3.5 stars. It’s remarkable how prescient The Truman Show (1998) looks nowadays. It’s also rather alarming that it no longer seems quite so strange for3.5 stars. It’s remarkable how prescient The Truman Show (1998) looks nowadays. It’s also rather alarming that it no longer seems quite so strange for someone to live his entire life in public, for the voyeuristic gratification of others. After all, it happens all the time on Instagram. This dystopian debut novel by Megan Angelo tells two linked stories about the impact of celebrity: one set among the influencers and ‘Insta-famous’ of 2015, and the other in 2051, in a world that has changed beyond recognition in some ways, but which retains its thirst for consuming the lives of others. Now, I’ll be honest with you, and confess that I bought this expecting it to be a piece of diverting literary fluff – but it turned out to be unexpectedly absorbing, holding up an ominous mirror to the world in which we currently live, and asking just how much we really want to share...
This gentle novel throws light on an aspect of history that I knew nothing about. Set largely in San Francisco’s Chinatown, it focuses on the surreptiThis gentle novel throws light on an aspect of history that I knew nothing about. Set largely in San Francisco’s Chinatown, it focuses on the surreptitious custom of the ‘paper wife’, and on one particularly determined and compassionate woman. In March 1923, in a small village in China’s Guangdong Province, young Mei Ling is obliged to take her elder sister’s place in a matchmaking deal. New American immigration laws mean that Chinese workers in the USA can no longer move freely back and forth to their families in the motherland. A businessman from San Francisco has come home, hoping to take his wife and son back with him, only to find that his wife has recently died. Now he needs a replacement, and Mei Ling’s family are poor enough and desperate enough to send their daughter to the other side of the world, with a stranger, in the hope of securing a good life for her. The catch is that Mei Ling must pretend to be the dead wife of her new husband, in order to get through the examination given by US border officials. A tale of resilience, hope and well-meaning deceit, this book looks at the challenges of building a new life in the New World – and stepping into another woman’s shoes..
I'm a great admirer of Chevalier and her concept, in this new instalment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, is clever - to set the story of Othello amI'm a great admirer of Chevalier and her concept, in this new instalment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, is clever - to set the story of Othello among the ever-changing alliances and rivalries of an elementary-school playground. Certainly, this setting gives plausibility to the lightening-swift shifts of Shakespeare's characters, but I just couldn't shake off a certain... uneasiness. Such a story, which hinges so heavily on sexual jealousy and very adult violence, doesn't sit comfortably in such a place. On one hand, we risk the complexities of the story being lost; on the other, we see children behaving in a way which feels too mature for eleven-year-olds. Nevertheless, it's an interesting - and disturbing - experiment.
Osei Kokote is an diplomat's son, newly posted to 1970s Washington with his father. With only a few weeks of school left before the summer holidays, and graduation to junior high, he's been enrolled in the local elementary school as a way to break him in softly, and give him the chance to meet new friends. This, as Osei knows only too well, is ridiculous. His parents don't understand what it feels like to be the only black boy in a white sea of faces, among snide children and biogted teachers. He does. He's an expert at starting new schools: at always being the new boy, the oddity, standing out in Rome, London, New York... And he's used to the fact that, on your first day, no one cares for the new boy. No one except Dee Benedetti, that is...
It feels as if everyone else in the world has already read this, so my views are probably somewhat superfluous; but I'm pleased to say that The GoldfiIt feels as if everyone else in the world has already read this, so my views are probably somewhat superfluous; but I'm pleased to say that The Goldfinch is a return to form for Tartt after the strangely unsatisfying The Little Friend. It's a beautifully observed, painterly book, not only in its focus on art but in the way it's written, and the characters are well-rounded and plausible. It's perhaps slightly overlong, and the final section feels a bit neat and loses some of the heart of the sprawling earlier sections, but it is a fine novel: the kind of book which leaves you going around with your head still half in its beguiling, regretful atmosphere.
Having read and enjoyed Katherine, I decided to give Anya Seton's Dragonwyck a go, even though I'm not usually one for melodramatic Gothic novels (witHaving read and enjoyed Katherine, I decided to give Anya Seton's Dragonwyck a go, even though I'm not usually one for melodramatic Gothic novels (with the honourable exceptions of Wuthering Heights et al, of course). This is an enjoyable example of its genre, set in the 1840s and full of tempestuous romance, foreboding and picturesque scenery. Telling the story of a young woman invited to stay with a wealthy cousin and his wife, it has heavy debts to Jane Eyre, particularly in the type of its handsome, brooding hero (why change a winning formula, I suppose?). The characterisation isn't quite as rich as I'm used to, and in particular I found the heroine Miranda to be rather bland; but at the end of the day it's not at all bad for what it is - and it all unfolds against the backdrop of pre-Civil-War America, which I found very interesting as that's not a period I've really read about before. It's just not quite up there with Katherine, partly because it does feel very derivative.
I first read this book several years ago, before I started this blog, and although I remember enjoying it immensely, I couldn’t remember the details. I first read this book several years ago, before I started this blog, and although I remember enjoying it immensely, I couldn’t remember the details. It’s Ebershoff’s third novel and focuses on the practice of polygamy in the Mormon church by interweaving the stories of two women, separated by more than a century. One is Ann Eliza Young, the apostate former (nineteenth) wife of the early Mormon leader Brigham Young. Her lectures and writings, represented here by a fictional autobiography, helped to expose the reality of plural marriage and, ultimately, to abolish it in mainstream Mormon faith. In the present day, we meet BeckyLyn Scott, a member of a breakaway fundamentalist sect which preserves the practice of polygamy. BeckyLyn’s husband has been shot dead in his basement den and she, his nineteenth wife, has been arrested for murder. Her son Jordan, expelled from the community as a teenager, comes to believe that BeckyLyn is innocent; but how can he prove it? The stories of these two women intertwine in an absorbing tale of plural marriage, faith and family. To make matters even more interesting, events since the book’s publication have focused international attention on the community that must surely have inspired Ebershoff’s fictional Mesadale...
The Idle Woman
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