Harriet Devine's Blog

In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward

I'm always curious, and sometimes a bit apprehensive, about reading debut authors. Mind you, I probably shouldn't be, as they've obviously passed through some rigorous and nail-biting vetting before they get this far. And in this case, Sarah Ward is probably as well qualified as anyone to write her first crime novel, as she's been reviewing (on www.crimepieces.com) and judging the genre professionally for some time. Anyway, I was intrigued by the blurb for this one and thought why not.

This story, like many others -- pretty much the norm these days -- takes place in two time-frames. The primary one is the present day, but there are passages where we are briefly in 1978, when a mysterious and tragic abduction took place. Two little girls on their way to school were picked up by a woman in a car. One of them, Sophie Jenkins, was never seen again, but the other one, Rachel Jones, was found a few hours later wandering and confused on the road. She was unable then to give an account of where they had been taken, or what had happened to Sophie, and has never been able to recall any more about the events of that day.

Back in the present day, Rachel is now a genealogist, helping people trace their ancestors. She has coped with her past trauma by thinking about it as little as possible. But when two events take place a couple of days apart -- the suicide of Sophie's mother, and the murder of Penny Lander, a woman who taught the two girls at school -- it's clear that there's a link to the past, and Rachel starts to investigate, and slowly to recover some memories, of 1978. The police are also involved, and though everyone seems sometimes to be working at cross purposes, the truth gradually emerges.

I'd like to say that I guessed the denouement, but I didn't, though I thought I had -- a tribute to Sarah Ward's skill with red herrings, I suppose. In fact genealogy and family relationships are fundamental to the way everything works itself out. I must say I got a bit confused by the need to keep track of two separate families, the Jenkins' and the Landers', not to mention various mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. I wished there's been a family tree or two attached, but of course that might have given too much away. 

The characters are attractive -- perhaps we will meet DI Sadler and his feisty little sidekick DC Connie Childs in a further novel. Rachel was interesting, well-observed, and likeable despite her occasional defensive prickliness. I whizzed through rather fast, and passed an enjoyable few hours. Easy reading for a hot summer's day.

Woman in the Garden

In the garden is where many of us will have been this week, at least if we live somewhere where it's summer and the sun has been shining, as it has been where I live, anyway. This is by the American painter  Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849 – 1921), whose work I don't think has featured on here  before, though some sharp-eyed and good-memoried person will probably tell me I'm wrong. He is best known for his 'angel' paintings, which I'm sure you've seen -- little girls with wings, essentially. 

Anyway, I like this woman in the garden -- I love her clothes, for one thing, but also she has a sort of secret smile on her face, as if she knows something rather nice that she's not about to tell us about. Could it be connected with that chap among the flowers, who seems to gazing rather intently at her? Did he give her that flower she's holding? We'll never know, but it's fun to guess. 

London Rain by Nicola Upson

 

I've been a fan of Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey crime novels since the first one, An Expert in Murder, appeared in 2008. London Rain is the sixth in the series, and I read it with great pleasure. If by chance you are not familiar with the series, the basic idea is a simple but clever one. The central character, Josephine Tey, really existed (though her real name was Elizabeth MacKintosh), and was the author of a number of now much celebrated crime novels. She also wrote plays, under another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot. Upson has taken the 'real' Josephine and imagined her solving actual crimes, with the help of her friend, Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, who didn't actually exist but clearly owes a lot to Tey's fictional detective Alan Grant.

This mingling of fact and fiction is the common thread that runs throughout all the novels. It's been of particular interest to me because two of the recurring characters are actually based on my mother and aunt, who were theatre designers and worked with Tey in real life. Indeed a number of the characters  in the circle surrounding the fictional Tey are based on identifiable people, many of whom are familiar to me through family stories. But don't run away with the idea that you need all this background knowledge to enjoy the books -- far from it -- they are absolutely strong enough to stand in the their own right.

London Rain takes place in May 1927. Josephine is in London to oversee a BBC Radio production of her play Queen of Scots, but the date is significant because this is the month of the Coronation of the new King, George VI. Naturally the BBC is heavily involved this is event, especially their ace broadcaster Anthony Beresford, whose wife Vivienne works in the design department of the Radio Times. Anthony is expected to be the prime commentator on Coronation Day -- but just as he's about to pick up the microphone and begin, he is shot dead.

Interestingly -- and this is a departure for Upson, I think -- we know the identity of his murderer straight away, and actually watch the act taking place. We know why it was done, though the true facts of the case are open to misinterpretation, and the murderer has jumped to a wrong conclusion. In fact the motive remains just as strong when the truth comes to light -- perhaps even stronger -- as family secrets are revealed with shocking consequences.

All this sounds a bit vague, but it's impossible to say more about the murder plot without giving too much away. However, as with the other novels in the series, there's more going on than just crimes and their solutions. Josephine's own life remains a constant focus of interest, and each novel traces the development of her love affair with the writer Marta, whose life is complicated by the fact that she lives with actress Lydia. The two have never been sure how much Lydia knows or suspects, but things come to a head here in a way that is painful for all concerned. Then of course there's the historical background, here as always superbly brought to life. Whether its the busy, often tense atmosphere at Broadcasting House or the fascinating descriptions of the streets and Westminster Abbey on Coronation Day, Upson has clearly done her research painstakingly and the results are impressive.

So -- another winner, which as you can see I enjoyed tremendously. The novel's going to be reviewed by one of our team of excellent reviewers in Shiny 6, coming out soon, so watch out for that!

 

Girl with Book

Actually 'Girl with Porcelain (Frosya)', painted in 1916 by the Russian artist Aleksandr Yakovlevich Golovin (1863-1930). There is a book in there too, though. I love the immediacy of it -- it's as if he called her name and she just turned round to see what he wanted. The porcelain is pretty amazing too!

It's no surprise to discover that Golovin worked as a theatre designer, and was responsible for, among many other things, the sets and costumes for the 1910 original production of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. The vivid colour and the strong composition is very reminiscent of the decor for many of Diaghilev's famous ballets of the period. 

All the Light We Cannot See

Pretty well straight away after each issue of Shiny New Books comes out, we editors start planning for the next one. We have a spreadsheet, divided into categories, and as decisions are made the books go on there. We find them ourselves, of course, through catalogues and newspapers, and lots of publishers send them unsolicited. Then there are our wonderful reviewers, who often suggest books they'd love to review. But it's all a bit of a moveable feast. It's not unusual for someone to want to review a book that turns out not to be up to scratch for some reason -- this has happened to me very recently with a non-fiction book I thought sounded really interesting but ended up thinking was pretty stupid -- needless to say I'm not going to tell you what it was!

But sometimes things go the other way, and we get late additions, and so I was able to add something to replace the one I'd taken off. And this is it. All the Light We Cannot See was published in the US last year, and has just won the Pulitzer Prize, but it's new in paperback in the UK, so it qualifies for our Shiny timescale (books published in the last three months). The novel has been attracting a huge amount of attention, and a friend mentioned it to me, having heard it reviewed on the BBC's Front Row. The fact that the novel is set in St Malo, just down the road from where I live, piqued my curiosity, so I bought it, just to see if the hype was really justified. 

You'll have to wait for my review till Shiny 6 comes out in about three weeks time, but I'm here to tell you that the minute I'd started it I was completely hooked. It's beautifully written, with a riveting and original story, and I'm loving every minute. 

Girl Reading

This is what I'd like to be doing this afternoon, and perhaps I will be, except that I don't have a hammock.  This is called A Girl Reading in a Hammock, painted in 1910 by the Dutch artist Robert Archibalt Graafland (1875-1940). 

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (Audiobook)

Rather bizarrely, I got two chances to review Kate Atkinson's latest book. I downloaded it from Audible after I was sent a credit in exchange for a review, and the publisher sent me the actual printed book. So I did what seemed the only sensible thing in the circumstances -- I listened to half of it on Audible and then read the rest. There'll be a review of the book on the next edition of Shiny New Books coming out next month, but meanwhile here are some thoughts on the book in general and the audio version in particular.

Much has  been made of the fact that this is a 'companion' to Atkinson's 2014 Life After Life, in which Ursula Todd relives her own life, with variations, over and over again. And yes, this novel does feature her younger brother Teddy, who appeared in the earlier book. Does this mean that you won't enjoy it as much if you haven't read the first one? Absolutely not, I'd say -- by all means read Life After Life -- it's an excellent novel -- but A God in Ruins is well able to stand on its own feet.

This is the story of Teddy Todd, who happens to be just that generation to be called up to fight in WW2. We first meet him as a young boy, growing up in the countryside of middle England, and our last glimpse of him is as a very old man, living out his last days in a nursing home. So his entire life is encompassed here, though not in strict chronological order. Teddy's life is not in any way particularly extraordinary. He grows up, studies, tries to become a writer, works in a bank. War breaks out and he trains as a pilot, surviving the conflict against all the odds. He marries his childhood sweetheart, has one daughter who he brings up after the loss of his wife, and two grandchildren in whose lives he has great importance. All this could apply to just about anyone, and many people reading this will have fathers or grandfathers whose lives could be described in much the same way. So what sets this apart?

For many people the stand-out element of the book will be Teddy's wartime experiences, which are dotted through the novel. Atkinson did lots of research on this and it all comes to life amazingly vividly. But no less well done are the passages of Teddy's home life -- his relationship with his wife Nancy, with his appalling daughter Viola, and with Sunny and Bertie, his two grandchildren. Teddy is not a saint, but he tries to do the right thing by everyone, and by and large he succeeds, and in a quiet and unobtrusive way he has a profoundly positive effect on the people who are closest to him. All this is narrated by Atkinson with great perceptiveness and great humanity.

So how did this work as an audiobook? I thought it was excellently done. The reader is the well-known English actor Alex Jennings, who is clearly an Audible favourite, having no fewer than 88 titles to his credit. The quality of the reader is so crucial to a listening experience, and I've abandoned a few audiobooks because I thought they were read so badly. Although this novel is not in the first person, it was easy to believe that you were listening to Teddy himself.

So all in all, I really loved, and would recommend it highly either as a listening or a reading experience. Watch this space for a link to my Shiny review, coming out on 9 July!

 

Letters from Constance by Mary Hocking

Having enthusiastically agreed to participate in heavenali's Mary Hocking Week, and provided myself with a book to do so, I promptly forgot all about till I noticed reviews popping up and realised it had passed me by. The book was still there, unread, so I picked it up yesterday and read it more or less in one go. Better late than never.

I knew (and still know) very little about Mary Hocking, apart from what I've picked up from Wikipedia. I can discern from this that she was publishing over a period of thirty-five years, and that Letters from Constance, published in 1991, was one of her last novels. I also found a link to a review of the novel by Anita Brookner, the first sentence of which reads "When women were virtuous, women wrote novels like this". It's a fascinating, thoughtful review, well worth reading if you're interested in Hocking and in this novel in particular.

Letters from Constance is the story of two women, told through the medium of letters. Stella and Constance are childhood friends, and as they grow up and their lives diverge, they keep in touch by writing to each other -- Stella apparently has a deep-seated dislike of telephones. But Mary Hocking has done something rather daring here -- instead of providing us with both sides of the correspondence, we only get to see Constance's letters. You might think that this would make the novel unsatisfactorily one-sided, but that is far from the truth. Constance's love for, anxiety about, and occasional irritation with her friend , and the vast difference between their lives and their beliefs, means that Stella comes to life so vividly that sometimes it's hard to remember that we have not actually met her in person.

Constance's letters span an entire adult lifetime. The girls go to college, fall in love, get married, have children. So far, so predictable. But Stella is a poet, what might be called a bit of a wild child, who marries the talented musician Miles and has two children. Constance admires their easy-going, bohemian lifestyle - her husband, Fergus, is an Irish Catholic and she gives birth to seven children in fairly quick succession. She feels obliged to keep the house and family orderly -- not only obliged, really, as it suits her in a way that Stella's freer lifestyle would not. But all is not what it seems with Stella, and Constance is shocked when Miles leaves her for another woman and Stella reveals the cracks that were always there beneath the apparently carefree surface.

Constance thinks her life is dull by comparison. But oh no, it's not. This is a novel that has a lot to say about motherhood, and it's fascinating to see how all those seven children grow and develop, most of them in ways entirely different from what their parents expected of them. Constance loves them all in different ways, but she admits to having a favourite, Stephen, who is the source of much joy and then later the source of pain so unbearable that Constance more or less disappears from the world for a time. But she finds strength in the end to cope and carry on, and is helped, probably, by her late decision to convert to Catholicism.

Brookner's review is headed 'Old fashioned and full of charm', and it's hard not to agree. I wonder if there are any women like Constance still in existence today? So thoughtful, so moral, so caring, so quietly religious. She seems pretty much an exact contemporary of Hocking, who would have been sixty when the novel was published, so perhaps you could argue that Constance is a reflection of herself. But don't get the idea that any of this makes it a boring or preachy novel, because it certainly isn't. I shall be on the lookout for more Hocking and am glad to have been nudged into reading her.

Woman with Book

This is 'Drinking Coffee and Reading in the Garden' by the British artist Edward Killingworth Johnson (1825-1923). Thanks to Dark Puss for sending me this charming picture, very apt for the time of year (those lovely roses!).

If you want to know more about the painter, don't try Wikipedia, which has only a 'stub', which is in French for some reason. There a great deal of info here, though.