The Long Dry by Cynan Jones

 review by Maryom


 One hot summer morning, Gareth wakes early and goes to check on his ready-to-calf cows - and discovers one has gone missing over night. Feeling restless, she'll have wandered off, as they do, pushing her way through hedges and  fences, probably heading for the nasty boggy bit of the farm, so before she can come to any harm, Gareth goes in search of her.  As the day gets hotter he tramps up hill and down, over fields lying parched after a long drought, and his thoughts turn on the problems of his relationship with his wife, the happier early years of their marriage and his plans for the future.

If you heard a novel described as "the story of a man looking for a cow", you'd probably not be rushing to read it - but give it a chance, think of Gareth as a rural version of Leopold Bloom, pursuing his odyssey not through Dublin's paved streets but alongside the hedges and fences of a Welsh hill farm. As the day progresses, the reader slips into the thoughts of Gareth, his wife Kate, hiding her secrets back in the farmhouse, teenage son Dylan angry "out of habit" and young daughter Emmy who sees fairies and dead people. This is one of the strengths of Jones' writing - that he can bring to life such a diverse range of feelings and emotions; first I felt Gareth's version of how his marriage is sliding on to the rocks - then saw events from Kate's completely opposite standpoint; when two boys are faced with the dreadful task of killing an injured rabbit, I felt not just there, but part of them, willing them on but appalled at the same time; I even felt I understood the bafflement of a cow just delivered of a still-born calf.
This is Cynan Jones' first novel and is set in the landscape that's become familiar to me through his later work - Everything I Found On The Beach and The Dig. There's the same grit and grimness underlying the beauty of the landscape, the same feeling of inevitable anguish. It's not all doom and gloom - there's light relief from the teenage son, with his delight in driving the transit van, and the mass 'attack' of the ducks on the nearby seaside town - but moments of joy seem short-lived and over-shadowed by sorrow to come.

Originally published by Parthian  The Long Dry has now been re-printed by Granta as part of a matching set of all three of Jones' novels.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Granta Books
Genre - Adult literary fiction

Everything I Found On The Beach by Cynan Jones

Life On The Edge
review by Maryom

The lives of three men are drawn together by the 'thing' that one of them finds on the beach.
Three men, each in his own way living on the edges of society, find their paths drawn irresistibly together - Grzegorz is a Polish immigrant, financially tied to, almost owned by, his employer, slaving away for little pay with no chance to improve his lot. When an offer of big money comes his way, he jumps at it.
Hold ekes out a living as a small time fisherman and gamekeeper, close to the Earth, trying to never take more than he needs and treating the fish and animals he kills with respect and near reverence.
The Big Man is a professional criminal, brought up on father's tales of the good old days of 'respectable' crime and wishing he'd lived back then.


On the surface Everything I Found On The Beach is a thriller - a man finds something valuable, obviously illicit, on the beach, tries to cash in on it and outwit the criminal gangs. But it's also a moving, haunting novel about love, loss and guilt, and about exploitation, greed and being trapped between the two. With his deceptively simple writing style, Jones takes the reader into the lives of Hold and Grzegorz - both trying to deal simply and honestly with the world and finding it isn't enough. Both believe that somewhere out-there is a lucky chance waiting for them - and when they think it's arrived are only too happy to snatch at it.
Running through the minds of all the characters in the novel, is a feeling that at some undefined point in the past things were better. I was particularly struck by the contrast between the Poles' fondly remembered life at home as subsistence farmers where nothing goes to waste and the mechanised conveyor-belt production of meat leading to the destruction of perfectly good food, that they discover in Britain. Even Grzegorz, though, is forced to admit that, however idyllic that life seems in comparison to the one he's now trapped in, against the force of worldwide markets, it is doomed.

A disturbing, melancholy book at times but one I'd heartily recommend.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Parthian
Genre - adult, thriller, literary

Ten Pound Pom by Niall Griffiths

Back To Oz
review by Maryom

When he was 9, Niall Griffiths' parents decided to emigrate to Australia with the 10 pound scheme. They stayed for only 3 years, first settling in Brisbane, then relocating to Perth on the opposite coast, travelling across country by car.
30 years later Niall Griffiths decided to recreate this experience. First re-visiting the places his family lived in and around Brisbane, then driving to Perth.
Part autobiography, part travelogue, Ten Pound Pom compares Griffiths' memories of the past with the modern Australia he discovers in the present.
Lots of things have changed but have they improved?


Most of us know Australia solely from TV and films - so is it all Neighbours and Picnic At Hanging Rock? Australia through Niall Griffiths' eyes is certainly not the place I thought it was. Muriel's Wedding with its grubby politics and 'fit in or else' attitude is the closest I've seen on the screen. Instead of a happy-go-lucky surfer culture there are warnings that speed can kill, signs prohibiting smoking, the wearing of flipflops or singlets. Instead of the alien beauty of Walkabout, there's mile upon mile, hundreds of miles, of dull desert road. In between the restrictions and monotony, though, are the memories of the child he was and the things that delighted him- the beach huts on Coochie Mudloe island, a flock of lorikeets perching on his arms and head, sleeping overnight in a hollow tree and just maybe catching sight of a platypus.

Ten Pound Pom is an enjoyable, immensely readable, highly entertaining look at Australia, its people and their lifestyle, whether Griffiths is laughing at them, say the continuing chauvinism of the average Ozzie bloke or raising serious moral issues such as the treatment of the native population.
It's a book that will make you laugh, may make you cry, but I don't think it will encourage you to visit Australia! I wonder what Australians will make of it?

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Parthian
Genre - adult, travel, biography

Buy Ten Pound Pom from Amazon