Book Review: The Dry, by Jane Harper

This is a very good read. I read it in one sitting - it truly is one of those books that is impossible to put down!

The book opens with Aaron Falk, a Melbourne police officer, returning to his hometown in the Australian outback after a twenty year absence, to attend the funeral of his childhood best friend Luke Hadler. Luke, his wife and their young son were all found shot dead and it looks as if the only person who could have been responsible is Luke himself. The town is in the grip of a fierce drought and tensions are running high throughout the community as farms and local businesses are beginning to fail. At the request of Luke's parents Aaron begins to dig around, looking into the deaths, but he is keeping secrets of his own from twenty years before - secrets that he thought only he and Luke shared. The more time he spends in the town, the more it becomes apparent that these long buried secrets are threatening to resurface. Do they have any bearing on what happened to the Hadlers? 

The setting is what sets this apart from other thrillers and Jane Harper does a fantastic job of bringing the Australian outback to life and evoking the never ending heat and isolation. She shows how this heat and isolation can lead to incredible tension and frustration...which is a great for a thriller like this - just about every character in the book is a potential suspect as the drought makes people behave in ever more threatening and bizarre ways! Small town life with all it's gossip and small mindedness, coupled with the worries of life lived at the mercy of the climate make for high emotions and unusual behaviour all round. 

The plot is fast paced and full of twists and turns, several times Harper managed to lead me completely up the wrong path, having me suspect various people in turn and for a chapter or so I would be certain of that person's guilt before a plot twist led me off in another direction. Masterful stuff. So often I feel let down by the ending of novels like this, feeling either that the motive was utterly ridiculous or the character responsible for the crime was one that had hardly been mentioned in the book before and was just introduced almost incidentally to be the culprit, but this was not the case with The Dry. The ending was entirely plausible and a surprise right up until Falk himself begins to work it out.

An unusual and well written thriller that I would highly recommend.

Why I love Maggie O'Farrell's books

I have just finished reading The Hand That First Held Mine and like all the Maggie O'Farrell books that I have read, I loved it. I have only read 4, but they are all excellent and I would recommend them to anyone. If my to-read list was not so large and out of control, I would probably have read more of her books by now! 

O'Farrell writes about a wide range of topics, but the thing that sets her work apart is the incredibly real portrayal of human emotions. After reading one of her books I feel raw and emotionally drained, but I mean that in a good way! Her characters are fantastically well drawn - that is why you feel their emotions so keenly. And there is usually an element of mystery and a fast-paced plot. What's not to like? 

So the ones I have read are:

The Hand that First Held Mine - a story following the lives of two women, living in the same city 50 years apart. In the 1950s, Lexie runs away to London looking for excitement, meets the love of her life and carves out a new life for herself as a journalist. In present day London, Elina has just become a mother and we share the first few life-changing weeks of motherhood with her. These parallel stories have fleeting moments of connection, mainly through the places in London that the characters frequent but as the novel goes on we realise that the two women are connected in other ways too. This novel won the Costa Novel Award in 2010 and is a riveting read.

After You'd Gone  is one of those books that totally consumes you. You will live in this book while you are reading it. It is an outstanding and heart-wrenching portrayal of love and grief and without doubt my favourite of O'Farrell's books. It is hard to believe that this was her first novel.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Iris receives a letter informing her that a great-aunt she knew nothing about is about to be released from a psychiatric institution. Iris sets out to discover the truth about this mysterious old lady who seems to have been erased from the family history. The novel is cleverly constructed with the truth gradually being revealed through 3 different viewpoints. Another very moving page turner from O'Farrell.

Instructions for a Heatwave has a mystery at its heart. One morning Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he is going out to buy a newspaper and he never returns. The search for Robert brings his children back home and gradually many skeletons are released from closets as the family pulls together to find him. I loved it because the family is so wonderfully real and believable. Each character is flawed but likeable and the Irishisms are spot-on. It is also utterly compelling - just like his family the reader is desperate to both find Robert and discover why he disappeared. Excellent.

Which Maggie O'Farrell books have you read? And which ones are your favourites?

Book Review: Small Great Things by Jodi Piccoult

I have never read any books by Jodi Piccoult before and in fact I have been guilty of a little prejudice against her, dismissing her as"trashy". Ironic therefore that this book which encouraged me to transcend that prejudice and pick up one of her books, is in fact all about prejudice! And I was definitely wrong about Piccoult- her writing is far from trashy and I am sure I will go on to read more of her work.

So what convinced me to try this particular book? I was hooked by the hype. I had even seen this book described as "To Kill a Mockingbird for the 21st Century". Now this is dangerous territory. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is my favourite book of all time and holds a very special place in the heart of many people. So any book making this kind of claim had better be good - very good. But it certainly works as a strap line to get people to pick up the book in the first place...

Ruth is a black midwife who has been working at the same hospital for twenty years. One day a white supremacist makes a request (granted by the hospital) that no black personnel are to care for his baby and Ruth is immediately removed from the baby's care. After a routine procedure the baby dies and Ruth is held responsible, suspended from her job and eventually tried for the baby's murder. We follow the events leading up to the baby's death, the preparation for the trial, the trial itself and the aftermath through the eyes of three different narrators : Ruth herself; the baby's father, Turk; and Ruth's lawyer, Kennedy. 

The plot is certainly compelling. I couldn't put it down and found myself reading long into the night. And the characters are on the whole, well drawn. Ruth in particular is a likeable character that the reader immediately sympathises with. We really want things to work out well for her. This novel is predominantly about prejudice and the experience of being black in America and Ruth does a good job in getting this message across to me as the reader and helping me to question my own beliefs and actions and examine my own white privilege. In this respect it reminded me very much of "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche. And I was very glad that I had recently read "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi which helps to explain why race is such an issue in the USA and illustrates amazingly well how the effects of slavery reverberate down through the generations and are still raw and relevant today. 

Whilst I did enjoy the book and liked the fact that it was though provoking and made me examine my own conscience, I did feel that it had a couple of large flaws. The ending I felt was trite and contrived and far too much of a neat ending, with all strands tied up in a neat little bow and everyone ending up a better person. And I think this is why comparisons to "To Kill A Mockingbird " do not work - the outcomes of that book are not neat and positive and the child as narrator stops any events from seeming trite. In addition, the epilogue of "Small Great Things" seems almost rushed and the character development is non-existent so what happens to those characters is very difficult to believe. The ending of the book was a real let down for me.

However, that said, I would recommend it because it was fast paced, emotionally involving and thought provoking and an interesting dilemma to explore. It is a good book, but definitely not a great book and will not endure in the way of "To Kill a Mockingbird ".

An eclectic selection of Irish fiction for St Patrick's Day

Ireland certainly has a rich literary tradition. Knowing where to start on a booklist of Irish fiction is hard, knowing where to stop is even harder.... But here is a round - up of some great reads either set in Ireland, or written by Irish authors.

The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry

This is the moving story of Roseanne McNulty who has spent many decades in a mental institution. Desperately sad and very moving, it is also utterly compelling. The reader simply has to find out what happened to Roseanne and how she ended up in the mental institution. And Barry's prose is beautiful. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

A chilling classic. I am sure you are all familiar with the story line... The painting in the attic grows old, while Dorian Gray himself stays young. Definitely worth a read though as we go on a tortuous journey of guit and self discovery with the protagonist. It is also very short, so it is a classic you can tick off very quickly!

History of the Rain, by Niall Williams

This book is a glorious exploration of the English language and the impact of literature on our lives. Ruth is dying, confined to bed and desperate to find out her father's story, through family history and the incredible number of books he owns. Niall Williams writes beautifully- many pages were reread simply to savour his turn of phrase. There are many tragedies in this book and it is very sad, but there is also a good deal of humour. The people and places of the west of Ireland are so well captured. It is an affectionate and memorable novel.

The Thing About December, by Donal Ryan

This is a very touching and poignant novel that takes us through a year in the life of Johnsey, a man a little different and apart from everyone else, struggling to find his place in the world after the deaths of his parents who had always protected him from the harsher realities of life. Set admidst the boom years of the Celtic Tiger Johnsey is pursued by people desperate to buy up the land he has inherited while he flounders in grief and self doubt. The characters are beautifully drawn and there are moments of almost heartbreaking tenderness. The sense of time and place is a real feature too Ryan really captures the minutiae of life in small town Ireland.

The Wonder, by Emma Donoghue

Truly gripping, this is the story of a girl in the Irish Midlands in the middle of the 19th century who has become a wonder through having eaten nothing for months. An English nurse arrives in the village, employed to keep a watch on the girl and finds herself battling to save her life. The tension in this novel is incredible and keeps the reader turning the page, long into the night....

Rachel's Holiday, by Marian Keyes

It's easy to dismiss Marian Keyes work as "chick lit" and pass it over, but you would be missing out. Her writing is laugh out loud funny and her characters are entirely believable. This book is the story of Rachel, whose use of recreational drugs has got out of hand, and her time spent in rehab. It is funny, moving, and quintessentially Irish whilst also opening the reader's eyes to the nature of addiction and challenging stereotypes about addicts. When you have read it you will want to seek out Keyes' other books about the Walsh family. 

Dubliners by James Joyce

I studied this book at A-level, and although it is a book that benefits from being "studied", it is probably the most accessible of Joyce's work and a good starting point. If you have a study guide on hand at the same time, you may get more from it, particularly with regard to the complex metaphors and imagery but it is also worth just getting lost in the words and transported to another time and place - Dublin in the early 20th century. It is essentially a collection of short stories but there are recurring themes and characters that crop up in more than one story. It seems bleak and there are not many likeable characters, but if you want to give Joyce a go, then this is a good place to start.

The Woman who Walked into Doors and Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle

These two books are fantastic, both as an extended character study of the eponymous Paula Spencer and as a social history of working class Dublin in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. When we first meet Paula she is an alcoholic victim of domestic abuse and the books take us on her journey as she begins to recover from both. It is an amazing achievement by Doyle to take on the voice of this female character so completely. The subject matter is fairly bleak, but there is hope and Paula's indomitable character shines through. 

And I am hearing such good things about the gritty Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French that they are right up there on my to-read list. 

Which Irish books would you recommend?

Book Review: Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

This gentle novel tells the story of Nora Webster who finds herself widowed in small town Ireland in the late 1960s when she is only in her mid-forties.

 It is a character driven novel, fans of fast paced thrillers might be disappointed, but I certainly was not. Nora is a lovely character, likeable and entirely believable and it is a joy to spend time in her company. I would say that Nora becomes like a friend as you read the book, but it is more than that as the portrait of her life is so intimate the reader knows more about her than she would ever confide to her friends. 

Toibin writes beautifully and the details of small town life in Ireland are vividly brought to life. The cast of supporting characters are equally well drawn and animated - while you are reading you really feel that you could be living in this community, amongst these people.  

Through her interactions with her four children, her aunt, her sisters and her late husband's family we share in Nora's grief and go on a liberating journey of self-discovery alongside her. After more than twenty years of marriage she finds herself alone and her loneliness and grief are at times heartbreaking but gradually Nora learns to be her own person, answer to no-one and pursue her own interests without wondering what others will think of her. There are many moments of humour in the novel, particularly when describing the other residents of Enniscorthy and its many "local characters" and we also learn about Irish social history during the late 1960s / early 1970s. The result is a novel about grief and self discovery, but also about the place of women in society, the role of the Chruch in society and what it means to be a woman, a wife and a mother.

It is an intimate, powerful and ultimately uplifting book, although it is never trite. I loved it and now that I have finished I definitely miss Nora. Read it and enjoy being totally immersed in the thoughts of another person. Fantastic.