This is Not a Novel – Jennifer Johnston #20BooksofSummer

Contemporary Fiction
4*s

This is a novel and one that I think falls under the heading ‘literary novel’ with its symbolism and eloquent prose.

The story is mainly split between the 1970s with visits to World War I. Imogen Bailey’s brother Johnny is a champion swimmer. Their father is hoping that he will make the Olympic squad but maybe this is his dream and not Johnny’s. One day fifteen year old Johnny goes missing in the water in County Cork, no further sighting is ever made but Imogen never quite believes he drowned.

She therefore decides to write to Johnny, not as a story but as a way to sift through her memories and back them up with family documents; letters, school reports and diaries, hence the title of the book with premise that the result will be:

“a hopeful message sent out into the world, like a piece of paper in a bottle dropped into the sea”

Following Johnny’s disappearance Imogen stops speaking and is sent to a private hospital to recover. The real cause of her lack of voice is one strand of this fascinating story. The others concern Johnny’s disappearance and the links to the past with another family member sent to fight for his country.

Considering this is a fairly slim novel it is commendable that the writer has managed to condense a whole century of one family into its pages with no obvious bumps as she hurtles backwards and forwards giving the feeling of the natural echoes that her narrator finds in the trunk of old papers.

There are some absolutely fascinating characters within the book from Mathilde the housekeeper who converts religion as a way of fitting into country life following her move to Ireland after the war whose story sits next to that of the young German Bruno who makes such an impact on Johnny and Imogen. The stories of their trips to the cinema seemingly benign made this reader wince at the parts that both the youngsters were oblivious to.

This is a story told in layers, far more than is immediately apparent when reading the novel itself. I like and greatly admire authors who can allow you to read and enjoy but then give you the additional pleasure of uncovering some of the themes on reflection after that last page is turned. The trick of writing something that is seemingly uncomplicated but having hidden depths of course works well in conjunction of the narrator being absolutely convinced in the seemingly impossible, after all Johnny disappeared from the family some thirty years previously. A narrator unable to accept the inevitable after that length of time gives some doubt to her own memories whilst there can be no doubt in the written evidence provided.

Like so many other Irish writers the distinctiveness of the place of their birth is never far from the surface. The reader is well aware of Ireland’s ‘neutrality’ at the time of war so far in the distant past the bitterness of one mother for her son being sent needlessly to fight in the War has a different ‘flavour’ to those set in other parts of the UK. As with everything else in this novel though, the Irish hand is employed with a subtlety that is unusual.

This is Not a Novel is my fourteenth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge Yes, I declare that I resoundingly failed at this challenge this year!!

First Published UK: 2002
Publisher: Headline Review
No of Pages: 224
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Amazon UK
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Flying Shoes – Lisa Howorth #20BooksofSummer

Contemporary Fiction
3*s

Mary Byrd Thornton is minding her own business in Mississippi when a call comes through from a detective that is revisiting the murder of her step-brother over thirty years before. So far so good, exploring what an unpunished crime of this magnitude does to a family, how they deal with the impossible emotions that must come from such an awful event sounded ideal.

So Mary Byrd Thornton is summoned back to her home town in Virginia, to her mother, leaving her husband and their two children behind. A journalist is sniffing around the story too and poor Mary is struggling with being propelled back into that time when she was a teenager and some of the police were less than sympathetic dealing with the family. The thing is she has always believed they know who snatched Stevie from them.

Unfortunately for this reader the solving of this long ago murder is a mere bit part in what is on the whole a stream of consciousness about Mary Byrd Thornton’s life. Her friends, the truck journey she takes to Virginia, the alcohol she drinks, the affair she consider and her housekeeper Evagreen and this woman’s own troubles which are of a massive magnitude. The problem I have with this type of writing is that it never seems to get to the point, and quite frankly I get frustrated with the style fairly quickly.

There are a lot of interesting characters and I feel that for once I was able to understand a part of the world where although we speak the same language, the whole ‘feel’ of the place is quite unlike any that I know. There is insight into the plantation past and racial issues that were still firmly in place at the time the book was set in the 1990s. We get to look inside different types of houses, visit different families and even get a flavour of the local news. This is a book about a community with a defined culture and if that was what I thought I was reading about, then maybe my frustration wouldn’t have been quite so great.

One big positive is Mary’s approach to life so although I didn’t really get to know her despite the endless thoughts on breakable china, the mixed emotions of child-rearing, her inquisitiveness about her friend’s lives and her somewhat chaotic approach to housekeeping, it was clear that she isn’t a woman to take herself too seriously. She may pay lip-service to caring about other’s views of her but it doesn’t cause her to want to put too much effort into conforming. Her view of the loss of Stevie was also far more realistic than endless weeping and wailing that many novels offer of prolonged grief. There is a sense of guilt but again, not overwhelmingly so. This made sense when I got to the end and realised that in part the author has written the book about the unsolved murder of her own step-brother which seemed to give the book more context than I had previously given it credit for.

Despite being written in a style that doesn’t really appeal to me, there was a lot to enjoy in Flying Shoes and a book that has more impact in retrospect than perhaps it did while I was reading it.

Flying Shoes is my thirteenth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge

First Published UK: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
No of Pages: 337
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Amazon UK
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The Poisoner – Stephen Bates #20BooksofSummer

Non-Fiction
3*s

Well every year I like to explore my weird obsession with poisoners a little bit more and Dr William Palmer who was tried for the murder of his friend in 1856 by poisoning seemed a good place to travel to in this journey.

Stephen Bates has compiled his book based on the 12 day trial for poisoning his gambling partner by strychnine, one of the less common poisons to use. On 13 November 1855 Palmer’s friend John Parsons Cook was on a high, he’d managed to win, when he was lucky enough to win £3,000 at Shrewsbury races, Palmer’s horse didn’t win. That night the winner fell ill and the loser tended to him. Dr William Palmer had trained as a surgeon and at best was a small town GP but he’d given up that as a way to make money long ago and now he gambled and part-owned horses to make his living.

In order to set out the facts for us I have to commend the author for the amount of research into this case using amongst other items the newspapers of the day and the archives at both Kew and Stafford, the area in which the death of John Parsons Cook occurred. What follows was even for the day, a large number of deaths including his brother and a number of children, killed for the insurance money the prosecution ascertained. But why did Palmer kill his partner? What was the motive? Well according to the victim’s father it all hinged on his betting book, Cook hadn’t yet collected his winnings before falling ill but if that was the case, Palmer’s scheme failed because he wasn’t able to get his hands on them either.

Sadly the book itself was not written in the most sparkling of prose, it often got bogged down in the particulars losing sight somewhat of the overall story. Yes, it is non-fiction, but a good author, and editor, will keep the narrative moving along. Sadly there was repetition from the early chapters in the later ones, maybe the author was worried we’d lost track by then! The book starts well enough with a description of the day of the race, the subsequent illness and the calling of the doctor for assistance but later on we skip back to the other ‘mysterious deaths’ and a (very) long chapter on the racing world only to pick over the details of the crime again when it came to court. Perhaps a judicial editor could have made the entirety feel slightly less ‘stodgy’

That said, there was an awful lot to enjoy and many parts that I found fascinating, particularly the social history that backs up this particular crime. As always the newspaper coverage was interesting as was their horror at the number of people that turned up at the courts etc… you can always rely on the media to be the most hypocritical bunch. That might also be said about our dear friend Charles Dickens who pops up with regularity in all these Victorian trials, and hangings, bemoaning the popularity of events. It is rumoured that Inspector Bucket from Bleak House was modelled on the tenacious Charles Frederick Field who investigated the insurance angle of the crime.

Facts such as that this was the first trial moved from its home county following the Central Criminal Court Act 1856 being passed by an Act of Parliament due to the belief that the accused couldn’t possibly get a fair trial in Staffordshire; the trial was held at the Old Bailey instead, were stacked high and so on balance it was worth a read for an ardent follower of poisoners through the ages such as myself.

The Poisoner is my twelfth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge

First Published UK: 2014
Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd
No of Pages: 324
Genre: Non-Fiction
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Mrs Woolf and the Servants – Alison Light #20BooksofSummer

Non Fiction
4*s

I choose to read this book after being so impressed with Alison Light’s book exploring the working lives of her ancestors in Common People that I read earlier this year.

Now obviously as I’m a reader and I know the basic details about the life of Virginia Woolf, but as I was to discover, that is a world away from looking at her life in her home settings, in relation to the servants that lived with and worked for this very literary woman. This book is an intimate portrayal of a woman at home, as part of a family but most pertinently in her relations with her servants which let’s just say were more complex than the popular portrayal that we are used to.

The first servant to appear in Virginia’s life was Sophie Farrell who was a servant to Julia Stephen, Virginia’s mother. We learn about how Sophie, in common with so many girls of her background left her home to work away ‘in service’ From this starting point we chart the history of women who lived their lives serving others up to the time of WWII. Alison Light also points out the type of ‘live out’ servants that are now part of modern lives. But let’s go back to towards the end of the Victorian period where Sophie Farell is working as one of servants in South Kensington. Following the deaths of so many people who were important to her the siblings set up home in Bloomsbury to live a more bohemian lifestyle and it was here that the Bloomsbury Group was formed. However the siblings relied on servants at this time, and as the book tells us Virginia and her sister did for the rest of her lives.

So where did Alison Light get all this information on the servants from? Well the starting point is the letters between the two sisters and her own diaries where unfiltered views of the women who gave her the space to have a room of her own were indelibly marked upon page after page.

I’m going to be honest, I found the Virginia Woolf in her own words, quite a hypocritical and snobbish woman. I was constantly reminding myself that this was a different time where expectations of life were set in stone, but it didn’t stop my overwhelming sympathy for the women who served and my feeling of contempt for the author.

Although Alison Light freely admits that many of the servants could not be traced, in these instances, because they weren’t even afforded a name, she has done some exceptional work in tracing some of the others. We are given a surprising amount of detail about a few most memorably of Nellie Boxhall who was eventually dismissed from the Woolf household. And for me it is the time after they left the Woolf household that are so sad. There were no pensions; if the servants weren’t kept on as family retainers then they could end up with no security whatsoever, in some cases after devoting half a century in serving. This is just one shocking aspect, the other being the way the members of the Bloomsbury set, well into the war period seemed to pass their servants backwards and forwards between the households as if these people were no more than useful objects.

Pretty most of the women on my maternal side up until those born in the 20th Century worked in service. I’d always wondered how the young girls of 12, 13 & 14 ended up living and working so far from where they’d been born and the stories of the servants researched by Alison Light included the hiring fairs and the preference for rural maids that were thought to be more malleable than their town and city cousins.

There are simply so many fascinating facts that it is impossible to put within a short review but if you are interested in the author or the lives of servants during this time period, you could do far worse than to read Mrs Woolf and the Servants.

Mrs Woolf and the Servants is my tenth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge It has opened my eyes to the life I would have lived if I had been born 100 years earlier and of course a less welcome insight into one of the most celebrated women writers of her time.

First Published UK: 2007
Publisher: Fig Tree
No of Pages:400
Genre: Non-Fiction
Amazon UK
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American Heiress – Jeffrey Toobin #20BooksofSummer

Non-Fiction
4*s

Although I vaguely knew the story of Patsy Hearst it turns out I didn’t know very much at all, thanks to Jeffery Toobin I am now appraised not only about the facts of the case but of the political climate in the US at the time.

I’m not normally a fan of politics in my reading matter but without the political rhetoric, Patsy Hearst’s kidnapping would not have happened in the first place, we can’t begin to understand one without the other.

Patsy Hearst was a wealthy heiress to the Hearst’s family fortune. At the time of the kidnapping on 4 February 1974 she was living with her boyfriend, not exactly estranged from her family, but her mother in particular disapproved of her lifestyle. But Patsy was young, it was the 1970s and she was finding her feet. At the same time the self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army were looking to make the headlines and to do so they needed a story so they set-up a fairly shambolic kidnap. Luckily for them Patsy’s boyfriend wasn’t really up for a fight of any description and ran in the opposite direction. So Patsy was taken hostage and if you follow one point of view, she was brainwashed into becoming part of the Symbionese Liberation Army herself. The other point of view is that she didn’t need brainwashing, she believed in their aims. The world was all agog when two months later she was taped telling her family that this was what she wanted and she now had the nom de guerre “Tania.”

From the little I know it appears to me that this is an author who not only knows his stuff but is able to put it across so that those of us who have no understanding can access the information and gain an insight into the place, the times and the psychology of those involved. Jeffery Toobin explains how the family made its fortune and the reality, as opposed to the headlines, of what funds he was really able to raise.

But for me the best part of the book was to explain the era in terms of American social and political history. I won’t lie, I knew next to nothing to begin with so it could be called an ‘easy sell’ but I found the context and background really interesting. My précis of Jeffrey Toobin’s measured analysis was that there was a new angry generation wanting more financial security with fewer wars which they didn’t believe in with the result that domestic terrorism was booming. Sound familiar anyone?

What I had never appreciated before reading this book was that although the SLA were led by a male ex-prisoner with a somewhat erratic personality, there were a number of radical feminists in the group and therefore it was quite conceivable at that time that the former wealthy young Patricia was drawn to their cause. It therefore isn’t such a huge leap to understand that after the group became separated that the fight for survival was all that mattered. There are lots of shocking facts in this part of the story which I was completely unaware of but I’m pleased to say the tone of the book remains factual.

Nor does the author spend a lot of time trying to convince us of Patricia’s culpability or otherwise, he presents the facts and sometimes gives us one view or another but he plays it fairly straight. It is really up to the reader to decide and play the psychoanalyst with the tools he has provided.

Overall the book is a comprehensive look at the kidnap, the intervening years that Patricia Hearst spent as a revolutionary plus short book-ends on her life as a child and what happened afterwards.

“In the end, notwithstanding a surreal detour in the 1970s, Patricia led the life she for which she was destined back in Hillsborough. The story of Patricia Hearst, as extraordinary as it once was, had a familiar, even predictable ending. She did not turn into a revolutionary. She turned into her mother.”

American Heiress is my ninth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge and one that I feel has broadened my understanding of an era as well as educating me about a story I thought I knew about, but it turns out I didn’t really know anything at all. Now I do!

First Published UK: 2 August 2016
Publisher: Doubleday
No of Pages:432
Genre: Non-Fiction
Amazon UK
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The Dry – Jane Harper #20BooksofSummer

Crime Fiction
5*s

Ok I know I’m a little late to the party with my reading of this one, which is more or less unforgivable given all the accolades this crime fiction book was given at the time of publication, but I admit it, I was wrong and it should have been a prioritised read far earlier on.

After all despite my preference for a good police procedural set in the UK where I understand the rules and behaviours Now I have read The Dry I have to agree that there are far worse places to set your novel than Australia. This is particularly  true of course if like Jane Harper you live in Melbourne. It is a credit to the quality of her writing that this book got optioned in so many territories from the off.

So I started the book and quickly got immersed in an outback town in the middle of a drought (not a minor one with a few weeks of no rain, but a sustained amount of heat and no rain at all) was overtaken by the murder/suicide of a farmer and his family. All the anger and worry in Kiewarra previously without a physical outlet is focussed on this tragedy. So the story starts and we have a killer sentence:

“It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse.”

The local policeman, Roco is investigating while Aaron Falk, a friend of the suspected perpetrator, Luke Hadler, is using his leave to help Luke’s father, unofficially. The problem is that years before Aaron Falk and his father had to leave town over suspicions that he was involved in the death of his friend, Ellie. Luke and Aaron had an alibi but that didn’t stop people talking, and believe me, this was no low-level grumbling. So Aaron is back to investigate what happened at his old friend’s farm and he can’t quite believe that his friend would have committed such an atrocity but are events from the past clouding his judgement.

“And yes, he battled the daily commute to work and spent a lot of his days under fluorescent office lights, but at least his livelihood didn’t hang by a thread on the whim of a weather pattern. At least he wasn’t driven to such fear and despair by the blank skies that there was even a chance the wrong end of a gun might look like the right answer.”

Now once again the book absolutely checks my preference for crime fiction having elements from the past intersecting with those in the present. And the mystery of what happened to Ellie looms larger the longer Aaron stays in Kiewarra.

You could say two solid mysteries, well-plotted and convoluted enough to keep the keenest of minds working on their theories is enough for an author but Jane Harper’s real skill is bringing the characters to life. Now you may not like them all but you won’t forget many of them, I can assure you of that. The characters alongside the town (which is almost a character in its own right) give the story an oppressive feel which is underlined by episodes from the past being placed throughout the book, the distinction being marked by italics and tense. Much later we hear from Ellie herself which gives us a three-sided view of life, and death.

This is a superb novel and of course I know that there is a second in the series called Force of Nature. Since I can assure you this isn’t one of those frustrating books that leaves on a cliff-hanger, I’m not quite sure how that one can possibly play out (I’ve resisted looking at the synopsis) but I am very sure that the quality of Jane Harper’s writing means that I can’t afford to miss out.

“Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not.”

I’m so very pleased that I chose this book to be the eighth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge, I shouldn’t have left it quite so long!

First Published UK: 1 June 2017
Publisher: Abacus
No of Pages:432
Genre: Crime Fiction – Series
Amazon UK
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Master Georgie – Beryl Bainbridge #20BooksofSummer

Historical Fiction
3*s

One of the things I love most about Beryl Bainbridge’s writing is that each is unique, not just in terms of premise but there are different places and time periods to explore and of course a fresh set of characters to admire or revile, or perhaps feel indifference towards.

Master Georgie is set around the time Crimea War and has three voices to tell its tale as well as a photograph to illustrate each of the six sections it is divided into. Two of these are set in Liverpool, 1846 and 1850 whereas the remainder is set in 1854 during the war.

First up we meet the formerly impoverished orphan Myrtle who poses next to the corpse of George Hardy’s father. She was taken into the family as a foundling but she is infatuated with George, and so she runs his errands, clears up his messes and generally dotes on him with a fondness that verges on obsession.

We then meet Pompey Jones in 1850 by which time George Hardy is a surgeon and a keen photographer. Pompey Jones is his assistant but their relationship is far from straightforward with Pompey harbouring resentment towards Georgie. It is therefore through Pompey’s narrative that we see a far less wholesome side to Georgie than that we saw through Myrtle’s. Myrtle has been sent away to school to become a lady but her obsessive love for Georgie has not waned despite the fact the latter now has a wife.

Finally we meet Dr Potter, Georgie’s brother-in-law and the Crimea war is the backdrop to the remainder of the story. I know little about this war but I certainly got the feeling it was an authentic portrayal allowing us to see yet more facets of Georgie’s character.

This is a clever book and one that I would say would benefit from a re-read if only time would allow. Not because it is exceptionally complicated but in my desire to read the entire story, I am sure I missed some of the finer points made along the way. There are many themes most notably the photography which adds a compelling dimension to the story-telling. On the larger scale this is a story about a family and a fairly sympathetic portrayal of one man at its heart. There are indiscretions, some shocking events but overall despite a smidge of satire, it is a pleasant read, not designed to shock, but to tell a realistic story. I have to admit this reader couldn’t help but recognise threads of other works of literature set in similar times and circumstances, not that this isn’t an original tale but more that the understanding of the story Beryl Bainbridge seeks to portray is wider than this fairly slim novel can encompass.

As I alluded to earlier in this review – the journey and the devices used to illustrate it, were exceptionally well-written and enjoyable to read but if I am honest, I didn’t really feel that I connected with any of the emotions that I suspect I was intended to. Maybe on a second read, this element would come to the fore…

Master Georgie was my seventh read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge and an interesting exploration of a different time and age.

First Published UK: 1998
Publisher: Abacus
No of Pages:224
Genre: Historical Fiction
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Child’s Play – Reginald Hill #20BooksofSummer

Crime Fiction
5*s

No holiday is complete without one of Reginald Hill’s marvellous books in the Dalziel and Pascoe series and fortunately despite reading many of these books previously, each has been a delight to revisit, well, except the first in the series A Clubbable Woman which was horrendously dated having been written in 1970 and in my opinion not up to those later in the series. Child’s Play was published in 1986 and manages to be both an appealing police procedural with a hefty nod to the whys as well as the who in the course of the investigation.

Mrs Gwendoline Huby has died and when her will is read by the local solicitor (I do miss these formal will readings in more modern fiction) it turns out that those who were expecting the proceeds are to be sorely disappointed. First in line to the funds is her son, Alexander Huby, presumed dead in Italy courtesy of WWII. Gwendoline Huby never believed this was the case and has steadfastly expected her son to return home during the intervening forty-year period going as far as to advertise in newspapers and pay private investigators to find him. She’s not unrealistic though so if Alexander hasn’t returned by the year 2015 on his ninetieth birthday (shocking to think that was some 30 years hence!) then the proceeds of the will are to be divided between three charities; one-third for animal rights, one-third for a services benevolent fund and the remaining third for a fascist woman’s movement.

Now as coincidence would have it on the day of the funeral a man turns. He’s about the right age has a light, but relatively accurate back story, and an Italian suit and he cries out ‘Mama’. Is he Alexander Huby returned to Yorkshire just too late, or could this be an imposter? Meanwhile, given that charity begins at home, the three charities aren’t too keen on waiting so long for the promised inheritance either and determine to act to get the rest of the family on side and the money paid out, to them!

The book is deemed a tragi-comedy in three acts by the author himself, and I really can’t disagree. What I do love about the entire series is although there is the very important matter of murder at the heart of each novel, and sometimes the characters have an urge to take themselves far too seriously there is always a thread of humour to stop proceedings from becoming too grim.

Another feature is that often one or other of Dalziel or Pascoe take the leading role, but in this delightful story we really learn more about Wield, the ugly policeman who is often given the supporting role, on the fringes of the action. In this book, very fitting for the times he is contacted by a former lover. The issue being is that Wield is gay, something the self-professed sensitive guy Pascoe has never realised and there is pressure from above when it appears the local paper is proposing an expose of homosexual policemen. Dalziel, not quite being the uncouth brute he presents himself as really gets to show us the other side, because he always knew. This, given the year of publication was possibly a timely if challenging read for crime fiction lovers; it is often only retrospectively that you realise how much attitudes have changed.

You’ll notice I haven’t said too much about the plot, there is no need, it is multi-stranded and superbly executed ably supported by a brilliant cast of characters from the provincial solicitor to the young blackmailer, from the sleazy journalist to the hard-nosed publican all there to be laughed with, and on occasion at as hopes are dashed and fears are sometimes unrealised.

Child’s Play was my sixth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge and Reginald Hill made sure it was a sheer delight – I think I’m enjoying this series even more on the repeat reads.

First Published UK: 1986
Publisher: HarperCollins
No of Pages:368
Genre: Crime Fiction – Series
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Dalziel & Pascoe Series

A Clubbable Woman (1970)
An Advancement of Learning (1971)
Ruling Passion (1973)
An April Shroud (1975)
A Pinch of Snuff (1978)
A Killing Kindness (1980)
Deadheads (1983)
Exit Lines (1984)
Child’s Play (1986)
Under World (1988)
Bones and Silence (1990)
One Small Step (1990, novella)
Recalled to Life (1992)
Pictures of Perfection (1994)
The Wood Beyond (1995)
On Beulah Height (1998)
Arms and the Women (1999)
Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
Death’s Jest-Book (2003)
Good Morning, Midnight (2004)
The Death of Dalziel (2007)
A Cure for All Diseases (2008)
Midnight Fugue (2009)

Life After Life – Kate Atkinson #20BooksofSummer

Contemporary Fiction
5*s

 

What a delightful book, well-written, engaging and most importantly one that made me think and is without doubt one of my favourite reads of this year.

Ursula Todd was born on a snowy night in 1910 in England, a country which is on the edge of the huge change we know will follow. In the first version of Ursula’s life, she doesn’t make it through and dies before she takes her very first breath. but this is not the end, we get another version where Ursula lives. This unusual structure gives us so many versions of Ursula’s life, or lives, and boy when she’s not dying in various different ways, she does know how to live!

“Yes, Mrs Todd, a bonny bouncing baby girl.” Sylvie thought Dr Fellows might be over-egging the pudding with his alliteration. He was not one for bonhomie at the best of times. The health of his patients, particularly their exits and entrances, seemed designed to annoy him.”

Ursula is just my type of character, down to earth, funny in a ‘quiet’ way.

He was born a politician.
No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.”

Even at the worst of times Ursula is never a moaner despite having echoes in her life of those times she has fallen into the black hole of death. As the reader of her life we understand what those echoes are memories of even if Ursula just has a vague feeling of unease.

“Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.”

Despite the unusual structure and the many deaths this book is a reflection of life for a child born into what could be viewed as idyllic family. A house called Fox Corner, a mother and father who love and laugh, siblings and opportunities for a life ahead. Of course there is also war on the horizon, not once but twice, the loves and losses and relationships with parents, siblings and friends which will wax and wane. In short Ursula’s life is a full one.

The setting for Ursula’s childhood is Buckinghamshire and even here we see progression from a a house which was once Ursula’s world, in the countryside will not remain that way for the duration of the story, or of course in this case stories. This is a book about how life never stands still. There is one character in particular who I loved but became far less sympathetically drawn as life progresses, where another more flamboyant one becomes softened by the turns her life takes. This quality of growing the characters, especially when their scenes are not set in chronological order is just one element of how exceptional Kate Atkinson’s writing is.

Ursula’s life during World War II is portrayed in vivid scenes, no reader will be able to forget the technicolour images that these imprint on your mind. In one of her lives Ursula lives in Berlin, so we also get to see the challenges how her counterpart in Germany faced too. The period set during the war, both in London and Germany made the book a special read, but on reflection it is the contrast between the cosy life at Fox Corner and the horror that she witnesses at this time of her life which makes the book feel so real. These contrasting scenes, as we follow Ursula as she faces hardships as well as happiness is what makes this book such a rich read.

Kate Atkinson doesn’t make it easy for herself, we have a whole cast of characters that have to keep up with the many deaths that befall Ursula too… even down to the dog who is drawn in detailed perfection to delight the reader. I said in my opening paragraph that it made me think, it did. As we all profound reads we all take our own experiences into the book and this reflection on life gave me an opportunity to look at my own life in a slightly different way.

“Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being.”

I was alternately delighted and amazed by this book, so if like me, you somehow didn’t get around to reading this book when it was published, I recommend you do so now. I’m off to buy A God in Ruins which features Ursula’s younger brother Teddy, a would-be  poet.

Life After Life was my fifth read in my 20 Books for Summer 2018 Challenge; a sumptuous read that means that Ursula and those wonderfully drawn characters that accompany her through her lives are now part of my life too.

First Published UK: 2013
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
No of Pages: 544
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Amazon UK
Amazon US

 

 

20 Books of Summer 2018! Part 2 #20booksofsummer

On 28 May 2018 I posted my first set of 10 books that I planned to read for this challenge, the idea being that I would post the second selection in mid-July, having read and reviewed the first 10. Dear reader, the plan has gone a little awry!

Anyway I’ve read 9 of my 10 books, reviewed just 4 and have very little reading time so I suspect I won’t finish the second set but here’s what I’m aiming to read.

The links below will take you to the Goodreads description

 

Victorian Murders by Jan Bondeson

Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth

My Sister and Other Liars by Ruth Dugdall 

Flight by Isabel Ashdown

The Lighthouse by P.D. James

The Poisoner by Stephen Bates 

This Is Not a Novel by Jennifer Johnston 

The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy 

Lady Bette and the Murder of Mr Thynn by Nigel Pickford

Famous Trials I by Harry Hodge

You can check out the master page which will have the full list of 20 books here

There are so many within this selection that I’m eager to read and since time is of the essence I have a feeling that I will start with P.D. James’s book The Lighthouse.

Do you agree? Where would you start?

Wish me luck…