Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan – A Missed Opportunity

It has certainly been a good summer for Canadian author, Esi Edugyan. At the beginning of July, her latest novel, Half Blood Blues, was dramatised and serialised for BBC Radio 4’s popular late-night programme, Book At Bedtime. This was followed, two weeks later, by the announcement that the book had been longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize. With so much positive buzz abounding, this novel surely wouldn’t disappoint … or would it?

Set in Berlin and Paris in the late 1930s and early 1940s, while occasionally fast-forwarding to the present day, Half Blood Blues tells the story of a group of jazz musicians who, on the brink of stardom, fall foul of the Nazi Party’s laws banning so-called ‘degenerate’ music.

The group, known as Hot Time Blues, is made up of a motley crew of musicians – the novel’s African American narrator, Sid Griffiths and his best friend, Chip Jones, are from Baltimore, while the other band members hail from Germany. The star of the show is undoubtedly 19-year-old Hieronymous Falk, an awesomely talented trumpeter, who has recently come to the attention of jazz legend, Louis Armstrong.

Unfortunately for Hiero, the fact that he was born to an African father and a German mother meant he has been deemed a crossbreed, or Mischling, by the Nazi Party. When Mischlings were rendered ‘stateless’ or non-German in accordance with the Third Reich’s Legal Provisions, Hiero becomes a prime candidate for transportation to the dreaded camps. The book follows Hiero and this group of misfits as they flee Berlin to the relative safety of Paris, where they are due to cut a record with Armstrong. However, France’s capitulation to Germany in 1940 means the Nazis finally catch up with the unlucky Hiero …

Given what we all know about Hitler’s Aryan ideals, it comes as surprise to realise that, despite the vast swathes of material written about this bleak period of history, we know relatively little about the fate of black or mixed race people in the Nazi Fatherland. This novel had the potential to plug this gap in our knowledge … but, unfortunately, it falls short.

Esi Edugyan

Instead of making the black experience in Nazi Germany the focal point of the novel, Edugyan merely skims the surface of this under-examined subject. What should be the novel’s main storyline is relegated to a mere sideshow, as the author instead explores more superficial avenues. Preferring to dwell on themes of unrequited love, jealousy and betrayal, Edugyan squanders a unique opportunity – that is, the opportunity to write an ‘important’ novel on the Afro-German experience during the Third Reich.

'Half Blood Blues' by Esi Edugyan is published by Serpent's Tail

Gift of Time: A Family’s Diary of Cancer

When Rory MacLean’s mother, Joan, is diagnosed with a terminal cancer, he and his wife, Katrin, unhesitatingly take the ailing woman into their home in an effort to make her last remaining weeks as comfortable as possible. Each keeps a diary of their experiences, the results of which are collated into this incredibly moving book.

Told with humour, grace and searing honesty, Rory, Katrin and Joan lay bare their innermost emotions as they come to terms with this dreaded disease – to the extent that the reader sometimes feels like a voyeuristic intruder, blithely eavesdropping on their most private of thoughts.

However, the benefit of this intensely personal, warts-and-all account is that it throws into harsh relief the devastating effects of cancer on the sufferer, while also giving unique insight into often-overlooked plight of those left behind to pick up the pieces – the family, the friends and the carers. Cancer, it seems, is all-consuming - and in more ways than one.

It cannot be denied that parts of this book are uncomfortable to read – it is, after all, a chronicle of death. It forces the reader to confront the one basic truth that we spend so much time trying to ignore – the fact death is an inevitable and inescapable part of the human condition. However, despite this, the book is strangely life-affirming – in acknowledging death, it also succeeds in celebrating life … and the indomitability of the human spirit.

A truly remarkable book – Gift of Time should be essential reading for mortals everywhere.

"Gift of Time: A Family's Diary of Cancer" by Rory MacLean with Joan and Katrin MacLean is out on August 18th.
It is published by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson.

Quantum Leaping with Jennifer Egan

Much like the character of Dr Sam Beckett in the cult 80s TV show Quantum Leap, Jennifer Egan’s latest offering, the Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, is a novel that likes to jump around … a lot. 

Spanning four decades, crossing numerous cities and continents, and resolutely shunning chronological conventions, the book is a montage of random episodes that serve to illustrate the lives of its many characters. Seemingly inspired by the ‘six degrees of separation’ theory, the actors in this drama are drawn from a complex web of connections which all lead back to two main players, the music impresario Bennie Salazar and his beautiful-but-complicated assistant Sasha.

Jennifer Egan

The book is a very ambitious undertaking for Egan. With a cast of characters to rival Tolstoy, a rather lengthy time span and an unconventional structure (with each new chapter devoted to a different character in a different place and time), the pressure is on Egan to make it work … and, for the most part, she does.

Reading more like a collection of short stories than a novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a unique concept which has been cleverly executed. Occasionally, the reader feels that the various strands of the story are in danger of becoming irretrievably tangled, but the author always seems to pull back from the brink – thanks mainly to Bennie and Sasha, who ‘anchor’ the narrative and prevent it from spiralling out of control.

The overriding theme of the book is time, or rather the unrelenting passage of time. As the title suggests, time is the ’goon’ or bully from which there is no escape – this particular goon will visit us all in the end. Such a theme as this could easily have made for an unremittingly miserable read, but while there are some gloomy chapters, Egan’s dark humour is often deployed to lighten the load. In fact, as Egan whizzes backwards and forwards in time, from person to person and place to place, the novel veers from the depressing to the exhilarating with breathtaking speed. Add to this the 75 pages of powerpoint presentations and the dizzying array of references to subjects as diverse as ancient history, art, architecture and obscure punk rock bands from the 70s (Egan is obviously quite the renaissance woman), and it soon becomes clear that this is a novel that simply refuses to be ignored.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is published in the UK by Corsair, an imprint of Constable and Robinson Ltd

Book Reviews - New Releases!

Click on the link for reviews of the following upcoming titles.

The Year After by Martin Davies (Published by Hodder)
Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner (Published by W. Heinemann)
What I Did by Christopher Wakling (Published by John Murray)

http://www.welovethisbook.com/search/apachesolr_search/sinead%20fitzgibbon

With thanks to The Bookseller and We Love This Book.
 

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Strikes Again!

Yesterday, the High Court in London handed down a judgement which will strike terror into the hearts of book reviewers everywhere.

A judge ordered the Telegraph newspaper to pay £65,000 (US$100,000), in addition to court costs, to an author who claimed journalist Lynn Barber had libelled her in a review.

The author in question is Dr Sarah Thornton, whose book Seven Days in the Art World received a less-than-complimentary review from the famously acerbic Ms Barber.

Dr Thornton’s claim is based on the fact that Ms Barber, who is interviewed in the book, stated that no such interview took place. However, Dr Thornton was able to prove that the interview DID occur, and believes that Ms Barber’s denials have undermined her credibility as an author and journalist. (Dr Thornton regularly writes on the subject of contemporary art for The Economist).

The judge agreed that Dr Thornton has suffered as a result of this review, stating that the review contained serious factual errors and was ‘spiteful’.  He awarded damages of £50,000 for libel and £15,000 for malicious falsehood.

However, this is not the first time Barber (whose memoirs were dramatized in the Oscar-nominated film, An Education) has courted controversy – in fact, she seems to revel in it. During her long journalistic career, her rather direct and often merciless style of interviewing earned her the sobriquet ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.’ And if that wasn’t enough to ensure her notoriety, her famously outspoken personality certainly is. Last year, she shocked Radio 4’s rather sedate audience by claiming, on the programme Desert Island Discs, to have slept with fifty men during her first two terms at Oxford. She also ruffled feathers when she publically denounced the intelligence of her mother, who was by this time quite elderly, by declaring that she had a ‘beta brain’.

Dr Sarah Thorton

So, will this latest controversy succeed, where others have failed, in finally chastening the barbed Barber?

One thinks most likely not.

The Telegraph has said they will appeal the decision at the earliest possible opportunity.

In A Strange Room - Damon Galgut

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2010, In A Strange Room is the second offering by South African author Damon Galgut to be considered for this prestigious literary award. (The first was The Good Doctor, which was shortlisted for the prize in 2003.) After reading just the first couple of pages of In A Strange Room, it becomes obvious to the reader why Galgut is a perennial favourite of the Man Booker judges, despite losing out to DBC Pierre and Howard Jacobson in 2003 and 2010 respectively.

In A Strange Room is a highly accomplished, if completely unconventional, piece of work. Masquerading as a set of three stories which document the travels of ‘Damon’ (the protagonist) around Lesotho, Central Africa and India, it soon becomes clear that this triptych of prose is more than just a collection of run-of-the-mill travel writings. Exploring themes of love, loss, loneliness, suicide and death, the book takes the reader on a journey which transcends the geographical. As we follow Damon’s aimless meandering around vast swathes of Africa and India, and witness his inability to form lasting human connections, we come to the uncomfortable realisation that his relentless travelling is really just a desperate, but ultimately futile, attempt to escape from himself. Galgut forces the reader to examine Damon’s motivations, and by default, our own ... which can sometimes make for uncomfortable reading.

Damon Galgut

But perhaps the real success of this book lies in the unconventionality of its construction. Although classified as a novel, In A Strange Room is a piece of work that simply refuses to be defined. Throughout, the reader finds himself constantly trying, and failing, to pigeonhole this book into a specific genre. Is it fact or fiction? Memoir or travelogue? Novel or a collection of longish short-stories? The answer, of course, is all of the above. And therein lies the book’s appeal. In his blatant flouting of genre, the author creates a sense of dislocation and other-worldliness which complements the protagonist’s feeling of displacement. This blurring of distinctions is something at which Galgut excels, and it is a talent not confined to the differentiations of genre - the author’s haphazard approach to punctuation (in particular, his apparent disdain for the question mark) is similarly rebellious and equally beneficial to the book as a whole.

In A Strange Room is a profoundly moving and insightful commentary on the inherent loneliness of the human condition and the fragility of all human relationships. Haunting, evocative and completely mesmerizing, it is a must-read for anyone interested in the complex nature of our interactions with ourselves and the world we live in.

4 / 5
In A Strange Room is published by Atlanntic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

The Talk of the Town - Ardal O'Hanlon

I know I’m probably a little late to the party on this one (The Talk of the Town was published in 1998), so please forgive the tardiness of this review.

I have, in fact, been trying to track this book down for quite some time. Exhaustive searches of London’s book stores and Amazon had proved fruitless, and I was beginning to despair of ever getting my hands on it, when it suddenly appeared before my eyes, like a divine apparition, on a second-hand book table in the market under Waterloo Bridge … and at the bargain-basement price of £3 – result!

So, was this debut offering by Irish comedian, Ardal O’Hanlon, worth the wait (and the endless trudging around innumerable Waterstones stores)? The short answer is yes, but with one important qualification … if you are expecting this book to be reminiscent of O’Hanlon’s most famous character, the thick-as-two-bricks Fr Dougal McGuire of Father Ted fame, you will be sorely disappointed.

Ardal O'Hanlon

Because The Talk of the Town is as far removed from the side-splitting comedy of Father Ted as it can possibly get.  It is the story of Patrick, a young man from a small town in Ireland, who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his idolised father and the onset of adulthood. Told from the point of view of the rather unlikeable protagonist, and occasionally interspersed with diary entries from Francesca, his indifferent but well-meaning girlfriend, The Talk of the Town chronicles Patrick’s startling descent from promising young teenager into a world of disillusionment and inertia. As all his friends appear to be emerging from their adolescent years relatively unscathed, Patrick is stuck in a quagmire of self-doubt and resentment. Unwilling or unable to take control of his life, Patrick succumbs to alcohol and violence as a way of venting his deep-seated frustrations. As this dark and disturbing tale hurtles inexorably to his horrifying climax, the reader is left contemplating the fine line between sanity and madness … and how easily a life be veered off-course.

The novel, however, is not without its faults. The plot is rather thin in places and, if it wasn’t for Francesca’s occasional diary entries to alleviate the intensity, the narrative would be a difficult and unrelentingly miserable read. The book is also jam-packed with colloquialisms - which is fine if you are in fact Irish like me, but could be quite baffling for the non-native reader!

In short, Roddy Doyle it ain’t, but well worth a read nonetheless.

3/5

A Tour de Force

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted from the outset that sporting memoirs, of any description, are not generally given much airtime on this blog. In fact, it is fair to say that they are usually given a very wide berth. But every so often a book comes along that forces one to re-examine our preconceptions. How I Won the Yellow Jumper: Dispatches from the Tour de France by ITV’s intrepid sports journalist Ned Boulting is one such book.

Part memoir, part travelogue, How I Won the Yellow Jumper is a hilarious account of Ned’s eight years covering that most famous and illustrious of road cycle races, the Tour de France. From inauspicious beginnings, (on his maiden Tour, he referred to the coveted yellow jersey as a ‘jumper’ live on TV - a howler of such magnitude, it is surprising ITV didn’t cancel his contract on the spot) to his emergence as one of the sport’s most respected journalists, Ned recounts his experiences with remarkable honesty.

Ned Boulting

The book is essentially a collection of vignettes which illustrate what it means to exist within the annual hive of frenzied activity that constitutes the Tour de France. These snapshots, as seen through Ned’s eyes, provide a unique insight into what life must be like for the army of people – cyclists, reporters, photographers, fans, even chefs – who make up the Tour’s colossal entourage. And Ned is well placed to make such observations. His position as an accredited Tour reporter allows him a glimpse into the rarefied world of professional cycling, while at the same time compelling him to operate on its periphery. From this unique vantage point, Ned has an unfettered view of the good, the bad and the ugly that make up La Grande Boucle. And he doesn’t shy away from the job in hand. With flashes of searing insight, the author dishes the dirt on cycling’s grandees, allowing the reader to see a side of Lance Armstrong, Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins et al, which is usually carefully edited from view.

Quite apart from the obvious cycling anecdotes, the reader is also regaled with tales of male camaraderie, as Ned and his production team struggle to deal with life on the road. Whether it’s an unhelpful SatNav or the constant hunt for launderette facilities, the book has the feeling of a boy’s own adventure story throughout. Add to this the wonderful descriptive passages which evoke the beauty of the French countryside, and the chapter on food which takes the reader on a mouth-watering gastronomic journey, this is a book that has it all. It will appeal to not just the cycling enthusiast, but also the foodie, the traveller and anybody who enjoys a good ole yarn.

Oh, and did I mention it is very, very funny?

4/5
How I Won the Yellow Jumper: Dispatches from the Tour de France by Ned Boulting is published on June 2nd by Yellow Jersey Press (an imprint of Random House).

A Cautionary Tale

Pigeon English is the debut offering from up-and-coming author Stephen Kelman. Set over a period of five months, the story is narrated by an eleven-year-old boy, Harrison Opoku, who has recently arrived in London from Ghana. Ostensibly about Harrison’s struggle to adapt to his new environment, the novel provides a damning insight into the many social problems, and the very real dangers, faced by kids living in inner-city housing estates today.

Fascinated by the recent stabbing of a boy from one of the local towerblocks, Harrison, inspired by TV shows like CSI, innocently sets about investigating the murder. In doing so, he unwittingly jeopardizes the safety of both himself and his family. Throughout the book, Harrison’s worldview is unfailingly optimistic and somewhat romanticized, and as such, he remains blissfully oblivious to the dangers that lurk all around. The reader, on the other hand, is painfully aware of the pitfalls he faces, and feels immense frustration that we cannot warn him of them.

Stephen Kelman

Among the novel’s most remarkable accomplishments is the authentic voice the author captures in his lead character. Apart from Emma Donohue’s Room, I cannot recall another writer who has so successfully ‘got inside the head’ of a child protagonist. Kelman’s depiction of Harri’s internal monologue is both unnerving and captivating.

Another of the novel’s successes is its convincing characterizations. Through Harri, the reader is introduced to an intriguing cast of characters, from the relatively harmless petty thief, Terry Takeaway and his pit-bull Asbo, to the ominous gang-members X-Fire (pronounced Crossfire) and Killa. This realistic portrayal of a cross-section of inner-city life adds a great degree of authenticity to the story. The one character that didn’t quite work was the pigeon – befriended by Harrison and cast in the role of his guardian angel, the paragraphs narrated by Pigeon seemed oddly out of place. The reader was left confused as to the pigeon’s relevance to the story until the very end.

Initially, the dialogue was baffling - a combination of Ghanaian English mixed with the grating and sometimes nonsensical slang favoured by London’s tough inner-city teenagers was more than a little bewildering. (Asweh, he was just a confusionist, innit!) Fortunately, any perplexity soon dissipated once the reader got to grips with the vernacular.

Pigeon English is a story that is both harrowing and uplifting by turns. At the end, however, the reader is left with a profound sense of heartbreak - not just because of Harrison’s fate, but also because we are only too aware that this is a story that plays out, in real life, every day, in the innumerable housing estates in our capital city and beyond.

4 / 5
Pigeon English is published by Bloomsbury.
With thanks to The Omnivore (http://www.theomnivore.co.uk)

How To Become a Famous Novelist

As regular followers will attest, I am quite fond of writing the odd book review. In fact, truth be told, this blog has seen more than its fair share of them … but no more, dear readers! This reviewer has finally seen the error of her ways. The following will be the last book review I will ever write… and even as I put pen to paper* to compose this final dispatch, I do so with a heart heavy with shame and regret.

Up until now, it was my firm belief that the job of a book reviewer was to advance the literary cause. Drawing the public’s attention to good writing, while denouncing the bad was, I believed, a worthy occupation. However, nothing could be further from the truth – at least according to Pete Tarslaw, the protagonist in Steve Hely’s fictional debut How I Became a Famous Novelist.

The book, ostensibly an account of one man’s crusade to become a bestselling author, is in reality a vehicle through which Hely mercilessly lampoons many aspects of the publishing industry, including (you’ve guessed it) book reviewers. Our protagonist’s opinion of reviewers is unequivocal, to say the least. According to him, they are:

“… the most despicable, loathsome order of swine … snivelling, revolting creatures who feed their own appetites for bile by gnawing apart other people’s work… they are human garbage [who] all deserve to be struck down by awful diseases described in the most obscure dermatology journals ..”

Hmmm … there’s nothing quite like being called the scum of humanity (I’m paraphrasing) to make one re-assess one’s career path.  But I digress …

Prejudice against book reviewers aside, this novel is simply brilliant. The premise is rather ingenious - a down-trodden, unlucky-in-love, would-be

writer is eking out a miserable existence in a dead-end job when he is struck by a proverbial thunderbolt. Suddenly recognising the fundamental spuriousness of the publishing industry, our hero comes to the conclusion that the business of writing and publishing is nothing more than a complex exercise in deception. Convinced that bestselling authors are simply con artists who make a substantial living by manipulating the emotions of the reading public, Pete undertakes an elaborate counter-con … using his new-found insight, he sets about writing his own bestseller with hilarious results.

How I Became a Famous Novelist is laugh-out-loud, side-splittingly funny and gloriously ironic. It shines an unforgiving light on the workings of the publishing industry and exposes the pretentiousness which surrounds literary writing, and of course literary review. If you are a fan of no-holds-barred satire, you’ll love this!

And now, I’m off in search of alternative, worthier employment. Maybe I’ll try my luck as a traffic warden? Or a telemarketer? Estate agent? A tax inspector, perhaps? Anything, it seems, would be better than a devilish book reviewer.

How I Became a Successful Novelist is published by Corsair and is available in paperback from March 24th.

(* figuratively speaking, of course; ‘fingers to keyboard’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?)

Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop' - A Review

By the time Evelyn Waugh published Scoop in 1938, he had already gained quite a reputation as a biting social satirist. His previous novels, Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall, had mercilessly lampooned various aspects of British society in the 1920s. With Scoop, Waugh had another target in his sights – the journalism industry, or more precisely, the tabloid newspapers which habitually engaged in sensationalist reporting.

The novel revolves around William Boot, a bumbling, unassuming nature writer who, through a case of mistaken identity, finds himself plucked from the obscurity of his country home and shipped off to the fictional African country of Ishmaelia by the editor of The Daily Beast. As the Beast’s man in Ishmaelia, Boot is charged with the task of reporting on the impending civil war, which is expected to erupt at any moment. A raucous comedy of errors ensues, which ultimately sees Boot, despite his breathtaking incompetence, eventually land the scoop of the decade.

Loosely based on Waugh’s own experiences as a special correspondent reporting on Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, the novel deftly paints a vivid portrait of Fleet Street as an ineffectual, bloated, egotistical monster, more concerned with newspaper sales than reporting the truth. (Sound familiar?) It becomes apparent that journalism, with its pervasive expenses-claiming culture, was the poster-boy of excess long before today’s bankers and politicians took over this dubious mantle.

The novel’s cast of characters is a thinly disguised who’s who of Britain’s newspaper industry during the interwar years. The Daily Beast and its rival The Daily Brute are parodies of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. Lord Copper and Lord Zinc are both recognizable as the real-life newspaper magnates, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Northcliffe (owners of the Express and Mail respectively). The obsequious and inept foreign editor, Mr Salter, can, one imagines, be taken to symbolise any number of Fleet Street editors of the time. Even Mussolini gets a mention, in the guise of Dr Benito, the would-be dictator of Ishmaelia.

A quick glance at today’s tabloid headlines is enough to convince the reader that not much has changed in the intervening years since Waugh wrote his illuminating, if cynical, parody of tabloid reporting. As such, it is essential reading for anybody interested in a career in journalism. In fact, why not avoid extortionate university fees altogether; invest in Scoop instead– it’s the only textbook an aspiring journalist will need!

A Tough Critic

Another quote from the irreverent Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967) to brighten your day ...

When reviewing a novel, said to be Benito Mussolini's "The Cardinal's Mistress", she came to the following conclusion:

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force!"