Sharps and Flats
~ Bel Canto ~ the book and film ~ If only Ang Lee had directed the film of Bel Canto. The exquisite novel by Ann Patchett is widely thought to be her best. It is approximately based on the 1996...
Fiction
Perfect Pitch
~ Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill ~ Although I was born and brought up in a cricket-mad country and have been surrounded by cricket-o-philes for much of my life, I have no particular interest in the sport and can name only...
Suburban Mores
~ Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng ~ This ambitious book tackles race, class and motherhood in an upscale Cleveland suburb. Race: Shaker Heights, the Cleveland suburb where the book is set, is depicted as largely white with a couple...
Working Mom Redux
~ How Hard Can It Be? by Allison Pearson ~ Kate Reddy encapsulated the realities of life for many working women in 2002, when she appeared as the heroine of Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It. (The...
Political Women
~ You Think It, I’ll Say It, by Curtis Sittenfeld ~ The most striking story in Curtis Sittenfeld’s short story collection is, unfortunately, not included in the American edition. It’s called The Nominee, and it can be read online. The...
Millenial Angst
~ Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney ~ Old-fashioned readers, beware: there are no quotation marks in Conversations with Friends, and text and dialogue flow seamlessly together. Oh, he said.Okay. Well, I’m sorry. I am trying, you know. If there are things I’m doing...
Family Dynamics
~ Cousins, by Salley Vickers ~ There could have been no other possible title as apt for this novel, as Cousins. This is a novel of family love, love between cousins of various generations, love between siblings, parents, aunts, grandmothers, etc....
Memory Leaks
~ The Witch Elm, by Tana French ~ From the very first paragraph, Tana French’s latest novel draws you into the inner thoughts of its protagonist. I’ve always considered myself to be, basically, a lucky person. I don’t mean I’m...
Anglo-Indians and ‘Home’
~ Mulligatawny Soup, by Manorama Mathai ~ A young woman decides to discover more about the Indian father who abandoned her English mother to return to Calcutta. Superficially this might sound like a teenage finding-onself tale, but this is really...
Dignity and Alienation
~ Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata ~ Keiko, the protagonist of this 2018 novella, is in what is generally described as a “dead-end” job, working in a convenience store in Japan for the past 18 year, or all her...
Social Realism: Divorce
~ Custody, by Manju Kapur ~ This novel contains Manju Kapur’s most radical protagonist to date. If one regards Kapur’s five novels as a series in her ouevre, Custody challenges Indian tradition and Indian middle class gender roles in a...
A scarred, compelling heroine
~ The Right Side, by Spencer Quinn ~ Chet and Bernie are beloved literary characters in Spencer Quinn’s earlier books, but he has created a completely distinct, remarkable character in The Right Side. LeAnne Hogan, the protagonist of The Right...
Gentle charm with a Sinhalese flavour
~ A Disobedient Girl, by Ru Freeman ~ “She loved fine things and she had no doubt she deserved them.” This is the opening sentence of this debut novel, and one which made me smile. A good, provocative opening sentence...
Intersecting lives in a fluid history
~ A God in Every Stone, by Kamila Shamsie ~ For those of us who are avid Shamsie-readers, this sixth novel is an eagerly awaited one. Kamila Shamsie’s first four novels (In the City By the Sea, Salt and Saffron,...
Love and Deception
~ In the Country of Deceit, by Shashi Deshpande ~ In the Country of Deceit is an entirely and distinctively Deshpande novel; the texture, the characters, all typically and instantly recognisably of Deshpande’s voice and style. For admirers of Deshpande’s...
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