Enchanting layers upon interlinked layers
I start this review with an apology to the reader; I hardly know how to begin to review such a book. An apology is needed all the more because this is such a remarkable book that I couldn’t hope for...
Posthumous spying
It is such a pleasure to be in the hands of a master craftsman, and John Le Carré is one indeed. Sure, a few of his novels from the past decade or two have been less exciting, perhaps even pedestrian,...
Self-awareness and angst
Ava is a young Irish woman who manages to get out of Ireland by taking up teaching English to children in Hong Kong. She has no vacation for teaching and very little interest in Hong Kong, but manages to be...
“A bomb went off in her brain” at eighteen
Mental illness is a difficult topic around which to center a novel. It would be all too easy to end up with a one-note portrayal of the sufferer which simply evokes sympathy, or leaves the reader relieved that they themselves...
Miles to go, during a pandemic
A very topical novel indeed, written from the perspective of itinerant migrant labourers in India who journeyed home on foot when the national Covid lockdown gave them no other option. This is the (fictional) story of 15-year old Meher’s family,...
Playful bloodshed
Several people are enclosed in a manor house, or on an island, or in a train. The weather worsens, and they are trapped for a few days. And then a body is discovered. Over the course of the next few...
Luminous read
Sometimes you pick up a book because it is talked about a lot, or promoted well, or you hear it on the grapevine, read a review, your bookclub selects it, a friend recommends it. And sometimes, just sometimes, the gods...
Indigestible treacle tart
British WWII novels often have an oldfashioned charm with their dashing doomed fighter pilots or sturdily phlegmatic women keeping up the home front. On the surface, The Kitchen Front would appear to be a pleasant addition to the collection, but...
Care Child
Although the book does not set out to overtly discuss race-related issues, the narrative nevertheless is underpinned by what it means to be a young coloured child in care, in 1980s UK. The author herself is of mixed-race descent (Irish...
IRA sisters
Most spy stories and thrillers involve men, so Flynn Berry’s Northern Spy is immediately a welcome addition to the genre. The protagonist is Tessa, a Belfast native with a beloved sister called Marian, and the men in this novel appear...
Quiet delight
Since I have devotedly followed the entire No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and mildly enjoyed a handful of other McCall Smith novels too, I was delighted to find he has placed this new one in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon),...
The Best and the Worst in People
The Irish Magdalene laundries are now infamous: they were run to house unmarried pregnant (‘fallen’) women, who laboured in unpaid servitude for years or decades. Their babies were taken away from them and adopted out. The women were indefinitely incarcerated,...
Class, Race and Motherhood
It is a book which seems deceptively low-key and insignificant because of the very self-absorbed person the protagonist is, who wants to only live in her own little, self-circumscribed world, but which is actually told quite well, and is very...
Rehoming books in Bangalore
‘I have all kinds of medical problems’, said the middle-aged lady. ‘Swollen foot, bad knees, stomach problems… and the doctors said there was nothing they can do!’ She was pleased to find a copy of Home Remedies by TV Sairam...
Words of life and death
This is my first acquaintance with Sigrid Nunez’s writing and I am left hoping I will have many other opportunities to further my acquaintance with more. Nunez’s style is a smooth stream of consciousness, an intelligent, introspective, painfully honest stream...
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