Deep lochs, shallow characters

~ At the Water’s Edge, by Sara Gruen ~ This period romance novel, set in the 2nd World War, features a young protagonist called Maddie, newly married, of the upper crust set in Philadelphia. She does little except enjoy herself...

Forty Years Later

~ Chances Are…, by Richard Russo ~ In the first chapter of Chances Are…, the reader is introduced to classic Russo. When the [SAT] results came back, his mother met his father at the door. “Have a look at this”,...

Hardscrabble lives

~Gap Creek, by Robert Morgan ~ The riveting thing about this novel, for me any rate, is Julie Richards (nee Harmon)’s capacity for hard work and sheer optimism. It is hard to keep in mind she is only 17 years...

Pilgrimage and Patriarchy

~ The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, by Balli Kaur Jaswal ~ Can a pilgrimage to honour their mother’s dying wishes bring three bickering sisters together? And can they also examine the ghosts of their past and face the...

Mountain Man Adventurer

~ The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert ~ This is one of Gilbert’s earlier works, published in 2002, but her writing voice was distinctive already. It is an aptly named book, chronicling the personality of Eustace Conway, born in...

Family Values

~ Stay with Me, by Ayobami Adebayo ~ Like most good novels, Stay with Me is both specific — set in Nigeria, in the 1990s, among both traditional and modern people — and universal — a deep look into the...

Portrait of a Marriage

~ Listen to Me, by Hannah Pittard ~ This slim novel has a very simple storyline: Married couple, Maggie and Mark, with their dog, Gerome, embark on their annual interstate drive to Virginia for a vacation with Mark’s parents. Mark...

Part of a Whole

~ The Farewell, a film by Lulu Wang ~ A smart, touching film about diaspora and culture, The Farewell features Awkwafina in a wonderful starring role as Billi: Chinese-American, living in New York, with a grandmother in Changchun, China. Billi’s...

Vietnamese diasporic rom-com

~ The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang ~ This was an easy reading book, but not necessary one that should be taken too seriously or read in too much depth for understanding of the Vietnamese culture or Vietnamese diasporic society...

Zen and the Art of Curmudgeonly Redemption

~ Professor Chandra Follows his Bliss, by Rajeev Balasubramanyam ~ Professor Chopra is the quintessential cantankerous, opinionated, elderly Indian man. He is also a very distinguished Cambridge academician in the field of economics. How distinguished exactly? The novel opens on...

Potent Brew

~ The Outlaw Album, by Daniel Woodrell ~ Having read the review of Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone and then eagerly devoured the novel, I sought out more from this author, and managed to get my hands on his 2011 collection of...

Clunky cloak-and-dagger

~ The Spies of Shilling Lane, by Jennifer Ryan ~ A spy story set in WWII England featuring a middle-aged mother sounds like the perfect novel for a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea but, alas, The Spies of...

Honour Bound

~ Honor, by Elif Shafak ~ This is neither here nor there perhaps, but the 2012 Viking (hard backed) edition of this novel spells its title as “Honor” while within the pages of the novel, the word is always spelt...

Displacement

~ Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid ~ While all four of Hamid’s novels have been well written, I thought his first (Moth Smoke) and this fourth, Exit West, were the most beautiful: moving, resigned yet optimistic, tackling complex and controversial...

Slivers of a life

~ Clock Dance, by Anne Tyler ~ This novel follows a charming chronology: we meet our protagonist, Willa Drake, in 1967, at 11 years of age, where her mum has just had a quarrel with her dad and left the...