suspect something of all three. 

I hope 2025 brings you peace, joy and happiness, and if at times that is impossible, remember - in a world full of Toads, be a Ratty.

The Wind in the Willows Calendar 2025 by Museums and Galleries is illustrated by Chris Dunn and is  available on their website and from all good bookshops.

Time of the Child ~ Niall Williams

Set in the west of Ireland in 1962, Niall Williams’ book Time of the Child welcomes us to the fictional town of Faha, and introduces us to a delightful array of characters that I feel I must be related to in some way or another -  they are so familiar. The novel plays the melody of a world in harmony, but there is a discordant strain that undeniably runs counter to the lyrical melody of the prose. After all, there is a mother somewhere who has abandoned her infant child in the church grounds, and a doctor who is haunted by knowledge of the notorious Magdalene Laundries. There are serious issues happening just off stage and out of sight of the reader, but on these Williams does not overly dwell. It is a text written in a minor key and Time of the Child could easily dip into a dirge at any moment, but Williams masterfully returns to the solfa note that we are promised in the book’s opening bars. The story begins on the first Sunday of Advent and pulsates with the generous spirit of love that permeates many a book set at Christmas time. The kindness and friendship of the people of Faha restores our faith in human nature in the depths of winter as much as Joe in Great Expectations, or Peggotty in David Copperfield.  As with Dickens before him, we believe in the world that Williams creates from the thin air of his imagination owing mostly to the solidity of his characters.  Dr Troy and Ronnie, Ganga and Annie Mooney, Jude and Pat Quinlan - all are people who lived and breathed air, surely?

And that is how he gets you - Niall Williams that is - with his ordinary, everyday characters perfectly matched with his metaphorical prose, twisting meaning and bending his sentences in such a way, that the place we start out at, is not at all the place we end up. The world of the text may at first risk being pigeonholed as bleak and inward-looking, mean and judgemental - this is the Ireland of John B. Keane, Brian Friel, and Edna O’Brien after all - but before you know where you are, a story is told and somewhere betweeen the warp and weft of it, you see that it is you who is mistaken, and that the world of Faha is, in fact, golden. 

Time of the Child is a perfect story for December - an Irish alternative to the Christmas story; a hopeful tale of regret and second chances, of endings and beginnings, of acts of insanity and acts of love. It is like taking a step back in time, but not a brutal one like that which catapults Scrooge to his schooldays, but a gentle stroll to the early 1960s in Ireland.  Nostalgic and humorous, thoughtful and endlessly entertaining, Williams’ book has the feel of an old black and white film, one with Crosby and Hope perhaps, or the one with Jimmy Stewart running down main street laughing like a lunatic. This is a book for any time of the year - but especially in the darkest days of winter. Gift it to yourself - you’ll be the better for it.

The Solace of Reading in a Topsy-Turvy World

This week has been an Alice in Wonderland kind of week. I awoke to find myself down a topsy-turvy rabbit hole that I was not expecting, and I have been reeling ever since. I immediately turned to the ballast of books to steady me as wave upon wave of emotion, grief, and realisation threatened to capsize me. The first book I reached for was a perennial favourite of mine, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, a story that captured my heart as a child. But I tossed it aside as soon as I got to the end of the first page, when young Mary Lennox is described “as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.” It was too much to bear; it reminded me of Timothy Snyder’s wonderful On Tyranny, which I had just re-read last week. I am done with the word “tyranny” for a while.

Deciding that escapism would be my preserver, I turned to some illustrated Christmas children’s books, notably Clarice Bean: Think Like an Elf. The innocence of the young protagonist and her faith in a world that is undoubtedly good, was restorative. The humor and delightful illustrations buoyed me for a while, but then my eyes yearned for rest, and I longed for a soft voice to talk me to sleep. And who better to do that than Meryl Streep, of all people, who performs Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake on audiobook? What a distraction that was. The light and observant prose carried me along, restoring my belief in a world of kindness, honesty, and joy found in physical, simple things.  There is wisdom on almost every page - spoken by characters who care for one another, in a quintessentially optimistic book, although it is set during the pandemic. (It deserves a separate review, which I will get to soon.)

It encouraged me to lift my head above the parapet and peek out into the big, bad world again, so I picked up Anne Applebaum’s latest publication, Autocracy, Inc.  Where the other books transported me away from the world of corruption and politics, this one took a can opener to my brain and filled its tunnels and ridges with a scalding reality: we are tiny cogs in a power play between the great economies and ideologies of the world. You ask yourself - is it better to know all of these things, or just to look away. I decided on the former, but as there is so much to take in from this book, so much to digest, that I felt I would need to read it in instalments, so I put it aside for another day.

Then I stumbled across Maria Popova’s blog, The Marginalian, and a post on E.B. White’s letter to a man who had lost his faith in humanity. Check it out here. Yet again, the wisdom of words spun me 180 degrees, and deposited me in a new place, with a new mindset. It is sometimes easy to forget what the world has been through in the past, to imagine that things are as bad as they can get.  Yet, somehow White’s words were a reminder - there is always hope. Every dark cloud hides the sun, yet the sun remains still - it is only cast over by a temporary air mass, and even in winter it shines. 

Why is it that the words of writers, written down on the page, can bring such solace? Is there magic in the tangible object of a book, the solidness of a font stretched wide across the page, the sound of words spoken in performance, the shape of a letter addressed to a stranger? What is it that makes us reach for words and stories in a time of crisis? Perhaps it is the structure of the thing itself—an author putting word after word, sentence after sentence, page after page into order—that is so appealing, like a scaffolding to cling to. The most popular author read in the trenches of Flanders in WWI was Jane Austen; we owe her resurgence in the 20th century to the men who feared they might die at any minute in a barrage of fire. But why was that? Did they long for the security of Austen’s world or her prose, where, in the hands of Austen’s beautiful sentences, they could feel safe? There is nothing fractious, explosive, or shocking in Austen’s prosaic style, unlike Dickinson or Plath, say.

It is in times of great stress and anxiety that words, books, poems, blogs, letters, novels, and audiobooks can save us. Through escape or by taking us deep inside the thing that we fear most, books are the answer. If I had indeed fallen down the rabbit hole in Wonderland, and I was searching for a sign to help me escape, I would pass by those that said ‘Drink Me’, or ‘Eat Me’, and would choose the one that said ‘Read Me’, for that is surely the way to get through what we need to get through.  Do yourself a favour today: read something.

Lovely One - Ketanji Brown Jackson

On April 7, 2022, the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the 116th justice of the Supreme Court. In doing so, they fulfilled a promise made by President Joe Biden to nominate an African American woman to the position. This autobiography chronicles the life (thus far) of that most junior justice. The title of the book refers to her name, which means "Lovely One" in an African dialect. She recently caught my attention during her questioning of counsel in the Presidential Immunity Case that came before the Supreme Court concerning former President Donald J. Trump. As I listened to the legal back-and-forth, I wondered: Who is this brilliant new justice, who speaks with such clarity and razor-sharp focus?

This book provides a detailed account of exactly that. It tells us all we could ever wish to know about her and her journey to the highest court in the land. The story begins with a bright young girl, showing obvious talent from the start, and parents who had big dreams for their daughter. It is the story of a dark-skinned girl navigating the world of white privilege, a girl who worked incredibly hard—constantly—to be the best person, daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, lawyer, and judge she could possibly be. 

While her success is undeniable, the moments I enjoyed most were those of struggle, when things did not go according to Ketanji’s plan. For example, she returned to work just four months after her first child was born, juggling the demands of being everything to everyone, just as many of us do. In that way, Ketanji seemed quite unlike any judge I had ever imagined; she was more like me than I could have ever anticipated. She struggled with breastfeeding, finding childcare, giving 100% to her job and her daughter, and was haunted by guilt every minute of the day.

She also faced challenges as a parent of a child with autism, as it took years to have her daughter properly diagnosed and placed in a suitable school where she could excel. I learned as much about autism spectrum disorder from this book as I did about the law. Additionally, she encountered legal troubles within her family: her paternal uncle was imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole for selling drugs, due to the Clinton-era Three Strikes and You’re Out rule. In short, life has not always been a bed of roses for Justice Jackson. 

The processes and procedures involved in being shortlisted and ultimately selected as a Supreme Court Justice are fascinating and worth reading about. She details everything from the references she needed to provide to the questions she faced during interviews. It is all here for any young woman considering following in her footsteps! As Vice President Kamala Harris recently said, “I might be the first, but I won’t be the last!” This book serves as a template for all young women, especially women of colour, who dream of donning the SCOTUS black robe. And when they get there, Ketanji Brown Jackson will welcome them with a smile and open arms.

This is an inspiring book, and I recommend it to everyone, especially women and daughters everywhere.

Michelle Burrowes

04 Nov 2024

On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Illustrated by Nora Krug

On this, the weekend before an election that might send the first woman to the Whitehouse, I find myself returning to the wise and warning words of Timothy Snyder in his groundbreaking book,‘On Tyranny’.  Published in back in 2017, when politics in America and across Europe took a distinctly dark turn, Snyder sensed that the time was right for some big picture analysis on the rise of fascism and to explain how and why democracies were lost to totalitarianism in the past. 

Snyder presents the reader with twenty lessons from the 20th century, telling us that ‘History does not repeat, but it does instruct’. He begins with the first lesson: ‘Do Not Obey in Advance’. Anticipatory obedience, Snyder tells us, is when enough people offer their services to the new regime ahead of time, allowing autocracies to move more quickly than otherwise, and teaching them, at the same time, what is  possible. 

The second lesson is ‘Defend Institutions’. Institutions, such as courts, newspapers, laws or labour unions do not protect themselves, so he urges readers to choose an institution that they care about, and take its side. You cannot expect that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against attack, he warns.  ‘The mistake is to assume that the rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions.’ 

The third lesson is ‘Beware the one-party state’. Snyder urges the reader to ‘support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections’. From local to state elections, he tells his readers to ‘vote’ and even consider running for office. He notes that in most situations, when democracy is lost, people do not fully realise that the last time they voted will be the last time that they get to vote. He supports this idea saying, ‘No doubt the Russians who voted in in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been.’

And so the book continues, to present all twenty lessons, all in some way or other feel very prescient and indeed pertinent to today’s politics. He supports his theses with examples from the last century up to the year of publication, looking at examples from WWII, Brexit, American elections, terrorist attacks in Russia and the war in Ukraine, all of which are compelling and to the point.  

In this graphic edition, illustrator Nora Krug uses her collage-style, scrapbook aesthetic to bring an additional layer of meaning to Snyder’s words, using photographs, decoupage and graphic design in a highly inventive, clever way.  When depicting how quickly citizens moved from fighting fascism to embracing it, she created a double headed figure, one head facing north, the other facing south, with the accompanying text partly upside down, forcing the reader, like the fickle figure, to change their point of view. 

The book is full of thought-provoking statements, that can keep you thinking for days.  I urge you to seek out a copy of this text, in a bookshop, online, or in your local library.  You can purchase it here from Snyder’s website. He has recently published a sister book, called ‘On Freedom’ which is available in all good bookshops. Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, here are just a few ideas that struck me as note-worthy, especially considering that the book was originally published in 2017. 

‘We certainly face, as the ancient Greeks, the problem of oligarchy - ever more threatening as globalisation increases differences in wealth…’ p 23.

‘It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges.’  p31.

‘Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional. Then there is no such thing as “just following orders.”’ P 33.

‘Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different… The moment you set an example the spell of the status quo is broken’. P43

‘By 1940 most Europeans had made their peace with … Nazi Germany.  Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan “America First”.’

‘Make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet. Read books’. P51.

‘…Truth dies in four modes. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.’ P57

‘Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference.’ P65

‘If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change’. P76

‘When we take active interest in matters of doubtful relevance at moments that are chosen by tyrants, oligarchs, and spooks, we are participate in the demolition of our own political order.’ P83

‘Make sure you and your family have passports’. P87

‘Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.’ P94

‘And to make history, young Americans will have to know some’. P113

  

 

Just Kids - Patti Smith

Patti Smith’s memoir - the story of her coming of age in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s - is perfectly titled: Just Kids. The plural noun is the tell: this in not just Patti’s story, it is also the story of her artistic soulmate, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Indeed the story begins at the end of their relationship and loops back to the start, with their first encounter in New York City, in 1967. Smith moves chronologically though the years, tracing their steps, all the milestones, as a mother might recount the life of a newborn in a diary - and that is just how this book feels, as if we are living through the detailed account of a mother, who feels she must capture every moment of her darling’s life for posterity.  Indeed, Smith reveals close to the end of the book, that Robert asked her to write their story - his and hers - because no one but Patti can tell it.  

As such, this book is a love song to Robert, by the woman who adored him, who always championed his art, who protected him and cared for him, when no one else did. She saw in Robert a real artist, as much as she knew that she was an artist. And the style of the book reflects this adoration. It is written with the intensity of the young - those late night conversations, too earnest to be pretentious, but pretentious all the same. And even though Smith is no longer that teenager, the book’s prose reflects the language of teenagers- sweeping, hyperbolic, dramatic, epic.  Everything is momentous, worthy of note, unique and profound - which, on reflection, it probably was at the time when they lived it. This was THE most interesting aspect of the book for me - how Smith, the narrator in 2010, remained true to her young self in 1967.  The youthful prose style and tone was entirely captivating. 

When Mapplethorpe rips the sheets from their bed, dyes them purple and hangs them on the wall, to signify repentance and penance, it is easy to roll one’s eyes and smirk.  But Mattlethorpe was dealing with deeply felt shame and guilt about his religious upbringing as a Catholic, and his homosexuality. In short, he was going through some things, and Just Kids deals with this head on.  Smith’s honesty is unflinching, brutal and simultaneously heartbreaking. 

She gives something of herself to the reader on every page, relentlessly ploughing up her past to present us with moments that shock and compels the reader. One such moment was when she gave birth to her first child, while still a teenager, knowing that she would give the baby up for adoption. She describes being admonished by the midwives, who left her without proper care, as a punishment for her becoming pregnant out of wedlock. This story is told in the same matter of fact, plain speaking way as the rest of the book, but it is especially moving because the unkindness of these women was acceptable at the time, and Smith herself seemed to let it wash over her.  

Indeed, the world that she lived in could be unspeakably cruel. She finds herself alone, with nowhere to stay in New York City, yet somehow she survived. Running parallel to the cruelty, the books describes the numerous acts of kindness that helped Smith to survive in the city the never sleeps.  She met countless people who gave her a helping hand, the first of those being Robert Mapplethorpe.  

Perhaps this book is a thank you to him, for sharing what little food he had with her when first they met back in 1967.  Just Kids is a testament to two incredible, interesting people; artists, lovers, friends, who were there for one another through the high and lows of life in New York, at an incredibly exciting time for music and art. I read the illustrated version of the book, which I highly recommend, as it is full of Robert’s photographs, Patti’s drawings and personal momentoes.  However, Smith’s Didionesque prose more than suffices in that regard.

If you are music fan, or if love to read about New York in the ‘70s, if you like Joan Didion, or are just a Patti Smith fan, this book should not be missed.  

Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent

If ever there was a book that wanted to be a cartwheel, this is that book. One minute the reader is firmly planted on the ground, aware of their surroundings, the next, the world has flipped over and you are reaching for the sky, trying to make sense of who the protagonist is and whether we like her or not.  In Strange Sally Diamond, Liz Nugent likes to strange-ify the world of the text, to make the strangeness of the title, not only refer to Sally herself, but also to the plot line. We are never really sure what will happen next and where the story is going, which is a delightful thing in a thriller.

From the very first sentence, this book will grip you. The character of Sally, who is one of the book’s narrators, is one of a kind. We are never quite sure what she will do next. Her inability to know when she has crossed the line of acceptable human behaviour engages and unnerves us. Just when we feel that she has acclimatised to the rhythms of everyday life, she hits out against the world, and it is only as the story unfolds that we learn why. 

I will not spoil the surprise of the novel here, never fear, but I will say that there are times in the book when we enter into the minds of unlikeable characters. It is uncomfortable and disorientating for the reader, which mirrors how Sally feels most of the time. This is the real brilliance of the text: Nugent forces the reader to feel like Sally, to cartwheel through the pages, never quiet sure when the horizon will flip once again and we will be left standing on our hands, trying to make sense of an upside down reality.

Set in a small town in Ireland, the book introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that reflects modern Ireland.  Yet there is something dark and corrupt lying just below the surface, with broken family relationships, untold secrets and  troubling memories bubbling up from childhood. As such, this book is rooted firmly in the Irish literary tradition, not a million miles away from the writings of Brian Moore or Edna O’Brien, heartbreakingly familiar to anyone who lived through the 1980s and ‘90s in Ireland.  We just know that the truth will rise to the surface, clawing its way into the light, like Yeats’s  slouching beast, its time come round at last. 

The senes in Ireland are paralleled with similar scenes in New Zealand, but where vast, open landscape conceals secrets of its own, mysteries that lie close to the surface, if anyone should care to seek them out. 

Strange Sally Diamond is as much a story about the workings of the human psyche as it is the goings on in a country village. And as such, this book tries to explore that things that make one person need to dominate another. What makes one human being feel the need to take full possession of another human being, so that one becomes the toy, a plaything for the other? And what is it in the human character that refuses such a yoke? These are the larger themes at work in Liz Nugent’s powerful, unforgettable book.

  Expect a quick ride through Sally’s strange world, I finished it in two sittings. But when you turn the final page, and land at last on your own two feet, do not be surprised if  you find, in the end, that the world never feels quite the same again. 

Michelle Burrowes

The Lincoln Highway ~ Amor Towles

 

Every book takes us on a journey, whether figurative or literal. You might suspect that Amor Towles’s Lincoln Highway merely falls into the latter category only, but you’d be wrong. In most texts, the most important road trip or journey that the central character takes in an internal, psychological one, no vehicles required, and this book is surprisingly such a one.

The journeying that preoccupies Towles in this book is not only inward moving, but it also extends outward, exploring great literary works, referring to Shakespeare’s Othello and Hamlet, and Homer’s The Odyssey. There are also many allusions to other texts, that add additional resonances in the plot line of  Lincoln Highway. Consider how each journey of the central male narrators in the book mirrors the journeys of  the heroes of The Aeneid, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, and Hamlet, but I will leave you to figure out who is who.

Towels’s preoccupation with books and stories continues in how, during the course of the book, various characters ponder the art of storytelling itself, like when one describes the arc of a story as a diamond, with the story’s beginning and ending tapering away, and the climax of the drama spreading to the widest point. Towles even holds a mirror up to the audience, when he presents us with an image of an old man, sitting alone in his bedroom, who has the worst addiction of all, to reading! He could be a future you or me, or the author himself!

There is even one character, young Billy, who carries a beloved book with him wherever he goes, as if his life depended on it. He keeps a journal and decides that the best place to begin a story is in the middle of the action, in medias res. This meta, self-reflective element of the novel is delightful, and serves as an homage to classic books and to book-lovers like us.

While Towles describes the book’s structure as a diamond, it seems to me that the intersection of the five main narrators creates something of a five-pointed diamond or star, which turns as the narrative moves forward, each point linked to the previous narrative and the one following, reflecting light on the story as a whole. 

One character, Emmet, ponders a theory that every character has a positive personality trait that, in them, is so exaggerated that it becomes a flaw. We recognise that it is so with the characters that Towles has gathered in the world of this novel. But not only that, it seems that each character has flaws that connects with others in the group, creating a suite of doppelgängers. 

We are told that Sarah’s flaw is that she is too kind, and that Sally’s is that she is too generous. Billy’s flaw is that he remembers to much, while Duchess forgets nothing. Emmet’s flaw is that he is a realist, a pessimist. He always expects the worst and this leads him to insist on always doing the ‘right’ thing. Contrastingly Wooly’s flaw is that he is a dreamer, an optimist: he always expects the best in others, but other people inevitably let him down.  In this wonderful way, Towles has created a kaleidoscope of characters whose journey in the novel refracts and reflects one another’s, making this an unforgettable novel that delights the careful reader,  and will make you want to read and re-read it again and again. 

This is a book about a journey, but not the one you are expecting. The twists and turns on the Lincoln Highway will send you off in the wrong direction again and again, as you try to predict where the story is will end up. You’ll skirt roundabouts and pot-holes, back roads and dead ends before you reach your destination. I only wish I could take that journey with you again for the first time. But for now, roll down the window, and treat yourself to a road trip on the Lincoln Highway. Enjoy the ride. 

By Michelle Burrowes

The Nurse's Pronouncing Dictionary - by Honnor Morten

Measuring a mere 11.5cm by 9cm, this little book was meant to be small enough to keep in your pocket, discreetly tucked away for whenever you might need it. Published in 1915, when the battles of World War One had begun to rage, I cannot help but imagine that this book found its way into the hands and pocket of a woman who nursed soldiers, or tended to victims of the fighting in one or other theatre of war or on the home front. Wrapped in a red hardback covering, with a prominent black cross on the cover, there is a toughness to this book, which seems fitting.  This book means business. It had a job to do and a part to play in the story of nurses at war time, women who needed the words to help them do a job that was key to the war effort. From A is for ‘Abasia - Difficulty to walking due to incoordination,’ to Z is for ‘Zymotic - a term which includes all epidemic, endemic and contagious diseases arising from germs’, and everything in between, this book must surely have been indispensable at critical moments in the career of a nursing practitioner. 

Interestingly, the book naturally opened on the letter B, a page that defines ‘Bone-setting’, ‘Borax’ and ‘Bovril’, amongst other things. One can only imagine why this is, we will never know.  Nor will we know who used this book and how, when, where and why it was pulled from a pocket, to aid its owner.  What I do know, is that it found its way to the bottom of a box of books, in an auction in Dublin, from where I pulled it out into the light, some 109 years after it was published. It was one of a collection of books, some religious in nature and others with a definite Irish interest, all dating from between 1913 and 1923, some with inscriptions belonging to the same woman.  Yet, inside the tiny book there is also a similar-sized page, perhaps a bookmark or sorts, with an image of Christ on one side, his heart exposed, and surrounded by thorns, and on the other, a certificate of Membership, approved by the Archbishop of New York, dated until 1 March 1923, specifically naming Saint Joesph’s Union, 381 Lafayette Street, New York, and the reverend Mallick J. Fitzpatrick, pastor.

This fact transports the book to New York City, in the post war years, and I wonder, yet again, how the good people of St Joseph’s Union might have required a nurse, along with her dictionary, to come to their aid. Of course, with the help of Google, it was no time before I discovered that that address was the Mission of the Immaculate Convent, an ‘elegant four-story residence with a high stoop’, once owned by by Alexander H.. Stephens, an esteemed surgeon, a Paris Millinery, a Dr Stuart, who used the building to provide ‘Electric Magnetic treatment.’  But from 1888 until 1965, the building became a Mission of the Immaculate Virgin - originally home for destitute and homeless children (boys), run by the Sisters of St. Francis, although the premises was left unused for many years when another home was opened on Staten Island, the convent located at 381 Lafayette St remained.  I have to thank historian Tom Miller who posted all these fascinating details on his blog: Daytonian in Manhattan, ‘The Mission of the Immaculate Virgin Convent - No 381 Lafayette St.,  July 20, 2016. It is certainly worth a look.

These details are all in keeping with the lady whose collection of books ended up in an auction housein Dublin recently.  Among them were prayer books and souvenirs from Rome, that suggested to me that the owner had been in the religious orders and was perhaps an English teacher. Perhaps she or her belongings found her way back to Ireland, perhaps to a niece or godson, who held on to them for a generation, and on their passing, there was no one to remember the Irish girl who went to New York over a century ago to minister to the poor, destitute boys of the city, and who kept the pocket guide to medical pronunciation in her possession for all those years, perhaps the only momento of her time there to survive. A lot of perhaps I know, but I wonder where the book has been for the last 50 years at least, and in whose care.  I'd like to think that it was of good use to someone. 

But the owner herself remains nameless, and I quite like it that way, because she can be anyone, any girl, any nurse with a tool of learning in her pocket, to take her around the world, a ticket to gain entrance her places that perhaps she might never have seen.  All in all, this is a powerful little book, because of its definitions and diagrams, of course, but also because of the book itself, as an historical artefact and the stories it tells. Stories of the type of people, women mostly, who used this book to help others and themselves in the early 20th century, when all women did not yet have the right to vote, or equal opportunity to achieve in science and learning.  In a way, this little red book was for some women, a passport into the future, giving them access to the language and learning that could change their lives: a taste of the type of world we enjoy today, making this tiny red book a mighty book indeed. 

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Red Herrings and White Elephants ~by Albert Jack with Illustrations by Ama Page

  This little book has been sitting on my shelf for the last twenty years and I still have not grown tired of its many fascinating and colourful explanations on the origins of words, and idioms in the English language. In my pre-smartphone, pre-instagram world, this chunky hardback was my go-to while sitting in a dentist’s waiting room or between baby feeds. It never failed to amaze me and would send me running off to share what delicious titbit of etymology I had found.  It today’s Instagram world I would no doubt like and share these little historical gems, to amaze and beguile my children, now grown with smartphones of their own.  Here is just one little example from the book:

    ‘A Deadline… originally was a white line painted at a … prisoner of war camp during the American Civil War… any prisoner crossing white line was shot dead… Since then the phrase was applied to newspaper writers… If they missed the deadline of their story it was considered dead as it would be out of date by the following day’s print run.’ (Apologies for the crude eclipses.). See?  Don’t you want to immediately share that history with the person next to you?  I just did - and he said, ‘Every day is a school day!’  He is not wrong.  You may be lucky enough to have this precious book in your collection already, or you may still be able to get it online somewhere.  It is a great conversation starter, if you want to like and share old school - or, like me, you are partial to a bit of both.   So, if you have ever wondered where the phrases, ‘Raining Cats and Dogs’, or ‘Codswallop’ come from - pick up a copy of this delightful book when you can. 

A Snow Garden - Rachel Joyce

There is something about Christmas that makes me reach for short stories, why is that? And if there is a promise of magic, all the better. This year one collection that I loved was ‘A Snow Garden’ by Rachel Joyce. She presents us with seven scenarios, with people whose lives are imploding. The characters are struggling, yet there is always hope that everything will work out fine.  As with her previous books that I have reviewed, the characters in these short stories are very normal - quietly so, and that is just what makes them so special. She gives us mothers and fathers trying to hold it together just long enough to give their children a ‘normal’ Christmas when things are anything but. No one is fooled though. The pain that these characters are living with is blinding, like a shiny object, stuffed in a box that no one ever sees, but once it is taken out into the sunlight, it dazzles. Between the pages of this book we meet a whole array of characters, battling to survive the season of peace and joy: Binny, the mother coming to terms with an infidelity; Alan and Alice, married for decades, warring it out as the try to assemble a racing bike for their son on Christmas Eve; an unexpected birth at the airport; a single dad who promises his sons snow for Christmas; a pop star’s homing-coming; a father and son dealing with regrets. And then a beautiful moment from world of Harold and Maureen Fry, that almost broke me. These are the cast of characters who people this heartwarming, gem of a book.

We are told in the introduction to the book, that they have one thing in common - they were all cast-off and rejects from other novels and radio plays that the author, for one reason or another, cut from her published works.  In a way, this book is a second chance for these characters - their opportunity to prove to the world that their stories were worth reading.  We delight to see these broken, forgotten creations finally get their moment in the sun. This fact alone, fills the reader full of hope.  

And then, to add a double layer of spine-tingling pathos, Joyce gathers bundles of joy within each story, and wraps them up for us like a gift.  Tiny, impossible, yet possible plot lines, connections and insights, fill us with delight in what can only be described as a hefty, seasonal helping of Christmas spirit. Yet there is a bittersweet aftertaste with every mouthful - this is real life after all!

You will recognise yourself in these stories, the people from your past, and those who surround you everyday. People who make bad decisions, silly mistakes and show poor judgement on every page - but that is the thing that makes them human, endearing, and unforgettable. It is the juxtaposition of the normal, with the magical that makes this book so special. It is a perfect Christmas collection of short stories and will be one I return to again and again, not just at Christmas, but whenever I need to be reminded that we are all in this together, and that stories are waiting around every corner.  And, dare I say, magic too.

 

Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell

Jewell presents us with the normality of living juxtaposed with the terror of a missing child. How can one go on to live a normal life when there is nothing left that is normal?  When fifteen year old Ellie goes missing, it takes its toll on her mother Laurel and father Paul’s relationship. For sister Hannah and brother Jake, life as they have known it has been irreparably changed forever. There is much that we recognise about family life, suburban living, the usual neurotic obsessions that can drive a family apart.  

It takes Laurel some time to learn to love her daughter Hannah, who she wished had died instead of Ellie. Hannah seems to know this and the loss of her sister is doubly hard, highlighting how imperfect she was, as well as little she was loved by her mother. 

Her son Jake finds a surrogate family with his new girlfriend with whom they are planning on having a family of their own. Each tries to find a way to cope. Like his son, Paul has met a new partner, complete with step children. He has stepped not a new life. Everyone seems to have moved on, except for Laurel. But that was before she met a man. 

Floyd Dunn, is the person who has the key to unlocking the prison that Laurel has made for herself: a prison of grief and pain. The reader is brought along with our protagonist as we move from doubt, to acceptance, as we want only good things for this woman who has suffered so much. And then, we discover, that Floyd’s life is just as complicated as her own and it emerges that Paul has the key to a lot more than the present. 

Like Laurel, we are sceptical of everyone. We are concerned for her at every step. We follow her as she plunges into a relationship with someone who may or not be the very man who has all the answers - the answers that will tear them apart.

For much of the book - the scenes written in the present - Jewell uses the present tense to create an immediacy that is gripping. It demands our attention and the pace of this book is part of its charm - you will complete it in a couple of sittings. It leaves the reader in a whirl, swept along by the short chapters, just as Laurel is swept along in the romance that will upend her life forever.  

Jewell also uses the past tense, when the narrator switches to Noelle, who narrates her story in the first person. This too is impactful - her speech patterns and quirky phrasing are so idiosyncratic, that she is chillingly believable as the psychopath that she is.  While the male characters play their part, it is the depiction of the the women in the story; Ellie, Laurel and Noelle, who hold the reader in their grip and never let us go until the final page. In fact, the ‘She’ of the title could refer to any if not all of the female protagonists who all disappear in their way during the course of the book.

Our desire to know the full story is what makes this book such a page-turner. We wonder if we ever find out what happened to Ellie, the girl who we care so deeply about from the very first page. The lost girl demands our attention and we long, we long, we long for her story to end well.

In ‘Then She Was Gone’, Jewell has written a book that discusses how life can go on, despite the unbearable happening. How can you continue to live your life knowing that your beautiful, ‘golden’ daughter has simply disappeared into thin air. Jewell considers this and ultimately comes to the conclusion that there is always space for love; for Laurel’s husband Paul, and his new wife, for her son and his partner, for her daughter and the mystery man in her life, and even, surprisingly so, for Laurel.  Amid all the hatred, the darkness, and the rage, there is love - love for Laurel’s missing daughter, for her other children, for her lover, but more than anything, love for herself. 

Wrong Place Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister

If you haven’t yet read Gillian McAllister’s book ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’, then perhaps this is the wrong time for you to read this post. Finish the book and come back later. 

The premise of this novel is quite intriguing - it toys with time travel and asks, what event, in a chain of events, would you change to prevent someone you love from committing a murder.  It’s a worthy question and one that engages the reader from the start. It is a moral question too for even the smallest alteration could have major implications. But who wouldn’t go back in time, if only to eliminate regret?

Surely then it would be possible to chase perfection, to ensure that we become the best person, the best parent, and in this case, the best mother. McAllister presents us with a busy, working mum, and the three men in her life: her father, son and husband. On one level she is an everywoman, carrying those small guilts that we all recognise when we juggle career, family and relationships.

Ask yourself, if you could go back in time, what would you do differently?  Second time around, would you try to make it to your son’s 16th birthday?  Would you be there when your father died?  Would you notice if your husband had secrets? Yes, yes you would. These are all the glorious second chances that our protagonist Jen embraces during the course of this tightly plotted novel.  

Of course, McAllister masterfully manoeuvres the plot timeline, but it is the powerful emotional weight of the text that makes this book a winner for me.  There is one powerful scene in particular that I will never forget, when Jen spends an afternoon with her father, knowing that his life is about to end. In a book that is propelled backwards at breakneck speed, there is little time to pause, but in this scene, time stands still.  “They are standing in his dining room, In between his living room and kitchen.  The light outside is beautiful, illuminating a shaft of dust in front of his patio doors.’  McAllister minutely describes her father’s house - the furniture, the dark wood, the kettle bubbling on the stove.  She puts us right in the kitchen with her father and asks us, would you save him if you could?  Of course we would.  Isn’t it the ultimate wish - to have one more day with our departed loved ones? And this isn’t the only question that we are presented with.  The whole novel pulsates with huge questions and observations about familial relationships, such as when Jen’s father tells her, ‘You never want your child to feel like they were a burden.’ 

Light is also used to focus our attention in the pivotal scene with Todd and Jen at the cafe on his birthday, ‘The overhead lights, on some sort of sensor, begin to go off, leaving their bench spot lit in the middle, alone, like they’re in a play.’  This is where Todd tells his mother that he doesn’t blame her for being a busy mum.  This moment in key in the plot and in their relationship. He simply says, ‘You’re human … I wouldn’t have you any other way mother’, and with that the readers share a collective sigh.  It is alright. We are alright.  It is OK to shed the guilt.  It is a momentous moment, one which propels the plot forward and engages the reader, offering us forgiveness for imagined failings. In this book, McAllister fulfils our collective desire which makes this book, much more than a murder mystery

Unlike Kate Atkinson’s foray into time travel with her wonderful novel, Life After Life, McAllister doesn’t turn back time to change monumental moments in history, she journeys to right the wrongs in her family’s relationships, to heal any pain that she may have caused others, but more than anything, to heal the pain, doubts, and guilt within herself, and in turn within the reader.

There is never a wrong time to read a good book, and in Wrong Place Wrong Time McAllister travels back in time to remind us all that how we use our time right now is all that matters.

Normal Rules Don’t Apply - Kate Atkinson

 

Let me begin with a confession - I am a huge Atkinson fan and so am totally biased. Still - I think you will adore this book, like I do.

Kate Atkinson’s latest book is a collection of short stories entitled ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’, more riddle than narrative - a clue lies in the title. Atkinson gifts us with a book that we can choose to read as a disparate collection of stories, or not. I have chosen the latter, knowing as I do how Atkinson likes to surprise and delight her readers. In her novel, Life After Life, she took us on a merry dance, breaking the norms of narrative writing until the story was perfected. She continues in a similar vein here, but takes the experiment to the next level.  

The twelve stories in the collection are linked in numerous ways; firstly through setting.  The book begins and ends on Grassholm Farm, close to the Green Dragon pub, which in turn is connected to the fictional Green Acres television serial. What a lovely touch to create a collection of characters whose one point of connection is the local pub! On a symbolic level, Green Acres represents a fictional reality, in contrast to the many alternative realities that are presented in this text - after all, one fake reality is just as valid as the next!

Another connection is the way Atkinson plays with the rules of storytelling, creating a reality where unexpected things happen. For example, one main character dies close to the start of the story, but that doesn’t stop her first person narration! Another character is a talking horse. (He is so compelling that Atkinson uses him in two different stories) as well as a talking dog!  Another story involves a character from the fairytale that someone is reading popping into the world of the story and ringing the doorbell.

It seems that in the world of this book, anything is possible. The rules of narrative do not apply, or at least Atkinson is bending them as far as possible and is testing us as readers.  How far can she try our incredulity?  A woman giving birth to kittens?  Why not! She has done it before, in her excellent book. “Not the End of the World’, and she makes passing reference to the same idea here too. This time she presents us with an Immaculate Conception, which is brought about after an intense school inspection.  Did I mention that this book will have you laughing out loud?  It may be dark, and it may poke fun at humanity, but it is very droll, in a very Kate Atkinsonian sort of way. 

The titles of the twelve stories are also connected: a title in one story is a catchphrase in another, ‘What if!’And characters too have a habit of wandering into different stories - Franklyn, Mable and Father Matthew turn up repeatedly. A similar repeated motif is the reference to the scent of violets, which peppers the entire text, and even becomes the name of a character if you take the trouble to notice. And of course there are the repeated references to that unique sound “Ting’ that means so much in the book - be it a church bell, a text alert or doorbell.  Like the quiet ping of a light switch going on.  

In almost every story there is a loyal dog, remaining steadfast by its owner’s side.  From Meg, the old man’s dog in the first story, to Kerry, named for Mr Kingshott’s  mistress, Holdfast and Nosewise, Aoife’s royal hounds, along with countless other dog foxes and witches’ cats, this is a book filled with four-legged companions.  Perhaps Atkinson is saying that in another reality this book is actually THEIR story, and we humans are merely sidekicks. I would not be surprised!

Atkinson accounts for all of this craziness in ‘Gene-sis’, where she introduces Kitty, an office worker, ‘With a secret librarian soul’, who works in advertising. It is she who is charge of the world, she who flicks the switch each time things get out of hand, to reboot the universe so to speak.So all our recent bad weather, the forest fires, the mud slides, the disappearing species - all Kitty’s fault. It is trickier than you might think, but there is something comforting in the idea that Kitty is doing her best to get it right. There is always a next time after all!

For those who take the time to look, there is much to observe in Kate Atkinson’s latest book. She has cleverly laid out riddles and connections for us to discover, but even without them, this is a book to enjoy. I am sure this will be a book to return to again and again to seek new motifs which may have alluded me this time round - I am certain there must be many.  ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ apparently.  You have been justly warned. This is a book for fans and for those who have not yet fallen under Atkinson's spell, and that includes you too! 

If I Tell ~ Gill Perdue

I finished this gripping thriller in two sittings, the first was on an overnight stint in an overcrowded A&E room. So often with this book, fact and fiction merged for me, beginning when two policemen arrived at the hospital with a man in handcuffs, seeking medical assistance.  For those of you who don't know, this is not unlike the scenario at the start of Perdue's first novel in the Shaw and Darmody series, 'If I Tell'. The second and final sitting was late last night and I awoke this morning wondering how the main characters, Laura, Jenny and Niamh were doing - a telltale sign that a book has gotten under my skin, and this one certainly did. 

However, the most striking thing for me about this book was how acquainted I am with where the book is set. The story takes place in Dublin, yes, but it is based close to where I live and work, so at times it felt as if the text was not a piece of imaginary work but an article from a local newspaper. I think, if anything, this amplified the plot's chilling effect on me as a reader. Knowing so well the streets where some of the darkest events happen in the book, I found myself texting my teenage daughter to cut her evening walk short and keep to the main roads.

But that is probably the same for so many people who have read this novel, and that is the point: location doesn’t actually matter - violence against women and children can happen anywhere, anytime.  There's a normalcy to it that this book rails against at its very core. Enough is enough, Perdue shouts to the sky, the reader, the world.  Like one protagonist says to the other: 'We both have to tell our stories - so that it stops happening'. 

This in a vital way, is what Perdue is doing by writing this book - it is the titular concern after all - 'If I Tell Worse Will Happen'.  I wasn't expecting how outspoken and defiant Laura would be as she reflects on the injustice shown to all those who are subject to unspeakable violence. Yet in her book, Perdue is braver than most because she writes the unspeakable, and her gaze is steadfast and fixed. She insists that we do not look away. She cleverly takes us through the ordeal that her characters face because she has woven a story around them that is genuine, compelling, and that we can relate to, with characters that are warm, familiar, and that we are totally invested in.  So when they finally open-up and tell their stories, we feel compelled to listen, regardless of how unsettling and disturbing those words are to hear. With passionate words reminiscent of Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Perdue decries the injustice of the justice system, and demands change. 

Bronte gave us one defiant voice in her book where Perdue gives us three: Laura, Niamh and Jenny.  A triptych of female narrators, all speaking in the first-person present-tense, creates three-fold tension and a powerful sense of immediacy. The technique allows us to get inside the heads of three very important female characters, and while there are male characters in the text, we only view them at a distance. I think the impact of this on the reader is that we gain a very strong understanding of the female experience in the world of the novel, which reflects the book's theme and is crucial to its success. That being said, there are lots of interesting male characters here too and each of the women have positive experiences with men.  Niamh's father is very kind and accepting of her.  Laura's husband is forever patient and understanding, and Jenny's father, and boyfriend Luke, are both very tender and sensitive to her needs. Perhaps this is something that Persue will devlop in her second novel in the Shaw and Darmody series, called 'When They See Me', which is out now.

'If I Tell' is great company if you are ever stuck in A&E, or anywhere indeed, and need a gripping read to whisk you away to another reality, even if and especially perhaps, it happens to be set on your doorstep!  It may be all the more thrilling for that.

Michelle Burrowes