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Bee Ridgway grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts.
She attended Oberlin College (B.A.), then worked for a year as an editorial
assistant at Elle magazine. She studied literature at Cornell University (M.A. and Ph.D.) and has
worked at Bryn Mawr College
since 2001. She lives in Philadelphia,
PA. The River of No Return is Bee's debut novel. It publishes today.
The River of No Return - Bee Ridgway
So yep, I’m an American. In fact, thinking
about being American is how I make my living.
I’m a professor of American literature, and I spend my days teaching Moby-Dickto young Americans. But about two years ago I sat down and
started writing The River of No Return.
It’s a big, busty time travel novel, a genre mash-up that combines
adventure, romance, spy thriller, mystery.
It’s set in Vermont, in contemporary London and in Georgian
England. Its two main characters are
British. I surprised myself: shouldn’t a scholar of American history and
literature write an American novel?
Instead, a frothy tale of time-traveling Regency aristocrats, beautiful
medieval beet farmers and faceless corporate heavies from an ominous future was
flowing from my fingers.
I had tossed my academic hat aside, my hair
had come tumbling down, and I was tapping into fantasy. And if there’s anything Americans love to
fantasize about, it’s England
(not Britain – England). Of
course you fantasize about us right back, and always have. Brits have more to say about Yanks than Yanks
do, and Americans are fiercely protective of an idealized England that no British person
would recognize. The number of times an
American has yelled at my British partner for not enjoying tea would astonish
you.
This used to tick me off. I’ve spent years in both countries, I have a
pretty good grasp of the “real” Britain
and the “real” US, and I used to roll my eyes at the notions each nation
harbors about the other.
But that was a humorless mood. The fact is, fantasy is pleasurable and
admitting it keeps us honest and makes us more generous, in art and in
life. The fun house mirror that someone
else holds up teaches you to laugh at yourself. I am now a thoroughgoing fan of
the fictional versions of our two nations that we dream up between us. And there are always new ones. Remember that amazing Dr. Who episode where Britain
is zooming through outer space on the back of a white whale? Remember how I told you that I teach Moby-Dick? Our mutual and often absurd
fascination may not have had particularly savory effects on the world stage,
but the“special relationship” has made for some terrific popular fiction, going
back a long way.
If I may put my academic chapeau back on
for a moment, and regale you with some literary history? Some of the most archetypically “English”
writers bounced their portraits of Albion off America. Arthur Conan Doyle grew up reading American
penny dreadfuls: the first Sherlock Holmes story is largely set in Utah. Agatha Christie’s
father was American. P.G. Wodehouse spent vast portions of his adult life in America.
Frances Hodgson Burnett immigrated to the U.S. when she was sixteen. Rudyard Kipling married an American and lived
in Vermont
for four years – he adored it and was wildly prolific while there, writing The Jungle Bookand reams of poetry.
I’ve chosen the “popular” writers of yesteryear to make this point, because
it’s the “popular” fantasies that we swap back and forth to this day. The Hollywood
and BBC portraits of one another that we love to hate . . . and hate to love.
So yep.
I’m an American, and I’ve written a fantastical novel about Britain.
My time-travelly Britain is
also – through a side window and around some corners – a portrait of America. I wrote the novel because it was incredibly
fun to do so. I enjoyed myself
thoroughly, wallowing in the alternative versions of reality that I had given
myself permission to explore. I offer it to you with a grain of salt (for
flavor), and I hope that you enjoy it, too.
Author, actress and
freelance journalist, Giovanna Fletcher is married to Tom Fletcher from McFly. She grew
up in Essex with her Italian dad Mario, mum Kim, big sister Giorgina and little
brother Mario, and spent most of her childhood talking to herself (it seems no
one wanted to listen) or reading books. Giovanna is a firm believer in the
power of magpies and positive energy. To find out more about Giovanna, view her blog or
follow her on Twitter.
Her debut novel, Billy and Me, is out this Thursday (23rd May 2013).
Anyway, over to Giovanna as she tells us about a day in her life...
Every day varies, but my writing days are a fairly consistent array of
distractions that I struggle to knock on the head before getting on with the
pressing task of writing.
I get up at a respectable eight o'clock (I'm conveniently forgetting the times
I struggle to get out of bed before ten - they’re rare!), and potter around
having breakfast with the hubby, showering, getting into a
fresh pair of PJs or comfies, and then pottering around for an hour or so. I
then like to watch the beginning of This Morning for their
quick round up of the news. Now, this can sometimes work against me as
occasionally there'll be someone being interviewed that I think will be
interesting to watch. But, let's say this is a day I prise myself away
from the telly . . .
I then go
to the office and sit at my desk in front of my laptop. First task? Checking my
Twitter, Facebook and the Mail Online (I like the pictures), and then,
before I know it, it's one o'clock and its time for lunch. Not that I've earned
the break, of course!
After lunch (usually soup in case you're wondering), I start reading what I'd
worked on the previous day to get my mind focused . . . Occasionally I feel
tired and have a nap at this point (let's blame the Italian in me - I love
a siesta), although I've tried to stop myself from doing that - grabbing a
quick cuppa is much more time effective. I'm then ready to write for the
rest of the day and late into the evening, usually getting a solid six hours
distraction-free-writing in the bag.
Yes, reading back over this, my working day is pretty disgusting really. I
promise to rid myself of a few distractions and leap over obstacles with speed
so that I can get to work a little quicker in the future . . . This is
said from my PJs while I nurse yet another cuppa. I guess with writing it's all
about finding a way that works for you and gets the creative juices flowing.
Jennifer McVeigh's debut novel The Fever Tree, the
epic tale of a British woman embarking on a new life in
nineteenth-century southern Africa, has been critically acclaimed and selected for Richard and Judy's Book Club in March. Here, she reveals her 10 Tips on How to Stay Sane as a Debut Novelist.
Don’t quit your job before you have a book deal. Very sensible advice that I spectacularly failed to follow. I left my job as a literary agent and stepped into the terrifying world of no salary, no professional support and no real hope of achieving what I was setting out to achieve. It was a very rocky ride.
Do join a writing group – they will keep you sane, help you to stay on track, and remind you that there are other people in the world crazy enough to be battling all day with words on paper.
Don’t divulge your plot, or writing problems for that matter, to friends at dinner – they’ll say very unhelpful things like: Isn’t that a bit predictable? How can you not know what’s going to happen at the end? And – most gruelling of all - hasn’t Wilbur Smith written a novel just like that?
When you’re writing sex scenes, don’t imagine your parents looking over your shoulder – a passionate kiss will quickly disintegrate into a prudish peck on the cheek.
Don’t obsess over the perfection of other novels. Read them, learn from them, but don’t let them cast your own into shadow. I always wanted my protagonist to be as dynamic and real as Cathy or Emma, but it wasn’t until I had reached the end of her story that I felt I really knew her.
Don’t let yourself imagine all the unpublished authors in the world being turned down by agents, like the millions of lost souls waiting at the gates of heaven. If you have written something good, then someone will spot it – you just need to have faith and determination.
Don’t be your own judge. After I had written my novel I shelved it in despair, convinced that it was worthless. It was only by some stroke of luck – a chance meeting with a literary agent – that I was convinced to send it out into the world. Thank goodness I did.
Don’t demonise the agents who reject you. More than likely your manuscript fell into the hands of some poor, unpaid 17 year old intern with a hangover, desperately trying to reduce the size of the slush pile. Wait a few months, and send it in again. I was offered representation by an agent who must have afterwards let my manuscript fall into the slush pile. A month later I received an earnest typed letter from the agency: “Dear Miss McVeigh, many thanks for sending in your manuscript. I’m very sorry to inform you that…”
Once you are published - in the interests of sanity – try not to check your Amazon sales rank more than twice (OK – that’s not realistic – perhaps 5 times) a day. If sales are good your publisher will tell you, and a shift from 3050 to 2095 is almost certainly meaningless.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you’ve got one novel behind you, the second will be easier. It won’t. Sweating over a novel is part of what makes it brilliant. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I do have a very frustrating writer friend who keeps telling me that her second novel is a breeze…
To celebrate Valentine's Day, this week we held a poll to find the nation's favourite Penguin love story, asking our Facebook fans and Twitter followers to vote for their favourite from a shortlist of ten of our most enduring romantic classics.
After much discussion and in-fighting among the Austen aficionados, Bronte-botherers and Hardy die-hards, the results are in:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen's romantic comedy-of-manners will top pretty much any book list it is eligible for; and so it proved here, winning the vote in the end at a canter with a 24% share. The perennial favourite was perhaps still fresh in the public's imaginations after the recent 200th anniversary celebrations.
There was little to separate the Bronte sisters however, with just six votes to separate Charlotte's Jane Eyre (18%) and Emily's Wuthering Heights (15%). F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was by far the most popular non-English title on the list, also garnering 15% of the vote.
To celebrate the results of the poll we're offering a Valentine's Day 50% discount on Pride and Prejudice at Penguin.co.uk - to claim your discount, simply enter the coupon code 'Love' when prompted.
It’s an odd and wonderful thing as a bibliophile to be able to work with authors and books. Getting ‘behind-the-scenes’ and helping books find their audience, as a marketer, is often about finding ways to extend your own enthusiasm and passion for a book and get the message across.
So when you get to work on a book that you like with a great author, it’s good fun – and a real privilege.
But when you work on THE book that served to remind you exactly why you work in publishing, that makes all the long hours, blood, sweat and tears utterly worth it and has the power to inspire a whole new generation of readers – there are, ironically, no words.
John Green is already an icon in American YA literature, known equally for his mastery of social media, particularly via the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. With almost 1,000,000 subscribers and 300,000,000 video views, John and his brother Hank are living legends in the video community. This is where I found him, and then I discovered his books.
Teen and YA fiction has come a long way since I was technically the right age to read it. There wasn’t much beyond Judy Blume, Point Horror and Sweet Valley High back then, and although they were great, they’re nothing to the choice on offer now. With limited high street shelf-space and the advent of self-publishing, the genre has opened up even further, so making a mark and really resonating with readers is harder than ever.
Enter The Fault in Our Stars. You can often look back at someone’s career and clearly recognise their big break – their defining moment. It slammed onto the New York Times bestseller list at number 1 in January 2012, then stayed on the list for the entire year; selling in excess of 1 million copies in the USA and being voted as TIME magazine’s Number 1 book of 2012. This enabled John to sell out his one-off show last week at New York’s Carnegie Hall in under 48 hours.
And it’s not just teens raving about it. The Fault in Our Stars was gradually, and now is rapidly becoming one of the most talked about books amongst adult readers, not just standing its own ground, but owning it. Many YA phenomena have crossed over – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Twilight, The Hunger Games – but I challenge you to find a book that will grip you, shake you up and make you think quite like this one.
One of the 80,000 five star ratings on Goodreads.com (and yes, I’ve trawled through most of them!) sums it up beautifully:
‘I don't think any other book has impacted me in ways which I can't even describe myself.’
And so, as John Green arrives on our shores to begin his 2013 UK and Ireland tour, I’ve got a feeling this is another defining moment.
For me personally, I’m finally meeting my favourite author, the one person growing up that I never thought I’d meet – given that the title was previously held by Jane Austen. For everyone else, welcome to the world of John Green. This is just the beginning.
Having
survived the madness of the Black Friday sales, the Doctor Who convention
Chicago TARDIS is now in full swing. But
what, you may well ask yourselves, happens at a Doctor Who convention?
For the
uninitiated, a Doctor Who convention is the mutated offspring of a television
chat show and a fancy dress party with renegade DNA elements of a stag or hen
party. The stars of the show along with us lesser mortals are interviewed on
stage or sit on panels discussing the finer points of writing, or acting, or
the rich history of the TV programme itself.
One panel even asks is Doctor Who is a religion (well, enquiring minds
want to know)!
And of
course there is the dealers’ room (pictured, right) where every possible
merchandising opportunity has had a Police Box slapped on it – from t-shirts to
teacups and posters to coasters – along with the more usual DVDs, books, comics
and action figures.
The several
hundred fans attending the “con” mingle and chat, queue for autographs, watch
the aforementioned panels and interviews, view their favourite episodes on the
big screen and compete for the most outlandish or intricate costume. I will be
blogging about the costume pageant tomorrow with a few images of this amazing
spectacle, but the most important aspects of these conventions is the
camaraderie, the sincere friendships that people – professionals and fans alike
– make.
These things
are great fun and a wonderful way to meet one’s readers, listeners and viewers.
And, as you’ll see tomorrow, the creativity of the professionals is equaled by
that of the “cosplayers” who go to such extraordinary lengths to make their
costumes the best and most accurate.
There is
such a lovely atmosphere at these US conventions. Everyone is upbeat and out
for a good time. The cliché of the reclusive, awkward Doctor Who fan is blown
away by the gregarious gathering of people here.
Because, in
the end, that’s what we’re really here for: to meet up with old friends and maybe make
a few new ones along the way. Although, it does helps if you know your Hath
from your Eldrad…
Michelle Paver is the international bestselling author of Wolf Brother, and the first in her brand new series for Puffin, Gods and Warriors, publishes on 28th August. Read all about her inspirations, research and insights into the Mediterranean Bronze Age …
A boy is on the run in the mountains. His camp has just been attacked by mysterious warriors in black rawhide armour. Now his dog is dead, his sister's missing, and he's running for his life.
This is whereit all starts for the hero of my new five-book series, Gods and Warriors. Like my previous series, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, it takes place in prehistory; but this isn't Stone Age Scandinavia, it's the Mediterranean Bronze Age.
I've loved this period since I was a child, when I pestered my mother to visit the mummified animals at the British Museum, and I devoured Roger Lancelyn Green's luminous retellings of the myths of Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt. Gods and Warriors is my attempt to recreate the spectacular, exotic, magical world of the great Bronze Age civilizations: the Mycenaeans, the Minoans and of course the Ancient Egyptians.
This was a time of enormous uncertainty, when survival depended on the vast, unpredictable forces of the wild: the sea, the sky, earthquakes, volcanoes. It was a world in which the stranger you meet on the mountainside might just be a spirit in disguise, and the falcon circling overhead might be a messenger from the gods...
Over five books, Gods and Warriors will follow the story of Hylas, the Mycenaean outsider who starts life as a goatherd, but grows to be a hero. It's also the story of Pirra, the daughter of the High Priestess of Keftiu (Crete), and her quest for freedom. And it's the story of the three wild creatures who will become their best friends: a dolphin, a falcon and a lion. (And as in Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, parts of each story will be told from the animal's point of view.)
I've been travelling to Greece and Egypt for decades, but to create the world of Gods and Warriors, I went back and tried to experience as much as I could of what Hylas, Pirra and their dolphin ally will experience in book one.
In Greece I explored the Cretan ruins of Knossos and Phaestos, as well as lesser-known sites in the Peloponnese, including the hugely evocative Menelaion outside modern-day Sparta, and the eerie underground cave system at Vlychada. I also spent several days wandering the Taygetos Mountains; and to get to know dolphins, I swam with a socialized one in Florida, and then with wild dolphins in the Azores. That was an unforgettable experience which, more than anything else, helped me imagine what it's like to be a dolphin.
But I don't do this research in order to teach, or to show how painstaking I've been. I do it to make the story real. I want the reader - whether they're nine or ninety, boy or girl - to feel that they're right there, living the adventure alongside Hylas and Pirra. And of course that means leaving out most of the research, and only including the odd startling detail which will bring it alive without slowing it down.
So as I said, Gods and Warriors is an adventure, and like Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, it's written mainly with children in mind. However one of the things I'm enjoying about writing it (if this doesn't sound too pretentious) is that the great themes of fate and free will, hubris and nemesis, do seem to arise naturally from the Bronze Age world, and to cry out for dramatization. And of course I'm also having quite a lot of fun being a dolphin, a falcon and a lion.
If you’re reading the Penguin blog then it’s very likely that you’re an avid reader and know the virtues of getting kids reading from a young age. We all know that reading is fundamental for development and research has shown that having good reading skills from an early age is linked to future success in life. But what about kids that don’t enjoy reading and don’t understand the pure escapist pleasure that books can offer, how do we help them? There are many children for who, delving into a book is the last thing on their mind. Whether it’s because of the distractions of TV and video games or because it feels too much like school, some kids just don’t ‘get’ books. So as voracious readers ourselves how do we help these kids become readers and learn to love books?
The key is to get kids to take that first step into enjoying the reading experience, as once they start to enjoy reading they will soon flourish. One way to engage kids is through books which are not straight-forward black and white text. So books that have fun and engaging text, a humorous story or are in a comic book style are more likely to be engaging for kids as they will find reading less of a chore. This is what makes the Geronimo Stilton books so ideal for reluctant readers, not only are the books funny, (they are about a mouse reporter and his fabulous adventures, so how could they not be!) but they are also full of colourful text and pictures. Every page is interesting to look at, whether it’s the bright pink text flying across the page or the words climbing up the page, this fun text design is perfect for engagement and it’s more accessible than traditional black and white text. As one reviewer puts it: The illustrations are brilliant along with the different types of fonts and colours used as they encouraged my 5 year old to follow the words as I read them.
If you’re looking for further proof that books with engaging text and images are accessible for kids and great for reluctant readers, then look no further than Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series. This illustrated diary series with its comic style adventure has proved a huge hit with kids, even beating Harry Potter to be voted Blue Peter’s best book of the decade!
So if you know a reluctant reader why not give one of these series’ a whirl, who knows you might uncover an avid reader who was just waiting to find the perfect book for them. The key is to find the book that interests them and that they can relate to. Whether it’s a comic strip book or a book about an adventuring mouse, there will be a book out there that captures their imagination and stays with them for the rest of their lives. After all it’s book characters, more than TV, film or cartoon characters that stay with us the longest.
The Fever Tree took me down a rabbit warren of research - a world of dust, diamonds and disease. I began with an idea: what was life like for the British on the diamond fields of South Africa? Who were the men and women who went out there? What kind of lives did they lead? And what moral codes were they bound by? My journey started in the British Library, reading books on the history of South Africa in the 19th Century. These were wonderful for giving me a general overview of the period - the politics of the time, and the people who were in power - but they couldn't bring that world to life. I needed real stories about ordinary people. I wanted to know what it smelt like to live in a tent in a diamond mining town, alongside 4,000 Europeans and 10,000 Africans, without sanitation or running water. I wanted to know what it was like to be shipped out to South Africa to work, by an emigration society which specialised in re-locating women. Using the bibliographies of the history books, I tracked down the primary sources from which much of their material was taken. I was drawn into the extraordinary world of the pioneer - men who travelled thousands of miles into the interior of South Africa with little more than the shirts on their backs. There was Barney Barnato, a Jewish boxer from Whitechapel who scraped a living as a comedian, and went on to become one of the richest men on the fields. There were cockney traders, flush with success - lighting cigars with five pound notes; there were men who made little and - after a bad turn at the gambling tables - shot themselves on the veldt. These were the stories which allowed me to see just as my characters would have done over a hundred years ago. I read guide books on the Cape published in 1880 and sifted through women’s magazines from the 1870s - turning over patterns for embroidered glove boxes and lace cushion covers - just as my character Frances might have done. I delved into manuals on social etiquette, cooking, botany, and what to bring on a hunting expedition to the Transvaal. There are books in the British Library which you simply couldn’t find in a lending library. Books that might have had a tiny print run, and aren’t useful to anyone but a handful of historians, which proved priceless for my research.
One afternoon, I was reading about African labour on the diamond fields, when I came across a reference to a smallpox epidemic which had ravaged the diamond mining town of Kimberley in the 1880s. I looked at the notes at the back of the book, and they cited the diary of a doctor called Hans Sauer. I tapped it into the British Library catalogue, and sure enough, they had a copy. In just over an hour Sauer’s diary was sitting on my desk, and it told the extraordinary story of a smallpox outbreak which had been covered up by Cecil Rhodes, the great statesman. The epidemic - which could have been easily contained with vaccination - ended up killing thousands. At the time it was reported as ‘the greatest medical scandal in the long and honourable history of British medicine’, but it has since been forgotten. Two of the doctors who were paid off to deny the presence of smallpox - Jameson and Matthews - went on to become Prime Minister and MP. This shocking story seemed to lie at the very heart of Britain's exploitation of the resources and people of South Africa under the banner of 'civilisation'. Here was a tale of adventure, greed and exploitation, of gambling dens and brothels, of men - one minute a pauper, the next a millionaire - scratching a living on the veldt looking for diamonds. After six months of research, I knew I had 'found' my story.
A guest blog from Olivia Scott-Berry from Penguin's teen site, Spinebreakers
I’ve never wanted to hate but couldn’t help loving so many people all at the same time.
Every now and then an event comes along and you think, you know what? My biology homework can wait, Masterchef can be recorded, dinner is reheatable- It’s a Wednesday night, but I’m going out! (It’s a phenomenon I like to call ‘the dilemma of the sixth-former’)
The Penguin General Bloggers' event then, was something pretty special. Imagine this: you receive an email telling you that seven of the most brilliant authors are going to be giving readings, and that you will get to talk to them afterwards and there are going to be goody bags. Can you honestly tell me that you would have said no, I have to finish this sheet on quadrat sampling?
Arriving at the event, I knew that I had made the right choice between my education and my passion for books, because not only were the free books stacked high, but the room was packed with people each with their own unique take on the publishing world- editors, bloggers, authors- people who I was really excited to talk to and hear their experiences and get some advice.
It was probably one of the most daunting things I’ve ever done as a Spinebreakers - by definition we are readers, which is an activity that calls for quiet and aloneness and the kind of imagination that thrives in that environment more than any other- but it was gratifying to see that the authors were just as true to their sixteen-year-old bookworm selves as I was and acknowledged the paradox of the modern author’s duties. (Not that any of that showed in their amazing readings!)
Equally gratifying was the real interest people took in Spinebreakers and what we do, and I only hope that I represented us well to this group of amazing people, who, after all, were not just composed of authors, but of bloggers too. It was incredibly humbling but also inspiring to see all these people who do what we do at Spinebreakers but to a whole other level, and who do it so well (as you can probably tell from the fact that I’ve written up my report the very next morning without going on iplayer once!)
If you’re anything like me, you probably want to hear all about the books, but I thinkthat whatI took away from last night was the knowledge that I can allow myself to meet the authors- it is not a sacrilege and it could in fact enrich the whole experience (even now I am itching to reread Anatomy of a Disappearance after hearing it in Hisham Matar’s own voice). So I’m going to compromise and tell you a little bit about the books (which you must read, all of them!), and a little bit about the authors:
If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to grow up in a modern commune, it sounds like (I haven’t read it yet- even the Penguin editors are waiting anxiously for their proofs to arrive) Wild Abandon will be the perfect book for you, and if you didn’t- you will now just to hear Joe Dunthorne’s comic take on it. The man himself? Two words: Funny. Shorts. (Get yourself down to one of his poetry readings now).
Landfall, Helen Gordon
Helen Gordon is a former associate editor of Granta magazine and the author of Landfall, the story of an art critic in South East London (woop woop), which sounds (again, I haven’t read this, but I do have the proof right next to me right now) totally brilliant in a knowing and satirical way, but when I spoke to her I didn’t know all of this yet. She took such an interest in Spinebreakers and encouraged me to keep writing (and had a jumper on which I coveted) that I now feel really bad that I didn’t ask her anything about the book, because it sounds amazing.
Mr Chartwell is one of those books where you absolutely love the author and hate them for having the idea instead of you- and hearing Rebecca Hunt read, the feelings intensify. She is absolutely lovely and the kind of person I wish I was and an amazing speaker- who else could pull off the voice of a large black dog who happens to be a metaphor for depression? And do you know what makes it one of those books even more? Even if I did have the idea first, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off in prose half as sparkling as Hunt’s. Girl in Translation, Jean Kwok
Jean Kwok is an absolutely lovely lovely person. I could hear my English teacher screaming at me for my limited vocabulary as I wrote that, but there is no better way to say it- she is the absolute embodiment of everything that is lovely. Not only did she make me feel completely comfortable talking to her, but she managed to command the floor like she was having a conversation with each one of us. Once I could tear myself away from her warm sunshine accent, I was equally fascinated- Kwok’s tale of arriving in New York and the troubles that ensued (having no central heating, working on a piece-by-piece basis in a factory, having a talent for school) has elements of truth with her own life. Even without knowing this, the novel is beautifully brilliant- it will make you smile.
On TV programmes when someone dies or goes missing then those who are left behind are shows in crying in a series of artistic shots, and the cameras will only return to them once something changes in their lives. This is a nice idea to believe in, but it couldn’t be further from the truth- as Hisham Matar shows exquisitely in Anatomy of a Disappearance- life, ordinary life, goes excruciatingly onwards. The absence of the main character’s father is described with such poise, the everyday events imbued with such numbness that it comes to sit in your own heart as you read. This book made me extremely guilty that I didn’t know enough about the events that forced the disappeared father out of Egypt, and especially after I heard Hisham Matar’s mournful, silken reading, I am definitely going to find out more. I’m afraid I might have to disappoint my English teacher again and tell you that Hisham Matar is an absolutely lovely man, who wonderfully disarmed me by telling me that he liked my jumper. I can only respond with how much I loved his book.
I’m not really sure how to do justice to the presence that is Ross Raisin- is it okay if I just tell you that, despite hailing from Yorkshire and not (as far as I could tell) having any particular links to Scotland that he did his reading in a Glaswegian accent, which, despite his warning that it wouldn’t, I thought sounded pretty good? His new novel, Waterline, sounds a world away from his first, God’s Own Country (which I loved), but looks to be just as brilliant. I’m going to take the words straight from the press release because I think they summarise everything that I am looking for in a book- ‘the tale of an ordinary man caught between the loss of a great love and the hard edges of modern existence’. Sold.
Luke Williams joins Rebecca Hunt in the ranks of authors I want to hate but absolutely can’t- the idea behind his first novel, The Echo Chamber, is brilliant. It tells the story of Exie, whose superhuman hearing means that she can hear things that other people can’t, and who is now writing up her memories of her life, beginning in Nigeria as the British Empire’s influence was deteriorating. I was instantly intrigued by this ambitious idea, and however much I want it to fail to make myself feel better, from seeing Williams read that doesn’t seem likely. He is so confident and in control and in sync with his story (though he actually is Scottish, he too pulled a Raisin and read in a voice completely different from his own) that I just know it is going to live up to my expectations.
Because I refrained so well from adding two simple words to the end of each of these summaries and because I’m pretty sure that my biology homework is going to have to wait for a little while because I will be taking my own advice, I’m going to end my review with what you really really must do. Read them. (Now!)
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