For the first post in, again, quite some time, I have entered into dialogue my fellow blogger and friend, Simon of Stuck in a Book.  Please enjoy our ramblings about One Day by David Nicholls (the obligatory orange jacket for the book accompany this post – it appears everywhere else so why not here?!)

SIMON: So, Claire and I had both read One Day by David Nicholls, along with seemingly everyone else in the world, and we both wanted to put up posts on it.  But we thought it might be fun to do something a bit different.  We’re having a real-time conversation via email, and will post the results on both our blogs… hopefully it’ll have the feel of a book group, but with the bonus that we can edit ourselves to sound better!  Hi Claire!  Hope you’re well?

CLAIRE: Hi Simon, I am well, thank you.  Funnily enough, I was watching something that provoked me into thinking about missed connections/potential but interrupted moments, which was the essence of One Day, in my opinion.  I found those “what if?” and *nearly* sections of the novel both frustrating and emotive; I think we can all identify with them on some level.  What do you think?

SIMON: Good point.  I suppose, in outline, One Day is fairly inevitable – we know the lives of Dexter and Emma are going to overlap after their day/night together at the end of university – otherwise there wouldn’t really be any point to the novel.  So Nicholls had to lace it all with will-they-won’t-they moments, near-misses and misunderstandings etc.  I suppose One Day could borrow that ‘only connect’ mantra from Howards End – it’s about two people trying, and repeatedly failing, to connect with each other.  I was worried it would feel too gimmicky, the concept of coming back to each of them on the same day every year – or too full of coincidences – do you think it was?

CLAIRE: I felt it was very contrived.  The anniversary of when they met happened to be the same date as all of those key moments in their relationship and [the big spoiler at the end!]? Really?  Life is full of coincidences but I think that Nicholls took the gimmick too far.  I agree though that it is about two people trying -and failing- to connect with each other.  I think that the reason I found it so frustrating is that those near-misses and misunderstandings are such an integral part of life and something we have all fell victim to at some point … I felt that Emma and Dex’s relationship was hopeless/futile and that these connections are so often outwith our control/at the whim of fickle fate and a bitchy traveller who steals other people’s books!

Your allusion to Howards End reminds me of the tribute the book made to Tess of the D’Ubervilles and Hardy; it’s been so long since I read Tess (and I have a hopeless retention for key plot details) but what was the relevance between it and One Day?

SIMON: Oh gosh, now you’re testing me… The letter goes missing under the carpet in Tess, maybe that?  Can’t see much of a link between the two, myself.  Nor did I find One Day as contrived as I’d thought it might be – because big events were recalled, rather than all happening on July 15^th.  But I agree that The Big Spoiler Moment happening on the same date as their meeting was a coincidence too far…

Whilst we’re on intertextual references – I was chuffed to see what Emma had on her bedside table at the beginning of the novel.  Now I can’t remember what they all were (argh!) but I do know that I’d read them all – there was Milan Kundera, maybe a Muriel Spark?  It certainly made me like Emma, at the start at least.  I’m easily won over like that.  How sympathetic did you find Emma and Dexter, and did it change as the novel progressed?

CLAIRE: That sounds about right; I knew it was something about miscommunication/confessions going astray!  I did think it was clever that we were told rather than saw some of the key moments in their relationship as everything occurring on July 15th would have been ridiculous,

I was delighted by the intertextual references – we do love our books about books!  I took note of this wonderful quote about Muriel Spark.

But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark – independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.

I certainly warmed to Emma, at the start, due to her love of books; however, both she and Dexter grated on my nerves throughout and not just because of their ineptitude in getting together.  My sympathies towards Dexter changed as the novel progressed, as I found Dexter became more sympathetic, but, conversely, Emma became an unsympathetic character. Regrettably, Emma was far from the Muriel Spark character that she professed to be. Ultimately, I didn’t like either of them very much- did you?

SIMON: There were definitely moments when I couldn’t imagine Dexter being any more loathsome.  The period where he was constantly on drugs, doing appalling television, feeling self-important and neglecting Emma – I just wanted her to high-tail it outta there.  I found this quotation, from that year, one of the most moving in the book:

Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will.’ Her lips touched his cheek. ‘I just don’t like you anymore. I’m sorry.

I think the conflict between loving and liking someone (romantically or otherwise) is something with which we can all identify.  Nicholls phrases it so simply there – and since it comes at the end of a long scene where Dexter has proved unbearably awful, and Emma has tried so hard, I found it really powerful.

But I came out the opposite of you – by the end, I liked them both.  Eventually I even warmed to Dexter!  How important do you think sympathising with characters is in One Day?

CLAIRE: Oh, that’s interesting.  He was loathsome but I think as the novel -and the years- progressed I understood Dexter more; I think he was an addict, which, as I said above, made him more sympathetic to me.  Emma, I thought, was dissatisfied/unfulfilled and although that made me sad it also made me find her a little… fickle; once she had Dex she still wasn’t happy and it was inevitable that their story had a tragic ending (spoilers galore! I think that there is a statute of limitations, especially on a book that is everywhere. Mwah ha ha).  I found it sad that as a thirty-eight year old Emma was so disillusioned by love and far removed from her twenty-two year old self.
Normally I do not have to sympathise, or even like, characters in order to enjoy a book but with One Day I think it hampered my enjoyment.  Although I liked it well enough I did not love it.  I needed to be more invested in their story, to will them together, but I didn’t care enough about them; Em/Dex are not the star-crossed lovers of our generation.  Do you agree?

SIMON: I had a fairly odd relationship with the novel – in that, whilst I was reading it, I loved it.  I raced through it on holiday – and you know me and long books; it doesn’t often work.  But almost as soon as I finished it, I started doubting myself.  Had I really liked it as much as I thought?  Was it actually a very good novel?  I did care about the characters – I must have done, to make me find it so compelling.  But afterwards I started to think – is Nicholls a good stylist, for example, or simply good at making a novel pacy?  (Is there a difference?!)

CLAIRE: I think there is a difference.  I similarly found it compelling-and we have established it wasn’t due to my love for the characters- but I think it suffered from undue hype.  Surely to be classed as an epic love story of our times, we have to be more engaged and invested?  Mr Darcy doesn’t start out as likable but, oh my, is his and Lizzie’s story compelling.  One Day was absorbing and it absorbed me for more than one day but I don’t understand why so many people love it/cry over it.  I saw the tragic moment coming, although it did make me gasp a little.  However, I don’t think that really answers your question.  It was a good read but not a good book, if you see the same difference as I do?

SIMON: That’s exactly it!  Except I might be a trifle more generous and say it was a great read but not a great book – it might just sneak into ‘good book’ territory for me.  I have a feeling that those who wept/cheered over One Day either have had close experiences, or have yet to read P&P etc. (or my favourite romantic couple, Jane/Toby in The L-Shaped Room.

CLAIRE: I will temper my comment by saying it was a good read but not a great book (that seems fairer and more truthful to my own feelings).  I hate to say it (well, not really) but I think that as far as mainstream love stories go, Emma and Dexter, are fitting but they were too close to … human for me; I prefer my love stories either more romantic/idyllic or far grittier (of which polar opposites both of your examples fit).  Emma and Dexter’s story was distinctly average

SIMON: Like you, I more or less saw the tragic end coming.  That’s one moment which I thought the film did extraordinarily well – and I wished I hadn’t known it would happen, because it was quite a shocking moment of film.

Ah, the film.  Let’s swap our reading glasses for our cinema specs for a mo – first off, who would you like to have played Emma and Dexter?  I would have loved Emma to be Romola Garai, which was only enforced by seeing her in a smaller role in the film.

CLAIRE: I haven’t seen the film (I know!)  I meant to… then all the criticism of Anne Hathaway’s shifting accents deterred me.  Did you find though while reading it that you had the cast in your mind’s eye?  I always find it hard to re-imagine a character once they have been imagined for me onscreen.  I love Romola Garai, however, and think she would have made a lovely -and altogether more sympathetic- Emma; as for Dex, I’m not sure… somebody that does cad and endearing/vulnerable/messed up male well.

SIMON: I never visualise characters when reading, so I was pretty open to any actors, visually at least.  Gotta say, I’d never heard of Jim Strugess before One Day, but he was a brilliant Dexter.  Dexter’s more annoying phases were played with an undercurrent of embarrassment, so that he never felt quite as loathsome as he did in the novel.  Anne Hathaway… oh, Anne, I love you normally, but that accent was beyond dreadful.  Most of the time she was vaguely British, and then she would lapse into ee-by-gum Yorkshire.  No, Annie, no.

CLAIRE: I’ve seen Jim Sturgess in a film before and thought he was well cast (not seeing how he actually comes across onscreen though, I can’t judge if I was correct.)

SIMON: We’ve not really covered all the other characters… have to admit, Emma’s boyfriend Ian made me feel very uncomfortable – mostly because I kept wondering how similar he was to me!  I’m totally the guy who makes jokes all the time, whatever the tone of the situation…  What did you think of Ian and Sylvie, as the substitute partners for Emma and Dexter?

CLAIRE: Ian made me very uncomfortable too; he started off sweet and self-deprecating and then became quite scary.  I don’t think you should be at all concerned of being the same as him, Simon!  He had his insecurities and was obviously very much in love with Emma; I did think it was good of Nicholls to bring him back for Dexter in end, which redeemed his character.  Sylvie never really rang true for me; she was quite one-dimensional and what was with her family?!  The Sylvie of early Dexter/Sylvia and the Sylvia at the end of their marriage were disparate but, then, people and relationships evolve/devolve.  Neither character was a fitting substitute character, I thought, but acted as a foil to the “meant to be” partner.

SIMON: Sylvie’s family were ghastly, weren’t they?  ‘Are you there, Moriarty?’ sounds like the worst game ever, and I usually adore silly family games.  I wish Nicholls had made her a little more believable, as a person Dexter would have picked.  Ditto swarthy French bloke, for Emma.

I suppose we should be drawing this discussion to an end, since it should take up less than one day(!) – can I just say, though, what fun it’s been, Claire!  I hope the readers enjoy the format (shameless plug for ‘we love you guys’ comments!)  Perhaps we can just sum up our thoughts in one or two sentences?

CLAIRE: It’s been a pleasure, as always!

Hm, one or two sentences?  One Day was a book about missed opportunities and failed connections and, regrettably, it failed to connect with me.

SIMON: Nice!  Ok, my turn.  One Day felt like a great read one day, a good read the next day, a mediocre film a later day, and a great conversation today!

The endpapers are taken from a 1949 design for a block-printed cretonne designed by the late Humphrey Spender, who very kindly
allowed this fabric in his collection to be photographed for Persephone Books.

Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers is a Persephone book I purchased during the last Persephone Reading event after reading an exquisite and  tempting review by Fleur Fisher.  I was pre-warned in said review to savour the stories so I read them slowly in preparation for Persephone Reading Weekend.  Savouring them is the best advice to receive as the stories are fragile and delicate, like the beautiful violet-hued flowers of the endpapers, and deserving of quietude.

The issue with a number of Persephone titles -especially the short story volumes- is that they are overshadowed by the Dorothy Whipples and the Marghanita Laskis, the Miss Pettigrews and Miss Buncles. Whether it be  in the catalogue or during Persephone Reading Week, the quieter texts sit patiently on the bookshelves, languishing and waiting to be read; even the Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield Persephones seem to be subject to this Whipple, Laski and cosy heroine mania.  Don’t get me wrong: I am an enthusiastic cheerleader for both Team Whipple and Team Laski and the quintessentially charming and delightful Persephone titles but won’t somebody think of the children novelists who have been rescued from obscurity only to be overlooked instead for their more popular counterparts?!

The ten short stories collected in Tea With Mr Rochester are beautiful; they are also quirky and have very much an ethereal quality to them.  Some of them have occult undertones to and there is a fairy-tale like feel to the collection, as if they are all magical.  The opening story, “Violet”, is one I have read before in the Angela Carter edited anthology, Wayward Girls and Wicked Women, published by Virago; I appreciated and enjoyed the story more this time around, when it was apart from its brash and more vibrant neighbours. “Violet” shines more brightly in a collection with similar stories; stories that could be considered gentle but that have at times a disconcerting undertone.

By far my favourite stories were the title one, about the schoolgirl Prissy who reads Jane Eyre for the first time and is full of dreams and romance.

Perhaps Miss Hornblower felt about Shakespeare as one felt about Jane Eyre, which one had extracted surreptitiously from the VIth Form library and read in secret under the flap of the desk.  What agony when the tea-bell clanged rudely and woke up out of that dream!  Gone were the vases of purple spar, the pale Parian mantelpiece.  The master of Thornfield Hall had vanished, like the Devil through a trap-door.  But, stumbling down the corridor, one still saw the flash of his dark eyes, heard his deep sardonic tones of his voice.

Prissy reminds me of when I first read Jane Eyre and was immersed in its romance, until I grew up, studied it ad nauseum and began to see it as less romantic and idealistic than it was through innocent eyes.  Prissy is something of an Anne Shirley character with her vivid imagination and her Aunt Athene a less dear version of Marilla Cuthbert; Prissy says and thinks things not entirely fitting for tea with Mr Rochester but all is not lost and an infatuation is born.

Another of my favourites was the poignant, “The Little Willow”.  Simon Byrne attends a party at the home of the three Avery sisters during the war and makes a powerful impression on the younger sister, Lisby, who is overshadowed by her older sisters, Charlotte and Brenda.  He promises to write and never does and when the war ends Lisby waits for news.  This story tugs at the heart-strings and is so touching that it will be reread often.

Like any short story collection, there are stronger stories and there are weaker ones. All are subtle and beautiful, some leave a fleeting impression and others are to be cherished like pressed flowers.

Endpapers taken from a printed velveteen designed by LF Day for Thomas Wardle & Co, sold by
Liberty’s in 1888 © Victoria and Albert Museum

The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant is one of the more recent additions to the Persephone Books catalogue, published last Autumn.  The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow comprises of two novellas, the title story and Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond, both of which were published in the late Nineteenth Century (the late 1880s, just like the endpapers).  Mrs Oilphant was of Scottish descent and a prolific writer, writing more than 120 works and was  ‘in her time as well-known as Dickens, George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell’ [from the Persephone Books website].  The novelist Penelope Fitzgerald considered Mrs Oliphant to be ‘at her very best in novellas and short stories’  and suggested these two to be reprinted together.

Rather an obscure writer now, Oliphant was regarded as an un-Victorian writer in her time and the seeming modernity of these novellas reflect that. Both seemed ahead of their time in certain respects and not so old-fashioned or irrelevant now, or, certainly in the case of Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond. Thematically similar, each concern women trapped by convention, by the laws of society and reputation.  Mrs Blencarrow and Mrs Lycett-Landon (Queen Eleanor) are middle-aged women restricted by their respectability, in fear of a specific scandal affecting their reputation and the reputations and future prospects of their children.  Mrs Blencarrow is loosely modelled on Queen Victoria and the whispered scandal of she and her groom, John Brown (some of you may know the film Mrs Brown with Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly) and the title Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond is an allusion to a famous 12th Century legend of Henry II.  The mystery surrounding Mrs Blencarrow also reminded me of a subplot of one of the more widely-read Jane Austen novels, which had me immediately rereading another Austen.

The notion of a woman’s respectability is, of course, infuriating.  I found it frustrating to read about women who were subject to decisions of their husbands or their brothers (and their fathers, in the case of Milly Lycett-Landon); moreover, the condescending way that loving son Horace Lycett-Landon spoke to his mother enraged me.  I wrote above that The Mystery of Blencarrow was in some ways modern and it did possess a timeless quality as well as being as relevant in some cultures today as it was then.  Now, most women -widowed or otherwise- can choose to marry whomever they wish and when a marriage breaks down they are not held solely accountable; other women, less fortunate, however, are still held to these out-dated societal conventions.

What I find interesting about Mrs Oliphant is her own story: surrounded by tragedy and widowed early, she was the sole breadwinner for her children and for her undependable siblings.  Much like the main women in these novellas, Mrs Oliphant provided for her children, who were her first concern.  It is fitting that she writes about women who are put in control of their family’s destiny while still being restricted by conventions; I find it fascinating to consider whether Mrs Oliphant felt helpless or whether the novellas are purely imagination.  Queen Victoria was the figurehead of an Empire and even she was subject to scandal, gossip and the trappings of respectability.

This was by no means by favourite Persephone but I did enjoy the novellas.  The fear of Mrs Blencarrow and Mrs Lycett-Landon that scandal would taint their children was convincing; sometimes motherhood can be as limiting as convention in that desperate need to prevent their offspring from harm.

Brazen it out! A woman so dignified, so proud, so self-possessed; a princess in her way, a queen-mother.  As the afternoon went on, her strength failed a little; she began to breathe more quickly, to change colour instantaneously from red to pale.  Anxiety crept into the clear, too clear eyes.  She looked about her by turns with a searching look, as if expecting someone to appear and change everything.  When the visitors’ carriages came to take them away, the sound of the wheels startled her.

‘I thought it might be your uncles coming back,’ she said to Emmy, who always watched her with wistful eyes.

It was rather a relief to them all when the father went away again.  They did not say so indeed in so many words, still keeping up the amiable domestic fiction that the house was not at all like itself when papa was away.  But as a matter of fact there could be little doubt that the atmosphere was clear after he was gone.  A certain sulphurous sense of something volcanic in the air, the alarm of a possible explosion, or at least of the heat and mutterings that precede storms, departed with him.  He himself looked brighter when he went away.

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen was serendipitously pitched to me when I was in the mood for some jazz-age literature.  On the back of watching the amazing HBO Martin Scorcese show Boardwalk Empire, Bright Young Things with its Roaring Twenties New York backdrop was exactly what I was craving and I devoured it immediately.

The decadence of the 1920s, pre- Wall St. crash, Depression and WWII, seems to be very much in vogue at the moment, with highstreet fashion replicating the flapper-style of old. Personally, it is my favourite period to read about/watch as long as it isn’t The Great Gatsby (I have a hate-hate relationship with Fitzgerald). Cocktail hour should be resurrected too.  We all have our vices and cocktails and addictive reads are mine.  Bright Young Things is the first in a new series from the same writer who brought us The Luxe (not a series I have read yet but I fully intend to; it is about Manhattan socialites in 1899 and sounds like Gossip Girl set in the nineteenth century so how can I resist?) and its flapper dresses, parties and scandal make for absorbing and compelling reading.

Set in the summer of 1929, before the market crash, when prohibition was in full swing, the bright young things are Letty Larkspur, Cordelia Grey and Astrid Donal with each girl harbouring a secret dream.  The first in the series opens tantalisingly:

[t]here are three, from that last incandescent summer, whom I resist forgetting.  They were all marching towards their own secret fates, and long before the next decade rolled around, each would escape in her own way-one would be famous, one would be married, and one would be dead.

Instantly there is intrigue and suspense; what is unclear also is who is narrating.  As to which girl will die? I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the series to continue so that I can found out!  Yes, Bright Young Things has gripped me by its glamour and scandal (like Boardwalk Empire there are speakeasies and gangsters) and if you would like a taster to see if it similarly draws you in then there are sample chapters you can read here.

My cravings for the Roaring Twenties and for an engrossing book that I couldn’t put down were met.  However, Bright Young Things is what it is: an addictive read.  I loved it for the enjoyment I obtained from it and for the setting but the only challenge I found it in it was overlooking the simpering of its female leads.  I hope that in its follow-up, Beautiful Days, Godbersen invests her heroines with a little more gumption; I realise she is depicting the Twenties but did the young women really have to be so passive?  Astrid, especially, is something of a tragic case who lives to be “looked after”, led by her socialite mother’s example.

Perhaps there was still bitterness in the remote chambers of Astrid’s heart.  But she had never felt so safe as she did held up in those big arms, and anyway, despite the sadness of the day, the air was warm and alive, and her body was light and comfortable.  If she had wanted to, she could have gone on making trouble.  But she didn’t want to.  She was relieved that she could stay here, in this house, and be Charlie’s, and never have to worry about anything ever again.

Cordelia gives me hope but all three lose their sparkle  of independence when it comes to their romantic entanglements.  None of them had strong female role models, however, and I hope they will provide them for each other and for younger readers as the series progresses.

Prohibition-era dramas fascinate me and I am nostalgic for a time I never knew.  Godbersen allows me to live vicariously through the dancing steps of Letty, Cordelia and Astrid.  The series may be somewhat pedestrian but is absorbing fun; it also has me reaching for Jazz by Toni Morrison and Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald, in the hope that I find stronger, dazzling female characters.

I saw the film trailer for The Romantics a couple of months ago and was suitably intrigued to find out it was adapted from a novel with the same title (by the writer, who is also in the film industry).  As it is not published in the UK, I plumped for a US copy (Picador) of The Romantics by Galt Niederhoffer from an online bookseller.

“The Romantics” are a group of friends who met at Yale and are now young professionals a decade later; the group are so-called because they resemble the Romantics in their incestuous dalliances with each other. Most of the group have previously paired off and/or married each other and the group are reunited one weekend for the wedding of another two of their group: Lila and Tom.  Laura is the only one of the group not coupled up and is Lila’s ex-roommate and maid-of-honour; she is also ex-girlfriend of Tom, now his best friend although still in love with him.  Much to the speculation and horror of the group, Tom goes missing the eve of the wedding while they are drunkenly swimming in the sea.  What follows is a night of attempting to find Tom without Lila discovering he is missing whilst they confront their own petty jealousies and insecurities amongst themselves, which are often revelatory.

Throughout college, they identified themselves as a pack in all the usual ways.  By graduation, all but a few had slept with one another.  Tom dated Laura before dating Lila; Oscar dated Weesie before dating Annie.  Pete and Lila had shared more than one drunken night.  And all the girls had kissed Jake.  This amorous behavior earned the clique a name from their fellow students.  They were dubbed “the Romantics” as a nod to their incessant intra-dating and their byzantine incestuous history. But gradually, eight of the nine lovebirds paired off into the inevitable groupings, drifting towards monogamy under the looming threat of their thirtieth birthdays.

The central fallacy to the Romantics are that they are friends: some of them do not like each other very much and we are unsure whether even any of the spouses love each other.  Moreover, Laura and Lila share at times a mutual loathing of the other and are battling between watching what they say or calculating their words and actions for maximum impact; as they are scoring points off one another they are smiling sweetly and maintaining the act of being best friends.  As a group they are insidious and destructive and as individuals shallow and narcissistic; they are gloriously melodramatic in their self-analysis and wickedly caustic in their dissection of each other.

It was custom when the friends convened in pairs to indulge in proprietary gossip, to discuss and analyze each other with surgical precision, exhibiting such detachment and cruelty at times that a witness might assume they were enemies as opposed to very dear friends.  But this, they felt, was one of the privileges of their long-standing history, as though they’d spent together exempted them from basic social amenities like kindness and compassion.

The wedding is being held at the family home of Lila; Northern Gardens is the Hayes’ estate on the coast of Maine and the wedding is presided over by the Hayes matriarch, Augusta, or “Gussie” (a few of the characters have irritating and pretentious pet-names, such as Tripler and Minnow).  The Romantics is very much a satire of WASPish society with many veiled -and not so veiled- digs at an illusion world where everything is sycophantic artifice; a wedding at its centre as is clever as it is waspish.

It is incredibly amusing and yet shocking to see the group unravel over one day, with their dysfunction quickly floating to the surface.  Even Lila’s siblings -Minnow and Chip- have their own agendas and Chip makes an unforgettable speech at the rehearsal dinner before the drunk cavorting commences.  In searching for Tom the couples pair off -switching their actual partners- exploring their vices and their issues; often these pairings result in revelation, sometime in comfort and catharsis, but ultimately the implosion of the overall group dynamic.

Told in third-person the narrative switches from the perspective of character to character, offering insight into various alliances and animosities, and often gossipy reveals regarding the other members of the group.  The Romantics are a highly disagreeable group of people but their dysfunctional relationships are fascinating; I enjoyed watching them turn on each other from within and the betrayals they each exacted. What I did find failing was the central bittersweet love story between Laura and Tom, which fell flat for me; I found it frustrating and incredible that Laura could still love Tom after he unceremoniously broke up with her and proceeded to date Lila on the same day. Perhaps the fact that the part of Tom is played by Josh Duhamel goes some way towards explaining that.

Other favourite passages:

Class, looks, and boys conspired to make Laura the Nick to Lila’s Gatsby while time and memories did their part to fasten the bond.  And although the intensity of their friendship had lessened in the years since college, the friendship endured in spite of itself, much like the sturdy elm at the end of the drive.

To see Tom and Laura in her milieu was to recognize a sacred bond they shared – something she had overlooked until this very moment.  They were both outsiders, torn between tow equally strong forces: desperation to be included and disdain for the institution.  She had been naïve to think their only tie was a decade-old crush.  They were glued by something far more intrinsic to their personalities.  Both were terrified of spending their lives just beyond the trimmed hedges of the club, trapped in the shadows of the contempt and aspiration.  And both were equally panicked by the prospect of being trapped within.

*I love the cover art – taped together badly, revealing the flaws in the picture.

Endpapers taken from 1970s knit fabric in private collection

When I read Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski a year ago, I felt as if my heart had been ripped out in the heightened emotion of the closing pages; with Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon, the emotional intensity was present from the opening page and sustained throughout; my heart when not in my mouth leapt, contracted and plummeted for the duration of the novel.

From the arresting first pages (which can be read almost in entirety on the Persephone webpage) we know that this is a novel about loss, the unbearable loss of losing a child.

Alex Selky, going on seven, so eager to grow up, kissed his mother goodbye on their front steps on the hot bright morning of May 15 1980, and marched himself down the street on his way to the New Boston School of Back Bay, two blocks from his corner. He never arrived at school, and from the moment he turned the corner, he apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.

We are shown and given insight into the impact of Alex’s disappearance on those who loved him, especially his mother, and Al Menetti, the detective assigned to his case.  Still Missing is raw and emotive but never sentimentalises; it provides an inside -albeit fictitious- look at the trauma of a missing child; of the public and media attention; of the overwhelming support and judgment of strangers; of the unrelenting hunt for clues and scanning of children’s faces on the street and in the park; of unrelinquished hope.  Susan Selky, mother to Alex, Harvard English professor, recently separated from her husband, refuses to give up hope that Alex will be found; it is Susan’s faith and tenacity that carries -or rather propels- the reader through the novel ‘s thrilling pages.  Structured loosely as a thriller complete with a leading detective who first comes off as a Columbo-type, Still Missing has exceptional emotional depth and vivid characterisation.

Gutcheon explores the dramatic behind-the-scenes investigations in a missing child case where nobody is above suspicion and every secret is unearthed and revealed; in the public eye and being under investigation by the police, everyone’s motives and actions are held up to scrutiny and nothing is private, even grief.  What Gutcheon does remarkably well is tackle the stereotypes and the judgments that come with a high-profile missing child case; everyone has an opinion and Still Missing does not shy away from showing how the public often react to what they deem to be the parents’ irresponsibility in losing their child or how the parents conduct themselves in the aftermath, which prompts the reader to examine their own prejudices.  The stereotypes are infuriating but fitting for the 1980 setting and Gutcheon never endorses them but presents them in the historical framework of the early years of the Gay Rights movement.

Susan Selky is a compelling character; Gutcheon has drawn a vivid portrait of a grieving mother whose pain is palpable.  Each of Gutcheon’s characters are very well realised with their flaws on display and private conversations -outwith Susan’s presence- and indiscretions revealed but Susan is particularly memorable.  The disappearance of Alex seems very real and the conversations that take place and reactions of Susan -and her husband, Graham- convincing and also illuminating.

Much has been made of the seeming modernity of this in relation to other Persephone Books but it has an almost timeless quality and universal appeal.  The Persephone titles I respond to strongly are those that focus on relationships and raw emotions; the highly emotive Still Missing easily joins Laski and Whipple and could be said to be quintessentially Persephone.  Preceding its reissue earlier this year I had discussed the book with Lydia at the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop who told me that Nicola Beauman had been wanting to publish it for years, since it inexplicably fell out-of-print in the UK, but that high-profile child abductions had made it inappropriate to reissue earlier.

Still Missing is a powerfully moving novel about the disappearance of a child and the months following (hence the “still”).  As the investigation loses momentum Susan sits at her window every morning facing the corner where she last saw Alex and this scene touchingly shifts through seasons.

As the days grew shorter and the chill in the autumn air deepened, the long uneven panes of glass in the living-room were grey with thin frost when Susan went with her coffee cup in the early mornings to sit looking down at the street.  From the lush gold and blue, deep as an overturned bowl, of the last morning on earth that she saw her son, the light had changed to the flat grey brightness of impending winter.

The quiet poignancy of the above scene and the pain of Susan is a good example of the tone of the novel; the weather has changed but Susan’s undying hope that Alex is still alive and will reappear has not.

Other favourite passages:

Uh-huh, thought Menetti.  Now it starts.  It can’t happen to me.  It happened to her, she lost her kid, but if there’s something funny about her, then there’s a reason it could happen to her but it couldn’t happen to me.  Now starts the drawing away, the pulling aside, the setting the Selkys apart.

To have her house and her heart and her life held open, exposed to the public at this moment, to be robbed of the personal and private in tragedy, was particularly bitter.

Something beneath her ribcage leaped and tore.  These slams of pain were so physically felt, she wondered if it were possible to go on taking them without the inner fibres beginning to actually shiver apart, like the creak and scream of a wooden boat breaking up in a storm.

It is all too seldom that one finds a book to embrace to your heart upon finishing but The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery is one such book.  I clasped it with such joy and contentment and poignancy that the experience was over; I fell in love with this book and I am delighted that it will be one that I can revisit often whenever I require to be comforted or cheered.

The Blue Castle is a book I only discovered the existence of through other wonderful bloggers.  Rachel had me coveting a copy when she waxed lyrical about it last last year, swiftly followed by Steph and then Ana; when three of my favourite blogging acquaintances all endorse a book so enthusiastically then it is one I must read.  Besides which, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne books are close to me heart; Anne Shirley is a “kindred spirit” of mine and previously undiscovered treasures of Montgomery called to me.  Regrettably The Blue Castle (and most of Montgomery’s other work, not of the Anne or Emily series of books) is out-of-print and unavailable in the UK, with secondhand copies rare and extortionate; I was holding off until later this summer to order a copy from Canada to coincide with a relative coming over here to visit but as I was costing the order I serendipitously came across a bargain copy shipped from the US.  Less than two weeks later The Blue Castle was in my eagerly awaiting hands and further timely blog posts along with some gentle but persistent persuasion  from Elaine and Ana conspired and I read it immediately.  The satisfaction and excitement I had reading The Blue Castle on a whim was at the root of my decision yesterday to do such things more frequently; I could not in any conscience deprive myself of future experiences of the same nature.

The Blue Castle is thoroughly enchanting.  I spent last Sunday wrapped up in it as if it was a cosy duvet and felt infused with warmth.  Eva said it best when she wrote that, “it almost felt like something Anne Shirley herself would have written”.  Valancy Stirling is twenty-nine and never been in love; her imagination and heart is free in her daydreams of her blue castle (the locale of romance and happiness) and in reading the “forbidden” nature books of John Foster  but in life she is restricted by her family who call her “Doss”.  Valancy’s mother and Cousin Stickles, whom she lives with, her Uncle Benjamin and other members of the Stirling family treat her disparagingly by relentlessly mocking and bullying her; resigned to being an old maid, she meekly accepts her family’s overbearing and cruel ways.  A visit to Doctor Trent  liberates Valancy and she begins to live life, saying and doing exactly as she wants; Valancy begins to think and behave as if she lived in her blue castle, where she is unconfined by social mores and familial obligation.

If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different.  She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal.  But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.

Valancy reviewed her whole life between midnight and the early spring dawn.  It was a very drab existence, but here and there an incident loomed out with a significance out of all proportion to its real importance.  These incidents were all unpleasant in one way or another.  Nothing really pleasant had ever happened to Valancy.

Afraid of her mother’s sulky fits–afraid of offending Uncle Benjamin–afraid of becoming a target for Aunt Wellington’s contempt–afraid of Aunt Isabel’s biting comments–afraid of Uncle James’ disapproval–afraid of offending the whole clan’s opinions and prejudices–afraid of not keeping up appearances–afraid to say what she really thought of anything–afraid of poverty in her old age. Fear–fear–fear–she could never escape from it. It bound her and enmeshed her like a spider’s web of steel. Only in her Blue Castle could she find temporary release. And this morning Valancy could not believe she had a Blue Castle. She would never be able to find it again. Twenty-nine, unmarried, undesired–what had she to do with the fairy-like chatelaine of the Blue Castle? She would cut such childish nonsense out of her life forever and face reality unflinchingly.

I was charmed by The Blue Castle and heart-warmed.  It is a romance with fairy tale elements (including references to one of my favourites, Bluebeard) that reminded me of I Capture the Castle mixed with the magic of Anne of Green Gables and the social satire of Jane Austen.  This is a delightful novel that I would expect to find in the catalogue of Persephone Books, with Valancy a wonderful heroine fitting of the company.  The Blue Castle is predictable but so comforting and satisfying a read that I would happily forego being surprised ever again if it meant being continually delighted by Valancy and her Blue Castle.

Damon Galgut was a writer I had not encountered before  In a Strange Room was longlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize.  He has been previously shortlisted and the blurb on the front of this book alludes to him being “a kindred spirit of the great Coetzee”; as a recent yet ardent fan of Coetzee, I was most intrigued.  I also read that In a Strange Room would be liked this year by those who enjoyed Summertime last year; I was impressed and wowed by the latter novel so was excited by the comparison.  Regrettably, the similarities between Galgut and Coetzee did not really extend for me beyond their shared South African heritage and the similar front covers of In a Strange Room and Summertime; both attempt to do something different with autobiography but Galgut is not in the same league as Coeztee and his In a Strange Room is the poorer writer’s Summertime.

In a Strange Room has a tripartite structure; the book is divided into three separate stories – the Follower, the Lover, the Guardian-  each following the protagonist/narrator in his travels. The protagonist is Damon, a South African and a writer looking back on three memorable travel experiences; like John in Summertime, Damon is Galgut and Galgut approaches writing autobiography in a different form.  The narration shifts between first and third-person, with passages often changing between “he” and “I” pronouns mid-line; these shifts increase in frequency as the book progresses and as Galgut asserts himself as the protagonist.  I found this an incredibly off-putting device and did not entirely see any point to it other than experimentation; I think it was supposed to act as a means to distinguish between older and fresher memories and their strength but it was not effective for me and distanced me from the story, such as it was.

There is not much of an over-arching plot to In a Strange Room and the three sections lacked any cohesion together other than their travel and traveller connection.  In the Follower Damon‘s travels take him through Greece where he meets Reiner, a fellow traveller, who he connects and disconnects with; in the Lover Damon travels through Africa in a small group that includes Jerome, who is never in actuality his lover but who he does share an intense attraction with; in the Guardian Damon is in India with his friend Anna who is suffering from mental illness.  The Guardian was the section that had the most emotional resonance for me, was fast-paced and had a plot; I wish Galgut had developed this memory -the one closer to him in time and depth of feeling- into a novel-length work; I would have loved to have discovered more about Anna and Caroline and think the Guardian section would have worked exceptionally well stand-alone.

In a Strange Room ended powerfully but a book should be judged on its overall strengths and this one did not have a beginning, middle and an end but three disconnected stories, one of which I loved and two that bored me.  In a Strange Room is a journey novel, one of those where a journey -or three- act as a metaphor for a journey of self-discovery; the motif itself is old-hat and I don’t think that Galgut said anything more profound on travel than Paul Coelho has in the past.  Each section appeared in The Paris Review as a separate piece and I think they should have remained that way, with the Guardian piece reworked and developed.

This book has garnered much appreciation in less-pedestrian quarters and I think it may very well be shortlisted for the Booker but I did not care for it very much.

You may have noticed that Room by Emma Donoghue is a novel that is receiving a lot of attention across the blogosphere.  Longlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize, there has been an ever-increasing organic buzz surrounding the novel, that is exciting, deserved and nothing like a droning vuvuzela.  Picador in the UK have been fully-behind Room from the beginning, acquiring it for a six figure sum after a hotly-contested multi-publisher auction.  I received a proof copy of the book months ago and am ashamed I did not pick it up sooner, instead seemingly jumping on the bandwagon once everyone else was reading and reviewing it too.  As it was, I opted for Room over any of the remaining Booker dozen because I found its premise appealing and intriguing.

Room is highly original and incomparable; it really is like nothing I have read before.  Much has been made of the novel’s readability and the fact that it can be easily read in one sitting but it is incredibly accessible and thrilling; I found it difficult to put down and in my second -and last- sitting I read it late into the night.  I do wonder, however, how it will stand up to multiple rereads (by the Booker judges) as it relies heavily upon suspense, intensity and revelation.  I also wonder if it is too accessible and popular to take the prize; although I found it immensely readable and outstanding in its originality, I did not think it was particularly literary.

Inspired by the Fritzl case, where Elisabeth Fritzl and her children were found to have been incarcerated in the basement of their captor’s (in this case, Joseph Fritzl, the woman’s father and children’s father/grandfather) house in Austria, Room is about Jack, a five-year-old boy and his Ma, who are being help captive in the room of the title.  Eleven feet by eleven feet, Room is a converted garden shed with a security door and a skylight somewhere in America (a detailed plan of Room can be viewed here).  Narrated by Jack we are given unique insight into their way-of-life beginning on his fifth birthday.  To Jack, Room is the height of his existence with everything Outside make-believe; they watch a limited amount of television together each day but Jack knows -because Ma has told him- that everything in TV is pretend and only he, Ma and the things in Room are real.  Now that he is five, Ma thinks he is old enough to know that there is a world outside and begins the process of “unlying” to him.  Through Jack’s innocent point-of-view we learn that Ma, a nineteen-year-old student, was lured by her captor, “Old Nick”, seven years previously and is visited nightly by him, hiding Jack in the wardrobe where he listens to and counts “Old Nick creaks Bed”.  Like Fritzl Old Nick withholds food and power as punishment and other day-to-day actualities and pertinent plot points directly mirror the real-life case.

Jack’s innocent voice lessens the tragedy of what is being described whilst still poignant; Donoghue has employed a very clever device in her narration because the depiction of events are far less harrowing through the eyes and words of a child.  Ma educates and exercises Jack via games and imagination but some of the games serve an essential purpose, minus Jack’s understanding of it.

After nap we do Scream every day but not Saturdays or Sundays.  We clear our throats and climb up on Table to be nearer Skylight, holding hands not to fall.  We say “On your mark, get set, go,” then we open wide our teeth and shout holler howl yowl shriek screech scream the loudest possible.  Today I’m the most loudest ever because my lungs are stretching from being five.

Then we shush with fingers on lips. I asked Ma once what we’re listening for and she said just in case, you never know.

The quote provides an insight into the style of Room in addition to illustrating the above point.  To begin with the style irritated me as I became used to how Jack looked at Room and life but by the latter half of the book I found Jack exceedingly endearing.  I cannot reveal to you what changed for me without spoiling the book but the narrative voice really grew on me; Jack inspires one to look at things differently.

Some readers will have issues with the subject matter and its topicality (there is a suggestion in the novel that Ma could have chosen to smother Jack upon birth as opposed to raise him in that confined and restricted environment and I was struck by recent news stories not of the kidnapping variety) but Donoghue goes further than striving for shock factor and the sentimental.  The most touching part of Room is the strong bond between mother and child and how Ma teaches Jack and interacts with him using limited means; Room is a testimony of imagination, exhibited by how Ma and Jack use theirs.  The quote below demonstrates how novel and important this interaction is but ***beware of spoilers (in reading the quotes -only the quotes- below you will instantly see where the novel goes)***  So often children are deprived of one-on-one parental attention and imaginative play that is essential to their development.  Jack is articulate (within his perimeters) , intelligent and possesses an extensive vocabulary due to the extended time he spends with his parents; no, Jack and Ma’s situation is not the means of raising a savant child but a happy medium in child rearing is required.  Of course, Jack’s unique situation, his advanced grasp of language and increased childhood innocence is what makes him so believable, useful and cherished as a narrator.  Emma Donoghue interesting discusses her use of Jack’s voice, its intent and her means of creating it in this article; she modeled Jack on her own five-year-old son, Finn, at the time of writing, whilst making necessary adaptations in lieu of Jack’s unique upbringing.

The child-mother bond is the crux of the novel in its extraordinary setting.  Ma breastfeeds Jack, amusingly referred to as “some” by him with references to left and right and the creamier; modern society can be so outraged by breastfeeding beyond a certain age and public feeding and Donoghue tackles the stigma that natural feeding attracts head-on.  The second quote below (again, it is a spoiler) concerns breastfeeding, underlining people’s obsession with it, was one of the funniest in the novel for me.

With its Room setting and framing and its onus on TV being unreal, I believe that Donoghue is playing with the concept of the Fourth Wall and what makes reality.  Ultimately it is a gimmicky book but one that is immensely readable and that I shall be passing on both physically and as a recommendation to everyone I know.

The below quotes contain spoilers.

Also everywhere I’m looking at kids, adults mostly don’t seem to like them, not even the parents do.  They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don’t want to actually play with them, they’d rather drink coffee talking to other adults.  Sometimes there’s a small kid crying and the Ma doesn’t even hear.

The woman nods.  “You breastfed him. In fact, this may startle some of our viewers, I understand you still do?”

Ma laughs.

The woman stares at her.

“In this whole story, that’s the shocking detail?”

“This is a novel for people with breeding” is the self-proclaiming tag-line for the novel Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman, son of Nicola Beauman of Persephone Books.  It is an astonishingly accomplished debut that is highly erudite and original.  Boxer, Beetle is intelligent and witty and one of the best debut novels I have read; I read a proof copy in April of this year and the novel is fresh in my mind, distinctive and memorable.

Published this week (in the UK by Sceptre and available to buy in his mother’s shop) Boxer, Beetle alternates between the present and the 1930s during the rise of Nazism and Fascism. The 1930s is my favourite period to read about but I found myself equally invested in the present-day narrative and enjoyed the voice of first-person narrator, Kevin (or “Fishy”).  Kevin suffers from a rare condition, trimethylaminuria, the inability to break down the chemical trimethylamine, that gives off a strong fishy odour from the body; this is not an arbitrary disorder but one that Beauman watched a documentary about and was inspired to include in this novel.  Kevin is something of a hermit due to his unsavouriness and corrosive attributes to the nasal membranes -trimethylamine in high concentrations smells more like ammonia than fish- and spends his time collecting Nazi memorabilia.  In the 1934-36 narrative strain Seth Roach (or, “Sinner”) is a five-foot tall, nine-toed Jewish boxer who attracts the interest of Philip Erskine, a scientist studying Eugenics and beetles.

Erskine has made a shocking entomological discovery that prompts a letter from Adolf Hitler (which can be read here) and the central mystery of the book; Erskine’s discovery through Lemniscate breeding of a super-strain of beetle is the crux of the novel and the convergence of the present-day and past narratives.

Ned Beauman may not thank me for the comparison but his proficiency at depicting despicable characters reminded me of Martin Amis.  I enjoy characters that I can deplore and there  is much to censure in the cast of Boxer, Beetle although they are so well-drawn that I found myself sympathising with some, Kevin especially. In Boxer, Beetle there is an arresting opening line and clever use of cultural and literary allusion, complete with a dream reversal of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and inclusion of himself as online forum user nbeauman, in homage to The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. Beauman also included what he knew of East London and the London Library amongst the bold ideas imaginatively removed from real-life and an impressive amount of historical research.

Boxer, Beetle is not for the faint-hearted with graphic sex scenes, strong language and a lot of beetles. I did not take the warning of “there are lots of beetles” to heart and wish I had when I read the closing pages late one night. Consider yourself warned: beetles aside, this is an intelligent, funny and engaging book.

Lija of Writer’s Pet has interviewed Ned Beauman and is hosting a give-away of a signed copy of Boxer, Beetle on her blog.