The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser

I finished Michelle de Kretser’s latest novel, The Life to Come, on my way to last week’s Stella Prize announcement. It was appropriate to be reading de Kretser’s beautifully crafted words as I flew to Sydney, and even more fitting that I was there for the announcement of a literary prize – the book is set in Sydney (with snatches in Paris and Sri Lanka) and orbits around Pippa, a writer who longs for success.

The Life to Come is structured around various people at different stages in Pippa’s life, creating loosely linked stories from their individual perspectives. Some of these people are peripheral and others know Pippa well – from her university flatmate and a Parisian friend, to her elderly neighbour and a woman ‘adopted’ by her charismatic mother-in-law, Eva – it’s through their eyes that we see Pippa’s life progress. Structurally it’s interesting, and de Kretser provides lots of detail along the way to link the stories.

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The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe

The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe is a short, grim story about an Indonesian girl, Mina, whose life changes when her father sends her to work for a Dutch merchant.

And what will she wear? What is the town like? Who will she work with? She asks herself these questions, a tremor of excitement finally mingling with the dread in her stomach, making her feel pleasantly sick like when she eats too much sirsak, the sweetness of the custard apple curdling in her stomach.

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar is set in Iran in the period immediately after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Using magic realism and classical Persian tales, Azar tells the story of a family deeply affected by the post-revolutionary chaos and brutality.

Things I understand and appreciate about The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree:

01. That it is a stunning example of using folklore to tell a modern story.

From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan

In his latest novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, Donal Ryan has taken three very different characters – Farouk, whose country has been torn apart by war; Lampy, a broken-hearted boy from Ireland; and elderly John, whose past sins are haunting him – and created something special.

The novel is structured simply – a short, stand-alone story for each character and a fourth concluding story that brings the three characters together. The danger of drawing a number of disparate stories together is that the overall result can seem contrived. Somehow, Ryan has avoided this – nothing in From a Low and Quiet Sea feels forced or out-of-place. The connections between each story, once revealed, are surprising but also make perfect sense. And the best bit? I didn’t see any of it coming. Quite a feat.

The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner

A conversation overheard in 1975…

Richard Yates: I usually write about men but I’m thinking I’ll do something about a miserable woman…

Anita Brookner: Well Dick, one knows that there’s plenty of material when it comes to miserable women.

RY: And so many tempting themes around misery…

AB (laughing): Misery loves company!

RY: Loneliness, bitterness, regret, jealousy…

AB: Yes, the truly miserable woman has it all.

Two Aussie audios

Sometimes you leave a review so long that there hardly seems any point… Almost the case with these books, so I’ll mention just a few reasons why I enjoyed them –

Tangerine by Christine Mangan

MEMO

TO: KATE

FROM: PEOPLE WHO KNOW ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS

RE: HOW TO PROPERLY ENJOY A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Queen Lucia & Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson

Should you ever need a lesson in passive-aggressiveness and/or the art of one-upmanship, look no further than the Queen Lucia series by E. F. Benson.

There are six books in the series, all of which are Georgian satires, focused on the everyday affairs of the upper-middle-class residents of the fictional villages of Tilling and Riseholme. I read the first two books, Queen Lucia and Miss Mapp.

There are similarities between the books. In both, there is no single plot – instead, the comings-and-goings of people to town; the politics of bridge parties and evening suppers; the providence of recipes; the importance of where one has had a new tea gown made; and a multitude of other minor occurrences drive the story.

The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

For a book to get five-stars, I want to laugh and cry. I want to whoop with joy when a character triumphs but equally, I want to have my heart broken (just a little). Basically, I want a million feelings and Cyril Avery, the star of John Boyne’s big, ramshackle novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, delivers it all.

There’s great emphasis from the outset that Cyril Avery is not a real Avery – he’s adopted by the peculiar but not inherently unkind, Charles and Maude Avery.

I was not a real Avery and would not be looked after financially in adulthood in the manner that a real Avery would have been. ‘Think of this more as a tenancy, Cyril,’ he told me – they had named me Cyril for a spaniel they’d once owned and loved – ‘an eighteen-year tenancy. But during that time there’s no reason why we shouldn’t all get along, is there?’

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman

If you’ve coming looking for a thorough and comprehensive review of Claire G. Coleman’s debut, Terra Nullius, move along. I, like others, are saying nothing about what happens in this book for fear of spoiling it.