The Home Corner is a gentle, sometimes funny story about a young woman’s failure to launch. A couple of years after getting bad results in her exams, The Home Corner is a gentle, sometimes funny story about a young woman’s failure to launch. A couple of years after getting bad results in her exams, 19-year-old Luisa has an encounter with a former friend that sends her into a spiral. Stella, always the more confident of the two, seems to be thriving at university, while Luisa feels stuck in her mundane job as a primary school classroom assistant. This is a coming-of-age story that slightly pre-dates the trend for ‘sad girl’ novels, and as much as the market is now saturated with those, I sometimes longed for a bit more messiness here. Very little happens – and as Luisa is still only a teenager, it’s hard to feel her problems are anything much out of the ordinary. Yet, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I found her narrative very absorbing. Thomas balances humour and melancholy well....more
I’ve been impressed by Lynda E. Rucker’s stories whenever I’ve encountered them in anthologies, and this collection of weird, unsettling tales looked I’ve been impressed by Lynda E. Rucker’s stories whenever I’ve encountered them in anthologies, and this collection of weird, unsettling tales looked like it was made for me. In the introduction, Steve Rasnic Tem situates Rucker’s fiction at ‘[the] edge where the everyday dissolves and the numinous begins’, citing her ‘close, realistic character observations’ as a strong point, and comparing her work to that of Robert Aickman. This is all true: ‘No More A-Roving’ – singled out in the introduction as ‘a kind of keystone for this collection’ – particularly earns the Aickmanesque label with its tale of a backpacker who seems unable to leave a dreary, sinister hostel. Personally, I found the settings to be the major strength of The Moon Will Look Strange. A disintegrating, formerly grand flat in a Czech city in ‘The Chance Walker’; the haunted streets of Granada in the title story; a damp art studio in ‘Beneath the Drops’; the oppressive heat of a Georgia summer in ‘Different Angels’. All are beautifully, powerfully depicted, so that starting a new story feels like stepping through a portal from one place into another.
As well as creating atmosphere, these vivid settings build a strong sense of how each story’s protagonist feels at odds with the world around them. Many of the stories follow a person who feels lost, displaced; someone who cannot make themselves understood. The very best of them, ‘The Moon Will Look Strange’, is a brilliant sequence of unease about a man who believes he can resurrect his dead daughter through occult magic. It’s reminiscent of both Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Don’t Look Now’ and M. John Harrison’s The Course of the Heart, but also genuinely original, especially the apocalyptic ending. ‘The Chance Walker’ has a wonderfully chilling, self-contained feel with its story of a teacher abroad struggling to make connections – until a weird student turns up at her flat. Also strong is ‘Beneath the Drops’, a creeping tale of a relationship breakdown, art, the balance between privacy and intimacy... and relentless rain. ‘Ash-Mouth’ frames family trauma with horror effectively. ‘These Things We Have Always Known’ dips its toe into dark fantasy (not my favourite genre) with a nonetheless potent tale of a strange, doomed creative community.
The other stories are invariably well-written, but some concepts are weaker than others. ‘The Burned House’ is good, but it’s also more or less exactly what you’d expect based on the title. The extremely disjointed ‘In Death’s Other Kingdom’ didn’t work for me at all, with its themes of religious/demonic horror more effectively addressed in the later, more compelling ‘Different Angels’. ‘These Foolish Things’ is forgettable, and I was selfishly disappointed in ‘The Last Reel’ because I mistakenly thought it was going to be a lost film story....more
A gently nostalgic ghost story set in the 1980s, with three teenagers discovering an abandoned cinema that screens films made by ghosts, starring ghosA gently nostalgic ghost story set in the 1980s, with three teenagers discovering an abandoned cinema that screens films made by ghosts, starring ghosts, for ghosts. The lore behind the abandoned Electric is fantastic; I loved everything about the cinema and its eerie denizens. Barker clearly has an knack for imagined media: the fictitious, haunted films depicted here are spellbinding, even on the page. But I longed for a mainstream-publisher version of this book, one that would have been more thoroughly edited. As it is, The Electric is hampered by repetition, unconvincing dialogue and a laboured coming-of-age subplot. (Though I will say that the protagonist’s grief for his late father, and how he finds his way out of it, is beautifully drawn.) I still might read more by the author, as the underlying story is solid and filled with the kind of uncanny details I find fascinating.
I don’t read many kids’ books, but I’m usually happy to make an exception for ghost stories. I like ghost stories best when they’re relatively simple I don’t read many kids’ books, but I’m usually happy to make an exception for ghost stories. I like ghost stories best when they’re relatively simple and free of gore, which those for young readers obviously have to be. The central narrative of Thirteen Chairs concerns a boy, Jack, walking into a dark old house; he sits down with a group of strangers, each of whom tells a spooky story. Highlights are ‘Tick, Tick, Tick...’ (M.R. James-lite about a professor hearing a phantom clock), ‘Beneath the Surface’ (grief-stricken boy haunted by water – shades of Junji Ito and Stephen King) and, best of all, ‘Unputdownable’ (writer can’t stop writing – by far the most original premise in the book). The flaws – a couple of stories are extremely predictable, another couple are told in irritatingly childish voices – are things that go with the territory and only bothered me because I’m not the intended reader. Not my favourite of the genre (that would probably be The Wrong Train by Jeremy de Quidt); good fun all the same.
An interesting book, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone without an existing grounding in architectural history, theory and criticism. My own failinAn interesting book, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone without an existing grounding in architectural history, theory and criticism. My own failing here was disregarding the title, something I only realised I’d done when I actually started reading the book: I wanted more architecture in horror and less horror in architecture. I’d anticipated at least some analysis of the ways in which buildings are used in horror films/lit, but Comaroff and Ker-Shing are concerned with the things we (typically) find visually or viscerally horrifying and how analogues of these can manifest in architecture. As a result, a lot of it flew over my head, especially where the approaches and specific buildings mentioned are not illustrated (a lot of googling was needed to make many of the arguments comprehensible to me). It’s nevertheless packed with fascinating observations and turns of phrase, my personal highlight being the description of the polymorphic body in art/film as ‘a disgusting little society’.
Like The Silver Wind,Stardust is a collection of interconnected stories. They revolve around circus performer and actress Ruby Castle. ‘Revolve arounLike The Silver Wind,Stardust is a collection of interconnected stories. They revolve around circus performer and actress Ruby Castle. ‘Revolve around’ in the loosest sense – despite the subtitle The Ruby Castle Stories, many contain only a passing reference to the character. Superficially, they seem very different: a tale about a travelling circus in the English countryside, imbued with ancient horror; a story set in a future version of Russia; a little girl going missing in 1930s Germany.
As is often the case with Allan’s fiction, some of the pleasure lies in puzzling out the connections. The references to Ruby Castle are the obvious link, of course, but not the only link. Perhaps they’re even a red herring. In almost every story in Stardust there is an uncanny disappearance/reappearance. The lost come back as ghosts, people wander through time, characters fake their deaths. Fiction bleeds into reality: as the blurb says, ‘by the time the final page of Stardust is turned, the world that Castle created through her films has become dangerously indistinguishable from our own’.
At the same time as putting together this review, I was working on my ‘best books of 2018’ newsletter, and articulating what I love about Allan’s writing in general made me realise what was lacking for me in Stardust. I usually find Allan’s characters instantly relatable, human, really real, but here they’re a little more remote – not least Ruby Castle herself. If The Silver Wind is the definitive history of Martin Newland, told directly by different versions of the character himself, Stardust only skirts around the titular figure, revealing frustratingly brief glimpses.
So, this is by no means my favourite Nina Allan book, but it still has much to recommend it. Its complexity is astounding (as evidenced by the enormous write-up below, which, btw, I don’t expect anyone to read. I just like to record my thoughts about every Nina Allan story so I don’t forget or miss anything). Some of the stories are excellent standalones too: my favourites were ‘The Gateway’ and ‘The Lammas Worm’.
--- ‘B-Side’ is about 13-year-old chess prodigy Michael Gomez. In the aftermath of a major loss, consumed by thoughts of failure, he is attacked by bullies, then rescued by a friend of his mentor, only to be given some advice that upsets him further. Later in the story he has an impossible-yet-real meeting with the villains from two of Ruby Castle’s films. Michael escapes this series of frightening encounters only to find that an unsettling ‘gift’ has been left in his bedroom: a wind-up toy which depicts his rescuer, Colin Wilkes, eternally trapped in a losing game of chess. The small, imprisoned figure reminded me of ‘Vivian Guppy and the Brighton Belle’, published the same year as Stardust in the anthology Rustblind and Silverbright.
Ruby Castle connection: Michael has a crush on Ruby; she is the ‘woman of his dreams’. We learn Ruby was a circus performer-turned-actress, and later became infamous for murdering her married lover. Characters from her films The Puppeteer and American Star appear to Michael as he walks across Blackheath Common.
‘The Lammas Worm’ is narrated by Marek, a knife-thrower in a travelling circus, and the story focuses on the addition of a talented runaway, Leonie, to the troupe. Leonie is a strange, feral girl who appears very young: Marek tells people he thinks she's 15 but privately believes she is younger. This makes her sexual relationship with an adult member of the circus, Piet, particularly disturbing – though Piet himself is perceived as childlike by others because of his dwarfism. Marek also desires Leonie, while at the same time feeling repulsed. During sex with his girlfriend, he fantasises about ‘battering [Leonie] so hard with my body that it broke her bones’; one of those strikingly horrible sentences Allan is so good at deploying.
This theme of childish but sexualised girls, often involved in relationships with older men, is a recurrent theme in Allan’s fiction – one that comes up more explicitly, yet less disturbingly, in ‘Stardust’, when Alina narrowly avoids being assaulted by a neighbour. It’s a theme I strongly dislike reading about and would take pains to avoid if not for the fact that it tends to feature in the work of a writer who has become my favourite. I mention this because I was certainly not predisposed to like this story, yet it turned out to be one of the highlights of Stardust.
Of course, Leonie – always portrayed as somewhat animal-like – is not fully human, if we believe Marek’s account. In the thick of his obsession with her, he visits her hometown and learns of the Lammas Worm, ‘a giant mythical land leech’ to which young women would be sacrificed, subsequently giving birth to mutant creatures. Piecing together this myth with news reports of a murder, Marek develops some convictions about Leonie... but is he, and are we, ever quite sure what they are? There is more than a trace of folk horror about ‘The Lammas Worm’ (I thought of the 70s horror film The Blood on Satan’s Claw), giving it a distinctly different texture to the other stories. It is also the most visual, conjuring up images both beguiling and grotesque.
Ruby Castle connection: This is the only story to actually feature Ruby. She performs with Marek – the two of them grew up together – and tells him about her plans to leave the circus and become an actress. Marek and Ruby are ‘astrological twins’, sharing the same birthday.
A circus is also instrumental in ‘The Gateway’, which I loved. Set either side of the Second World War, it follows bookseller Andrew as he reunites with a former friend, Thomas Emmerich. The two men have a complicated history: Andrew had an affair with Thomas’s wife Hermine, and the Emmerichs’ daughter, Claudia, was with Andrew (visiting the circus) when she disappeared. Despite all this, there’s still warmth between the two men, and a large portion of the story is made up of a letter Thomas has written for Andrew: the story of his quest to find out what happened to Claudia.
The circumstances of Claudia’s disappearance are strange, and correspondingly, Thomas’s research is unusual. He seeks out the rare work of the Gelb brothers, carpenters and artists who may have created the hall of mirrors Claudia was last seen in. This is where ‘The Gateway’ really comes into its own – the descriptions of the Gelbs’ otherworldly creations and Andrew’s inexplicable experience are simply so magical. The coda set in London is rather weak in comparison and, I think, unnecessary. Nevertheless, ‘The Gateway’ sticks in the memory as the most complete story in Stardust.
Ruby Castle connection: Her name pops up in Thomas’s research: her grandfather commissioned a carousel from the Gelb brothers. (So we can infer several generations of Castles were circus performers.)
The protagonist of ‘Laburnums’, the shortest story in the book, is Christine. She seems to have wandered out of an Anita Brookner novel: a 40-year-old copy editor who lives with her cantankerous mother; a would-be poet who spends her weekends writing in the North Kensington Library. Christine is haunted by visions of her old friend Amma, though it is unclear whether Amma is in fact dead. At the end, a throwaway remark casts doubt on Christine’s perspective. It’s a subtler version of the twist Allan uses in ‘Orinoco’.
Ruby Castle connection: Christine is in a relationship (of sorts?) with Matthew Cleverly, a poet who interviewed Ruby in prison, was rumoured to have been in love with her, and later wrote a book inspired by her.
‘Stardust’ begins: ‘In my country July the tenth 2029 is remembered by everyone as the date of the Anastasia space disaster.’ The voice belongs to 13-year-old Alina, and her country is, we come to understand, a version of Russia. Yet the date she mentions is significant to her for another reason: it’s the day Sofie, her grandfather’s second wife, was killed by her ex-husband (the family trees in this story are rather tangled). I’m not sure why, but this story reminded me of The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway. Maybe it’s the setting, the desolate estate that somehow doesn’t quite feel Russian, or the sense of a tight-knit community, a makeshift family.
Like Christy in The Race, Alina knows she is destined to become a writer. This is as much a coming-of-age story as it is science fiction. The twin tragedies of 10 July are defining moments for Alina, and at the end we find her leaving home and family behind, taking a journey that’s symbolic as well as literal. This is only underlined by the fact that, while travelling, she makes a startling discovery – a moment of destabilisation comparable to Christine’s in ‘Laburnums’.
Ruby Castle connection: A film in which Ruby has a minor role, Scaffold Point, briefly appears on TV after news of the Anastasia crash is announced. Alina is reminded that she’s always thought Ruby and Sofie look alike. ‘Stardust’ also has links with two earlier Allan stories, ‘Angelus’ and ‘Flying in the Face of God’.
‘Wreck of the Julia’ is the title of a painting won at auction by Vernon, a widower who isn’t a widower (his wife Eloise is believed to have died in a plane crash; in fact, she never boarded the flight, and used the incident as an excuse to vanish). Through the painting he meets Clarissa, the niece of the artist, and they travel to the Canary Islands to research the story behind it. Vernon has an unusual reason for his interest in ‘Wreck of the Julia’: it appears to depict a vivid recurring dream he had in the aftermath of Eloise’s disappearance.
This is an enjoyable story, culminating in a good weird twist, but for some reason it didn’t stick in my memory at all – I had to reread it to remind myself what it was about. Perhaps this was because it is the most conventional and therefore the least Nina Allan-ish.
Ruby Castle connection: There’s no direct reference here. Instead, there are links to some of the other stories, drawing the narrative even further away from Ruby, spinning out to people who have second- or third-hand connections to her. It may well be the most important story in terms of pulling all the threads of Stardust together. There is an appearance from Mark Cleverly, son of Matthew, the poet from ‘Laburnums’. Martin Foerster, mentioned as a survivor of the real-life incident that inspired the painting, is the man Hermine eventually leaves Thomas for in ‘The Gateway’. Another of the survivors is the grandmother of Michael from ‘B-Side’.
‘Red Queen’ is not a story but a poem, ostensibly taken from The High Wire and Other Transgressions, Matthew Cleverly’s collection of poetry based on Ruby’s life. It references something also mentioned in ‘The Lammas Worm’, a birthday when Ruby was presented with a cake in the shape of a castle. Interestingly, however, Matthew’s book was meant to have been a poem cycle (as Stardust is a story cycle), so the meaning of ‘Red Queen’ is presumably diminished by its isolation. As an epilogue to the stories, it is emblematic of Stardust as a whole: enigmatic, opaque, the meaning just out of reach.
Microcosmos is a collection of seven short stories. Initially I assumed the stories formed a linked sequence; this assumption led me to look for conneMicrocosmos is a collection of seven short stories. Initially I assumed the stories formed a linked sequence; this assumption led me to look for connections that probably weren't there, and this was, perhaps strangely, quite a satisfying way to approach it. It was only when I read what Allan herself had to say about Microcosmos that I realised it wasn't as interconnected as I'd thought. Yet I feel like there are connections between these stories in a more esoteric sense, in the same way all Nina Allan's fiction seems to be connected, in that I imagine all her stories taking place in a web of overlapped universes.
The stories in Microcosmos are often themselves about stories, particularly the stories people weave around their own lives and those of the people they love. Characters are often searching for someone, or searching for the truth about someone. It was while reading this book that I decided I am certain Nina Allan is the most inspiring writer I have ever read. It motivated me to dig out a notebook filled with half-finished stories for the first time in about four years. It also makes me wonder whether there is any point in even trying to write short stories when she has clearly perfected the art.
At this point I'm infatuated with Allan's work and it would be difficult for her to write something I didn't like. Needless to say, I liked every story in Microcosmos; the standouts were 'A.H.' and 'Orinoco'.
--- 'Microcosmos' Melodie and her parents are driving to the home of a man named Ballantine. Melodie's age is unclear; her parents treat her like a helpless little child, but when she is left alone with Ballantine, he acts like she's almost an adult. There is something disturbing in this, some dark undertones – in fact, some dark overtones – in the man's behaviour. There are intimations of disaster or perhaps drought in the world beyond this scene. Even after rereading the story, I don't really understand what is happening here or what kinds of things are being left unsaid; but that is surely the point, and also, it makes me want to understand.
'The Phoney War' Nicky is on a journey to visit Sophie, her childhood best friend, whom she hasn't seen for more than a decade; Nicky broke off their friendship because of Sophie's paranoid delusions. The landscape Nicky traverses is a possible future England, a place of fuel shortages, ghost towns and rumours of aliens. (It could easily be the same setting as in 'Microcosmos', and like Melodie, Nicky carries a photograph on her travels.) This is a lovely story about personal fictions, the erosion of the familiar, and impermanence.
She kissed Sophie's hair. It brushed softly against her face, silvery and light as the coats of the Lipizzaner horses she had loved to watch on television at Christmas, more a dream of horses than horses themselves.
'Chaconne' The most explicitly fantastical story here, embracing magical realism in a tale of post-war Russia. ('Chaconne' makes slightly more sense when you're aware of the context in which it was originally published – as part of an anthology paying homage to Mikhail Bulgakov and particularly The Master and Margarita.) Alena is searching for her missing partner, Orest, and has returned to the near-ruined family dacha. There she finds their cat, Snow, malnourished and close to death. A remarkable dream sequence – or is it? – follows.
'A.H.' Marian is told a memorable story by her ailing grandmother: when she (the grandmother) was a teenage music student, she had coffee with Adolf Hitler. Could this possibly be true? Marian's mum is dismissive, but Marian becomes determined to prove it one way or another. 'A.H.' is written in first person, my favourite narrative mode and one Allan is particularly brilliant at, so for me this is easily one of the best stories in the book. Marian's whole family feels wonderfully authentic, as does the narrator herself. The plot is compelling and poignant – and often quite amusing because of Marian's voice – but ever-so-slightly chilling too.
'Orinoco' Since her boyfriend Rob was killed in a terrorist attack five years ago, Marie has struggled to move on. She is living with her brother Brian, who works in an aquarium and keeps, among others, Orinoco angelfish. Slowly, Marie begins a relationship with Brian's colleague Alan, and finds her creative mojo returning too. Aside from anything else, this story seems a perfect distillation of an idea that runs through a lot of Allan's writing: that relationships are transient but this does not diminish their inherent value.
But Allan also has this ability to deliver a sucker-punch of a narrative surprise very calmly. She rarely (going by what I've read so far) deploys it, which makes it all the more effective when one turns up in a story. There's a KILLER twist to this, something I didn't see coming at all. The sudden reveal reminded me of a particularly effective moment in The Race.
'Flying in the Face of God' This follows Allan's earlier story 'Angelus', returning to the theme of the mysterious 'fliers'. (It also shares some attributes with her Tor.com short The Art of Space Travel, enough to make me wonder whether that story was, at least to some extent, a reworking of this one.) Anita is a filmmaker who is working on a documentary about female fliers. She has become close to one of her subjects, Rachel, who is about to leave on a mission; at the same time, she is wrestling with her family history. Again, this is an exquisite series of scenes that seem to pin down inexpressible feelings.
'Higher Up' Laine is ten years old when the 9/11 attacks take place. She vividly remembers hearing the news, and this memory continues to exert an influence over her life for many years. As an adult, she works on the check-in desk at Heathrow, and gets into a relationship with a pilot. And then she starts hearing an impossible broadcast, again and again, that warns of a future catastrophe. Despite the fantasy element, this is a compassionate, believable tale of obsession and dread.
Spin is Nina Allan's retelling of the myth of Arachne. The central figure is Layla, a young woman just beginning to forge an independent life for hersSpin is Nina Allan's retelling of the myth of Arachne. The central figure is Layla, a young woman just beginning to forge an independent life for herself. She is a skilled artist who creates intricate tapestries. Her mother drowned some years earlier, and this incident has had a formative influence on her work. Layla inhabits a modern-day Greece that is both familiar and strange, sprinkled with elements of the ancient and the futuristic. The main departures from reality are the 'clairvoyancy laws', which meant until recently that women accused as sibyls or 'savants' could still be put to death, and advanced holographic simulations utilised by the super-rich.
The opening of the book finds Layla leaving her father's house for Atoll City. Though her father is a wealthy businessman, Layla wants to make her own way, so her journey is made on a cramped, overheated bus, and the job she's secured is in a factory. (I loved Allan's depiction of Layla's journey, which is filled with vivid imagery.) Ultimately, the plot hinges on whether Layla displays – through her art – sibyl-like powers of prediction, and, if so, whether she should use this talent to help others. People like Nashe Crawe, a woman who appears at Layla's door with a request and an enormous amount of money.
Spin is grounded in a lush yet realistic portrait of Greece. There's a sense of the country's beauty, its fresh, soothing coastline air and vibrant splashes of colour, but there are also litter-strewn car parks, sun-bleached towns empty of life, and shabby roadside hotels. Details like Layla's first encounter with Thanick are perfect: indescribably weird, yet believable in the way that memories can be both believable and suffused with emotion.
The one difficulty I had with Spin was a sense of distance from Layla. When I contrast her with protagonists from some of Allan's more recent fiction – such as Emily in The Art of Space Travel and Willy in Maggots – there's a coldness, an emptiness to her, something that made me feel there was a barrier between me and the ability to fully embrace the character.
Despite that, I really enjoyed this novella; the evocative sweep of its settings, the always-intriguing detail of its worldbuilding. Allan has a wonderful and very honest way of capturing the contrariness of emotion, and especially of instinctive reactions – how repulsion and desire can coexist, for example. Although it works as a reimagining of Arachne, Spin is equally effective as a coming-of-age tale about how one's identity can be realised through creativity.
I couldn't resist the first few pages of this novel, in which a woman called Beth takes delivery of a massive piece of technology that's only ever refI couldn't resist the first few pages of this novel, in which a woman called Beth takes delivery of a massive piece of technology that's only ever referred to as 'the Machine'. At first, we don't understand what Beth is doing with the Machine; the answer is something we must slowly piece together. In an uncanny echo of a book I finished just a couple of days before starting this one (Adam Sternbergh's The Blinds), the Machine can extract a person's memories, obliterating their ability to recall a particular event or experience, even a person. Vic, Beth's husband, was a soldier who experienced PTSD on his return from war. The Machine promised to cure him, but instead it left him little more than a shell. For some time, it is equally unclear whether Vic is actually alive or dead, but one fact emerges: Beth is planning to use her illegally-obtained, now-outlawed Machine to 'bring him back' in some form.
The story has an unremitting dark, bleak flavour. Beth lives on a run-down estate where the heat is constantly oppressive and feral children hurl virulent abuse at strangers. Her life alone, her life with Vic, time spent with her clingy friend Laura: all are terribly depressing. This is a horrifyingly dull vision of the future in which advances in technology have brought only misery; constant discomfort is the new normal. If I'd had any idea how dreary and dispiriting The Machine would turn out to be, I might have left it alone; it was certainly not the most inspiring thing to read while bed-bound with flu! Despite all that, I doubt this will be the last experience I have with James Smythe's work. The edition I read ended with a tantalising extract from his 2012 novel The Testimony, and I couldn't help but be intrigued all over again.
(4.5) I am in awe of what Delphine de Vigan has created in Nothing Holds Back the Night. It is the sister to her superb Based on a True Story, and it (4.5) I am in awe of what Delphine de Vigan has created in Nothing Holds Back the Night. It is the sister to her superb Based on a True Story, and it strikes me that the books mirror each other in interesting ways. Based on a True Story is a philosophical rumination on the craft of writing dressed up as a story of suspense. Nothing Holds Back the Night is essentially a family memoir, but it is as fast-paced, gripping and tense as a great thriller.
De Vigan sets out to write the story of her mother, Lucile, whose mental health problems defined her life and ultimately resulted in her suicide. Writing an account of Lucile also means writing about her large family: Liane and Georges Poirier and their nine children. Full of colourful characters yet often touched by tragedy, theirs is a remarkable story in its own right. In part one of the book, de Vigan uses memories, diaries, home videos and interviews with family members to construct a vivid portrait of the Poiriers. In parts two and three, de Vigan's own voice comes to the fore as she recounts her own memories of Lucile, from her first committal in 1980 to her death in 2008.
But this is not a straightforward chronological account, because de Vigan often inserts herself into the narrative, recording her struggles with both the material and the very concept of 'writing her mother'. Most significantly, her research unearths a piece of writing by Lucile in which she accuses a family member of rape. De Vigan writes of the apprehension with which she approaches this material, the fear that she will be cut off by her relatives. 'Is fear enough to make one silent?' Eventually, she finds her own answer, delivering it not with a direct statement but instead by way of juxtaposition: 'The way I write these sentences, the way I place them, reveals my truth.'
In many ways Nothing Holds Back the Night is in direct dialogue with Based on a True Story, and I find that I can't talk about this book without talking about that one. Of course, Night came first (published in French in 2011, English in 2013), but it's because I was so blown away by True Story that I came to read de Vigan's back catalogue. The tie between the two is so strong, really, that I don't think it would be wrong to see True Story as a sequel: both are described as novels and read largely as memoirs; both are narrated in first person by Delphine; both engage with ideas about the relationship between truth and fiction, the fallibility of memory and the ethics of writing. I even discovered that one of my favourite lines from True Story – 'Whatever you write, you are in the domain of fiction' – is in fact a callback to Night:
I had probably been hoping that a truth would emerge from this strange material. But the truth didn't exist. I had only scattered fragments and the very fact of arranging them already constituted a fiction. Whatever I wrote, I would be in the realm of fables.
Sometimes, if you read multiple books by the same author, you come across one that feels like a key to everything else they've written; Nothing Holds Back the Night, I think, is this for de Vigan. It is a memoir; it is book about the process of writing a memoir; it is a novel, in the sense that a narrative which imagines and embellishes scenes is called a novel. Or it doesn't matter what it is, because it's a brilliant piece of writing – affecting and riveting, difficult to put down and impossible to forget.
Having loved the proof-of-concept short film that was made for Apocalypse Now Now earlier this year, I was keen to check out the original, though it'sHaving loved the proof-of-concept short film that was made for Apocalypse Now Now earlier this year, I was keen to check out the original, though it's not the sort of thing that would usually pique my interest (South African setting aside). It started really well, and I loved Baxter Zevcenko immediately, even if he did feel a lot more like an adult's idea of a teenage boy than an actual 16-year-old. The early chapters about life in Cape Town and high school gang wars were by far the most engaging. After that, it descended into YA fantasy silliness (prophecies and monsters and zombie porn, oh my) and I got a bit bored. I'd still happily watch a full-length film version, though.
This has to be the first book I’ve discovered purely because of Pinterest.
Let me explain: on Pinterest, or at least among a certain subset of PinteresThis has to be the first book I’ve discovered purely because of Pinterest.
Let me explain: on Pinterest, or at least among a certain subset of Pinterest users, there’s a trend for creating aesthetic boards devoted to a TV series, book, film or character. There are lots of these based on cartoons (Scooby-Doo is inexplicably popular) and blockbuster shows like Game of Thrones; other common subjects include books that tend to have adoring readers and some degree of fandom, such as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle. But while exploring all these compilations of images, time and time again I kept running into boards devoted to a series of books I’d never even heard of before: Nora Sakavic’s All for the Game.
I was intrigued, and then I read a sample of the first book, and I was surprised that this self-published novel with a badly designed cover was well-written and edited, and seemed to be a pretty interesting story. One of its hooks is that it’s based around a fictional sport, Exy, described as 'lacrosse with the violence of ice hockey'. Another is that the main character, Neil Josten, is on the run from his murderous father. With a whole trail of fake identities behind him, Neil has recently buried his beloved mother; he has nothing to lose.
The Foxhole Court kicks off with Neil being offered a place with the Palmetto State Foxes, an Exy team that’s famous for all the wrong reasons. The team’s coach has a reputation for taking in waifs and strays, addicts and runaways, the troublemakers nobody else will gamble on. One of them happens to be Kevin Day, a face from Neil’s past who doesn’t recognise him (partly due to the changed name, plus coloured contacts and hair dye, and the fact they were kids when they last saw each other). When Neil starts playing for the Foxes, Kevin proves to be the least of his worries as a whole load of tortured backstories and criss-crossing conspiracies begin to unravel.
The All for the Game series exists in that grey area between YA and adult fiction: Neil is 18, the others ranging from that age to about 22, there’s quite a lot of darkness and violence in the plot. The crossover potential of The Foxhole Court – not to mention the shipping possibilities offered by all these lost, broken characters bonded together by a sport that makes them closer than family – probably accounts for the fandom appeal that led me to discover it via Pinterest.
This book certainly has its flaws (suspension of disbelief is essential, and it definitely feels like part of something bigger rather than a full story in itself) but it did make me want to read the sequel. An unexpected discovery.
Some people can dip in and out of short story collections over a long period of time, rationing them, so that each re-encounter with the author's themSome people can dip in and out of short story collections over a long period of time, rationing them, so that each re-encounter with the author's themes and techniques feels fresh. I can't do this. I am too obsessive about needing to either complete or abandon books, and have too much of a need to catalogue everything I consume. The only exception might be a huge anthology with multiple authors; otherwise, when I start reading a book of short stories, I read the whole book, usually pretty quickly.
The problem with my approach, of course, is that ingesting so many stories so swiftly can make recurrent topics, moods and motifs seem overused and tedious. While not a huge tome, The Pre-War House is a comprehensive collection of Alison Moore's short fiction, containing 24 stories. Many of them are concerned with the banal inevitabilities of family life: husbands and wives becoming bored of one another, or cheating; parents not understanding their children, and children not understanding their parents; the sombre reality of reckoning with old age and quietly making it through grief. I found after a while that this litany of bleak domestic scenes was starting to become worn out, samey, making the stories seem to merge together, and some of them slipped out of my memory almost instantly.
Yet I love Moore's writing, and adored her brilliant novel Death and the Seaside; indeed, her grasp on the mundane, and the strangeness always lurking within it, was one of my favourite things about that book. But with so much of the same thing – and less space to establish characters, motivations or atmosphere – in The Pre-War House, I longed for a bit of macabre glee, something to give it a jump-start. I don't think I read this book in the right way, really, and it's made me think that next time I read a short story collection, I will take it more slowly and try to leave myself some room to digest each one before starting the next.
I did like the opening story, the arresting 'When the Door Closed, It Was Dark': it's tense, claustrophobic and horribly frustrating, putting you in the shoes of an au pair working for a taciturn but oppressive family. My two joint favourites were 'Overnight Stop', which sees a newlywed woman, en route to her honeymoon, trapped in a hotel with an acquaintance she's desperate to avoid, and 'Small Animals', about a couple of friends who call on a woman and her 'difficult' daughter and are drawn into a rather terrifying scene.
As soon as I started reading Hollow Heart, I was vividly reminded of Di Grado's debut, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool, which I read a couple of years ago. The bAs soon as I started reading Hollow Heart, I was vividly reminded of Di Grado's debut, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool, which I read a couple of years ago. The books mirror each other in many ways: both are about loss, grief and depression; both feature a dysfunctional mother and daughter; both veer in strange and unexpected directions. The writing is so distinctive too, a voice I immediately recognised (anyone who enjoys Yelena Moskovich's writing should pick up something by Viola Di Grado. And vice versa, of course). The difference is that the protagonist of this book is dead. Dorotea Giglio killed herself at the age of 25: Hollow Heart is the story of the aftermath, and it's narrated by her ghost.
On Via Crispi there's a gray concrete apartment building that was built in the seventies, and on the fourth floor there's an apartment full of dust. Inside the apartment there's a mother crying over the kitchen sink, a bowl covered with meat sauce in her hands, soapsuds on her fingers. The water is running. There's an empty bedroom at the end of the hallway. There's a yellow bed, perfectly made, and biology textbooks piled high on the shelves. That mother is my mother: we live together, but I don't know how to reach her. That empty bedroom is where I live, but there's no proof of that fact.
The book opens with an epic portrayal of Dorotea's death setting out from her home city, Catania, and spreading across the planet, 'anatomy [becoming] geography'. Yet surprisingly little changes for Dorotea after her suicide. She still goes to her job in a stationery shop (where her boss turns out to be the only person who can see her). She hangs around at home, watching her mother and haunting the bathroom she died in. She meets other ghosts. She imagines leaving messages for former acquaintances she knows to have died (I loved these messages, their dry humour and matter-of-factness about death). She also regularly visits the cemetery, where she delves below ground and documents the decomposition of her physical body in microscopic detail.
Another similarity with Di Grado's debut: both books are (there's no way of avoiding this dreaded word) quirky, but much darker than the term usually implies. The blurb doesn't quite describe it accurately, and perhaps oversells the novel as a portrayal of the afterlife – but this is understandable, as it's impossible to concisely capture all the avenues it wanders down.
"It's only reality," I told myself, "It can't hurt you."
So Hollow Heart can be somewhat frustrating: it hares off on peculiar tangents rather than addressing what would seem to be the important issues. Dorotea's reasons for killing herself, for example, are never really elucidated – it feels almost like something she just randomly does on impulse. It's obvious not all dead people join the world of ghosts, but it's unclear what the logic is: post-death Dorotea's social circle includes other suicides, but also people killed in accidents, a couple of children and even a foetus.
When I read 70% Acrylic 30% Wool, I was so struck by its originality that I ordered Hollow Heart straight away. In turn, Hollow Heart had me googling to find out whether Di Grado has written anything else since this. (The answer: she has, the novel Bambini di ferro, but it hasn't been translated into English yet.) I just love the meandering strangeness of her style. I wouldn't want to read books like this all the time, but as an occasional treat they are marvellous.
I totally forgot I hadn't written a review of this. And I didn't make any notes. And I've read eight books since I finished it and now I'm really struI totally forgot I hadn't written a review of this. And I didn't make any notes. And I've read eight books since I finished it and now I'm really struggling to come up with anything that might resemble a passable review. Aargh! I suppose the important thing is that I loved it. Translated beautifully from the original Latvian, the story charts the life of a woman named Ieva, and is told in reverse chronological order (loosely; it jumps around a bit). It isn't a plot-led story, more a backwards journey through the development of Ieva's character. The image of a high tide works as a recurring metaphor, representing different things to different characters, most often a momentous, life-changing event - and each section of Ieva's story slowly uncovers one of these, very gradually showing the reader how her experiences have shaped her. It is also a mystery and a love story; the romance (though 'romance' seems far too weak a word) between Ieva and Aksels is a rare example of such a storyline done wonderfully right. Ābele captures the exhausting, exhilarating madness of passionate love effortlessly.
I've read that Ābele is a poet and playwright as well as a writer of fiction, and that sense of lyricism and drama certainly seems to have crept into the winding, playful style of High Tide. The closest English-language equivalents I can think of are Ali Smith's How to be both (and I think fans of Smith would like this book), and The Natashas by Yelena Moskovich, also a playwright (though High Tide lacks the surrealism of Moskovich's novel, and is stronger and more stirring for it). The language is so remarkable, I gave up trying to write down quotes - you really have to experience the whole thing. Read just before I went on holiday to Latvia, this was a wonderful introduction to the literature of the country. I hope more translations of Ābele's work are forthcoming; if High Tide is a representative sample, I'd love to read her other novels and stories....more
Touch Me With Your Cold, Hard Fingers opens on a comic note as preening Maureen reflects on how she's tamed her boyfriend, former lothario Tony. The iTouch Me With Your Cold, Hard Fingers opens on a comic note as preening Maureen reflects on how she's tamed her boyfriend, former lothario Tony. The idyll is soon shattered, however, as she arrives at his flat to find him with another woman... or does she? Balancing melodrama and a wonderfully schlocky premise with moments of actual terror, this was the scariest of the first three Nightjar Press chapbooks I read - the only one to make me jump - and it also had the most memorable ending. The image of a rusting car beneath an autumn tree, an unmoving figure in the passenger seat, has haunted me ever since......more
There are some truly brilliant stories in this collection, but really it's more about the details than the whole. That goes for the stories themselvesThere are some truly brilliant stories in this collection, but really it's more about the details than the whole. That goes for the stories themselves, as well as the style. The best - such as 'Three Things You Should Know About Peggy Paula', 'Plans' and 'Heart' - are short and broken-up snapshots of the lives of dysfunctional characters; weird, dirty and bleak, but really, really gorgeous anyway. The high-concept stories don't always work quite as well, partly because you're constantly being propelled back to the striking beauty and effectiveness of particular sentences rather than whatever they're skirting around. Occasionally, Hunter's depictions of everyday discomfort stray further into more explicit disgust and border on bizarro, for example 'After', which begins 'After the apocalypse...' and goes on to, mainly, list outlandishly grotesque sights.
The showpiece story, the longest, is 'Our Man', which - seriously - reminded me of Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp, with its fragmentary and surreal narration, stray threads and recurring characters, its side-on, non-linear examination of an indistinct and possibly imagined crime. Like Antwerp, I wasn't sure whether it was nonsense or a work of genius, or, of course, both. A more general comparison for the whole collection is Amelia Gray's Threats - equally off-kilter and vaguely disturbing/disturbingly vague, with a similar overarching voice - although I enjoyed this more.
I probably did this book a disservice by hungrily reading most of the stories at once. Mostly bite-sized - there are 26 of them in this 193-page collection - Hunter's stories are so sharp and bright that they are best devoured individually, spread out between other reading. ...more
