Julia by Sandra Newman

 "London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive."

To be honest, when I first heard about 'Julia' I wondered if we really needed a re-telling of "!984" -  it's a dystopian classic after all - but I was intrigued enough to read it, and I'm glad I did.The story is told this time from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover Julia, and their relationship given a new twist. 

While outwardly following the rules laid down by Big Brother and the Party, following the dull, regimented life expected of lower Party members, Julia has found ways to sidestep the regulations and live a slightly fuller life - or so she thinks. Big Brother has eyes everywhere, Julia's activities have been noted, and she finds herself drawn into a plot against Smith. 

Newman has managed to catch Orwell's writing style, cleverly twining a new story around the original, and incorporating much of his dialogue. If anything the dreariness of existence under Big Brother's regime seems more overwhelming - perhaps because Julia desires more from life than Winston does. Unqualified support of the Party is necessary, sex and marriage are frowned on, and entertainment consists mainly of meetings given over to Party propaganda and the occasional game of table tennis. Being selected as part of a conspiracy plays into Julia's craving for excitement, but she isn't as essential as she feels; in fact she's merely being manipulated along with everyone else.

To say I 'enjoyed' this is maybe not the accurate word - hard hitting and brutal, it's a story about living without hope and with no real prospect of any in the future - but it's a powerful read. A word of warning - there are disturbing torture scenes, and explicit sex scenes.

Out of curiosity, I decided to reread "1984" immediately afterward, and actually found "Julia" the better of the two. Maybe it speaks more directly to me as a woman, but it benefits, I feel, from losing the long chapters of Goldstein's subversive text and the torture scenes which go on for far too long. In Julia they're short and sharp, but lose none of their terror. 

Also, when your lover has betrayed you rather than face a couple of rats, what do you do? Julia's way is gruesome, if not sickening, but definitely effective. Proving once again that the female of her species is more deadly than the male

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

translated by Megan McDowell

As a child from a poor background and with serious health issues, Juan is 'adopted' by the wealthy Bradford family, ostensibly to give him the care he needs but actually to exploit him and his 'magical' abilities - for behind the facade of respectability and money the Bradford family are members of a strange cult, known as The Order, participating in demonic, horrific rituals, and Juan is a natural medium, able to make contact with the Darkness they worship. 

As he grows up, he falls in love and marries into the family, but when his son, Gaspar, is born, Juan is determined that The Order will not manipulate another generation, and he begins to lay plans to ensure Gaspar's safety.

This disturbing book is hard to quantify - part horror, part political tale with parallels to Argentina's military regime, part a story of love between father and son, and the lengths one will go to to save the other. Overall though I'd say it's an examination of the corruption that too much power and wealth can bring. 

It's told in sections, moving backwards and forwards in time, and the Bradford/Reyes family emerge as an untouchable clique, acting beyond moral or legal restraints, with a total disregard for anyone outside the family; imprisoning, torturing, and executing them with impunity.  There are definitely echoes of Argentina's troubled past here. 

Be warned - it's not a book for the squeamish. The rituals are bizarre and grotesque, full of blood-letting and mutilation.  At the time of reading, I found them so disturbing that I wondered whether or not to continue, but I'm glad I did, as the story is about more than the horrors people can inflict on each other. In retrospect, I'd go so far as to say it's life-affirming; that such cruelty is now in the past, and won't be allowed to infect the future.

Night Waking by Sarah Moss

This book has been sitting for far too long (years!!) on my TBR pile. One of so many that I've acquired (I think I won it in a competition) and never read. In this case, I think what slightly (and rather oddly) put me off was that everyone I knew said how good it was, and I didn't want to be let down, and them to be proved wrong.

Well, I didn't have worried. It is brilliant!

  Anna and her husband, both academics,  are spending summer on a remote Hebridean island belonging to her husband's family. Other than their family, and some visitors who arrive later, the place is deserted, and the idea is that the isolation will be good for them, allow them to get on with research and book-writing but while Giles disappears much of the day observing puffins, Anna has to juggle the demands of childcare - a toddler who still doesn't sleep through the night, and a seven year old pre-occupied with worries about global warming or natural and man-made disasters - with her writing about the perceptions of childhood, and how to best bring up children in the eighteenth century.

The novel starts as a sharply observed portrayal of a sleep-deprived mother in fear of losing her academic self under the weight of motherhood. In Anna's first person narrative, Moss carefully treads the tightrope between love and despair, dark humour and hysterical tears; the struggle to get through each day, longing for peace and quiet to pursue her own interests, alternating with exhaustion when the children eventually sleep.

And then, when the bones of a child are found buried in the garden, there's a mystery added, and research into Giles' family history helps Anna find a way out of her situation. Plus the visitors to the holiday cottage on the island give Anna a change to see motherhood from the outsiders point of view, and perhaps gain some perspective on her own life.

It's so, so good; a book which kept me enthralled, though maybe it's best not read while you've got sleepless children of your own.

 

Picks 2019

My reading/reviewing took a knock last year, and I haven't read anything like the number of books I usually would. As a result, I haven't gone for a full Top Ten of the year (also, you might note, I'm late posting this). Anyway, here we are, with some of my favourite books of 2019





Stillicide by Cynan Jones. Breath-catching, heart-wrenching, stunning - a series of self-contained but linked short stories set in a bleak, not-too distant, future where providing water to big cities requires military precision and armed guards. Although it's a long step from Jones' previous works set in rural Wales, there's the same precision and attention to detail, his ability to get inside a character's head and create living, breathing people is just the same.






The Sea Within Me by Sarah Dobbs. More dystopian sci-fi, this time in an England threatened by rising sea-levels and terrorists. In grim, beleaguered Newark by the Sea, the government is trialing a scheme to combat crime and fear which erases anything unpleasant from people's minds - a way to keep the population happy, or a form of mind control?







The 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' vibe continues with Bridget Collins' The Binding. A gripping tale of betrayal and hidden secrets set in a vaguely Victorian setting, unhappy memories are gathered by a form of magic, and bound into books. When Emmett is apprenticed as a bookbinder, he starts to uncover his own hidden memories - and his view of the world changes completely.





And The Wind Sees All by Gudmundur Andri Thorsson Another collection of short stories, this time fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle to paint a portrait of the inhabitants of an Icelandic fishing village. At a cursory view they seem happy, respectable, comfortable in their life and ways, but behind the smiling faces heartache, betrayal and deceit lurk.









My last pick - Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield - is a bit of a cheat as I also included it in last year's 'best of' list; it was only available then as an e-book, now it's in 'proper' book form. It's an astounding piece of storycraft - a tale as much about the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the frequently puzzling world, as it is about a girl rescued from the river one dark, stormy night.

Stillicide by Cynan Jones

This latest work from Cynan Jones is something a little different - a series of self-contained but linked short stories set in the (probably not so far off) future. A future where weather patterns have changed; despite almost constant summer rain, water is in short supply. No more long luxurious baths, not even a quick shower in the morning or even flushing loos! Supplying London with water has become a major undertaking. Pipes no longer feed it to the city, instead it's transported from distant reservoirs by the Water Train, but the service is increasingly under threat of sabotage. As an alternative, a huge Ice Dock is to be built - icebergs towed south to it, and their melt water collected - but construction work will displace more of the population that originally planned for, and people are taking to the streets to protest. 
Against this grim backdrop the reader follows people going about their lives -  a journalist obsessed with his search for a big scoop, an elderly man facing death, a woman persuaded by nature's beauty that there must be more to life that her dull relationship with her husband, young boys playing with a dog in the rubble of waste ground, and Branner (the main character, if the collection can be said to have one), a police marksman protecting the Water Train, his thoughts dodging back and forth to when he first met his wife, to his shock and disbelief on hearing her terminal diagnosis, to how he can attempt to go on without her. Within the stories, they change positions, reappearing in different roles - the central character of one becoming a bit-player or walk-on part in another - so that, although each section reads as a standalone piece, there's a underlying cohesion between them forming a greater story.

This isn't just a story of doom and gloom. Despite the bleak man-made conditions, nature is showing its resilience, its capacity to take hold and flourish in even the most inhospitable places, reclaiming waste ground and construction sites. People too are trying to improve their lot with rooftop allotments and small 'new-farms'; a personal way to overcome shortages from the 'mass-produced' sector.


It's all brought to life with Jones' familiar precision, his attention to detail, and ability to get under his characters' skin - focusing on the small things of life to build an image of the whole. Butterflies dancing in the park, the shape left as a bird darts away, the feel of limpets being prised from the rock, or the guts spilling out of a fish.



It's breath-catching, heart-wrenching, stunning. If you haven't discovered Jones' work yet, then do; you're missing a treat. And don't anyone try telling me that dystopian fiction can't be literary





Although the concept had been mulling around in the author's mind for a while, it was a commission from Radio 4 which brought it to life. If you prefer to listen rather than read you can still (October 2019) find it online

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

Cove by Cynan Jones

review by Maryom

A man is paddling far out at sea when a sudden electrical storm bursts around him, lightning running down to the water - and attracted to him and his kayak. When he regains consciousness, he's out of sight of land, injured, dazed, no idea of how much time has passed, of who is is, why he's there, his paddles are lost, his sense of direction gone... Instinct alone forces him to attempt the seemingly impossible journey to land.
"a man locked in an uneven struggle with the forces of nature" is how the blurb describes Cove. Well, to me, that sounds too much like some hunky hero in an all action-packed drama facing huge mountainous waves, and fighting off killer jellyfish or attacking sharks. Rest assured - this book isn't like that at all!
It's a quiet, undramatic tale, which is surprising considering its subject. It's short at under a hundred pages. Tightly written with not a surplus word left, but it still captures the helplessness of being adrift at sea, and the man's confusion of not knowing who he is, where he belongs, and his fear at the physical enormity of the waters surrounding him - the depth below, the expanse on all sides with no sight of land.

Jones proves once again that a book doesn't need to have a massive word count to make an impact. he gives the reader enough to set their imagination to work - to feel the pain, the fear, the physical and emotional numbness, the tightly bottled-down panic, and the buried animal instinct which strives for survival without, or may even despite, man's rational thought processes.
It's a book to devour whole in one sitting, and then turn over and examine in your mind, to see various aspects and themes appear.

Although Cove is very much about one man, in one very specific situation, it also feels like a story with wider application relating to anyone drifting, astray in life, trying to find their way back to something indefinable but lost. I couldn't help but be reminded of Stevie Smith's "I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning", particularly when the kayaker spots a beach in the distance, with families paddling, but he still drifts helplessly past carried by currents beyond his control.

I suspect the ending may divide readers but I see it as a hopeful one, like rushing headlong to a re-birth. Maybe I just like to be an optimist.




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

Other reviews; Tim Hannigan

A Ghost's Story by Lorna Gibb

review by Maryom

Katie King was a superstar 'spirit' of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with her male counterpart John, she appeared at seances and spiritualist meetings in America, Britain, Russia and Italy. Some people believed in her whole-heartedly; others believed her to be just trick being played on the unsuspecting. Sometimes she would move objects, sometimes glide across the room or speak through a medium, but as she feels her powers failing she decides to write her story and help people understand what lies 'on the other side'. 
The spirit comes to consciousness in the early 1800s, slipping into and changing a boy's life; thereafter whenever she can she seeks out that boy as he grows to adulthood and,inevitably, old age. But Katie can only go where she is called, so is often frustrated in her wishes, and begins to learn about human emotions - the longing for companionship and even love. 

Katie's story is told through a collection of spirit writings - some dictated through mediums, others written directly by her on a computer - gathered from various sources around the world by researcher Adam Marcus, working for The Magic Circle, and while Katie's evolution, from wispy spirit to one who could manipulate objects and people, forms the main story, alongside in the footnotes is the tale of Adam's original scepticism, his failing health, and his growing belief that Katie isn't a figment of imagination or a piece of theatrical fakery but a being as alive as himself.

First off I would say this isn't maybe the kind of spooky ghost story you would expect - Katie isn't a malevolent ghost out for revenge, haunting an ancestral home or the place she was killed while seeking retribution, or even an unsettled spirit yearning to be re-united with a loved one. She doesn't remember a corporeal life at all, just a series of rushed, blurred images, always associated with death, before she fully gains 'consciousness'. Nonetheless, I found it an extremely fascinating, compelling read. Her 'memoirs' take the reader behind the scenes at seances in places as diverse as log cabins on the American frontier and the splendour of the Russian Court, though mainly they take place in the respectable homes of Victorian era professional mediums - some of whom have a real connection to the spirit world (according to Katie), some are just plain charlatans, but all rely on a range of gimmicks to impress their audience. 
Katie herself is, at various times, amused, irritated, curious, bored, witty, vivacious, sad; in fact, she's completely human. 

Unlike the stories which set out to frighten the reader, this one made me wonder what exactly ghosts might be - not the dead, returned to pass on messages, but other unknown spirits maybe. For me, though, at heart, this is a very human story, one of the search for love, which surely all of us can relate to.





Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Granta Books
Genre - Adult, ghost stories

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

The Letter Bearer by Robert Allison

review by Maryom

A man is found, lying in the blazing heat of the North African desert, left for dead by the side of his wrecked motorbike. He has no recollection of who he is or how he came to be there. Stripped of his possessions and anything that might identify him, the only thing he's left with is a postbag of letters to which he clings as if his life depended on it. Eventually rescue comes in the form of a band of deserters trying to hide out from the war in the vastness of the desert. The War raging round them won't leave the group alone and they have to move on, taking the letter bearer with them. Slowly recovering, the letter bearer starts to piece together his identity from the disjointed bits and pieces he can remember and the letters in his bag.

Set in the North African desert in 1942, part English Patient, part Ice Cold in Alex, The Letter Bearer is a war novel with a difference - its subject matter is not glorious or foolhardy acts of bravery, not outwitting the enemy through cunning and guile, not even the comradeship to be found under fire but the fortunes of a small group who have chosen for various reasons to absent themselves from fighting; in order words, deserters. It starts with a man who is a blank page; he has no memories to shape his opinions of these men so takes them as he finds them and judges them on their actions.
 It's both a gripping page-turning story and a thought-provoking read that will make you question your ideas about bravery and cowardice. Any 'thinking' war story, as opposed to plain glorification of battle, provokes a reaction of 'what would I have done under such circumstances' - this certainly does.
 It's full of excellent atmospheric depiction of the desert - that third party to the war against which both sides battle; it's eerie emptiness combined with the possibility that the enemy - or, possibly worse, 'friends' lurk behind the nearest sand dune.

If I had to pick a fault, it would be that at times the prose is a little too 'wordy', that at times the author chose an obscure word when a perfectly everyday one would have conveyed the same meaning.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Granta Books
Genre - Adult literary fiction, WW2

The Dig by Cynan Jones

review by Maryom

The Dig is a raw, bleak story of two very different country dwellers and the inevitable collision they're heading for.
Daniel, a farmer, is desperately trying to cope with bereavement. Worn down and devastated by his loss he's still determined to carry on tending to his birthing sheep. He life is tied up in the farm, in nurturing the land and his livestock despite the harshness of his life and the setbacks encountered daily.
On the other hand, the anonymous 'big man' earns his living in the most violent way imaginable, killing rats on local farms and digging badgers out of their setts and supplying them to people for 'sport'. The only glimmer of affection he shows is for his dogs, though even then it's linked to their ability as rat-catchers or badger-baiters.
The Dig isn't about a sunshiny, cows-in-pasture, rural idyll but takes an unblinkered look at the harsh realities of the countryside; the sheep aren't cute bundles of fluff gambolling in the fields but animals made of blood and guts; badger-baiting is no country 'sport' but pure vicious brutality.
Jones has an astounding ability to conjure feelings and sense of place by a few well chosen words. I felt I could share Daniel's grief and his commitment to the land that is part of him, the big man's animal cunning and fear of being trapped, and also the sheer terror of the tormented badger. At times, because of how immersed I felt, it was a hard book to read.
There are many disturbing passages but two stand clear for me; the horrible violence done in the name of sport to the badger and, to a lesser extent, the dogs in the baiting pit - what people find to enjoy in maiming animals or encouraging them to fight each other is beyond me -  and the chapter where a boy is taken along to a badger dig as if initiating him into becoming a 'man'. It isn't the fun experience the boy had expected but, to avoid losing face, he forces himself to join in and is persuaded that he's enjoying it.

It's a grim, shocking and stomach-turning read; the one brief moment of pure happiness that lights up the end casts the rest into even deeper darkness. It's not for the faint-hearted or squeamish. And yet, I'd say 'read it'. You'll come away moved.


Following on from this, I interviewed the author about The Dig, badger-baiting and not twisting the story to reach a happy ending Cynan Jones - author interview The Dig

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

Orkney by Amy Sackville

review by Maryom

A couple have chosen to honeymoon on a remote Orkney island - not an obvious, average honeymoon location but they're not an average couple. He, Richard, is an eminent literature professor, 60 years old; she, who's never named, is nearly 40 years his junior, one of his recently-graduated students. He sits in their holiday cottage, working on what is to be the crowning achievement of his long acclaimed career; she sits on the rocks or walks along the beach, just out of reach of the tide but always mesmerised by the sea. At night, he sleeps deep and dreamlessly; she wakes from nightmares of tidal waves and floods.
"Take Me North", she said - but there, close to the island she was born on, she seems to change. Was she ever quite as her doting husband imagined?


I read Amy Sackville's debut novel, The Still Point, a while ago and was completely enthralled by it. At the time, I went round web-sites and book shops searching for something else by her, yet somehow this second novel has slipped by me and it was only when I happened to see an event with her at Edbookfest that I realised this book was even in the offing.
Orkney is more unusual than The Still Point, more certain of itself and prepared to take imaginative risks and hope the reader will follow. I was reminded a lot of AS Byatt's Possession, perhaps because of the shared threads of disparate-age relationships and shape-shifting female sea-creatures, but also due to the play on, and with, words.
The story evolves through Richard's eyes, told in the first person, the early cosy intimate moments contrast sharply with the ambiguous shifting feel to the later half of the book. At first Richard and his wife seem like any other newly-married couple - delighting in little games and in-jokes of their own that are meaningless to outsiders - but gradually they move apart. Richard's work concerns the myths about sea-creatures that take on female form and his obsession with it starts to distort how he sees his wife. The solid, corporeal girl who attended his lectures changes into someone ethereal and shape-shifting.
There's a third presence in this marriage - the sea - which the author captures in all its moods, one moment sparkling with light, the next dull and dark, shrouded with mist. I don't think I've ever read anything that captures the atmosphere of Scottish island seas as well as this does.

Orkney is a haunting, lyrical book, to stretch the reader's imagination. One I'll return to many times for its poetic beauty, though without doubt the ending is enigmatic; if you like things cut and dried, all ends tied off, you won't be happy.

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

 Buy Orkney from Amazon