I love that this is the YA fiction that Generation Z get to grow up with, about fan culture and internet friendships and the enormity of loving somethI love that this is the YA fiction that Generation Z get to grow up with, about fan culture and internet friendships and the enormity of loving something when you're still young and pure enough for that to be something bigger than an individual. Like (it seems) so many stories currently being written by young female authors, it nails the discourse and vernacular of fan communities in a way that may well date very quickly, but here and now it feels exhilaratingly fresh, accurate, affectionate. Snappy and adorable and great fun to read.
An urgent, erotic fable, this novel is propelled forward by such an irresistible force that it's difficult to imagine how it would work if you didn'tAn urgent, erotic fable, this novel is propelled forward by such an irresistible force that it's difficult to imagine how it would work if you didn't read it all the way through, breathlessly, in one long swig. If you're going to read this, do it in a single sitting, alone.
Jane and Bill are in their forties and have been married for a few years. They're very much in love, but Jane feels no desire towards Bill, and their relationship is mostly chaste. Enter Lilah, an erotic whirlwind, a petite squirming bright-red-haired nymphet/whore of a woman (well, actually she's not a woman, at least not a human one) who crowbars her way into a quiet night at the pub and gets herself an invitation to the couple's home. What happens next? A smörgåsbord of sex, emotional drama, and – most intriguingly – scenes that slip into something not quite reality.
The Tryst is extremely sexual (open it at any page and you have about a 65% chance of seeing the words 'cock' or 'cunt' – or both), but not in a transgressive way: in fact the sex is very conventional in the sense that it's primal, like Lilah's influence makes everyone regress to their essential natures, their basest animal instincts. Each of the three main characters takes their turn narrating, with Lilah's story – foul-mouthed, funny and littered with anecdotes from her long, long existence – naturally the most compelling.
I received an advance review copy of The Tryst from the publisher, Dodo Ink.
Exquisite is a headfuck of a thriller that resembles a number of literary novels I've read* – and in some cases loved – if their most theatrical elemeExquisite is a headfuck of a thriller that resembles a number of literary novels I've read* – and in some cases loved – if their most theatrical elements were ramped up, put in a blender, and distilled into the now-familiar formula: two narrators telling different versions of the same story, an obsessive relationship that goes too far, and more twists than a bag of fusilli.
Bo Luxton is a successful author, albeit one whose star is on the wane. In her early forties, she's married with two little girls, living a serene, picture-perfect life in her sprawling Lake District home, and if she's never exactly felt passionately for her much older husband, well – who cares? In every other way, she has the life of her dreams. Sorting applications for a writers' retreat she's running, Bo comes across one she finds unexpectedly stirring: the work of a Brighton-based writer named Alice Dark. Alice lives in a Brighton bedsit and spends most of her time with her waster boyfriend; her life is going nowhere, and the retreat is her last stab at establishing a creative career. Long story short: Bo and Alice hit it off, a relationship develops, and then it all goes wrong and their accounts diverge dramatically. Clearly, someone is lying.
Exquisite teems with uncertainty. There are two unreliable narrators in the shape of Bo and Alice, each with their own reasons for painting themselves in a flattering light (I found the innocuous discrepancies the most intriguing). Both women come from abusive backgrounds, and there are uncomfortable hints that they are grasping at each other for what's been missing from their lives: Bo sees in Alice the youth she never got to enjoy, while for Alice, Bo is a maternal figure. There are chapters seemingly written after the fact, from an unknown perspective, by someone who's serving a prison sentence for an undisclosed crime: is this narrator one of our protagonists – or is it one of their works of fiction? Throw in suggestions that Bo has had an inappropriate relationship with a student in the past, and that Alice has a history of getting obsessed with female tutors, and you've got all the ingredients for a sensational potboiler.
There were parts of Exquisite I adored. Bo's life in the Lake District is given such romantic appeal, it's enough to make you want to up sticks and move there overnight. It's hard to put my finger on what made me like but not love the book: perhaps I read it too soon after Based on a True Story, which has a VERY similar plot but is so much better in every respect, and The Upstairs Room, to which it bears little resemblance plot-wise, but the characters are so similar that I actually kept getting them mixed up and having to check which details had come from which book. I also kept noticing errors: there were some really obvious spelling mistakes, and the age difference between the two women appeared to be a little bit elastic.
The final twist-or-is-it-a-twist-oh-god-do-I-actually-care-at-this-point? is... confusing, and oddly rushed – more exposition would surely have made the payoff greater. I'm just not sure about that ending; I felt a little puzzled afterwards, but, by that point, also not entirely sure I cared what became of either Alice or Bo. While I enjoyed this book, I must confess I am confused as to why it's igniting such rapture in other reviewers when it is so much like so many other half-decent psychological thrillers.
The art in this graphic novel is spectacular, but the story, I'm afraid, I found disjointed and at times downright incomprehensible. It's about a younThe art in this graphic novel is spectacular, but the story, I'm afraid, I found disjointed and at times downright incomprehensible. It's about a young girl, Karen (who's obsessed with monsters, thus depicts herself as one) investigating the mysterious death of her neighbour. But it's also about the history of that neighbour, Anka, as told by the character herself in a series of recorded interviews: she's a Holocaust survivor, but her 'saviour' forced her to become a prostitute at the age of 12. It's about Karen's family – her mom, and her brother Deeze – and her mother's illness and her brother's possible relationship with Anka. It's about Karen's friends, who appear as monsters too, and at least one of whom may not actually exist. It's about Karen's burgeoning sexuality and her complicated feelings about her ex-best friend. It's about art history and mythology. It's about the big societal events of the time (the late 1960s). It's about a bunch of Karen's neighbours. And some other people from the neighbourhood she lives in. And probably some other stuff I've forgotten as well.
At the beginning of My Favorite Thing is Monsters, I loved the look of the thing, so intricate and colourful, but couldn't get much of a handle on the story. That's okay, I thought, it'll start making sense of itself soon. But it didn't. There are so many subplots, digressions and secondary characters crammed in that it becomes confusing and exhuasting (there's also a hell of a lot of text, some of it really difficult to read). I couldn't figure out what I was meant to care about, which meant I ended up not caring about anything. Of course I know this is a collection of issues of a comic; perhaps it would have made more sense if I'd rationed it out, read one section a week. But the fact that the end of the book is not the end of any of the million plotlines is yet another thing that makes it feel unsatisfying.
I wish I could adore this like most others seem to. I just found the storytelling too messy, and I have zero desire to read future volumes. One more time, though: the art is gorgeous.
Phillips and Milner are quick to point out, in the introduction to their book, that they speak of the internet as 'ambivalent' in the etymologically cPhillips and Milner are quick to point out, in the introduction to their book, that they speak of the internet as 'ambivalent' in the etymologically correct sense of the word:
The Latinate prefix of ambivalent (ambi-)... means "both, on both sides," implying tension, and often fraught tension, between opposites – despite the fact that, in everyday usage, the word ambivalent is often used as a stand-in for "I don't have an opinion either way"... It should be emphasized that our usage of the term reflects the "both, on both sides" use, not the blasé sense of indifference.
Coming after a series of examples that spans satirical reviews on Amazon, the frequent hijacking of celebrities' and brands' Twitter hashtags, and online serial killer fandom, this approach sets the tone for the authors' approach to their subject. Their aim is to establish a framework nuanced enough to tackle the irreverence and sheer weirdness of such behaviour – and also, to some extent, to demystify it by identifying its pre-internet origins and wider context. There are chapters on folkloric expression, identity play, constitutive humour, collective storytelling and public debate. In each case a number of examples are presented and dissected. I especially loved the storytelling chapter, which draws a line from family injokes to urban legends through to creepypasta.
The subject matter is naturally engaging and accessible, but The Ambivalent Internet is an academic text rather than a piece of popular non-fiction (as I originally assumed from the title and that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cover). Everything is cited and a lot of points are repeated, which is helpful – it's one thing to just know how certain types of online communication work, and another to have this clearly laid out with examples and explanations – but can make it a bit exhausting if read in large chunks. Reading this quite soon after Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies also made it particularly jarring that Phillips and Milner say they consider the term 'alt-right' to be interchangeable with 'white nationalist'; surely this so-called 'movement' (and indeed its recognition as a movement) is one of the strongest and most prominent current examples of the of 'ambivalence' and 'identity play' the authors spend the entire book discussing. In general, the main flaw in this book as an academic text is its tendency to adhere to the norms of a particular strand of online (mainly Twitter) discourse, whereby certain opinions are treated as if they are sacred truths.
The problem with ambivalence as a subject, futhermore, is that few solid conclusions can be drawn. This is typified by the conclusion to chapter 5, in which the authors begin: 'Our position is simple. We are staunch advocates of the democratic process and think that problematic speech should be countered through more speech. Except actually maybe not, because...' – and go on in this vein for several paragraphs until they end up with 'we are staunch advocates of the democratic process, as our voice trails off and we stare blankly into the distance'. It's a funny and self-aware way to wrap up discussion of a thorny topic (public debate in the internet age), but it does demonstrate how woolly and indecisive the ambivalent approach is liable to feel.
As a study, a quantified and curated snapshot of the internet circa 2017, and a reference point, The Ambivalent Internet is much stronger than as a book read for pleasure or out of simple personal interest. I'd recommend it if you are studying or writing about online behaviour; maybe not so much otherwise. That being said, I'm still intrigued by the authors' other books, so there's a good chance I'll read more by one or both of them at some point.
I received an advance review copy of The Ambivalent Internet from the publisher through NetGalley.
I was expecting to be interested in this, but I didn't expect to be so impressed by it. Angela Nagle writes so even-handedly and with such a fair critI was expecting to be interested in this, but I didn't expect to be so impressed by it. Angela Nagle writes so even-handedly and with such a fair critical eye about recent iterations of disruptive political groupings on both the right and left. On the right is the now-notorious alt-right, divided between the 'alt-light', typified by meme-making/gleefully antagonistic trolling/use of 4chan-derived argot, and the more genuinely fascistic tendencies often masked by the headline-grabbing behaviour of alt-light figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos. On the left is what Nagle sometimes refers to as 'Tumblr-liberalism', the extremely performative culture of calling-out, victimhood and competitive identity politics that seems driven by (and here I will quote Nagle quoting the late Mark Fisher, as it couldn't be paraphrased any more perfectly) 'a priest’s desire to excommunicate and condemn, an academic-pedant’s desire to be the first to be seen to spot a mistake, and a hipster’s desire to be one of the in-crowd'.
Nagle draws a line through history from the 'culture wars' of the 1960s to those of today, arguing that the transgressive, countercultural spirit historically embodied by the anti-establishment left has been sublimated much more effectively by the modern right. She also undertakes an in-depth (though concise) review of the many, many factions of what is often sweepingly referred to as the alt-right, from 'chan culture' to the alternately pathetic and terrifying 'manosphere'. Not only is this pretty fascinating in itself, it also brings to light the serious theoretical and academic roots of certain strands of this movement – something often ignored by liberal pundits who concentrate instead on clutching their pearls at the outrageous antics of high-profile figures like Milo and Alex Jones. The idea of a handful of demagogues and professional trolls riling up people who essentially don't understand politics has been a common theme (deployed with varying levels of sensitivity) in analysis of the Trump and Brexit victories; Nagle's study shows this to be dangerously reductive.
Kill All Normies is an accessible but unpatronising study, perfectly balancing academic critique, political commentary and assured, intelligent, non-embarrassing writing about the internet and its unique subcultures. It is so refreshing to read something like this, that comes at the topic from a left-leaning perspective but refuses to toe the line with regards to the frustrating, ever-shifting rules of engagement that now seem to define online discourse. The version I read had some typos and needed a bit of tightening up from an editorial perspective, but it was a review copy. And that is genuinely my only criticism. Somehow Nagle also manages to write a conclusion that tears everyone a new arsehole AND ends on a contemplative note.
I thought I knew quite a bit about this topic already, but I learned so much from this book, particularly about the historical context of these movements. Thoroughly and enthusiastically recommended to anyone with an interest in the current political climate as it manifests in online culture.
I received an advance review copy of Kill All Normies from the publisher through NetGalley.
In the form of a diary, You Should Have Left is a screenwriter's account of a family holiday that's also supposed to function as a creative retreat. HIn the form of a diary, You Should Have Left is a screenwriter's account of a family holiday that's also supposed to function as a creative retreat. Having achieved commercial success by (selling out and) writing a lightweight comedy-drama called Besties, he's under pressure to come up with a sequel. His daughter Esther has just turned four, prompting our narrator to hope he will finally be able to have a little peace and quiet, as well as some conversations with his wife Susanna that aren't about 'who's getting up with [Esther], who's putting her to bed, who's playing blocks or trains or Legos'. They rent a grand house – recently built, modern, minimalist – at the centre of a pine forest, framed by two ice-capped mountains. Quickly, the narrator finds his family is a much greater distraction than he'd hoped, and he's lying to his boss about the progress he's made on the screenplay.
So far, so tormented-artist cliche. But what else is going on here? Read between the lines (sometimes literally) and there are hints of something far deeper and darker at work. The terrible dreams; strange illusions the narrator tries to shake off as tricks of the light; the architectural peculiarities of the house (why is it so easy to get lost?); blink-and-you'll-miss-them anomalies, such as the phrase 'get away' appearing at random in the middle of the narrator's sentences. There are tongue-in-cheek allusions to linchpins of the haunted-house plot (an odd encounter in the only shop in town) and clever modernised touches (the narrator found the house on Airbnb).
At barely 100 wide-margined pages, this is one of those novellas that stretches the limits of the term; is it a novelette? A short story? Of course I kind of wish it had been longer. But its genius is that it doesn't outstay its welcome. The restraint Kehlmann exercises is astonishing – the natural inclination, surely, would be to drag it out through different viewpoints, or even whack a five-years-later epilogue on the end. But no, it's just a simple, pared-back, stark and terrifying story. It's kind of like Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves if it'd been subject to ruthless editing and reduced to only the most authentic and menacing elements. Breathtakingly good, ingenious horror, definitely a book to be read in a single sitting on a cold, cloudless night. Just don't check your reflection in the window.
I received an advance review copy of You Should Have Left from the publisher through NetGalley.
The Night Ocean is not horror, even though the shadow of H.P. Lovecraft hovers over its nested stories. And in fact, that connection was something I wThe Night Ocean is not horror, even though the shadow of H.P. Lovecraft hovers over its nested stories. And in fact, that connection was something I was apprehensive about, as I’ve never got on very well with Lovecraftian or cosmic horror. So I had a strange, back-to-front experience with this book: I wanted to read it because I thought it was a horror story, yet in the end, it was all the better for not being a horror story at all – except in the most mundane of ways.
This is a labyrinthine series of narratives within narratives. A psychiatrist tries to find out whether her missing husband, a writer, is really dead, or has faked his own suicide. We then follow the story of the writer, Charlie, chiefly the publication of his only successful book, an exposé of Lovecraft’s supposed affair with a young male fan. The book was based on a diary that may have been an elaborate hoax – and we learn a few versions of that story too. And the final question: have we been inside someone else’s story this whole time?
Every part of this is captivating. I fell into it as soon as I started reading and I found the force of the narrative irresistible. It’s really an investigative story: an excavation not so much of facts as of people (many of whom, contrary to what I thought at the beginning, were real figures in the story of Lovecraft’s life). There are hints of a haunting but this, too, is rooted in reality. It’s the sort of combination I could read forever.
Books I thought about while reading The Night Ocean: Laura van den Berg’s The Third Hotel; Hugo Wilcken’s The Reflection; N.J. Campbell’s Found Audio; Catriona Ward’s Looking Glass Sound. All quite different, but all, like this, deceptively complex; stories that aren’t what they appear....more
The first Magnus Mills I've read, and a bit of a mind-bending experience for me – though everything I've heard suggests the low-key surrealism of The The first Magnus Mills I've read, and a bit of a mind-bending experience for me – though everything I've heard suggests the low-key surrealism of The Forensic Records Society is in line with the mood of the author's previous novels. It's about a small group of men, regulars at the Half Moon pub, who form the titular society. They meet once a week to listen to records. Listening is all they do: as founder James will reiterate with an increasing note of hysteria, 'comments and judgements are not allowed'. However, it's not long before some of the members lose patience with James's stringent rules, and splinter groups begin to form.
Much of the story is so mundane that it's practically soporific: it dwells on small details; very little changes as the plot progresses; some scenes and lines are repeated. It's difficult to tell the characters apart – no physical descriptions or ages are given, and the names seem interchangeable (Keith, Barry, Kevin, etc). The resulting impression is of life boiled down to a particular (masculine, British) essence: a pub, a pint, a record. But it is illuminated by sparks of humour and hints of fantasy. The characters' hyper-specific obsession with listening to music in a certain way is inherently funny because it's so finicky, but they are always too endearing to come off as parodies. The universe of the story is quietly intriguing, with the mysterious speeding-up of time whenever the society meets, the powerful effect of Alice's song, and the mass confessions in the town hall. It is down-to-earth and dreamlike all at once.
Is the ending, then, designed simply as a rebuke to the narrative's gentleness, a violent, jarring intrusion for its own sake? Does The Forensic Records Society set out to lull the reader into a pleasantly languid state, then jerk them out of it? (In one of those weird readalike coincidences, it has similarities to Hari Kunzru's White Tears in this respect, as well as the fact that both stories centre on music and contain elements of magical realism.) Beyond this possible interpretation, I must say that I didn't understand the last couple of paragraphs. But perhaps this peculiarity is typical of the author's work. I enjoyed The Forensic Records Society enough that I may well read more and find out for myself...
Whatever you write, you are in the domain of fiction.
This book totally astonished me. The blurb grabbed my attention immediately; my interest was furtWhatever you write, you are in the domain of fiction.
This book totally astonished me. The blurb grabbed my attention immediately; my interest was further spiked by a recommendation from an author whose novels I adore. And then I started reading it, and did so with growing delight and relish as I slowly realised it was absolutely perfect. Because this was my experience, I can't help but think that's the best way to approach it, and I don't want to give too much away. But that implies this is the sort of story that can be ruined by 'knowing the twist', which it isn't. It's up to you to decide whether there even is a twist.
Based on a True Story is an enigma: described as a novel, it reads exactly like a memoir. The narrator is a writer named Delphine, disorientated by the success of her most recent novel, which many assume to be based on her own family – to essentially be thinly veiled autobiography. This book is not given a name, but every description of it corresponds exactly to de Vigan's Nothing Holds Back the Night. This holds true throughout the book – anything that's provably accurate about de Vigan is also true of Delphine-the-character.
Delphine is grappling with her new-found fame and preparing to begin work on her next novel when she meets L. at a friend's party. L. is a glamorous woman, the chic, groomed, put-together type Delphine has always admired and envied. She's also confident, verging on forceful, and extremely opinionated, especially about Delphine's writing. She scorns Delphine's idea of writing a novel about a reality TV star, instead urging her to go even further in using her own life as inspiration. Bit by bit, L. becomes a fixture in Delphine's life, acting as confidant, helper and shoulder to cry on; the sister, therapist and personal assistant Delphine didn't know she needed. And Delphine learns L.'s tragic backstory, including the death of her mother and husband. At the same time, Delphine receives a series of hateful letters, purporting to be from a family member and admonishing her for exploiting her relatives' experiences in what they see as a craven quest for fame.
Sometimes Based on a True Story becomes a philosophical two-hander between Delphine and L. as they debate the nature of truth and fiction, where one ends and the other begins, and how much of oneself a writer can (and should) reveal in their work. But it's also something more sinister, as the narrative crawls slowly but inexorably towards the conclusion of L.'s strengthening stranglehold on Delphine's existence. The nature of this is no secret: Delphine tells us at the beginning that L. is the sole reason for my powerlessness [a long period of writer's block so severe that she couldn't even write something as simple as a shopping list] ... the two years that we were friends almost made me stop writing for ever. Tellingly, the epigraphs for each part of the book are taken from Stephen King's Misery.
If I expected anything from Based on a True Story, it was a nuanced study of the psychological effects of insidious harassment, something a little like James Lasdun's Give Me Everything You Have, but exploring a more subtle and outwardly benign form of 'stalking'. And in some ways, that's what I got. If you have ever experienced anything like this, plenty of scenes will have you nodding along and/or grimly hooked (the scene with the guestless 'dinner party' is horror-film creepy). But this novel is like a brilliant hologram, an image that shifts completely with the slightest change of perspective. It is elegantly written – thoroughly Parisian; the prose itself could be described as chic – so it's easy to initially mistake it for a straightforward tale of suspense rather than the fascinating maze of fiction, fact and perception it finally reveals itself to be.
I know I talk about books in terms of 'halves' or 'thirds' or 'quarters' a lot. It's something I've been telling myself to do less of. But sometimes iI know I talk about books in terms of 'halves' or 'thirds' or 'quarters' a lot. It's something I've been telling myself to do less of. But sometimes it's absolutely necessary, and White Tears is one such case: it's very much a book of two halves.
Seth is an awkward, lonely college student who's obsessed with sound, and traverses New York making recordings of everyday background noise: Carter, who becomes his best friend and business partner, is the black-sheep scion of an obscenely rich family, and very into music – specifically, and exclusively, black music. During one of Seth's recording sessions, he catches an ageing chess player singing a snatch of an old blues tune. He remembers it as a single, throwaway line, remembers turning away after that to watch a pretty girl skateboard past, but when he listens back to the recording, it's a whole melancholy, beautiful song. The two friends develop an unhealthy fixation with it. Then they find a completely separate recording, of someone playing a guitar tune, that fits perfectly with the song. Carter uploads the resulting track to a torrent, pretending it's by a made-up pre-war musician named Charlie Shaw – and then an elderly collector turns up with a story about a friend, back in the 1950s, whose life was consumed by an obsession with a rare record: 'Graveyard Blues' by Charlie Shaw.
The first half of the book, which deals with all of the above, is flat-out brilliant. The narrative moves forward with a compelling, irresistible force; the plot is absolutely thrilling; Seth's voice, note-perfect. This part of the book is also incredibly subtle and clever in the way it undermines its characters – mainly Carter and his rich kid's obnoxious nonchalance, but Seth isn't let off the hook – and is critical of them without condemning them.
Then the plot takes a sharp turn that either works for you or it doesn't. I'm in the latter camp, mostly. As the unreality of the narrative is heightened – temporal slips, shifts in identity, timelines splitting and histories repeating – the story of the song falls into the background and becomes unimportant. The tightly controlled plot is replaced by a loose and jagged series of moments, with Seth entering a broken mental state in which he may or may not have been possessed by the spirit of the original Charlie Shaw. It is, effectively, a horror story about the consequences of thoughtless appropriation. Whether the cause is supernatural ('Charlie' taking revenge on those who would take his voice, his music) or not (Seth's fragile mental health being exacerbated by his guilt and, at this point, exhaustion) remains deliberately obscure. What Kunzru is trying to do is clear, but the execution is disappointingly messy and heavy-handed. There is a very, very fine line between effective slipstream fiction and nonsense, and these parts of White Tears are too frequently on the wrong side of it.
(view spoiler)[(Besides which, surely a subtler approach would have had far greater impact? Pointing to the Wallace family as the 'bad guys' makes it all too easy for the reader to avoid examining their own privilege/inbuilt racism/white guilt: after all, it's unlikely said reader is a millionaire whose family fortune was built on the work of slaves. The few chapters where Charlie is given his own voice are moving and effective, much more so than all the jumbled stuff about Seth's arrest, and that's because they show something of who he was as a person rather than using him as a symbol. More of that would have been welcome.) (hide spoiler)]
I get the point. I get that the whole aim of White Tears is to make you think you're reading one sort of story, the sort of story you've loved before – to make you comfortable in a litfic-with-added-fantasy bubble – and then violently wrest you out of it, obliterate that cosiness, castigate you for failing to recognise the problems with these characters. But for it to really work, the first part would have to be weaker and less compelling than the second, and that's just not the case. Missing out on the alternate, complete version of that initial wonderful story made me feel mildly annoyed with the rest of it for trying to be a Novel with a Message.
Four stars might seem like a high rating given the above complaints, and really it's probably more of a 3.5, but I'm rounding up for the absolute compulsiveness and smooth-flowing brilliance of the first half, and for the book's ambition and ingenuity. Despite the problems, it's definitely worth reading.
Luce, of Luce and the Photons – also known as Lukas, Petra, Lou, Lucienne and Peter among many, many other guises – is an androgynous rock star who spLuce, of Luce and the Photons – also known as Lukas, Petra, Lou, Lucienne and Peter among many, many other guises – is an androgynous rock star who sparks an obsession in the narrator (real name unknown). This novel is mostly composed of The Book of Luce itself, which chronicles the narrator's quest to find out who Luce really is, starting with an intoxicating secret gig he finds himself at in 1967. Punctuating the manuscript are notes from the present day, in which he has just been released from prison (crime unknown). The main narrative is a kaleidoscopic international adventure, skipping from Nevada to Kathmandu and Paris to the Highlands of Scotland in a fog of acid, hash and champagne, a spiritual journey-cum-hedonistic romp in which music, art, drugs, philosophy and ancient religion feature heavily. Tenets of Gnosticism are frequently referenced. There's a lot of talk of the astral plane. Dreams and hallucinations mingle with reality.
It's obvious Luce is much, much more than a great musician and artist: every person whose life s/he touches seems to experience either a revelatory moment of lucidity or a miraculous event; many of them go on to enjoy great success and fame. Is Luce an angel, an alien, even a god? What I found most intriguing was the fact that our narrator appears to be the exception to the rule. How has he ended up spending half his life in prison, released at age 70-something to a run-down flat, his only visitor the brother who continually addresses him as 'Weirdo'?
I have a chequered history with L.R. Fredericks' books – trying to love them, yet finding them wanting. I liked certain things about Farundell, but was repulsed by the main character and a dreadful romantic subplot. Fate sounded great on paper but was near-unreadable in practice. With The Book of Luce, the third part of a loose trilogy, everything seems to come together. Maybe the characters are stronger, maybe it's the absence of romance/sex scenes, maybe it's the more modern setting – I don't know, but something just clicked for me. (I know people find it useful to know this stuff, so I'll mention here that you definitely don't need to have read the other two books to enjoy this one. In fact, I would advise you to skip them.)
The style has more than a few run-ins with pretentiousness, but it works. Purple prose suits this hazy, trippy yarn of a novel very well. 'Chimera Obscura' (honestly, what a fucking terrible nom de plume) has a tendency to overwrite every other sentence – though, in this, he is believable as a frustrated writer. I never quite warmed to our self-important narrator; Fredericks seems to have an inexplicable preference for insufferable male protagonists, but at least this one isn't as awful as the 'heroes' of her previous novels (both of whom have (thankfully much more palatable) cameo roles in this story).
Luce him/herself is, wisely, shrouded in mystery throughout. The narrator is forever chasing shadows, and while his interviews with those who have met Luce are fascinating, his own (very) few glimpses of the real Luce are largely inconclusive until the very end. This is all very effective in making the title character intriguing. I felt as though I too was following Luce's trail, albeit through 550 pages of a book rather than across continents and dreamscapes.
As sprawling and eclectic as it is,The Book of Luce reminded me of lots of other media: The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato; Dodge and Burn by Seraphina Madsen; the Netflix series The OA; The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman; the film A Bigger Splash (I pictured Luce as Tilda Swinton's character); Night Film by Marisha Pessl; Doctor Who;this editorial; the later Harry Potters. If you loved any of the above, especially the first three, you may want to give this book a go.
I received an advance review copy of The Book of Luce from the publisher through NetGalley.
Oh, I just ate this up, I wish it had been two, three, four times longer. In lesser hands it could so easily have been a 'so what?' book – two teenageOh, I just ate this up, I wish it had been two, three, four times longer. In lesser hands it could so easily have been a 'so what?' book – two teenage girls fall out, one of them has a more fraught family situation than the other – so what? More than anything else I have read this year, The Burning Girl demonstrates how effortlessly a brilliant writer can elevate tired subject matter.
Of all the books I had on my wishlist for the second half of 2017, The Burning Girl was the one I regarded with the greatest amount of trepidation. As much as Messud's The Woman Upstairs got under my skin, the plot of this one – two teen girls, a small town, the eruption of adolescence, a friendship lost – didn't exactly bode well. After disliking or abandoning a clutch of them, I've been making efforts to avoid these 'girls gone wild' novels; they've become a bit of a trend, perhaps not as ubiquitous as the Gone and Train type of Girls but equally profuse and patchy. When I read Beryl Bainbridge's 1972 novel Harriet Said... at the beginning of the year, I was reminded (yes, I am quoting myself here, sorry) 'how few adult authors are capable of capturing the nuances of girlhood, and how exhilarating it is when someone gets it right'.
Messud tells her characters' story in flashback, but Julia Robinson isn't an adult – she's seventeen years old, about to decide which college she wants to go to, just a couple of years removed from the events she describes. This makes her raw anguish, the way she is still picking over the bones of her lost friendship with mercurial Cassie Burnes, all too real. At the same time, it strips the story of any cheap nostalgic power. These girls' youth is one of Katy Perry songs and YouTube tutorials; the most retro detail is Cassie being the only person in her family to own a smartphone. Presumably, there's a tendency for authors to frame these girlhood tales within an older character's perspective to avoid them being interpreted as stories for teenagers. There's no danger of that here – the quality of Messud's writing and the depth of her character-building tells you all you need to know.
There is no preamble, no exposition. We're straight into Julia's point of view, a vivid account of her friendship with Cassie during that coming-of-age period between the beginning and middle of their teens, a time in which the girls go from playing make-believe games in an abandoned house (and what an extraordinarily evocative scene that is!) to growing apart amid the trappings of nascent adulthood: boys, parties and intricate social politics. While Julia and Cassie's relationship takes centre stage, this is just as much a story about mothers and daughters. Julia comes from a liberal yet deeply caring family, and is close to her mother, a journalist. Cassie's relationship with her nurse mom Bev is more complicated: a tight bond, but also an unhealthily codependent one. When Bev begins dating a God-fearing doctor named Anders Shute, Cassie withdraws, becomes depressed and erratic. At the same time, the story of Cassie's late father – which she has embellished until it has reached the status of personal legend – seems to unravel.
It's part and parcel of being a teenager that inconsequential things seem huge while events that may be life-changing barely register, at least not immediately. Messud knows this, and she depicts it with the dexterity of a true master. This book is full of darkness and foreboding but it glimmers with the impermanence of youth – perhaps the most terrifying element of the story is that it is not over, yet this is the exact same thing that offers the most hope. The Burning Girl possesses an irresistible momentum, delightful and sickening at the same time, that kept me glued to it – just one more page, and another, and another, until I'd burned (ha) through it before I knew it. It is just glorious.
I received an advance review copy of The Burning Girl from the publisher through Edelweiss.
I couldn't resist the premise and tagline of Friend Request.Maria wants to be friends [on Facebook]. But Maria is dead. Isn't she? I mean, doesn't thI couldn't resist the premise and tagline of Friend Request.Maria wants to be friends [on Facebook]. But Maria is dead. Isn't she? I mean, doesn't that just sound like the 21st-century Point Horror book you never knew you wanted? I thought it would be schlocky as hell, ridiculous and unintentionally funny. It turned out to be much, much better than that, but just as gripping and entertaining as I'd hoped.
The story is exactly what it sounds like. The protagonist, Louise, receives a Facebook friend request from a girl she knew at school. The thing is, Maria Weston has been missing, presumed dead, for 27 years; what's more, Louise has never recovered from the guilt she feels about her role in bullying Maria. The book alternates between Louise's present-day mounting paranoia about the friend request and the ensuing messages she receives from 'Maria', and her schooldays in 1989. We learn about Louise's friendship with the manipulative Sophie; how she was forced into tormenting Maria in order to keep hold of her own position in the 'popular' clique.
Laura Marshall is great at depicting precarious teenage relationships and the lasting effects of bullying. Despite becoming a mother and having a successful career as an interior designer, Louise has never really put those days behind her, and is still beset by the insecurity Sophie and her cronies instilled in her. She is far more nuanced a character than I expected to find in a story like this. Marshall is also utterly brilliant at red herrings. I haven't read a crime novel or thriller in recent memory that's done a better job of misdirection; I had about five theories and only one of them was half-right. The plot is tense and just-one-more-chapter compulsive: once I'd started I couldn't stop, and the further I got, the more I absolutely had to finish it.
A fantastic thriller that rattles along at a, well, thrilling pace, Friend Request is fun and totally addictive, but it's also thoughtful, well-written, and doesn't sacrifice the plausibility of characters' behaviour for the sake of outrageous twists. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I received an advance review copy of Friend Request from the publisher through NetGalley.
(Review originally published at Nudge, now NB magazine, June 2017; removed from their site when they switched domains)
The Upstairs Room is billed as '(Review originally published at Nudge, now NB magazine, June 2017; removed from their site when they switched domains)
The Upstairs Room is billed as 'a ghost story for the housing crisis', and it certainly delivers on that promise. This is a creepy gothic tale given a modern sheen, but it's also a sensitive and measured exploration of the lives of two characters.
Eleanor and Richard are a successful thirtysomething couple with two young daughters. Buying a Victorian terrace in London Fields stretches them to the financial limit, but it's their dream home, and updating the shabby decor left by the previous owners will add to its value. They try to ignore the disturbing spare room upstairs, with its walls covered in a child's scribbles and the name 'Emily' written over and over again.
Circumstances force Eleanor and Richard to take on a lodger: 27-year-old Zoe, stumbling through life from one bad decision (quitting a marketing career to work in an art shop) to another (getting involved with a guy who already has a girlfriend). She moves into the basement. As we observe Eleanor and Zoe's lives, running in parallel, we see what they conceal from each other: both women feel the house taking something from them, draining their energy, making them weak and confused. Eleanor is wracked by sickness and unbearable headaches; Zoe has night terrors, dreams of 'Emily' appearing in her room, and sleepwalks.
What is wrong with the house on Litchfield Road? The threat of a haunting is continually suggested, but it is also kept in check. Murray-Browne's clear and concise style of description seems at odds with anything so fanciful. Is there bad energy, an accumulation of sadness and uncertainty? Are the real horrors psychological? The Upstairs Room is about how we construct stories from the clues scattered around us throughout everyday life, and how the conclusions we draw from them might be distorted. It's about how the real ghosts might be those who live alongside us, brushing past but never properly connecting: our neighbours, our lodgers, even perhaps our own partners and children.
I was impressed by how subtle and measured this novel was, how carefully it balanced its two identities. Murray-Browne delves deep into the histories of her characters and really fleshes them out, rather than sticking to the easier route of jacking up the supernatural aspects. At the same time, a sense of ambiguity remains, so that we can never quite be sure there isn't a ghost, or that there is a rational explanation behind the tale of Emily. It's an intelligent and assured debut that leaves the reader with much to chew over.
I received an advance review copy of The Upstairs Room from Nudge. I wasn't paid for this review and I was under no obligation to be anything other than honest about what I thought of the book.
I started reading The Silent Companions and fell headfirst into it. This is the kind of book you make time to read, the kind you tuck yourself away wiI started reading The Silent Companions and fell headfirst into it. This is the kind of book you make time to read, the kind you tuck yourself away with to finish.
In 1865, Elsie finds herself widowed shortly after her marriage to Rupert Bainbridge. Accompanied by Rupert's spinster cousin Sarah, she journeys to the Bainbridges' country seat and finds it in a state of disrepair. The few staff are inexperienced, as the people of Fayford refuse to work at the house: some say a villager was murdered there, while others believe a Bainbridge ancestor was a witch. Things take a turn for the spooky when Elsie ventures into the garret and is confronted with a painted wooden figure which has a striking resemblance to her younger self. It's not long before more of these figures – known as 'silent companions' – begin to appear in the house. Meanwhile, Sarah finds a diary belonging to her 17th-century ancestor Anne, whose story may shed some light on the secret of the companions.
At first, I wasn't sure how I would get on with this book (especially as I don't read much historical fiction anymore), but from the scene of Elsie's arrival in Fayford, I was hooked. Purcell creates a delightfully eerie atmosphere, laden with mist and mystery, overflowing with creepy details and things that go bump in the night. If you relish the conventions of gothic horror in their purest, most traditional form, you will find much to enjoy here. It reminded me of John Boyne's This House is Haunted, John Harwood's The Asylum, and The Miniaturist if it was actually good a ghost story.
The last few chapters do get a bit silly and over-the-top, and I think the ending would have had more impact if it'd been a little more ambiguous. Also (though this isn't necessarily a criticism) I found the companions intriguing rather than frightening (especially their origins, and the whole thing with the shop – I'd have loved to read more about that!) As a whole, the book is far more atmospheric than scary.
I devoured The Silent Companions, and I really hope the author writes more books in this vein in future – I love discovering new writers who do ghost stories/horror/gothic as effectively as this.
I received an advance review copy of The Silent Companions from the publisher through NetGalley.
Six days might seem like a very short time in which to read a 1660-page novel. I'd love to pretend I can actually read that fast, but in fact theMysteSix days might seem like a very short time in which to read a 1660-page novel. I'd love to pretend I can actually read that fast, but in fact theMystery.doc is very spaced out. You might have 40 pages featuring a series of photographs, or a few sentences spread across 10 pages, or 4 pages of the same phrase repeated over and over. Towards the end, many pages are wholly blank. If all the blank spaces and images were removed, it'd be no longer than the average novel.
(While reading these bits I kept thinking about the process of printing and binding this book. How many people have come across it randomly and opened it in a weird place and wondered whether it was supposed to be like that. How McIntosh persuaded whoever he needed to persuade to put that amount of white space in and actually publish, in hardback, this gigantic book with so much emptiness in it. It's impressive in itself that such a thing is even possible.)
As you might expect given the length, theMystery.doc is the kind of 'story' (as far as it is a story) that reveals itself gradually, coming together as you read. This means there is much groping around in the dark to be done. A lot of transcripts that seem to have nothing to do with anything and then, 200 or 300 pages later, something clicks. Another advantage of the length: there were stretches of this I absolutely hated, but there's so much other stuff that, within a few hundred pages, my annoyance would wear off.
Running through it is a story in which the author('s alter ego) wakes up with total amnesia. He learns he's supposed to have spent 11 years working on a novel, but the only thing on his laptop is an empty file named, you guessed it, themystery.doc. Despite its meta-ness, and the increasingly trashy twists it takes as it goes on, this is the most conventional narrative in the book. Other segments appear to be autofictional. Others are statements of fact that might be drawn from Wikipedia or a textbook. There are transcripts of online chats: people repeatedly attempting conversation with what initially seems to be an AI pretending to be real people; later it seems possible these are are real people, adopting false personas. Some parts read like science fiction until the context presents itself. There are pages full of the sort of stuff you might note down in your phone: sentences to use later, things to remember, ideas for stories, phrases that make no sense now you've forgotten why you thought of them.
Really it would probably make more sense – or make just as much sense – to read theMystery.doc out of order, to skip bits, to open it wherever you want to. But this is antithetical to the very fact that it comes in the form of a massive hardback. Even an ebook doesn't seem like it would be right – maybe hypertext fiction? Some kind of interactive experience? Like an app that simulates someone else's phone or computer and you get to dig through their documents/voice notes/messages/call logs/internet history...
I like that this exists, as a concept. But I didn't get an awful lot of enjoyment or meaning or feeling or inspiration or anything, really, out of it, and I couldn't shake the idea that a book wasn't the right format for the content.
This book is intended for readers much younger than me, but ghost story graphic novels are in such short supply, I couldn't resist it regardless.
The sThis book is intended for readers much younger than me, but ghost story graphic novels are in such short supply, I couldn't resist it regardless.
The scene-setting part of the story, set in 1982, is told through the diary entries of a young girl in a care home, Thornhill. Mary is mute, and she prefers to spend most of her time alone in her room, making and playing with her beloved dolls. Her oddness makes her a target for bullies, and one girl in particular contrives to torment her in every possible way. As things get worse and worse, she spends her days dreaming of revenge.
In the present day, Ella moves into the house opposite the now-dilapidated Thornhill. She lives with her father, who's rarely at home (her mother's death prior to the move is implied, but not addressed). Exploring the neighbourhood, she wanders into Thornhill's overgrown gardens and sees another girl. She can't seem to catch up with the figure – but she does find threadbare dolls in the long grass. Ella's story forms the bulk of the book and is told through illustrations, without dialogue.
Thornhill is 550 pages long, but a quick read nonetheless; naturally, the plot is very simple. At first I wasn't that keen on the illustration, but the further I got into the story, the more I appreciated the beauty in it: the way Smy sketches animals on the move, the silhouettes of buildings against the night sky. While ultimately too juvenile to truly engage me – I'd have liked more elucidation of Mary and her enemy's histories prior to Thornhill – this is a pleasantly creepy little tale.
I received an advance review copy of Thornhill from the publisher through Edelweiss.
A sparky slice of 21st-century chick lit (that is, the type you absolutely don't call chick lit) about two friends in their late twenties, Living the A sparky slice of 21st-century chick lit (that is, the type you absolutely don't call chick lit) about two friends in their late twenties, Living the Dream fizzes with humour and intelligence. Emma, who always wanted to be a writer, is stuck in a job at an advertising firm; it pays the bills, but she hates it. Clementine has just returned from a year studying film in New York, and comes back down to earth with a bump when she finds herself living in her mum and stepdad's house, skint and apparently unsuitable for anything better than bar work. Though they don't necessarily realise it, the friends envy each other – Emma wishes she had the guts to just quit and do something more creative, while Clem admires the fact that Emma has a foot on the corporate ladder and can afford a few luxuries.
It's a relatable portrait of a life that's typical of city-dwelling older millennials, from cringe-inducing hen parties and work awaydays to money woes and worrying about ageing parents. (In particular, Emma's office is painfully well-realised: the passive-aggressive emails about tidying away your coat and bag, the 'sweet wrappers, cuddly toys, branded pens and photos' piled on the PR team's desks, the recycled bullshit everyone comes out with at meetings.) More importantly, the characters are deeply likeable and the story is hard to tear yourself away from.
It doesn't quite culminate in some grand, hilarious finale; I think on some level I expected there to be a big web of coincidence drawing everything and everyone together at the end. Without that, some of the incidents depicted throughout the book feel like they lack a punchline. I did, however, really like the reveal of the bitchy yet annoyingly perfect frenemy (a chick lit stock character) as someone who is not only more human than she first appears, but also more accomplished and professional – and perhaps someone more deserving of success and fulfilment than our two heroines, loveable though they are. There's generally a buoyant (but believable) sense of positivity about the story. It's just nice.
Living the Dream falls into the same bracket as Lisa Owens' 2016 debut Not Working, and if that book resembled a millennial Bridget Jones's Diary, this one is Sex and the City if Carrie had a 9-to-5, a blog and a more realistic financial situation.
I received an advance review copy of Living the Dream from the publisher through NetGalley.
Lucy Clarke writes the kind of books I simply have to finish in a day. Last Seen is another hit, a suspenseful and beguiling tale of secrets and lies Lucy Clarke writes the kind of books I simply have to finish in a day. Last Seen is another hit, a suspenseful and beguiling tale of secrets and lies set on an English sandbank where two lifelong friends, Sarah and Isla, have neighbouring beach huts. As the story begins, Sarah's 17-year-old son Jacob has gone missing – on the exact day that Isla's son Marley drowned seven years earlier. As the days go by, a tangled knot of hidden connections and betrayals begins to unravel, leading all the way back to the early days of Sarah and Isla's friendship. The two women take turns as narrators, with frequent flashbacks illuminating their pasts.
Last time I reviewed one of Clarke's novels (2015's The Blue), I mentioned that I felt her three books formed a kind of loose trilogy. Now there are four, I'd say that still stands, as Last Seen feels a little different – more mature and grounded, and correspondingly more domestic. At the same time, it nods to the author's evident love of travel and flair for an evocative setting: the sandbank may not qualify as exotic, and the characters might be fortysomething parents rather than carefree backpackers, but there's still an irresistible charm to it all.
As I raced through Last Seen, my imagination was consumed by life on the sandbank. The intimacy of the setting is absorbing and authentic; the characters are convincing; the plot has an effortless natural momentum. As a cross between a suspenseful thriller and a feelgood wish-you-were-here read, I can't fault it. My only regret is that I didn't save it for my holidays.
(Apropos of nothing... I couldn't help but smile at the children being named Jacob and Marley. Is this a deliberate reference to A Christmas Carol, or something that wasn't flagged as sounding a bit odd in edits? If Last Seen is a retelling, it's a very, very subtle one.)
I received an advance review copy of Last Seen from the publisher through NetGalley.