Books do furnish a room

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed Set in Somalia in 1987-1988 during Mohamed Siad Barre’s dictatorship it is the story of three women. There is Deqo, a street child, used to fending for herself in a refugee camp and living with and cared for by prostitutes. Kawsar is an older woman, now bed bound following being assaulted by a female soldier at a police station. Finally, Filsan, a thirty year old soldier from Mogadishu. At the beginning of the novel their lives intersect at a large outdoor meeting to honour the dictator with long lasting consequences. There is then a section for each of the protagonists which looks at their past and present. At the end of the novel their lives intersect again. When Mohamed does do well is write people in isolation and these are the strongest parts of the book. The inter relationships are sometimes violent as well as supportive. At times there is a lightness of touch to this which works well. There was also the feel of a nineteenth century novel, rather slimmed down though and I certainly felt it could easily have been two or three times the length with more space for the author to explore her themes. The backdrop is a civil war and rebellion which is bloody and relentless, “totally ordinary yet irrevocably depraved”. The novel is written well and there is a good sense of place and the primary focus is the effect of civil war on women and on female agency and resilience. There are flaws and the ending is a bit neat, but it will please some. It’s worth reading. 7 out of 10 Starting Rebel Englishwoman by Elsabe Brits

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Braddon This is another fortuitous find from Virago Modern Classics. You never quite know what you might find with some of the lesser known works. I picked this up in a job lot. Braddon herself was a prolific writer of sensationalist novels, over eighty in all. This was published in 1862 and is what was known as a sensationalist novel and there was plenty of sensation. It was actually loosely based on a real life case. There is bigamy, arson, child desertion, attempted murder (more than once) and lots of deception and wickedness. There are also questions about sanity and the reader is left to make up their own minds about that. It shatters the Victorian conception of domestic bliss. There are questions about gender and class. There was apparently a TV version in 2000 which seems to have passed me by entirely. The questions about class and social mobility are relevant, especially in relation to Lady Audley who was born in poverty: ““Poverty—poverty, trials, vexations, humiliations, deprivations. You cannot tell; you, who are among those for whom life is so smooth and easy, you can never guess what is endured by such as we. Do not ask too much of me, then. I cannot be disinterested; I cannot be blind to the advantages of such an alliance. I cannot, I cannot!” Beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence, there is an undefined something in her manner which fills the baronet with a vague alarm. She is still on the ground at his feet, crouching rather than kneeling, her thin white dress clinging about her, her pale hair streaming over her shoulders, her great blue eyes glittering in the dusk, and her hands clutching at the black ribbon about her throat, as if it had been strangling her. “Don’t ask too much of me,” she kept repeating; “I have been selfish from my babyhood.”” This is a page turner with a touch of the gothic about it. Lady Audley makes a good villain, unfortunately the hero is pretty irritating and I was beginning to hope something nasty would happen to him. There are questions about the male gaze too as most of the males in the book seem to fall in love with Lady Audley because of her looks. It’s a bit over sentimental times, but I enjoyed it and it’s quite fun to watch out for the plot twists, you’ll trip over them! 7 out of 10 Starting The Wing of Azrael by Mona Caird

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa I found this in the horror and supernatural section of my local bookshop, probably because of the following quote on the back: “When we first met, I was a child and she had been dead for centuries.” It is not that sort of ghost story, it’s about the author’s relationship to an eighteenth century lament for the dead, Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill a woman mourning her husband. The story goes that Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill was married with a young child and one on the way when her husband was murdered (he was Catholic, his murderers were Protestant and part of the establishment). She rushed to the scene and found him bleeding out, in her grief she drank his blood and composed the lament. Ní Ghríofa becomes obsessed with the poem and its author, about whom little is known. It is not known when she died or where she is buried. She was a relative of Daniel O’Connell. Ní Ghríofa researches her life and the poem and ends the book with her own translation of the poem (It wasn’t written in English). This is how the book begins: “This is a female text, composed while folding someone else’s clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores. This is a female text borne of guilt and desire, stitched to a soundtrack of cartoon nursery rhymes. This is a female text and it is a tiny miracle that it even exists, as it does in this moment, lifted to another consciousness by the ordinary wonder of type. Ordinary, too, the ricochet of thought that swoops, now, from my body to yours. This is a female text, written in the twenty-first century. How late it is. How much has changed. How little. This is a female text, which is also a caoineadh: a dirge and a drudge song, an anthem of praise, a chant and a keen, a lament and an echo, a chorus and a hymn. Join in.” The research and writing was done over a period of years when Ní Ghríofa was pregnant or breastfeeding or both. There is a good deal about both in the book, combined with some good prose (Ní Ghríofa is a poet) and some impressive scholarship, published by Tramp Press. The book weaves together Ní Ghríofa’s own life, her research and the life of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. There is an elevation of a little known female poet and her striking poem, which is combined with a celebration of domesticity and motherhood. As well as being biography, memoir, auto fiction and history it can’t be separated from the interior life and personality of the author. There is a good deal of speculative imagination about what might have been: “I try to imagine the small treasures of her days, all she saw and took joy in: watching her sons begin to run, to ride, to read, their faces lit with Art’s old smile. The flight of bats and swallows. The branches reaching higher each year, their leaves turning gold, falling, and then budding green again. All the remembered fragments of her dreams, all her frustrations, her money worries, her lists, her days of egg-pains and brass-polishing … her days of brave faces and darning … her days of loneliness, her days of laundry. Her children, waving back at her from the garden … always waving as they leave.” This is an original and unusual book, it can feel claustrophobic at times, but the subject and the way it is approached make it worthwhile. 9 out of 10 Starting The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks

Europe Central by William Vollmann “In olden times, wars were waged by heroes who admired one another but found themselves forced by fate or blood revenge to do each other harm. In our time, we fought for hateful ogres against other ogres equally hateful.” This is Vollmann focussing on mid-century Eastern Europe. The eastern front in the Second World War is at the centre of the book and Vollmann switches between a Soviet perspective and a German one. There are multiple voices on both sides, including Shostakovich, Roman Karmen, Anna Akhmatova, two generals (Paulus and Vlasov) and numerous others. Vollmann is very clear this is a work of fiction, saying that his seven dreams books are much more historical. I’m not sure I’m going to give him that, but he is known for his meticulous research. There is certainly an underying skeleton of historical fact and the book contains a mind-boggling array of facts and historical detail. Vollmann examines the differing fanaticisms of the Nazis and Soviets and the timelines of the fifty different stories range from the 1930s to as late as the 1970s, although most focus on the War. This is almost a series of novellas. Some of them concern Shostakovich, his music and his tense and difficult relationship with the state and the party. Special attention is paid to Opus 110: “Best listened to in a windowless room, better than best in an airless room—correctly speaking, a bunker sealed forever and enwrapped in tree-roots—the Eighth String Quartet of Shostakovich (Opus 110) is the living corpse of music, perfect in its horror. Call it the simultaneous asphyxiation and bleeding of melody. The soul strips itself of life in a dusty room.” There is also an examination of the holocaust through the eyes of Kurt Gerstein, a rather contradictory SS officer. We get a lot of responses to totalitarianism. The novel also pivots around the Battle of Stalingrad, exploring its mythic status and the reactions of the generals involved: “at Stalingrad it was not only the Russian will, but the whole world’s assessment of Germany’s power which was at stake. To withdraw from the field of battle would be an admission or defeat which though it might be acceptable to a detached and calculating military professional, was unthinkable “in the cosmic orientation of world power forces,” as Schwerin von Krosigk might have put it” This work is challenging and for many authors this would be their magnum opus. It’s probably average length for Vollmann and nowhere near the over three thousand pages of his reflection on violence Rising Up and Rising Down. It does help to have a little background knowledge before reading this, but there are lots of notes and sources. Having studied all this in the historical context some forty years ago, I did appreciate Vollmann’s approach to this and got a good deal out of it. I still think Grossman’s Life and Fate is better, but this is good. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

Close to the knives by David Wojnarowicz Not a cosy or easy read as the subtitle indicates: A memoir of disintegration. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS at 37: he was an artist, writer and photographer. There is a memorable photo of him wearing a jacket with the following on the back: “If I die of AIDS – forget burial – just dump my body on the steps of the FDA” This is a memoir, it’s autobiographical in a variety of forms, including essays. It reflects Wojnarowicz’s own childhood with an abusive and violent father, his living on the streets, hustling, selling his body, the lives (and deaths) of his friends (“piece by piece, the landscape is eroding and in its place I am building a monument made of feelings of love and hate, sadness and feelings of murder”.) and of course his sex life, which is fairly prominent. As a gay man he charts the beginning of AIDS and the reactions of politicians and those in power, including Christian fundamentalists (there are some quotes from them which are particularly vile). The whole is visceral, violent, tender and very angry: “I want to throw up because we’re supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder, and I’m amazed that we’re not running amok in the streets and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.” There is a good deal about the reactions of society and particularly the silence of the government during the 1980s and attitudes towards those with AIDS: “Dismissal is policy in America. … If there is homelessness in our streets it is the fault of those who have no homes — they chose to live that way. If there is a disease such as AIDS it is somehow the fault of those who contract that disease — they chose to have that disease. If three black men are shot by a white man on a subway train — somehow they chose to be shot by that man. … Most people tend to accept this system of the moral code and thus feel quite safe from any terrible event or problem such as homelessness or AIDS or nonexistent medical care or rampant crime or hunger or unemployment or racism or sexism simply because they go to sleep every night in a house or apartment or dormitory whose clean rooms or smooth walls or regular structures of repeated daily routines provide them with a feeling of safety that never gets intruded up on by the events outside.” This quote relates to being at the death bed of a close friend: “We all turned to the bed and his body was completely still; and then there was a very strong and slow intake of breath and then stillness and then one more intake of breath and he was gone. … I tried to say something to him staring into that enormous eye. If in death the body’s energy disperses and merges with everything around us, can it immediately know my thoughts? But I try and speak anyway and try and say something in case he’s afraid or confused by his own death and maybe needs some reassurance or tool to pick up, but nothing comes from my mouth. This is the most important event of my life and my mouth can’t form words and maybe I’m the one who needs words, maybe I’m the one who needs reassurance and all I can do is raise my hands from my sides in helplessness and say, “All I want is some sort of grace.” And then the water comes from my eyes.” Wojnarowicz is impossible to categorise and does not fit easily into any boxes. The early part of the book is part travelogue, part the journal of an active and diverse sex life. There is a vitality to this writing, but it is also heartbreaking. It isn’t just those with AIDS who have been isolated and persecuted, we continue to do it to all sorts of groups. I make no apology for closing with an extended quote from near the end of the book: “David … you know that friend of mine in Kentucky? Well, I got a call from a friend of mine who just got back from being down there. She said he was getting way out of it … I mean like … he had lost about fifty to seventy-five percent of his body weight and they were having to transfuse him once a week. He was down, he couldn’t walk at all. He was being carried around by his family, in a wheelchair, and he had to go to hospital every day also because of DHPG transfusions, because he was becoming blind from C.M.V. retinitis. So … uh … he would spend most of the mornings in the hospital and then the afternoons he would spend resting at this house they had. Then he had a grand-mal seizure … and he was just like – you know – convulsing like crazy … I never seen one of those: I only heard … and uh … you know – he became all different colors … and …uh … was just gasping for breath and finally they were able to sedate him somehow so that the seizure ended … and … uh … I think after being there just one or two nights, he was deteriorating – his fever went up very high and he was really kind of delirious all of the time. They were giving him a lot of morphine. They had sent him home from the hospital; they stopped all the treatments and everything like that because they felt that this was just like … “Why torture him any more?” And … uh … at one point – finally these two people – a friend and a family member – after he had a small seizure and was in a semicoma – they just decided to put a pillow over his face … you know … do that … and there was no resistance or anything that they could tell … and … uh … I think they made a very courageous decision.” This is an important and vital book. 9 and a half out of 10

A Bit of Difference by Sefi Atta This novel is set in Lagos, London and Abuja. The central character is Deola, she is 39 and single working for an international charity in London. The novel has a strong cast of characters and Atta is very good at writing interesting, flawed and human people, even if they only have walk on parts. The central character, Deola, is well drawn and her flaws are as endearing as her strengths. The plot revolves around Deola’s discontent with her job, her varied and chaotic family, a man she meets in Nigeria and leads to a situation where she has to make decisions. She also has to contend with her mother’s constant reminders about her biological clock and the need to get married. Deola has her own thoughts about this; “Lanre once called her a manhater, but she genuinely liked men. Her friction with Lanre began when he sensed she no longer looked up to him, but it wasn’t personal. It was only a part of [his] boyishness she stopped admiring. She never favoured girls. She just gave the impression she did. It was clear when she reached puberty that she had to choose what team she was on… It wasn’t that her team always played fair, but the older she got, the less tolerant she was of [men]’s unfair tactics. Was it simply their way? Or did the rules condone them? She didn’t know but she had to develop her own method of defence fast, especially as her team seemed less unified and prepared,” There are interesting contrasts between the Nigerian community in London and in Lagos. Atta also makes some perceptive comments about the charity sector. She is in an interview in a room full of souvenirs and carvings: “she couldn’t stop looking at them during the interview and she was not sure if they calmed her down or put her off. Even back then she knew Graham would prefer the most European of African countries, like South Africa and Kenya. She knew she would stand a better chance with him if she presented herself as an African in need.” The time is the early 2000s and the novel takes place over several months. Identity is a strong theme and in many ways this can be compared with Americanah, although it isn’t as good as Americanah. Nevertheless it is worth reading. There is a strong musical undercurrent and Atta considers herself an Afrobeat author. There are dialogues about African and African diasporic music. Atta also writes strong female characters and themes such as sexual health, mental health and marital infidelity are woven through the narrative. 8 out of 10 Starting The Fall of the Imam by Nawal El Sadaawi

I haven't read S and S yet, it's on the list! I did like Persuasion and Emma, but not as much as P and P. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James This is the first major work by James that I have read. It reflects a number of James’s preoccupations, freedom, betrayal, responsibility, destiny and the contrasts between the old world and the new (with the new coming off worse). The central character in the book is the lady in question Isabel Archer, an American who comes to Europe at the invite of her aunt who lives in England. The novel is set in England and Italy. Inevitably it is beautifully written with lots of interiority and reflection. I don’t propose to detail the plot although it appears to be mostly about who Isabel is going to marry and how, when she does, it all goes horribly wrong. Like many books of that time (1881) it concerns “the woman question”. James wrote this in reaction to Middlemarch saying he wanted his works to have “less brain than Middlemarch, but they are to have more form”. James also writes about the upper classes pretty much exclusively. (Unlike Eliot). I really didn’t like this and I am aware that I am in a minority as this novel appears to be well loved. It felt to me like James was saying that women like Isabel Archer could not be trusted to make decisions about who they should marry as they were bound to make poor choices. Of course, having made those choices they were bound to stick with them. Here is Isabel reflecting near the end: “She had a husband in a foreign city, counting the hours of her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive. He was not one of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of the quality of enjoyment extracted from it.” Of the men Isabel had to choose from, and there were a few, she rejects the one who loves her passionately, she rejects position and opts for someone who is cruel and abusive. What she doesn’t do is opt to stay unmarried even though that is the position she starts from. There is a disconnect between the initial characterisation and behaviour. James also portrays Isabel as passive and essentially a parasite. She is left money and she does nothing with it. She doesn’t get involved in anything political (suffrage for example) and doesn’t seem to pursue any intellectual pursuits, she seems to be an empty shell. I could go on. I beginning to think I might even prefer Dickens to James! 4 out of 10 Starting Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen What on earth to say about Pride and Prejudice. Well, I think it’s the best Austen I have read and like many I have memories of Colin Firth in that wet shirt! Austen covers her usual themes of class, wealth, marriage, upbringing and also self-awareness as Elizabeth reflects: "How despicably have I acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself." There is a level of humour here as well, as illustrated by Mr Bennett’s reaction to Mr Collins proposing to Elizabeth: “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see to you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.” There is of course a whole industry around the analysis of this and a myriad of follow-ons, sequels, in the manner ofs; not to mention zombies! Austen does challenge the mores of her day. It is worth remembering that this was written after Wollstonecraft. Elizabeth’s first refusal of Darcy was certainly unusual for the time as he was offering a way out of poverty and spinsterhood. Darcy is in a position of power and expects to be accepted. As Woolf said: “Austen is…mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface.” She did ask questions about the fundamental balance of established middle class society of the time. There are some interesting vignettes, such as the relationship between Charlotte and her husband. There are shades of A Room of One’s Own as Charlotte manipulates the space in her home so that she has her own space. One interesting aside relates to the title. The phrase “pride and prejudice” was in common use in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, particularly amongst those opposed to slavery and the phrase symbolized opposition to slavery. I didn’t know that, but it’s an interesting fact. 9 out of 10 Starting Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield This is the third novel by Setterfield that I have read. I liked the first and disliked the second. This one, as might be guessed has a fairy tale quality. It is set in the nineteenth century and the centre of the novel is the River Thames. The folklore surrounding the Thames plays a great part in this and the plot meanders and eddys along. “A story ought to go clearly in one direction, then, after a distinct moment of crisis, change to go in another,” There is a touch of magic realism about this but there is less of a gothic element than in Setterfield’s last novels it is more Dickens than Bronte. The novel revolves around a riverside inn called the Swan, a public house where people tell stories. One wild night an injured man staggers into the pub almost drowned, carrying what seems to be a doll, but is actually a lifeless child. The child appears to be dead. The local midwife checks the child and confirms the child is dead and patches the man up. After a few hours the child returns to life. The man awakes and confirms the child is not his and that he pulled her out of the river. The child does not speak. There follows a story with three strands; three possibilities for the identity of the girl. Nearly all the characters are fundamentally good whilst the two antagonists have almost no redeeming features. The mystery is who is the girl? There is a lot of water mud and marsh. There is also a mystical ferryman called Quietly who takes you from this life to the next, turning the Thames into a latter day River Styx. Quietly had lost his child to the river and had gone to search for her. He came back a year later and returned the child to her mother, but could not go into the house: “since that day any number of people on the river have met Quietly on the river. There was a price to be paid for the return of his daughter, and he paid it. For all eternity he must watch over the river, waiting for someone to get into difficulty, and then, if it is not their time, he sees them safely to the bank; and if it is their time, he sees them safely to that other place” The man who rescues the child is a photographer loosely based on an actual photographer called Taunt (subtly changed to Daunt here) who photographed the Thames in the nineteenth century. There is also a prescient and rather intelligent pig. Setterfield is a good storyteller as is illustrated here: “So it was that after the impossible event, and the hour of the first puzzling and wondering, came the various departures from the Swan and the first of the tellings. But finally, while the night was still dark, everybody at last was in bed, and the story settled like sediment in the minds of them all witnesses, tellers, listeners. The only sleepless one was the child herself, who, at the heart of the tale, breathed the seconds lightly in and lightly out while she gazed at nothing and listened to the sound of the river rushing by.” This was ok, well told, undemanding which is sometimes what I need! 7 out of 10 Starting Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield This is the third novel by Setterfield that I have read. I liked the first and disliked the second. This one, as might be guessed has a fairy tale quality. It is set in the nineteenth century and the centre of the novel is the River Thames. The folklore surrounding the Thames plays a great part in this and the plot meanders and eddys along. “A story ought to go clearly in one direction, then, after a distinct moment of crisis, change to go in another,” There is a touch of magic realism about this but there is less of a gothic element than in Setterfield’s last novels it is more Dickens than Bronte. The novel revolves around a riverside inn called the Swan, a public house where people tell stories. One wild night an injured man staggers into the pub almost drowned, carrying what seems to be a doll, but is actually a lifeless child. The child appears to be dead. The local midwife checks the child and confirms the child is dead and patches the man up. After a few hours the child returns to life. The man awakes and confirms the child is not his and that he pulled her out of the river. The child does not speak. There follows a story with three strands; three possibilities for the identity of the girl. Nearly all the characters are fundamentally good whilst the two antagonists have almost no redeeming features. The mystery is who is the girl? There is a lot of water mud and marsh. There is also a mystical ferryman called Quietly who takes you from this life to the next, turning the Thames into a latter day River Styx. Quietly had lost his child to the river and had gone to search for her. He came back a year later and returned the child to her mother, but could not go into the house: “since that day any number of people on the river have met Quietly on the river. There was a price to be paid for the return of his daughter, and he paid it. For all eternity he must watch over the river, waiting for someone to get into difficulty, and then, if it is not their time, he sees them safely to the bank; and if it is their time, he sees them safely to that other place” The man who rescues the child is a photographer loosely based on an actual photographer called Taunt (subtly changed to Daunt here) who photographed the Thames in the nineteenth century. There is also a prescient and rather intelligent pig. Setterfield is a good storyteller as is illustrated here: “So it was that after the impossible event, and the hour of the first puzzling and wondering, came the various departures from the Swan and the first of the tellings. But finally, while the night was still dark, everybody at last was in bed, and the story settled like sediment in the minds of them all witnesses, tellers, listeners. The only sleepless one was the child herself, who, at the heart of the tale, breathed the seconds lightly in and lightly out while she gazed at nothing and listened to the sound of the river rushing by.” This was ok, well told, undemanding which is sometimes what I need! 7 out of 10 Starting Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite “Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.” A title that takes the eye always helps sell a book and this certainly has that, and it is Braithwaite’s debut novel. It is set in Lagos where she lives. The chapters are short and this is a quick read. The plot revolves around Korede, a nurse and Ayoola, her younger sister who is also conventionally beautiful. The novel opens with Ayoola calling Korede asking for help as she has just killed her boyfriend Femi with a knife, in self-defence she says. This is the third boyfriend she had dispatched and as Korede points out, that technically makes her a serial killer. They dispose of the body together. Korede does not feel appreciated by her sister, but she is her sister after all. The nub of the rest of the plot is as follows. Korede works in a hospital. She is looking after someone in a coma. She talks to the man in the coma and tells him her troubles, including her sister’s habits. Korede is also in love with Tade, a doctor she works with who hasn’t really noticed her. The inevitable happens: Tade meets Ayoola, falls for her and they start to date. Meanwhile the man in the coma wakes up and seems to recall some of what Korede said to him. This is more about sisters than serial killing, although of course there is a body count. There is a certain humour to this: Korede and Ayoola are moving the body: “Ayoola darted to the lift, pressed the button, ran back to us and lifted Femi’s shoulders once more. I peeked out of the apartment and confirmed that the landing was still clear. I was tempted to pray, to beg that no door be opened as we journeyed from door to lift, but I am fairly certain that those are exactly the types of prayers He doesn’t answer.” These two, as a twist on sisterly dysfunction, have been compared to the Dashwood sisters Elinor and Marianne, although I don’t remember much serial murder in Austen, although in many ways this is a comedy of manners. It’s certainly not a mystery and there is no real exploration of why Ayoola does what she does. There is also a thread running through relating to Korede and Ayoola’s father (now deceased). He was also violent and abusive. Korede muses: “More and more, she reminds me of him. He could do a bad thing and behave like a model citizen right after. As though the bad thing had never happened.” The book is difficult to categorise. Braithwaite says she got the initial idea from the Black Widow spider. After mating with the male, the female gets peckish and eats him. It could, of course be another way of surviving the patriarchy! 7 out of 10 Starting The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed

Women in Thirteenth Century Lincolnshire by Louise Wilkinson Does what it says on the cover, Wilkinson uses a variety of sources, including court records, manorial rolls, charters and government and church records. The book is split into sections which cover noblewomen, gentlewomen, townswomen, peasant women, criminal women and religious. She looks at the interaction between gender, status and lifecycle and examines female identity. Wilkinson doesn’t make the mistake of treating women as a single group and there are lots of interesting discussions. A few of the noblewomen held real power, one was Sherriff of Lincoln and another led the defence of the castle during a siege. The section on criminality shows a very stark statistic. The conviction rate for rape is pretty much the same now as it was then. There is a great diversity of roles, I was surprised by the number of women who were brewers! Another fascination for me was reading about women going about their lives walking the streets I walk (named in the book) eight hundred years ago. Wilkinson touches on the development of political and religious thought in relation to gender. There were a particularly large number of female religious houses in Lincolnshire, many of which played an active role in society. Society and religion were still very male dominated. Anyone interested in social and gender history would appreciate this. It is the first regional study of women in the thirteenth century and was particularly interesting to me as I recognised many of the places mentioned. 9 out of 10 Starting Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism by Susan Hamilton

The Doctor's Family by Mrs Oliphant The second part of the Carlingford Chronicles, published by Virago as a single volume with the first part, The Rector. Mrs Oliphant, was a prolific Scottish born novelist who produced over 120 works in her lifetime; novels, literary criticism, ghost stories, biographies and historical works. She was born Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant and married her cousin, also called Oliphant. Her husband died young and left her with three young children and she wrote to earn a living. She also took in various other family members who had fallen on hard times. The plot is fairly straightforward. Edward Rider is a doctor in Carlingford. On the lookout for a wife. His brother suddenly arrives from Australia with his wife, three children and his wife’s sister Nettie, who looks after them all. Brother Fred is a drunk and does very little apart from drink, smoke and lie on couches. Dr Rider sets them up in a rented cottage and manages to fall in love with Nettie. She is having none of it as she has three children and their parents to look after and has no time for romance or marriage. Dr Rider feels strongly about his brother and family who are keeping him from his beloved: “Edward Rider stared at his brother, speechless with rage and indignation. He could have rushed upon that listless figure, and startled the life half out of the nerveless slovenly frame. The state of mingled resentment, disappointment, and disgust he was in, made every particular of this aggravating scene tell more emphatically. To see that heavy vapour obscuring those walls which breathed of Nettie – to think of this one little centre of her life, which always hitherto had borne in some degree the impress of her womanly image, so polluted and vulgarised, overpowered the young man’s patience. Yet perhaps he of all men in the world had least right to interfere.” There follows a couple of years of ups and downs before it is all worked out with a bit of melodrama. The characters are not particularly sympathetic. Nettie, is a heroine who seems determined to sacrifice herself and her role is all she is, as is evidenced when the role ceases: “The work she had meant to do was over. Nettie’s occupation was gone. With the next act of the domestic drama she had nothing to do. For the first time in her life utterly vanquished, with silent promptitude she abdicated on the instant. She seemed unable to strike a blow for the leadership thus snatched from her hands.” There are plenty of traditional tropes here and I found the whole rather unsatisfactory, particularly the ending where loose ends are tied up and everyone is happy. However I think it is the ending that those who love this appreciate. Maybe I am just perverse. 5 out of 10 Starting Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Braddon

The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga This is the second in Dangarembga’s trilogy and it follows on closely from the first. I hope to read the third later in the year. It is semi-autobiographical and follows Tambu from the ending of the first novel when she gains a place at a Catholic Girls boarding school, one of a handful of African girls to do so. The backdrop is still the war of independence (during the first three quarters of the book). The effects on Tambu are profound: her sister has lost a leg to a landmine. Her uncle, with whom she lives out of term time has an uneasy relationship with both sides. It affects all the girls at the school: “What is the matter?’ Sister was very anxious. ‘I’m fine,’ I told her. My favourite teacher was anxious. But my sister lay first in the sand and then in a hospital bed without a leg. What would Sister do if I told her? What would the other girls do if they heard? They all had their little boxes tight in their chests for their memories of war. There was too much grief here for a room full of girls. Thinking this, I did let go. I forgot about not letting anything out. I kept on wiping so that my tears fell on the cloth sleeve. It was like that when people were kind to you. Sometimes you forgot.” Of course the backdrop is still colonialism and the struggle against it and its effects are especially clear in the hierarchy of the school. The book also envisions decolonisation and what it might mean. Dangarembga skilfully shows Tambu’s alienation, not only in relation to her education, but also to her family. She is stuck between two worlds. She gains the highest O level grades in the school and yet a white girl with lower grades wins the attainment prize. “As I liked to be good at what I did, I was not afraid of hard work. I would put in what was required to reach the peak I aspired to. It was especially important to be at the top, as it was quite clear to me and to everyone I had to be one of the best. Average simply did not apply; I had to be absolutely outstanding or nothing.” This isn’t really a stand-alone and you need to read the first novel. This doesn’t quite have the impact of Nervous Conditions, but it is a good follow on. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting A Bit of Difference by Seffi Atta

Murder by the Book by Claire Harman A slice of Victorian true crime. In 1840 Lord William Russell, an aging aristocrat was murdered in his bed in his London home. His throat was cut. There was a police investigation and sensational press coverage. Lots of people were interviewed and it was concluded that it was an inside job. Russell’s valet Francois Courvoisier was arrested, tried, convicted and executed with a public hanging watched by an estimated fifty thousand people. It all sounds fairly unremarkable but Harman picks out some unusual aspects to the case. At the public execution were Dickens and Thackeray. Thackeray was not yet well known. It had a profound effect on both authors. Thackeray had nightmares for weeks and both began to campaign against such public spectacles. Their influence had an effect on the debates and eventually led to the end of public executions. Thackeray wrote an article called “Going to see a man hanged” and here is an sample of it; “This is the 20th of July and I may be permitted for my part to declare that, for the last fourteen days, so salutary has the impression of the butchery been upon me, I have had the man’s face continually before my eyes: that I can see Mr Ketch at this moment, with an easy air, take the rope from his pocket; that I feel myself ashamed and degraded at the brutal curiosity which took me to that brutal sight: and I pray to Almighty God to cause this disgraceful sin to pass from among us and to cleanse our land from blood.” It took until 1868 to end public executions. The other interesting aspect of this was the debate at the time about the effect of a book and whether it could lead to copycat crimes and criminality. In the early 1830s William Ainsworth had written a book about the highwayman Dick Turpin. It was a runaway success and it is where we get most of our myths about Turpin from. In 1839 Ainsworth wrote a follow up about another eighteenth century outlaw entitled “Jack Sheppard”. It was again highly sensationalised and the villain of the piece was mostly heroic, despite being hanged at the end. Officialdom was generally badly portrayed. The book was again a sensation and was very cheaply reproduced. It was also turned into a play, or rather lots of plays. Each theatre put on its own version and added more sensation and pathos. Very cheap theatre versions meant that very wide sections of the populace were able to attend and not just the middle classes. A debate was started by those who felt the populace should not be subjected to this sort of thing. The newspapers soon found people who claimed to have committed crimes as a result of seeing the play. There was a particularly gruesome murder in Jack Sheppard where a throat was cut during a burglary, similar to William Russell’s death. After the conviction Courvoisier made several varying confessions. One of them indicated he had been influenced by Jack Sheppard. This was seized on by the press and Ainsworth found himself attacked on several sides for causing crimes. There are parallels with a number of modern books. This is well researched and outlines some problems with the investigation as well as some of the debates that arose around popular fiction and public hangings 6 out of 10 Starting A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa

It's a good read Hayley, and is based on some historical fact, so it is certainly worth reading Anna, Duchess of Cleves by Heather Darsie A proper history book, which sets the record straight about Anna of Cleves. There are many myths around Henry VIII’s fourth wife which Darsie debunks. There is a good deal of dry political stuff which sets the background in the German and Dutch states of duchies. The two superpowers were the French and the Holy Roman Empire led by Francis I and Charles V respectively. The political situation in the various German states and the Schmalkaldic League was complex and Charles and Francis vied for influence with a combination of bribes and threats. England was on the edge of all this, but had influence. Henry has broken with Rome and moved towards the increasingly Protestant states on the continent. However Henry was at this time backpeddling in terms of religion. In actuality Cromwell was pushing the wedding with Anna and this would have alienated Charles V as it would put England more firmly in the Protestant camp. It had taken some time to set the wedding up and by the time it happened Henry’s sense of what was wise in relation to continental relations had changed and he was aiming to be friendlier with Charles. Annulling the marriage with Anna achieved this. Darsie gives a good account of Anna’s life and she remained on good terms with Henry, even after the end of the marriage. She was also on good terms with Edward VI and Mary and was eventually buried in Westminster Abbey. There was no portrait by Holbein exaggerating her beauty and the term “Flanders Mare” was a seventeenth century addition to the tale. The story about Henry and Anna’s first meeting being a disaster is also incorrect. All of what you thought you knew about Anna of Cleves is probably wrong. Darsie has done some meticulous research and has pieced together what we really do know. It is a bit dry at times, but it’s an important counter to the story handed down. 8 out of 10 Starting My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead My first read of Colson Whitehead and this one won the Pulitzer Prize. It is a based on a true story and is set in Jim Crow Florida of the early 1960s in a Reform School. The novel jumps between the 2010s and the 1960s. It follows two boys in the Reform School, Nickel Academy (based on Dozier School), Elwood Curtis and Jack Turner, but particularly Elwood. The two boys are very different and Whitehead describes them as two different parts of his personality. Curtis is: "the optimistic or hopeful part of me that believes we can make the world a better place if we keep working at it" Whilst Turner is: "the cynical side that says no—this country is founded on genocide, murder, and slavery and it will always be that way." Whitehead manages to keep the two sides in balance. In the recent present the site of the academy is being cleared: “The discovery of the bodies was an expensive complication for the real estate company awaiting the all clear from the environmental study, and for the state’s attorney, which had recently closed an investigation into the abuse stories. Now they had to start a new inquiry, establish the identities of the deceased and the manner of death, and there was no telling when the whole damned place would be razed, cleared and neatly erased from history…” This triggers memories in the present for one of the boys and the story is narrated. There is a certain predictability in the racism and brutality, but it is a story that still needs to be told as we have yet to learn the lesson. The power of hate and injustice is well illustrated: “There was no higher system guiding Nickel’s brutality, merely an indiscriminate spite, one that had nothing to do with people. A figment from tenth-grade science struck him: a Perpetual Misery Machine, one that operated by itself without human agency. Also, Archimedes, one of his first encyclopaedia finds. Violence is the only lever big enough to move the world.” It is a difficult read because of the violence and brutality and there is a little twist at the end, but it is a tale that still needs to be told. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Murder by the Book by Claire Harman

The Rector by Mrs Oliphant This is the first in a series of five works called The Carlingford Chronicles. The Rector is barely a novella, more a short story. It is available combined with the second in the series published by Virago (who else). The author, Mrs Oliphant, was a prolific Scottish born novelist who produced over 120 works in her lifetime; novels, literary criticism, ghost stories, biographies and historical works. She was born Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant and married her cousin, also called Oliphant. Her husband died young and left her with three young children and she wrote to earn a living. She also took in various other family members who had fallen on hard times. The story is a simple one; Mr Proctor is a theological academic of about fifty who decides that his aging mother needs to be supported and takes the job of Rector of Carlingford (based on the town of Aylesbury), so she can live with him. “His mother was, let us say, a hundred years or so younger than the Rector…Mr Proctor was middle-aged, and preoccupied by right of his years; but his mother had long ago got over that stage of life. She was at that point when some energetic natures, having got to the bottom of the hill, seem to make a fresh start and reascend.” Unfortunately the rector doesn’t have a clue how to do his job. His sermons are dry and boring. He isn’t a social animal and has to relate to women, a new experience (apart from his mother) following a male dominated academia. Some of them also seem to see him as a potential life partner, horror of horrors. He finds himself at a death bed where he is expected to say prayers and utter some useful words and discovers he does not have a clue what to do. He is further discomfited when the curate of another church arrives and does the job properly. The Rector has a crisis of conscience and wonders whether he is cut out for this work. There is a bit of moralising, but enough to interest to make me carry on with the next one in the series. 6 out of 10 Starting The Doctor's Family by Mrs Oliphant

The Mercies by Karen Millwood Hargrave I have been reading a lot of historical fiction recently and this is another example. It is based on an historical event in 1617 in northern Norway. A sudden and violent storm hits the village of Vardo whilst the men of the village are at sea fishing. They all die and the women of the village are left to fend for themselves. The first part of the novel is the story of how they pull together and survive. The world begins to encroach again with the influence of the church. We are in the period of the witch trials: in 1618 the then monarch of Norway introduced laws against witchcraft, based on those of Scotland. James VI set an example in this area. The laws in Norway were also directed against the Sami people whose culture was not based on Christianity. A commissioner is sent to the village with his new wife to bring the women back to Christian ways. The novel revolves around two women: Ursa, the commissioner’s new wife and Maren, a woman from the village. The novel focusses on patriarchal fear of women’s strength and how that fear acts out in violence and repression. The historical note sets the scene: ‘Lensmann Cunningham, or Køning as he came to be known, oversaw no fewer than fifty-two witch trials, leading to the deaths of ninety-one people: fourteen men and seventy-seven women. But Cunningham had gone further than the King had planned: of these, the men were all Sami, but the women were Norwegian. In a region where there had previously been only a handful of such cases, and only two resulting in executions, it was a stark and telling change.’ This is a novel about power, desire, loss, otherness, female friendship and community in the face of hardship and there is an element of a love story. It is certainly atmospheric and lyrical and this is Hargrave’s first adult novel. If you are looking for a positive happy ending then you will be disappointed. The story is powerful and well told, the ending I thought was a bit of a let-down, the book sort of fizzles out and it feels as though it could have gone several other ways. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting The Rector and The Doctor's Family by Mrs Oliphant

The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye Shon Faye has written an analysis of the current debate about transgender issues, particularly about the debate in Britain. Her solutions are broader though because she believes that there is a need for an economic and social liberation based on socialism. Faye is transgender herself and lays out the issues and problems of transgender life in Britain today. “The demand for true trans liberation echoes and overlaps with the demands of workers, socialists, feminists, anti-racists and queer people. They are radical demands, in that they go to the root of what our society is and what it could be. For this reason, the existence of trans people is a course of constant anxiety for many who are either invested in the status quo or fearful about what would replace it.” Faye covers class, housing insecurity, healthcare, sex work, prisons, the role and attitudes of the police, education and the current debates within feminism (terfs and all). A good deal of research has gone into this, but it was written during the first lockdown. The writing is clear and passionate, exposing significant levels of hostility to trans people, especially in the media. The focus is on liberation as much as rights. There is a fair amount of statistics and information but this doesn’t get in the way. This isn’t a memoir, but Faye does draw on her own experience: “Ever since I was a child, I have had to learn to keep on going in a world which signalled to me at every turn that I was mad, bad, sick, deluded, disgusting, a pervert, a danger, unlovable,” She is also honest about some of her dilemmas, for instance when Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military she felt “supreme discomfort” arguing against the ban because of her opposition to US imperialism and military power. Faye reminds feminists who have issues with transgender rights and liberation that the real problem is actually patriarchy, capitalism and shared experiences of male violence. On the whole I found this convincing although my views matter little as a cisgender male, but I do wish we could all be kinder to each other and more tolerant of each other. There is a good quote from Andrea Dworkin which is now forty years old: “Hormone and chromosome research, attempts to develop new means of human reproduction (life created in, or considerably supported by, the scientist’s laboratory) work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex similarity. That is not to say there is one sex, but that there are many. The evidence which is germane here is simple. The words “male” and “female”, “man” and “woman” are used as yet there are no others.” The reactions to the book have been fairly predictable, but it really is worth reading because it covers a good deal of ground: the sections on healthcare and mental health are particularly good. As Faye points out poverty and homelessness and the other issues of an inequitable society hold back all sections of society and the plea is unity against a common enemy. But the levels of injustice Faye points out are significant and the struggle continues. 9 out of 10 Starting Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Well here is the first of this year The Holiday by Stevie Smith I like Smith’s poetry better than her prose. Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. This novel was published in 1949, although it was written mostly before the war, Smith inserted the term post-war to update it. The character of Celia is based on Smith, even to the extent that she lived with her aunt and like Smith struggled with her mental health. Celia works for “The Ministry” along with a loose group of friends and relations. Towards the end of the rather brief novel there is a holiday to the depths of the countryside (rural Lincolnshire) to stay with Uncle Heber, a country vicar. The main protagonists are Clem and Tiny (twins who don’t get on), their sister Lopez and Caz (Casmilus), who appears to be Celia’s cousin and with whom she appears to be in love. There is little actually going on, but there is a great deal of talk about a wide variety of subjects; often politics, relationships, death and the meaning of life. There are interesting descriptions of life and customs: ever heard of whale oil cake (I hadn’t and don’t have any desire to try it!) and as you would expect Smith’s prose does feel poetic. However there is often a twist: “I left the kitchen and walked all over Heber's house, looking into the old rooms and trailing the dark passages. It is empty, it is very old and musty. The furniture is simple, it is what one wants and no more. There is a dagger over the fire-place in the hall. There is an old chest where Uncle Heber keeps his clean surplices. I go up to the back stairs where the servants used to tread, bringing trays and coal. I am glad we have got rid of them. I detest the servant class, they are the victims and the victimizers, there is no freedom where they are.” In the London part of the book there is an Indian character. It was not entirely clear to me what Smith was trying to do with the discussions on India: "The conversation now got into politics. Caz gave me a malicious look and said: We should quit India that is what we should do, there is nothing else for us to do but that; we should quite India. It is not so simple as that, I said ... the rest of the world is very unanimous to say the English should quit India, Palestine, Malaya, the Antarctic and South Africa; but why, please? Why should the world, with none too clean a forefinger, point out the path of Sainthood for England to follow, while they go quite another way themselves? … And their social habits, these Indians, they are so pretty I suppose and so practical, eh? Burn the widows, rape the kids, up the castes, and hurrah for Indian legal probity ... The English law is above the world, I said, it is not to be bought, it is strong, flexible and impartial" Other views are expressed and discussed, but there is a distinct aura of British superiority, even in leaving. Ambivalence about imperialism sloppily expressed I can do without. There were positives and the writing is impressive, but it was too self-absorbed and sometimes too knowing. 4 out of 10 Starting The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangaremba

Lean, Fall, Stand by Jon McGregor I have been a fan of Jon McGregor for a while, since I read Even the Dogs. That novel used a shared narration and had a more collective voice, as does this one in the group sessions. Robert (Doc) Wright works in the Antarctic for part of every year and had done for over twenty years. He and two other men are surveying and taking photos. The other two are younger and it’s their first time. A sudden and ferocious storm hits when they are outside and they are separated. Robert manages to get back to the shelter, but has a stroke when he gets there and struggles to call for help. One of the young men dies. Robert ends up in a hospital in Santiago and his wife Anna has to come to fetch him home. Robert has aphasia; a condition I am familiar with through my work and is common in those who have had strokes. It’s also something that happens to most people in a lesser way as they age. Aphasia means that one struggles to comprehend and process language. It is most commonly associated with word finding difficulties. The rest of the book follows the slow recuperation and focuses on an Aphasia support group which Robert and his wife attend. There is a focus on Anna’s change of role from only seeing her husband for half the year to being a carer and the associated difficulties. McGregor has done his homework about Aphasia and spent time with a support group in Nottingham. He was also writer in residence on a station in Antarctica in 2004. McGregor examines the language of identity, our use of language and care. Anna is taken through the process of being recognised as a carer, including all the form filling and McGregor looks at what underlies it all. Anna not only questions whether she is able to do all this, but whether she wants to. The jumbled and fractured words (with the usual added swearing) of the members of the support group are captured well, as are the deficiencies of the system. It is clear that speech therapy in some sort of ongoing form would have helped all of them, but it is only available for a brief time at the beginning. It becomes clear that the real focus of the novel is Anna, a notable academic in her own right whose life is suddenly thrown into chaos. Becoming a carer is a common everyday occurrence and is often overlooked and forgotten. McGregor throws light onto an area we often ignore and its mundaneness: “She had to get some food into him before his blood sugar dropped too low. She had to leave him in the armchair while she went down to the kitchen, and she had to make him promise not to move. She had to listen out for any crashes or noises whilst she sliced an apple, and spread toast, and made tea. She had to ignore the phone while she ran the breakfast tray upstairs. She had to cut the toast into small pieces so he could eat it.” It is a compelling and compassionate novel, leaving plenty of loose ends and unknowns and worth the effort. The descriptions of aphasia are pretty good. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Cannonball by Joseph McElroy

The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney Sam Browne’s wife has left him, not because they are unhappy, but because she feels they could both be happier. He is also disillusioned with his job as a merchant banker (well obviously, who wouldn’t be). He feels his life is falling apart. He purchases an eight volume edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Inside one of the volumes is the following advertisement: WANTED Diligent volunteer to carry out two months’ Painstaking archival work for private library. Board and lodging provided; Curiosity and imagination rewarded. Please telephone Miss S, Synder on 01902 650 0000 Well, who could resist. Sam certainly could not. The novel sort of meanders along at a gentle pace with an interesting, but small, cast of characters. It has a modern setting, but really could have been set at any time in the last hundred years or so. there are plenty of literary references, a country setting, a family puzzle going back to the eighteenth century, a garden with a hidden temple (a temple to reason), a typical rather old country house and a magnificent library. As one review says, it is a bit of a “gothic pastiche”.There is one glorious description of the library: "My first glance through the doorway revealed two vast windows overlooking a perfect lawn, white with frost. I advanced into a much larger room, looked around, and up, and back. What I saw was books. I was standing in a cathedral to books. There was a fireplace at each end of the room, nearer the window side, with a narrow green carpet running from one hearth to the other, perhaps twelve yards, in front of the window. Above each fireplace hung a large and age-darkened portrait in a heave frame. A gallery with slender iron railings, reached by a spiral stair in the corner, ran along the long back wall and part of another wall at half height, and near the centre of the dark oak floor stood a huge folio table. Two iron chandeliers hung from the distant, ghostly expanse of coiling plasterwork, and a squat leather armchair stood at each window. With the exception of the object I have mentioned so far, it was all books” Eighteen thousand in all and the task was to find a lost letter hidden somewhere in one of them. The book is meditative, sometimes rather sad and it meanders along at a fairly slow pace. I didn’t like the ending because it felt far too knowing and the main character Sam was a bit tiresome at times. The world Sam enters feels entirely self-enclosed, something apart from reality. That attracted and repelled me at the same time. There was a lyrical and haunting quality about it, but I felt a certain amount of ambivalence. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Once upon a river by Diane Setterfield

The Woo by John Lewis-Stempel For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed the three/four acres of Cockshutt wood in Herefordshire. In his last year he kept a diary, and this is it. He used traditional methods including coppicing and allowing livestock (especially pigs) to root around in the wood. The writing relies heavily on poetry and folklore. There are occasional recipes for the produce of the wood and lots of observation and descriptions of the wood, its plants and animals. Lewis-Stempel describes himself as a countryside writer rather than a nature writer. “It is a modern fallacy that woods should be museums of trees. Woods are to be used and are the better for it. A managed wood is better for wildlife. Cockshutt, aside from providing woodcock for the table, has, down the centuries, supplied alder for charcoal, oak for timber, forage for pigs, holly for sheep fodder, coppiced hazel for hurdles, ash for farm implements. A typical English wood, then. A wood is always in the past tense. There was a slight breeze through the tracery of the silver birch. This, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge noted, is the most beautiful of trees, ‘the Lady of the Woods’, but it’s tough. It was the first tree to colonise Britain after the last Ice Age, so the sound of the wind in the birch’s naked branches was the sound of England’s February 10,000 years ago.” On the whole it’s a pretty good observational piece, somewhat disjointed at times, but the poetry is good and there are lots of interesting pieces of information. “I thought the trees and birds belonged to me. But now I realise that I belonged to them.” 7 out of 10 Starting Anna Duchess of Cleves by Heather Darsie

Chatterton Square by E H Young My first novel by E H Young. Young seems to have been an interesting character. Her writings centre on the Clifton area of Bristol, called Upper Radstowe in the novels. She was a supporter of suffrage and a keen climber and mountaineer. She had a lifelong relationship with Ralph Henderson, a friend of her husband’s. After her husband’s death in the War she moved in with Henderson and his wife. Chatterton Square is the story of two families who live next to each other, one relatively happy and one relatively unhappy. The Blacketts are a married couple with three teenage daughters. They are the unhappy family, although Mrs Blackett thinks they are perfectly content (because he is perfectly content). The Frasers are happier, possibly because there is no man at the head of the house. Mr Fraser has left his wife and five children and Mrs Fraser seems generally content with her lot and has a very different approach to bringing up her children than does Mr Blackett. Living with the Fraser’s is Miss Spanner, an older unmarried woman and a friend of Mrs Fraser. Young shows three of the options open to women at the time (this was , written in 1947): unhappily married, separated and unmarried. It is set in 1938 with the threat of war looming and in the build up to the Munich agreement. This is an analysis of families and the role of women within them. There is no real “action”, because we know that is coming within the year: there is no real ending either, but that doesn’t seem to matter. The whole is character and interaction driven. Young’s portrait of Mr Blackett is very telling. He isn’t violent or abusive, the cruelty is more subtle and Mr Blackett wouldn’t, of course, recognise it as such. His sense of his own worth and maleness is well drawn: “He pitied widows but he distrusted them. They knew too much. As free as unmarried women, they were fully armed; this was an unfair advantage, and when it was combined with beauty, and air of well-being, a gaiety which, in women over forty had an unsuitable hint of mischief in it, he felt that in this easy conquest over, or incapacity for grief, all manhood was insulted, while all manhood, including his own, was probably viewed by that woman as a likely prey.” Unfortunately for him, his wife understands him and has learnt to manage his idiosyncrasies, as per this exchange when discussing whether Mr Blackett should take his eldest daughter on holiday to Europe: “I think you might feel quite different when you came back. Your mind would be refreshed. You would have other things to think about.” “But I don’t want to feel different!” Mr. Blackett exclaimed irritably. “And as for my mind, I wasn’t aware that it showed signs of flagging.” “Oh no,” Mrs. Blackett said pleasantly, “it’s too active,” and she gave him one of her rare, full looks. “Like a squirrel in a cage,” she added and carried away the tray before he could reply.” This is a look at a society which is about to undergo great change, but Young’s focus is also on relationships and women’s role. The interactions between the teenagers seem to be overshadowed by what we know is coming. This is a subtle and interesting novel, Young’s last, and would certainly prompt me to read more. 8 out of 10 Starting The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead