Jaffna Eyes
Let me tell you about dark men with white smiles, these Tamil men I loved and who belonged with me. In my house there were four of them. Each of my brothers resembled my father in a different way. All...
Historical fiction
Parallel Threads
This is one of those novels that are told in parallel timelines, with one in the mid 1850s, of the potato famine in Ireland, and the other is the current day timeline in New York. The protagonist of the mid-1850s...
It is impossible to tell the truth here and live
The prologue: A man, who had gone to fight for his homeland in some senseless war and came back with his legs truncated, “in reality, only half a man” is pulling himself along a train station platform, pitiably begging but...
Race and murder in Southie
Few authors write about South Boston like Dennis Lehane. His novels are thrillers with murder and mayhem, but also snapshots in time of the culture of ‘Southie’, with its intense ethnic divisions, racism, and close-knit ties. Now gentrifying, the area...
The Kenyan Independence Struggle, through British eyes
The blurb for Leopard at the Door reeks of The Far Pavilions. “A sweeping tale of self-discovery, betrayal and an impossible love.” “evocative portait of a woman — and a nation — on the cusp of profound change” Note how...
The first South Asian American
In the early 1600s, America was vast and Europeans had a tenuous foothold in Jamestown, Virginia. To encourage immigration, every Englishman who brought a servant or bonded labourer to America was ‘given’ 50 acres of land. One of the Englishmen...
A Library of One’s Own
Imagine a weatherproofed box of books outside a house where anyone is free to stop by and pick up a book, drop off a book, or just browse. It is such a charming idea, and seems so community-minded and friendly....
Lovely, lively characters
Having loved Liardet’s first novel, We Must Be Brave, I was of course eagerly anticipating this, her second. And once again, right from the start, I found myself in the hands of a skilled storyteller. This novel was set in...
A circus without magic
Surely The Circus Train contains the most incredibly sanitized description of the Holocaust ever. A description of two prisoners in the Theresienstadt Ghetto includes this line the scant diet of watery soup and moldy potatoes making it nearly impossible to...
Marble and Misery
It seems to be a season of historical fiction for me: the latest to cross my path is set in the early 1900s, in Colorado. At 17, Sylvie Pelletier is the oldest child of a Quebecois family, whose father Jacques...
Jazz City by the Bay
I’d venture to guess that when most people think of San Francisco, they think of one of the following: the ’60s, with flower children and LSD; an epicenter of the gay rights revolution; or the tech era with highpriced real...
Redemption, Down Under
The book cover has a wonderful evocative image, of a lone sailing ship on wide open seas under a massive, looming sky which takes up four fifths of the image. The colour of the skies are ominous above, with massive...
The Roaring ’20s
Kate Atkinson has great talent. Her debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum was a lovely, if sometimes grim, multigenerational tale of a family in York, with a twist that is hinted at occasionally, and slowly becomes clear over...
Shipboard noir
The Batavia sails! From a distance, a queenly glide; on board, the frantic effort of all hands. Roars and curses and trumpeted orders. The new ship must be learned and felt. A week at sea and ship and crew will...
A short-lived Medici teenager
This latest Maggie O’Farrell novel is once again a work of historical fiction, like Hamnet, and even more riveting. Now the reader finds themselves in the mid-1500s, Renaissance Italy. Our protagonist is Lucrezia, fifth child of Cosimo D’Medici of Florence....
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