A good selection of six for August’s reads.
Book 41: Elmet - Fiona Mozley
Intriguing story of a family, living largely off-the-grid in an area of Yorkshire that’s very close to where I’m originally from. An area notorious for being a little on the rough side where bare-knuckle fights are held in pub car parks and woodland clearings, often for very high pots.
The man of this family, a local hard-man, builds a home on land that the now absent mother used to own but presently belongs to the local slum landlord and crime boss.
The kids struggle in school so take up an education with a local woman who appears to be the only grounded character in their lives.
The dad is reluctantly forced to fight for the crime baron to clear his land debt and when one of his equally criminal boys is found killed, the dad becomes the prime suspect. This results in a shocking showdown and finale at the family property.
There’s very little joy in this book but the open end leaves you with a glimmer of hope for the kids as they both make their own way out of their unconventional upbringing.
Book 42: Money - Martin Amis
Superb satire of the early ‘80s and the desire for and misuse of wealth.
Full of despicable characters lead by Londoner, John Self, a vicious and at times violent sexist, pornography and prostitute loving slob who, despite already doing well for himself financially, is drawn into the Hollywood dream by an American producer promising to make Self’s script treatment a reality.
Crossing the Atlantic multiple times, Self juggles women like commodities in his portfolio while massaging the egos of his scriptwriter and future cast, forgets which bars he has been barred from and steadily increases the tips he feeds the bellhop at the NY hotel he resides in to unhealthy amounts.
When the script for the film requires a rewrite, Self employs a writer bloke from the pub he has forced a friendship with called Martin Amis to do it.
All the while, Self is being harassed on the phone by a disgruntled and unknown somebody from his past, the identity reveal marking the surprise plot twist in the novel.
The book is weird, quirky and very, very funny. It’s my second Martin Amis having read
London Fields last year. I’m told these two are his best but I’ll definitely try others.
Book 43: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
This was a wonderful story recommended to me by my wife shortly after the initial release but I’ve only just got around to it.
Narrated by a dead girl, raped and murdered, we learn the story of those closest to her leading up to and following her death.
Tragic and deeply sad at times, it brilliantly shines hope on an unthinkable time for a family.
Book 44: The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beautiful, lyrical prose puts a magical spin on a story of American slaves and the Underground, set during the period when the Virginia tobacco fields were drying up due to over-farming and many slaves were being sent to Natchez and other more fertile places for new owners to enforce ever harsher work conditions.
Following a mystical escape from an accident and a subsequent botched escape attempt, Hiram is conscripted to the Underground on the hopes of his ability to ‘Conduct’ - to transport people through the bending of space - to safer, more free parts of the nation under the tutelage of Moses, aka Harriet Tubman, herself a master of Conduction.
It’s a really interesting transformation of historical fiction into an almost science fiction that I enjoyed a lot but I can imagine won’t satisfy die hard fans of either genre.
Book 45: little scratch - Rebecca Watson
Using typesetting in a very novel way to tell the story of a young woman dealing with being raped, Watson absolutely blew me away with this single day - waking to sleeping - account. It is the most honest and heart wrenching depiction of how rape traumatises the victim that I’ve ever read. With no graphic details of the rape to sexualise, glamourise or titillate, Watson purely details the way almost every waking thought, action and reaction are affected afterwards.
Every boy and man should read this.
The page is frequently split into columns, detailing actions, thoughts, dialogue, all running concurrently throughout the moment. What at first seems like a gimmick, quickly becomes normal and I wonder whether I’ll see more books adopt this style going forward, it’s really effective at getting a lot of information across without being too wordy. Naturally, my Paperwhite doesn’t appreciate the strange layout so the Kindle app on the iPad did the trick.
At ~200pp, many with few words on, it’s a quick read and I found myself engrossed in it, highly recommended.
Book 46: Red Pill - Hari Kunzru
A bit of a slow burner this, hinting early on at heavy intellectual undertones but, it panned out to be a really entertaining tale of a man’s breakdown amidst the days and months approaching Trump’s presidency.
Starting with a decision by a writer to accept a place at a sort of workspace with a stipend based in Germany, only a stone’s throw from both the location where a 19th century writer shot a woman followed by himself and also the property where the Final Solution decision was made in 1942.
The writer struggles to fit into the organised nature of the Centre and finds himself arguing with other intellectuals and suspecting the organisation of unauthorised surveillance while spending most of his time watching a TV show that sounds a lot like
The Shield but with obscure right wing literary references.
The book takes a strange 90 degree turn at this stage as it tells a lengthy and personal portrait of how the East German Stasi infiltrated the life of one of the Centre’s maids, effectively ruining any relationships she had during her early 20s.
Next, we return to current events as we’re introduced to Gary/Anton, the man behind the TV show that’s hooked our writer who transpires to be an alt right influencer and ultimately involved with the Trump presidential race.
We see the writer succumb to a mental breakdown as the growing fear of all things ‘right’ threaten his liberal ideals at every turn.
It’s a timely novel that in many ways captures the fear so many felt during that electoral race. As Trump 2.0 possibly looms around the corner, many may still find this an uncomfortable read.
