This is the second book in the series reissued by Verve books and it confirms the promise that was suggested by the first, Death and the Harlot. It’s set six months after that, in 1759, and picks up the tale of nineteen year old Lizzie Hardwick, a prostitute in Soho who is not all that she appears.
An educated daughter of a respectable gentleman, she was thrown out and disowned after a rich family friend had sexually abused her. Changing her name, she arrived in London, finding a position at Ma Farleys, a high class, relatively safe brothel. In book one she gets entangled in the murder investigation of one of her clients, forging a relationship with Davenport, a detective with the Bow Street runners. Her skill leads him to offer her paid work for the runners as a source of intelligence about the goings on in Soho, while keeping the security of her job in the brothel.
In this second book, Davenport installs her as a seamstress in the theatre of David Garrick, where Lord Hawbridge is found brutally murdered, hanging upside down over the stage. She comes across a series of suspicious characters, from every section of society, before the culprit is unmasked, in a breathless finale. It’s an excellent historical murder mystery.
Clarke’s knowledge of the period and its theatre world is impressive and she uses it with a light touch to create a convincing sense of time and place. She provides a range of suspicious characters with a range of motives so the reader has enough to fuel the speculation that is at the root of much of the pleasure of this kind of fiction, and the story is well paced, with twists and turns and end of chapter cliff hangers.
It’s not all fabulous though, which is why I gave it 4 stars rather than 5. Some of the plot twists, or breakthroughs in Lizzie’s understanding of the mystery are a little far fetched to say the least. I’m all for suspending my disbelief when I’m invested in the story and the characters, but my eyebrows jerked upwards on more than one occasion, accompanied by a knowing smirk and a thinks bubble above my head bearing the single word, “Really?”. Although the portrayal of the eighteenth century theatre world was very seductive, I did miss Ma Farley’s genteel brothel and Lizzie’s coworkers, which added an extra dimension to the first book. And, a minor point I know, but try as I might , I couldn’t work out how the title works. Which corpse is playing dead?
But this is splitting hairs. The books work because of Lizzie Hardwick. She’s a fabulous, attractive creation and her growing relationship with Davenport is a beautifully understated driver in the narrative. It will certainly make me look out for the third in the series, also due to come out in 2025. I think it’s only a matter of time before the series is adapted for TV – it would be a very welcome addition to historical drama – Poldark meets Bridgerton meets Strike.
Oh dear, what a disappointment this turned out to be. I hadn’t read Minette Walters for years, not since The Scold’s Bridle and Fox Evil. They were excellent: taught, tense thrillers/ whodunnits with real pace and verve.
After something of a hiatus, Walters, now 75, has turned her hand to historical thrillers. This latest one is set in the 1680s in the dying days of King James II’s reign, taking in the Monmouth rebellion, the Bloody assizes of Judge Jeffreys, and the peaceful transition to William and Mary. A fascinating, dramatic few years of British history that does not often feature in historical fiction. It should be a gift to a skilled and experienced novelist but Walters manages to turn this literary gold into something dull and dreary.
The main characters are excellent, (with some caveats): Lord Granville and his mother are scarcely believable as liberal aristos, whose driving concern is always for the little people, ensuring they get justice, no matter what the risk to them personally. It’s as ludicrous as the portrayal of above stairs folk in Downton Abbey who just love the plebs downstairs. It’s so well done however,and the two are such appealing characters, that disbelief is willingly suspended, and the reader finds themselves willing them on to succeed. The character of Lady Althea is also beautifully drawn as Walters explores 17th century attitudes to disability. The love interest is really well done, with Althea’s shyness and reluctance to believe in Granville gradually overcome. It’s a bit of a cop out however, as Walters shies away from any scenes where love is declared and we are left a little cheated as we are simply presented with the aftermath in the epilogue.
The main problem here is that Walters seems to be obsessed with her research into the period, hence the number of reviews that home in on that. “Immaculately researched” is always a bad sign in my opinion. It shows that research has become an end itself, rather than serving the story. There are interminable scenes where she goes through the mechanics of the legal system, transportation, local and regional, explaining in great detail how those people awaiting trial for sedition could be sprung from captivity. Perhaps Walters is too big a figure to be edited, but this is exhibit A for assertive intervention. Without it, we’re left with a novel that’s at least a hundred pages too long. Shame – the characters, plot and historical scenario promised much but deserved a lot more. Maybe next time.
Sally Rooney triumphs with the novel of the year, a welcome return to form after the disappointing Beautiful World, where are you? Stylistically and structurally interesting, this portrayal of two brothers, separated by age, temperament and position in society, groping their way to recovery after the death of their father, is subtle, sensitive and engaging. Rooney explores how lack of communication in relationships entrenches misunderstanding and generates misery, but with a glimmer of hope that rapprochement is possible.
Andrew O’Hagan’s weighty state of the nation novel is but a short head behind Rooney. Caledonian Road is a positively Dickensian romp through London society, skewering the establishment, the media, populism, the ghastly Tory party and their upstart illegitimate child, Reform UK, to name but a few. Clever and clear sighted, the novel rises above satire through its multi layered plot delivering thoughtful, engaging and moving relationships to add heart to its steely intellectual societal analysis. Can’t wait for the TV adaptation.
Jonathan Coe on top form with this clever dissection of the rise of far right think tanks in the US and here alongside the rise of the cosy crime genre. At times it’s hard to tell which he is more appalled by. It’s structurally clever, placing the murder of a journalist who has spent forty years since leaving Cambridge investigating the murky dealings of the poshos he endured as a provincial oik. He has paddled along a back water while they rub shoulders with the rich, the privileged and the powerful. Very funny, very sharp, pleasingly meta. Almost nudged O’Hagan out of second place. But not quite.
Elizabeth Strout does what she does best – an immaculately observed portrayal of small town life for a cast of older characters, focusing on Lucy Barton once again. The seemingly meandering tales they tell each other hide an interesting murder plot from years before, but that is almost a distraction from the forensic examination of love, friendship and relationships amongst people who are getting old and reflecting on the choices they have made in their lives.
Percival Everett made the Booker shortlist for this re-imagining of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of James, the slave. It’s a lovely, skilful piece of work that has at its heart an ingenious conceit that twists our understanding of the slave master relationship. Although it’s clever, by the end I was beginning to grow tired of what is essentially a one trick pony. Still, worthy of your consideration for end of year reading, or gifting.
Nathan Hill’s breakthrough debut, The Nix, was one of the great American novels of the last few years, but that was back in 2016. It’s been a long wait, but trust me, this follow up is worth it. The opening section that sets up the central relationship is an absolute treat. It doesn’t quite maintain that ( it’s a big book) but it’s still a triumph. Beautiful prose, compelling relationships and characters, Hill makes Jonathan Frandsen look like an amateur.
Read this, read her previous novel, The Bass Rock, read anything of hers you can get your hands on and wait eagerly for what she does next. Quite simply, Evie Wyld is a wonderful writer. End of.
David Nichols is the master of romantic relationship novels. Funny, perceptive engaging, You are here is the latest, tracking the start of a romance between two characters, set up by one concerned friend, who are thrown together on the coast to coast walk, from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hoods Bay, on the North Yorkshire coast. This is a minor Nichols work, leaving the reader with a feeling of slightness, insubstantiality, but even so, much better than a lot of the talked about novels of the year. (See Christmas Turkeys, below). A parochial point, I know, but I was particularly thrilled by the references to Teesside and Middlesbrough FC, as the characters started the last leg of the walk. Can’t think of many other cultural works where this happens – Teesside must be the most invisible, most unheralded area of the UK.
Stop Press!
A late entry that I just had to include. I’m only half way through this book, but it’s too good to ignore. If you liked Clare Chambers’ Small Pleasures, you will love this. Suburban lives, small frustrations, unfulfilled relationships threaded through with a weird tale of a Boo Radley figure who comes to light in a near derelict house in Croydon. Sublime.
The Perfect Christmas Presents
Obviously, if you’re looking for gift ideas, I think you’ll find my own books will hit the spot. Zero Tolerance will give you a real insight into the scandal breaking about unethical behaviour in certain Academy Trusts. For the teacher in your life. You can buy the ebook or a paperback, and read the reviews by clicking the link below:
Fans of Fantasy, YA and children’s books need look no further than The Watcher and The Friend, from Burton Mayers Books. The sequel, A Cold Wind Blows, is scheduled to come out next year. For a flavour, check out the podcast audio book.
A little unfair this title. Some of these books were just a little disappointing, a little overhyped. Others were just plain dreadful.
Picture the scene: It’s Christmas morning and you’re a little heady from the breakfast prosecco. You rip open the first of a pile of presents, to find The Kellerby Code waiting for you. Your nearest and dearest tell you it’s the word of mouth hit of the year, so funny, like Saltburn and you can’t wait to get started. Let me save you some time here. Put the book down. Forget you ever received it. Wipe it from your memory. Because this is the clear winner of the Turkey of the year. I know this sounds mean, but my longer review will explain why.
What’s happened to the writer who produced The Essex Serpent? Sarah Perry’s atmospheric debut stands clearly as her high watermark, as her Christianity seems to have overwhelmed her concern for craft. Enlightenment is dull and clumsy, and, just like the equally disappointing Melmoth, the critics raved about it. Do any of them actually read the books they are sent? Apologies to Christians everywhere – Happy.. er … Christmas.
A new Jackson Brodie crime outing from The wonderful Kate Atkinson is usually a cause for unconfined celebration. It starts so well – a clever play on cosy crime (bit of a theme this year). Brodie is reunited with Reggie Chase, the feisty, clever orphan from When Will There Be Good News? Chase is now a rookie cop who unofficially teams up with Brodie to investigate a case with links to his latest job. It’s an improbable mash up involving all the classic elements of old school murder mystery: isolated country house, list of stereotypical Agatha Christie suspects, all snowed in together as the bodies mount up. Sounds great fun, and it is, until the twists of the ever more unbelievable plot become tiresome.
William Boyd is the grand old man of English letters, but his latest, a brazen attempt to begin a multi million selling spy series to rival Bond is limp, derivative and lazy. It’s sad to see it and say it but the prose is risible. Every scene begins with a description of the place and the main characters, down to the clothes they are wearing. If that’s not enough to slow the action down, Boyd can’t resist any opportunity to tell us what drinks the character has and then, what they have to eat. ( “ a cheese and onion sandwich and a Dubonnet”) There must be about thirty scenes where Gabriel meets someone in a pub, bar or restaurant. Phoned in, reversing the charges.
Han Kang’s novel won the 2024 Nobel prize for Literature. Seriously, I wouldn’t want to go for a drink with anyone who was on the panel. This was such a deadly dull, dreary trudge, that I gave up after fifty pages. Life’s too short.
Fans of historical crime fiction set in Georgian England will love this reissue from Georgina Clarke. Set in Soho in 1759, it has all the ingredients of a successful historical murder mystery in the vein of Leonora Nattrass: authentic setting, engaging heroine, page turning twisty plot, hints of future romance and the setting up of a series.
It’s a delight. The heroine, Lizzie Hawkins, lives and works as a member of a more genteel brothel, run under the benevolent (mainly) eye of the Madam, Ma Farley. Lizzie tells the tale with a subtle combination of intelligence, warmth and cynicism. From the beginning we can see she is not one of your run of the mill bawds, and as the story progresses, her own back story is gradually revealed. She is drawn into the investigations that take place when one of her clients is found dead in the yard behind a Soho pub. She works closely with Will Blackstone, one of the original Bow Street runners, under the leadership of John Fielding, the brother of the celebrated literary figure, Henry. From initial suspicion and mistrust, they grow to respect each other as Blackstone increasingly realises that Lizzie is someone of depth and integrity.
The plot is unfolded with skill and pace and the reader is carried by this forward propulsion as the mystery thickens and is then resolved after a climactic showdown between Lizzie and the villain.The resolution at the end is both satisfying and carries the promise of more to come in future books. Clarke has written a sequel and a third book is due later in 2025. I will definitely be reading both of them to see what develops between Lizzie and Will.
I had just a couple of doubts about the world Clarke creates. Although she shows the abject misery of the street prostitutes, addled with gin, sleeping rough, and willing to provide any service to pay for food and more gin, there is something strangely sanitised about Lizzie’s experiences as a higher class working girl, and the other members of Ma Farley’s establishment. Lizzie gives full vent to her feelings about her work: her exhaustion, her disgust, her contempt for her clients, but despite that, it seems a relatively safe and tranquil situation that Lizzie is too comfortable with. It’s clear that Clarke knows her stuff and has done a shedload of research about the period, but I felt that the reality would have been more perilous, even for the cosseted girls of Ma Farley’s. I also didn’t quite believe in the wonderful Lizzie, who was a little too untouched by her experiences. She’s a great character: appealing, beautiful, feisty, intelligent, but a little too kind, it seemed to me.
More positively, I thought Clarke was unflinching in her portrayal of the aristocracy and the gentry – callous, entitled predators, slicing through the seedy side of London, blissfully untroubled by the human wreckage left in their wake. Some things never change. Overall, a highly enjoyable recreation of 18th century London life and a compelling crime mystery to boot. My Thanks to Verve publishers and NetGalley for providing a free ARC copy for review.
Death and The Harlot will be published by Verve in 2025
It was a beautiful June day, mid-afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky. John’s garden was a picture. He had spent the morning edging the lawn and weeding. He made frequent pauses, when he scanned all four corners of the plot, making plans for future planting. He was sure that if he took down that old shed and extended the vegetable plot, he could put a greenhouse on the concrete base and really make something of the bit at the back. For the previous ten years, all of his good intentions had come to nothing as the demands of domestic administration and work had taken up all of his time and energy. He had struggled to mow the lawn regularly, if truth be told, and it had not been unusual to miss the seasonal window for planting wall flowers or spring bulbs, leaving the garden rather ragged and unkempt. No matter how busy he had been at work or with the children, however, he had always made a point of devoting time to the patio, so that every summer, the table and chairs were surrounded by fragrant pots and exuberant climbers.
Gardening, he had often told himself and anyone else who would listen, is essentially a venn diagram of Time, Money and Inclination. This pearl of wisdom was generally delivered as an excuse to any visitor who happened to find themselves sitting at the table, drinking tea and looking out onto the far reaches of the garden that, frankly, did not quite live up to the expectations created by the perfumed oasis that was the sitting area.
It was nearly wonderful at the bottom of the garden. But not quite. The previous owners had planted palm trees, and exotic foliage plants around a pond, and at this time of year it was green and lush and luxuriant in the full flush of an early English summer, before July and August had taken their dusty toll on the plants, and before the rampant annual weeds had had a chance to take off and choke the structural plants in a tangle of bindweed. The jungle effect was enhanced by the flocks of parakeets that periodically swooped across the palms, and more bizarrely, by the occasional howl and shriek from the peacocks and other exotic animals from the little zoo that was situated on the other side of the river at the bottom of the garden. The kids used to love going there when they were little, with its adventure playground and petting farm. They even had some proper animals, though they were hard to see as they skulked resentfully at the back of their bleak cages, sad and bored. They hadn’t been for years now, though. Not since the kids got mobile phones and they started to skulk resentfully in their rooms.
He shook himself free of the memory, the smile fading on his lips, and turned his attention back to the garden. This year it would be different. This year, he would systematically weed and dig and prune and nurture. Time, Money and Inclination. These days he had enough of all three ingredients, and he was really looking forward to exploiting that fact this summer. He smiled as he poured himself another cup of coffee. He did a lot of that these days. Smiling and drinking coffee, sitting in his sunny garden under a parasol with the heady scent of roses and honeysuckle and the ceaseless soundtrack of birdsong. Oh, and doing the crossword of course. He was getting quite good at it these days. Practice makes perfect and all of that. He reached out for the folded copy of The Guardian and his pen and tried again. It was Monday, generally one of the easier days, and John always looked forward to Monday knowing that he would have a sporting chance of completing it before Sylvia got back from work.
He had to be careful, of course, not be sitting out here with coffee and crossword on the go, when Sylvia did get back from work. That would be rubbing her nose in it. She was always rather irritated when she did discover him in flagrante delicto, so to speak, as if he had been idling his time away all day in the sunshine while Sylvia was still on the mortgage treadmill. Since his retirement he had almost completely taken over the running of the house in terms of cooking, shopping, cleaning and being in for deliveries and tradespeople and so on. It was amazing how much time it took up. He couldn’t imagine now how they had managed when they were both working full time, and he didn’t really think he got the credit he deserved from Sylvia. He was sure that there weren’t many men of his age performing the househusband role so efficiently, with such good grace and with so little thanks. Not that he’d ever say that, of course. That would cause far too much trouble for very little gain
She was younger than him and probably had another ten years to work before they had paid off their mortgage. She had always worked too hard. Bringing casework home, endless typing of letters and notes and records on her laptop in front of the telly. She often fell asleep in front of the TV these days, as early as nine o’clock, with the stupid cat, sprawled across her lap, purring like a rattling window. She loved that cat. Probably more than him, he thought. It was another point of conflict between them.
He didn’t actively hate Watson. He just wasn’t a cat person. So much money, time, energy and love lavished on the creature for so little in return. The cat was getting old now and John was convinced it was suffering from dementia of some kind. Watson appeared to have no idea where his food bowl was, despite the fact that it had been in the same place in the kitchen since they had moved in ten years earlier. Every day, Watson seemed surprised to be directed to the same spot whenever he started hassling them about food, meowing pitifully and banging his head against legs. He seemed to have no spatial awareness, nor any awareness of consequences and would regularly trip up him or Sylvia or anyone else who happened to be in the house, by weaving in between their legs. One day, John was convinced, this would happen on the way down the stairs and someone would be found in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Watson would also periodically go into some kind of manic fit that would involve him spontaneously breaking into sprinting around the house from room to room as if he were being pursued by some mystery predator, before indulging in extended bouts of crazed flea scratching.
And it wasn’t just Watson either. That bloody cat from next door was just as bad. Not only did the sight of it provoke hair raising, spitting and caterwauling on Watson’s part, but the creature was shameless in terms of coming through the cat flap into the kitchen, as silent as a shadow, and eating all of Watson’s vile food. John wasn’t so much concerned about Watson’s welfare and diet, he was more outraged at being exploited by this malevolent invader. It was a violation of some sort.
There was Watson now, under the table on his special mat, out of the full glare of the sun, stretched out like an outline of a cat in an Egyptian mural, panting and heaving. John was really just waiting for him to die. He can’t have much longer to go now, surely, he thought. How long had they had him? Must be over fifteen years. Well, that was a pretty good innings in cat terms. He had had a good life. It was for the best that he keeled over sooner rather than later instead of spoiling John’s retirement with his incessant demands and interruptions. Much more likely for the cat to outlive him, by tripping him up on the stairs as he was rushing to open yet another pouch of foul smelling “chicken in gravy”. Yes, he thought, that cat will be the death of me.
He turned back to the crossword. He’d made pretty good progress but there was one corner that he had barely touched. Nine across – if he could just get that, it would open up that whole area of the puzzle and with a bit of luck he could polish off the rest in time to start cooking the dinner. Courgette Lemon linguine tonight, he thought, a new one of Jamie’s. Nine across, come on now. “Let’s see. ‘More elegant woman, with higher degree, seen as dangerous.’ Eight letters.” He sucked the end of his pen. “Now what could that be? Higher degree. PHD? MA, maybe?”
Beneath the table, Watson suddenly roused himself, sitting up and nervously scanning the horizon. The hairs on his back stood to attention and a faint hiss slipped from his mouth.
John looked down. “For God’s sake, Watson, calm down. You frightened the life out of me then.”
There was a rustle from the bushes to his left, the ones that screened the fence from view and Watson’s hissing began again but louder this time. He stretched up onto his paws and arched his back. John became aware that the birdsong had stopped and there was an eerie, oppressive silence, broken by more faint rustling from the bushes. At this, Watson flew into one of his manic fits, screeching, and running in circles before scrambling up the trunk of the gnarled old lilac tree.
John turned to look up at him, annoyed that his crossword break was being spoiled. “Watson, you stupid animal. It’s just next door’s cat. It’s just another bloody cat……”
He never got to finish the sentence. A crash sent his coffee cup flying and scattered chairs and newspaper to all corners of the patio.
Sometime later there was the sound of a key being turned in the front door. The door opened.
“It’s only me John love. Have you heard about the zoo? I was just listening to it on the radio in the car. I hope Watson’s all right. We really should keep him indoors until…….”
Outside on the patio, amid the broken pieces of cup, the scattered chairs and the pages of the Guardian, blown against some low-lying shrubs, Watson sat neatly on his mat, lapping with a delicate pink tongue from the wide streak of blood that was smeared across the paving stones. The blood, like a watercolour wash of crimson on a white canvas, was dragged across the stone, finishing where the bushes spilled over the edge.
The bushes quivered but no breeze blew and no birds sang.
Sally Rooney seems liberated by slipping under the radar for the release of her fourth novel.
The release of a new Sally Rooney novel is an event, something to look forward to and savour when it finally comes. There was a lot riding on this novel, her fourth in 6 years. Her last outing, Beautiful World Where Are You?, was a disappointment, particularly after the fireworks of Normal People. Self indulgent, too obviously autobiographical, too self conscious of her place as an up-and-coming superstar of letters, it was dull and strangely irrelevant, like the third album from your once favourite rock band whose new songs are all about alienation of life on the road in hotel bedrooms. Seriously guys, who cares? On the back of that, I’m particularly happy to report that Intermezzo is an unalloyed triumph and a step up into a seemingly effortless maturity as a writer.
I don’t know if I missed something, but there didn’t seem to be the same hype about this novel. A bit of pre publication publicity, to whip up interest and anticipation, but then, on release, it all seemed to go quiet, as if Rooney was no longer the bright young tyro. And publishing, like every other industry that flogs culture, loves nothing more than something new and shiny. So it made for a strange experience when reading the latest Rooney. It was like reading any other novel- lower expectations, without the annoyance of negotiating all that young person social media stuff that so characterised her earlier work. It seems to have liberated her, not having to perform, to live up to her persona, and instead to focus on producing an immensely satisfying novel.
It’s contemporary, about a tangle of romantic relationships, with plentiful graphically choreographed sex scenes, set in the Republic of Ireland (so far, so Rooney), but it’s so much more than that. It tells the story of two brothers, Peter and Ivan, miles apart in so many ways (age, job situations, outlook, relationships), who are dealing with the aftermath of the death of their father. Ivan, the younger by ten years, is on the spectrum and has a hand to mouth “career” in Data Analysis. His real talent, however, is for chess.
Once a teenage prodigy, tipped for greatness, he is on a downward curve when the book begins, competing in minor, local tournaments. Peter is a Dublin lawyer – successful and sophisticated in both his career and, on the surface, his relationships. They are virtually estranged from each other and the novel traces their attempts to make sense of their relationship, and of the world, in the light of their bereavement.
Both Peter and Ivan are in relationships where there is a significant age gap. Peter is instinctively judgemental about Ivan taking up with a divorcee ten years older than him, while seeing no problem in his own relationship with a much younger woman. Rooney examines the immense pressures felt by the older woman, from the Catholic Church, her friends, neighbours and family, such that she keeps it a secret for as long as possible. It’s just one of a series of “issues” Rooney deals with in a subtle and humane way. Most impressive is her avoidance of cliche and stereotype when portraying the main characters and their relationships. They are warm, unflinching sympathetic portrayals. She recognises them principally as human beings, individuals, rather than just types and the novel is richer, more complex and more satisfying as a result. Her sensitive portrayal of two men, completely inhabiting each persona in the distinct sections of the book is unusual and brilliantly convincing. If this had been a male novelist portraying women in such an authentic and nuanced way we would never hear the last of it. They both navigate complex relationships, with their mother, with each other and with significant women. They both make crass mistakes. As a result, they are entirely compelling and credible.
Stylistically, it’s a very interesting departure for Rooney. It’s told in alternating styles to correspond to the two main characters. Ivan’s story is immediately more engaging. The traditional third person narrative is warm and engaging, and the reader instinctively takes his side, as a picture emerges of a sensitive, thoughtful young man who has grown up in the shadow of his more extrovert, bullish brother.
The sections that focus on Peter use a distancing, staccato style of repeated brusque observations of the world and the people in it. At first, that becomes annoying very quickly, and you can’t wait to return to the more soothing world of Ivan’s narrative. But then, over time, the style differentiates the two worlds on an emotive level, in the sense that the reader feels the tension and discomfort of Peter’s world through the prose style and it becomes clear that Rooney has cleverly represented Peter’s state of mind. It functions like a verbal equivalent of impressionist painting. Positively pointillist, in fact.
One of the more annoying characteristics of serious literary fiction is that very often, in order to signpost their command of their art, too many writers make “bold” decisions about style. You know the sort of thing: no paragraphs; no full stops; writing the novel backwards. They are often disastrous in terms of reader enjoyment and I feared at first that the same sort of thing was going on here. But no. It actually works brilliantly. (Although I still cling to my conviction that Rooney’s insistence on not using conventional speech marks, is a similar, entirely redundant stylistic tic that serves only to irritate and draw attention to itself, like a loud precocious child at a party.)
The other outcome of alternating between Ivan’s experience and Peter’s is that it underlines one of the central points of the novel: self reflection, self absorption can seriously sabotage relationships, between brothers, lovers, friends, parents and children. The reader can see the obvious love that exists between these pairs of characters much more clearly than they can themselves. Resolution, when it comes in all its forms at the end of the novel, comes as a relief, not as an annoying sentimental cop out, because we’ve been screaming at them silently throughout the book, “Just tell him (or her), for gods sake!” Rooney is excellent at exploring the fall out resulting from not communicating honestly and openly because of the fear of what might happen. She did it brilliantly with Marianne and Connell in Normal People and repeats it here. As Elvis Costello told us so presciently all those years ago, “It’s the damage that we do and never know/It’s the words that we don’t say that scare me so.”
Notwithstanding my churlish note about Speech punctuation – a tiny pinprick of irritation in a sea of pleasure – Intermezzo is a wonderful novel from a writer just getting into her stride. There’ll be a lot more to come from her, I’m sure of that. Can’t wait for the next one!
Writer walks into windowless, dusky room and switches light on. Room gets darker. The End
I’d been meaning to read The Kellerby Code since the beginning of Summer. I’d noticed a few references to it in the weekend supplements, and then it began to be more heavily promoted with Richard Osman’s one word verdict: Genius. On further investigation, it seemed that the book was a comedy, set in a Country House, with shades of Evelyn Waugh and P G Wodehouse. It sounded delicious, just right for two weeks away in the Mediterranean sun.
Such is the power of marketing – selling a book in shedloads, even though it falls apart virtually the minute you begin to read it. Its only possible virtue is its future role in Creative Writing courses as a manual on how not to write a novel.
I know this sounds cruel. After all, it is Mr Sweet’s debut novel and budding writers need gentle encouragement, but I really think you can put away your sympathy and save it for more deserving cases. He has, after all, sold millions, made a fortune, and has nicely set up a second career to slot alongside his night job as a Stand Up comedian, probably now with a multi book follow up deal.
The TV adaptation can’t be far away. And, to be honest, that will probably be much better than the book, because no one would have to read it and…….How can I put this politely? This is very, very badly written. Thankfully for you, dear reader, I’ve already read it, so that you don’t have to.
SPOILER ALERT!
(But actually, dont worry, You’re never going to read this book…)
Although both Brideshead and Blandings are both referenced in the book, and the title is an echo of The Code of the Woosters, the real comparisons are with the film, Saltburn, and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley. It’s about a lower middle class young man, Edward Jevons, who falls in with a posh, entitled, aristocratic set at Oxford, whose leader, Robert, takes him under his wing and simultaneously patronises and exploits him. The gilded crew naturally fall into highly paid jobs in the arts and finance, via their discreet network of patronage and influence, while Edward, embarrassing oik that he is, is reduced to tutoring the ghastly offspring of the Chelsea and Knightsbridge elite. His real job, however, is to be Robert’s unofficial factotum and gopher, being expected to fulfill a myriad of trivial bits of domestic administration, unpaid, at the drop of a hat. This is done under the heading, Friendship, apparently, because Robert is grappling with the higher problems of being an up and coming theatre director and has no time to wipe his own arse and he doesn’t much care for getting his hands dirty.
Tom RipleyThe Cast of Saltburn
Edward is completely besotted with this world, leaving his roots behind him, and is completely blind to the fact that his new posh friends actually despise him, and refer to him as Jeeves behind his back. The situation is complicated by the fact that he is totally in love with Stanza (yes, really), more posh entitled totty who treats him like dirt and things really begin to take off when Robert starts going out with her and eventually marries her. The second half of the book brings a murder, which is the trigger for Edward’s descent into nervous breakdown territory and several more, ludicrous murders.
The plot is actually quite engaging, and even when the coincidences and hugely overblown prose threatened to make me chuck the book against the wall and admit defeat, wanting to have narrative resolution kept me going. The characters are uniformly ghastly. I read the whole book without incurring any warm feelings or concerns about anybody – not the vile poshos, and certainly not the wholly pathetic Edward, whose whinings and self pity produced a dreadful toxic cocktail of a personality that was more repellant than sympathetic. In the end, I felt the Bullingdon club crowd were actually too nice to him
The “twists” and “turns” of the plot were laughably poor. At times we were asked to believe that Edward, presumably our hero, had never read or seen a contemporary detective drama and was completely unaware of CCTV, DNA, fingerprints or even the basic fact that the police might ask him some questions and then triangulate his answers against what other witnesses/suspects had said. None of it matters though – there are so many loose ends and plot holes, so many inexplicable decisions made, that the real pleasure of the book was seeing what the next ridiculous plot twist was going to be. The concept of suspending disbelief was taken to new heights, such that in the end it became not a matter of suspension of disbelief but total disappearance of belief. This is a book that rests entirely on blind faith, like a religion, but without the rewards religion purports to offer. Textual Fundamentalism is the way forward. It stops hard pressed writers having to give a second thought to all those tiresome ideas about credibility, motivation, or authenticity.
But the worst is yet to come. My God, the prose, dear reader, the prose. The analogy that pushed its way into my consciousness, as I was ploughing through this car crash of a book was that of the IKEA flat pack piece of furniture. You get the damn thing home and open it up, and then diligently read through the language-less instructions.
Bolts and screws of various sizes are included in separate plastic bags, but it’s not until you have nearly constructed the thing that you realize that it doesn’t fit together and that you’ve used the wrong screw for the wrong bit of MDF. Here, Mr Sweet discovered that he’d been sent a big bag of commas and a tiny bag of full stops.
Sentences stagger on, many clauses lashed together by commas, desperately searching for a full stop, until they collapse, bleeding and exhausted. This is someone with a nice turn of phrase and a vocabulary that they are secretly very proud of, but who is determined to show you everything they can do. In every sentence. Every time. As a former GCSE and A level English teacher, my greatest priority was to impress upon my students the utter beauty of the short sentence, and the absolute necessity of a variety of sentence lengths and structures, so that there was some sense of rhythm to the whole thing. So that it sounded good when read aloud and felt nice in the mouth. Here, it sounds like radio static and tastes like a mouthful of Brylcreem. Back in the day, if little Jonny were one of my students, his submission would have tested my powers of constructive feedback and diplomacy.
My sincere suggestion to you, dear reader, is don’t bother with this. Watch Saltburn instead. Or watch and read The Talented Mr Ripley. And for advice on how to write sublime sentences, read some Wodehouse. You know it makes sense.
Regular readers of this blog will know that, if nothing else, it is eclectic, covering the highways and byways, the nooks and crannies of human interest. Fiction, Politics, Football, Writing, Theatre, Film, Music, original short stories – all human life is here. So you will forgive me, I’m sure, if this latest blog is unashamedly devoted to self-promotion. After a hiatus of a couple of years, my podcast Telling Stories has returned. When the kids move back out, the old recording studio moves back in. I’ve used it to contribute to Librivox, which in essence is an audio book version of The Gutenberg project. Anyone who passes the technical recording test can volunteer to read books that are out of copyright, and there is a vast library of free audio books, produced by said volunteers.
If you like listening to audiobooks, give this a go. It’s barely publicised, and the quality of the readers is varied, but with a bit of trial and error, you’ll be able to find something to your taste, that doesn’t offend your rigorous standards of fiction, technical specs and reading voice. It’s a really worthy project and deserves more support. Check it out at Librivox
Another project even more worthy of support is my Podcast. I’ve resumed the momentous task of turning my YA book, The Watcher and The Friend into an audio book, via regular recordings on my podcast, Telling Stories. I’m trying to post a weekly chapter. Have a look at the ones I’ve done since the new studio arrived. The links are here. Try it and pass it on if you like it. Or even if you don’t.
Make Sure you listen to the episodes in the right order! If you havent started yet, follow the links to the beginning and click follow on the Spotify Podcast page
A Cold Wind Blows – Book 2 of The Yngerlande Variations
Finally, some exciting news. The sequel to the book is scheduled to be published later this year. It’s called A Cold Wind Blows, and I’m very pleased to be able to give you a sneak preview of the new cover – designed by me and produced by the very talented Youness Elh. More on this later!
O’Hagan triumphs with that rare beast – a State of the Nation novel with heart.
The latest novel from Andrew O’Hagan, Caledonian Road, is a big beast, in every sense of the term. Physically, it’s got some heft. 640 pages of hard back book makes demands on the wrists. It’s also dealing with weighty, contemporary issues, so all told, the experience of reading it provides a holistic mind and body workout. Sounds like a week at a Spartan health farm, where the motto is no pain, no gain, but fear not dear readers, this novel also provides pure pleasure.
O’Hagan handles the intermingling of the personal and political with real skill and delicacy. A lesser novelist would have eschewed ideology and party politics for fear of committing the ultimate sin in the eyes of the serious, sensitive, superior and above-the-fray Literature Critics, that is the sin of taking sides. Ideology is both vulgar and limiting in this fragrant, lofty world. Evenhandedness is much more mature, much more subtle, much more human, darling. Perhaps. It’s certainly much more boring, in my opinion.
O’Hagan says a hearty bollocks to that and has dived in headfirst to this dissection of contemporary London society, and the power structures that both drive it and destroy it. He does it primarily through great storytelling. The novel succeeds first and foremost on that fundamental, primary level. The characters, their relationships, triumphs and disasters are memorable and compelling, even the utterly ghastly ones. Maybe especially the ghastly ones.
For the protagonist, Campbell Flynn, O’Hagan treads well-travelled paths. Working class lad done good, from the grim dereliction of 1970s Glasgow, Flynn at the time of the novel’s start is an academic, a cultural commentator, and a media darling down in that there London. Not a million miles away, obviously, from O’hagan’s own background, material previously plundered in his exquisite Mayflies. And not just London, but very specifically Kings Cross, an area recently reinvented by money and gentrification, but one which has pungent resonance for any refugee from the North. As a first entry point for East Coast Scots and Northerners, its streets, legends, and institutions retain a powerful grip on those arriving wide eyed from the sticks. Judd Street, the Eight till Late, the Scala, Peabody housing, Squats and Short Life flats, ULU, one hour rooms in lines of seedy hotels, kicking used syringes and condoms to one side leaving one’s flat in the morning – they are all part of the memory kaleidoscope conjured by the name Kings Cross.
As a big beast, the novel is teeming with characters, so much so that O’Hagan thoughtfully provides a cast list of two fully crammed pages. It’s essential if you want smooth passage through this behemoth, and a trick that Dickens himself could have profitably employed. The plot is multi-stranded and brilliantly handled, so that by the time the book has reached the halfway point, every time a new section of the book begins, there’s a sense of excitement at the resumption of that particular plot thread. That happens for all of the separate threads. That’s a real achievement. Usually, there’s always at least one thread that the reader has less engagement with, where you feel you’re treading water and sticking with, out of a sense of obligation. Here, all of them sing.
It’s a novel with laudable ambition, tackling big, serious issues. Any analysis of the current, woeful state of the UK would examine these topics in some depth, and O’Hagan looks them straight in the eye and explores them with both a pitiless forensic gaze and nuance, which allows him to eschew simplistic judgements and portray the issues and the characters with multilayered complexity. These are not the scribblings of a naive schoolboy marxist. He manages to cover
People trafficking
Cancel culture
British exceptionalism
The aristocracy
Public Schools
Russian money laundering
Social Media
Celebrity Culture
Gentrification
Housing
All of this produces an excoriating picture of the malign influence of the British establishment, their sense of entitlement and superiority, and the devastating impact they have had on destroying Civil Society for everyone except the super rich. The “freedom” this class espouses becomes simply freedom for millionaires to become billionaires without the state interfering.
There will be readers at this point who are thinking, “Bloody hell, this sounds far too political for me. I don’t understand this stuff and/or I just want a story about people and relationships” Keep the faith, you apoliticals! O’Hagan delivers on that front as well, with a huge range of individuals and families, all of whom, even the nasty Tories, are portrayed sympathetically. It’s Dickensian in that sense, and similar in many ways to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. An energetic, densely populated romp set in multicultural, class-riven contemporary London, it is, like Dickens, a serious work masquerading as an entertainment. Or the other way round.
There was one dud note for me at the beginning. His portraits of Media stars, the establishment, and the political classes all rang true and had the hallmark of authenticity. I found, at first, his depiction of knife wielding, estate dwelling, drug dealers less successful. It felt as if he had spent some time eavesdropping on an unfamiliar underclass and had produced a two dimensional portrayal. By the end, however, I was convinced and O’Hagan had totally won me over. This is A Great Novel, and I can’t wait for the adaptation, film or TV. Already commissioned, apparently.
Something weird is happening to films. It’s crept up slowly, revealing itself bit by bit, until now there’s so much evidence that it’s irrefutable. We are living through the Golden Age of Cinema, after the Wasteland of Pandemic Lockdowns and their aftermath. What’s driving this? Lockdown. Streaming. The unstoppable proliferation of narrative outlets and the demand for stories that will satisfy the gamut of tastes and preferences. The thirst for longer narratives with space to develop character, relationships, themes. The usual stuff.
It seemed, when we were in the middle of it, that Lockdowns were going to destroy cinema, as everyone got used to staying in and subscribing to a range of streaming services. The content was good and it was cheap. But by the end, we were all thirsty for the experience of going out again. In the same way that Zoom, at first a lifeline, became an annoyance, when it became obvious that the experience it provided was thin gruel compared to the Michelin-starred flavour of talking to real people in the same room, with eye contact, nuance and body language. You know, like properly being alive.
At first, it was hard, going to the cinema again. An act of faith, even. We went to see countless films in cinemas, to find that there were only six or seven other people dotted around the auditorium. It was only a matter of time, we agreed, that there would be a wave of closures to match the decimation of retail units in High Streets across the country. But, somehow they clung on.
And then, probably about a year or so ago, I began to notice something else, when watching the trailers. For at least ten years before Lockdowns, sitting through the trailers was usually a deeply depressing experience. I had become innured to the naked cynicism of the adverts. Corporations were desperately, unsubtly trying to sell me stuff. Millions of pounds of production costs, undercut by appallingly, clankingly obvious scripts, overlaid with equally grim music tracks. The combination of visuals (admittedly, often very beautifully shot visuals), terrible scripts, and obvious music overlays characterised all cinema adverts. Having to sit through them, always left me feeling vaguely unclean before getting ready to watch a film, usually with some kind of moral message.
During this period, it was difficult to distinguish between the ads and the trailers for films that were coming our way. They too, were just an extension of this appeal to the basest instincts of Homo Sapiens: Marvel adaptations, Fantasy CGI fests, endless, mindless, explosions, car chases (or spacecraft chases, Dinosaur chases, orc chases etc) It was like watching human evolution going backwards and I did despair of the celebration of stupidity it all seemed to represent. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a place for escapist/adventure/action type films. But a) do them well, and present a story with a plot that makes sense and respects your audience and b) make them as part of a wider, more diverse offering.
So the first time it happened, it was a bit of a shock. After the film, on the walk from the cinema to the car, the conversation was less about the film, and more about the trailers. Puzzled expressions and lines like, “There’s some really interesting looking films coming up”, were delivered hesitantly, as if it was just a scam to get us back, but really we would find that nothing had changed.
But it has. Every month there are great films and , on leaving the cinema, I think, “That’s the best film I’ve seen this year.” Over and Over again. I may be wearing rose tinted spectacles, but I can’t remember this happening before. They are long (sometimes too long), have stories, have interesting characters and believable relationships, are beautifully filmed in interesting locations, have significant human dilemmas to be resolved. I don’t know how long this is going to go on for. I’m just determined to enjoy it while it lasts. Because when it all blows over, and we are forced to trawl through mediocre shit on Netflix, recreating that Friday night visit to Blockbuster, where everything in the shop, could be pulped without adversely impacting the stock of human happiness, we’ll be forced to reminisce sadly about the time when going to the movies was great.
And what have been the films that have inspired this analysis? Well, since you asked so nicely, in no particular order…
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Saltburn
Poor Things
Zone of Interest
Killers of the Flower Moon
All of us Strangers
Anatomy of a Fall
Past Lives
The Holdovers
I can just about narrow this down to a top five:
5. Saltburn
Saltburn
I’m amazed that this film divides opinion. It’s a funny, stylish Brideshead pisstake that turns the usual working-class-oik-adopted-by-the-bastard-Upper-Classes-at-Oxbridge-before- being-humiliated trope on its head. People who don’t like this are the same as those who didn’t get Don’t Look Up a couple of years ago – sadly very wrong.
4. Killers of The Flower Moon
Lots of moaning from the older cinema-goer ( my very own tribe) about toilet breaks needed because of its excessive length. Not for me. It flew by and I loved it. Fascinating, unknown (to me) story from American Twentieth Century history, with fabulous performances from De Niro, Gladstone (who really should have changed her name to De Gladstone) and the ever underappreciated Leonardo De Caprio. And if bladder control is increasingly a problem for you, there’s a range of remarkably effective, discreet products you can now buy. Next to the Maltesers in the cinema shop.
3. Poor Things
Wow! What a treat this film is. Visually stunning, steam punky Glasgow vibe, moving through Europe to Paris and back. Amazing performances from Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, who is hilarious all the way through and who should have won an Oscar, if that particular travesty of an award ceremony had anything to do with quality rather than promotion and virtue signalling. Is it a feminist epic? What a dim question – of course it is. How to learn to become a woman in a patriarchal society is a great premise and it’s delivered in an un-hectoring way. The scenes in the Parisian brothel are notable for the collection of highly unprepossessing men who make up their client list. In any other year, this would have been the best film of the year by a mile.
This brings us to the top two, and we move into a completely different league of experience. In Joint First Place are:
Zone Of Interest
This is an amazing film. The Second World War and the holocaust are strange subjects. In one sense, how can you go wrong? They naturally carry their own drama, their own horror so they’re a gift as subjects for people who are making stories. The downside, of course, is the fact that they’ve been done to death. How could you possibly find anything new or compelling to say, when confronted by the ultimate, still barely believable, example of the worst of humanity? But Zone of Interest pulls it off.
It’s a great premise. The mundane domestic arrangements of the Auschwitz commander whose family home abuts the death camp are an obvious way of exploring how absolute evil becomes commonplace. Generations of GCSE English students will also be familiar with the poem Vultures by Chinua Achebe on the same theme:
Thus the Commandant at Belsen Camp going home for the day with fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils will stop at the wayside sweet-shop and pick up a chocolate for his tender offspring waiting at home for Daddy’s return…
Praise bounteous providence if you will that grants even an ogre a tiny glow-worm tenderness encapsulated in icy caverns of a cruel heart or else despair for in the very germ of that kindred love is lodged the perpetuity of evil.
Vultures. Chinua Achebe
Everything positive that has been said about this film is true. The soundscape is extraordinary and a compelling reason to watch it on the big screen. There are some wonderful scenes: the commandant hurriedly getting his kids out of the nearby river, running through idyllic woodland next door, when he realises that the water is carrying some horrific evidence from the camp next door. This is followed by frantic scrubbing of the kids in the bath. The commandant’s wife casually sorting through booty left behind after prisoners had been exterminated: fur coats, gold teeth, jewellery. The negative night scenes, of a young girl from the village visiting the outside work areas hiding food for the inmates, are both beautiful and haunting. It’s a film that will never leave you, once seen.
All of Us Strangers
This is the film that sums up, for me, the new approach of adult serious films, for adult serious people. Please note: Adult and Serious does not mean Boring. Far from it. The four central performances are luminous: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Clare Foy and Jamie Bell are all brilliant. It’s so good, you want a new category of Oscar: the ensemble acting award. People talk to each other. They struggle with their feelings, they show what it is to be alive as an individual in an alienating society. There’s a hint of lockdown isolation, but that is suggested rather than laid on with a trowel. It’s enlivened by some, beautiful, subtle magic realism, in the form of the Scott character going back to visit his childhood home as part of his research for a new film he’s working on and finding his parents, unaged, still living there. It uses this device to explore memories of childhood and regrets for all of the things that were not said. Tears are shed in the audience. Beautiful.
The Old Grey Owl 