Juvenile writing
“Noriko, promise me that you will obey in all things. Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist. Do not think if thinking will lead you somewhere you ought not to be. Only smile and do as you are...
Faith, science and addiction in an immigrant family
Having reading reviews of how harrowing Gyasi’s Homegoing was, I have still not summoned the courage to read it yet, but her second novel has turned out very readable. Our protagonist is Gifty, a second generation Ghanaian immigrant in the...
Fish and chips and a slice of life
Here is a list of things Majella, the twenty-something year old Big Girl at the center of this novel, likes: Eating Dallas (except for the 1985-6 season, also known as Bobby’s Dream) UK Gold [this TV channel?] Her da Her...
Rape and genocide
This is such an important book to read, but it hardly needs any warning that it is not bedtime reading. Christina Lamb is a British investigative journalist who travels to many parts of the conflict-ridden world we live in, recording...
A less mythical frontier story
In the 1900s, authors like Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour rode the peak of the ‘Western’ genre with their enormous output. These books typically featured tough, sharp-shooting, quick-on-the-draw white men with beautiful horses who rode the wild country of the...
Distinct and well-developed characters
When the story first begins, our protagonist, Libby (14), is in a car, sitting in the back with Thomas (18) her older brother, and Ellen (12) her younger sister in the middle. Her mum, Faye, is driving, and eldest sister...
You gotta be twice as good
There’s a recent spate of American novels which expose the toxic reality of apparently exciting jobs. The Nanny Diaries featured a young white woman working as a nanny for wealthy New Yorkers, and revealed that the employers were jealous, self-centered,...
An easy Metro read
It must be admitted that I picked up this book displayed in the New Books section in the library because the blurb at the back said, “A beautiful tale for everyone who likes to end a book with a smile...
The seedy underbelly of the model minority
It is no secret that the Indian-American middle class community is ambitious and competitive. Immigrants with professional backgrounds and advanced degrees who arrive in a new country typically push their children to even higher achievements. Many novels have described the...
The End of the Road?
Once again like her penultimate novel, The Motion of the Body Through Space, Shriver presents us with a couple (though British this time, not American) who are in the mid-later stages of life, as our protagonists. And once again, they...
Idealism and apathy in a turbulent political period
In apartheid South Africa, the ruling white party created Bantustans, or ‘black homelands’, with the goal of migrating the entire black population out of their own homeland into these barren areas according to their assigned tribal definition. The Zulus would...
Italian Introspection
This is a novella (just 157 pages) by Lahiri which she originally wrote in Italian, then translated herself, into English. It has over 45 chapters, so you can guess that each chapter is quite short. In expected Lahiri style, the...
A smaller, sadder tree in Brooklyn
Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a beloved American classic. Its story of an Irish-American girl growing up in poverty in 1900s Brooklyn has charmed readers for over 80 years. Tomorrow will be better is one of Smith’s...
Undignified distortion of a classic character
A fairly avid reader of Sherlock Holmes spin-offs, I am not one to turn up my nose at non-Conan Doyle authored novels utilising the well known, well loved characters of the Holmes brothers, Dr Watson, and Mrs Hubbard. My favourite...
Delightful, and never dull
Such a long title for these 2 short stories, which come to just a little over 100 pages in all. This will not be a review which is demanding or interrogating, because much of the pleasure of reading a Mary...
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