Jackson Brodie, at 60.
A new Kate Atkinson novel! And that too, featuring the inimitable Jackson Brodie, who I feared had retired forever at the end of Big Sky ! The opening of Atkinson’s latest, Death at the Sign of a Rook, was a...
Susan
A functionary in the Raj
In 1920, a young Englishman called Eric Blair sailed out to become a sahib in the Raj. He was stationed in Burma as a policeman, overseeing the Burmese and Indian ‘natives’ who worked in the teak forests and rubber plantations...
“A weird boy wonderland”
Too often, inventors are painted as heroic, with their faults glossed over in our accepted narrative. Most are damaged in a significant way, usually from early in their lives. […] By the time they grew to be adults, many were...
Solvitur Ambulando
“It is solved by walking” — attributed to St Augustine, circa 400 AD Rachel Joyce’s first novel is one of those quintessentially British, slightly quaint, gentle, a tad sentimental, but still charming stories. It is described as being about ‘an...
A lost generation
In 1985, at the beginning of this novel, several young men attend a memorial wake in Chicago. This is not a standard memorial service; it is a party, held at the same time as the official funeral several miles away....
Redemption Song
Say the word ‘Rastafarian’, and many people will think of Bob Marley and reggae. Beyond the catchy, unmistakeable rhythm of the songs, few people in America, including myself, know much about the Rastafari religion. Safiya Sinclair’s arresting new memoir, How...
Things Fall Apart
Nell Freudenberger’s Lucky Girls was a wonderful collection of short stories (see Reeta’s review), but it’s a big step from short stories to a full-length novel, and not every novelist can do it well. Freudenberger, however, is one of those...
Books are dangerous! They can open your mind!
A novel not just about libraries or bookstores, but specifically about a Little Free Library! Who could resist? Well, not me at least. Set in a small Georgia town, this novel hits every one of the cultural hot-button issues of...
Deception in Enniscorthy and Lindenhurst
When we left Eilis at the end of Colm Toibin’s lovely Brooklyn, she had just departed the small Irish town of Enniscorthy to return to her husband in New York; the Italian husband that no one in Ireland knew about,...
How strange a world that one’s equal must argue for one’s equality
I said these kinds of things were adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more adventures. Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Published 1884 So says Huck Finn during the raft journey down the Mississippi in a book that is...
Character studies of ladies and gentlemen, though not in Moscow
A full-length novel is very satisfying, but even short stories from such an accomplished author are too tempting to pass up. Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway were both lovely pieces of historical fiction. They have...
After the war, soldiering on for freedom and a livelihood
Helen Simonson’s debut novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, was quite delightful. Her second, The Summer Before the War, had a charming cover but the novel itself did not live up to either its cover or Simonson’s first novel. Has she...
Black enough?
Thelonious Ellison is an academic and a writer of fiction. He is also black, and unfortunately, his books do not conform to the publishing industry’s idea of black writing. A typical response from a reviewer: The novel is finely crafted,...
Looking away from injustice, until it’s one of your own
Over the last few years, many damning reports and videos of police brutality and bias against African-Americans have emerged and been disseminated via the internet, sparking the Black Lives Matter movement. Some parts of the Indian-American community stayed out of...
Her Mind Moves Upon Silence*
Books and movies about sports are abundant, and tend to follow a certain pattern: hero (or more rarely heroine) is unusually talented, faces hurdles, is set back at some point, but eventually triumphs over adversity, winning trophies and learning (and...
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