Category: Fiction

The Orange Prize Longlist

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The Orange Prize longlist was announced yesterday. I like to follow this but actually I’ve read very few of the books listed in previous years. The ones I have read have been outstanding, so maybe I should pay more attention to the lists, but looking at this article in the Guardian I can’t say that the subjects are attractive:

Debut novelists will make up nearly half of the Orange prize for fiction longlist, which this year tackles strikingly difficult subjects: incest, sadistic cruelty, polygamy, child bereavement, hermaphroditism and mental illness. There is, though, also alligator wrestling in the 20-strong list, and Susanna Reid, the BBC Breakfast news presenter and judge for this year’s prize, insisted there was much joy to be derived from the books.

I’ve read just one book from this year’s longlist: Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty, which is about Laura whose nine-year old daughter, Betty has been killed by a hit and run driver. I found it to be well written but a harrowing book to read that is startling and shocking in parts.

The only other book that I know anything about is Room by Emma Donoghue, about a mother and son imprisoned in a room. I’ve seen several reviews and read the opening pages, which didn’t make me want to continue with the rest of the book. So far my knowledge of the books seems to confirm that they’re filled with depressing reading, but will I find the joy that Susanna Reid is talking about?

I’m looking at the other books on the list and there is a gallery with summaries of the books on this Guardian page. You can also download free samples from the Kindle Store on Amazon.

The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney turned out to be a mammoth read that took me far longer than I expected. I received my copy, an advanced uncorrected proof – without the lovely cover I’ve shown here – courtesy of Meier, the marketing company. It’s a story of journeys, of love and romance, and of war and mystery. I should have loved it, but I didn’t.

It’s narrated by Ben McCarthy looking back on his life as he tells his story to his children. Set during World War II, Ben, still grieving after the disappearance of his wife Venetia ten  years earlier, is travelling around Ireland collecting folklore and trying to find out what has happened to her. He meets Kate Begley, known as the Matchmaker of Kenmare and they become friends. Ireland was neutral during the war but that didn’t stop Ben and Kate’s involvement, after Kate’s husband Charles Miller, an American soldier is reported killed in action. I found it hard to get interested in the story at the beginning and in fact stopped reading it for a while. It was slow to get going and I had to keep looking back trying to work out what was happening and who was who. It didn’t help that this book follows on from a previous one that I haven’t read, which tells the story of Venetia’s mysterious disappearance.

It gathered pace for a while as Kate and Ben travelled to Europe trying to find Charles, who Kate refuses to believe is dead, and into the war action. And there is plenty of action when they are captured by the Germans, despite their Irish neutrality. Even though the war is coming to an end they are in desperate danger. This is, I think, the best part of the book, full of tension and pace. Neutrality is a theme throughout the book. As Frank Delaney writes in his Author’s Note:

… the word neutrality has many shades. For example official papers, released long after 1945, show that Ireland did, in fact, exploit the war politically and contributed many actions to the Allied cause. As to affairs of the heart, who would ever dare to define where friendship should end and passion begin?

Did Ben eventually find out what happened to Venetia and was Charles really dead? I read on, and on, and on as Kate and Ben continued to search for Charles after the war ended. The section where Kate stands waiting for the troops returning from the war, hoping to find Charles amongst them was very moving. But I became tired of their searches and by the time I came to the section where they are travelling to Lebanon in Kansas, the centre of America, the episode with a giraffe and small pig was almost too much to believe. It had all the trappings of a “tall tale”.

Overall, I did enjoy most of it. The book rambles along with many diversions from the main story, some amusing like Neddy who hires a set of false teeth, ‘a set of tombstone dentures’ to make him more attractive to a prospective wife, but mostly I found them distracting. It has a mythic quality. Ben was taught to view his life as though it were a myth, a legend and there are many hints all the way through of the tragic events that are about to unfold – too many hints, I thought, which meant that there were few if any surprises.  Interspersed with Ben’s narration are excerpts from Kate’s journal and his own journal and yet at times the text read more as an objective rather than a personal narrative.

Here is a book trailer featuring Frank Delaney reading from his book.

I agree with Dorothy in her review at Books and Bicycles, in which she says ‘The book would have worked better if told in a more direct manner, without all the editorializing from the older version of Ben and that it ‘does have its pleasures ‘” as you can imagine, the love triangle that develops between Kate, Ben, and Charles is consistently interesting ‘”unfortunately, the quality of the writing kept interfering with the fun.’

And for a more favourable review see Karen’s post on her Cornflower Books blog – ‘it’s a beautifully pitched, fluent story of charm, humour and some inspired ‘“ and even Homeric ‘“ touches.’

The Matchmaker of Kenmare

  • Hardcover: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Random House USA Inc (1 April 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1400067847
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400067848
  • Source: free review copy

This is my second book for the Ireland Reading Challenge.

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden: Book Review

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

I loved Molly Fox’s Birthday by Irish author, Deirdre Madden.

It takes place in one day, that day being Molly Fox’s birthday. Her friend, the unnamed narrator is staying in Molly’s house in Dublin whilst Molly is away and she reminisces about their friendship, wondering why Molly doesn’t like to celebrate her birthday. Molly is an actress and her friend a playwright, who has written plays in which Molly acted. Their friendship goes back a long way and during this one day she contemplates their past, how their relationship evolved and the relationships with their friends and families.

She thinks about their mutual friend Andrew, an art historian, Fergus, Molly’s disturbed brother, Tom, her own brother who is a priest and during the day both Andrew and Fergus turn up an announced on Molly’s doorstep. It’s written at a gentle pace, with vivid descriptions of the setting – the house and garden in Dublin

The big clock at the head of the stairs bonged softly for nine-thirty. I carried the mug out of the kitchen, into the hall and through to the sitting room. It looked this morning like some kind of jewelled casket, like a box of treasures. sunlight caught on copper and brass, was reflected in polished wood and mirrors. All this glitter and brightness was offset by the rich dark colours of the kilims on the floor. (page 44)

It’s a novel about identity as well as family and friendship, about how we see other people and how they see us. For example she had never really got to know Fergus but had heard of his problems from Molly. During her conversation on this day she realised that the Fergus she knew through Molly ‘timid, weak, a failure in life‘ had disappeared and the man she now knew for herself was a ‘man of wisdom and acute moral knowledge‘. It’s a novel about character and about the parts we play as well as the people we are, what we hide from others and what we reveal  to others. It’s the sort of book I could happily re-read and still find plenty to think about.

My first book towards the Ireland Reading Challenge.

Reading Challenges Update

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I always find it difficult to keep track on where I am with the reading challenges I’ve joined, so as two months of the year have already gone I thought I’d check up on what I’ve read so far.

The Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – open ended

The Daphne Du Maurier Challenge ‘“ May 13, 2010- April 19, 2011

The 2011 Global Challenge

Europe – I’ve read 2 books:

The Seventh Continent – History

The Victorian Reading Challenge

Currently reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Ireland Reading Challenge

  • Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden – review to follow

What’s in a Name 4

So far I’ve read 1 book from the category:

A book with travel or movement in the title

Read, Reading, To Read – Sunday Salon

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

I’ve just finished reading Exit Lines by Reginald Hill, a Dalziel and Pascoe novel – my post to follow. I’m almost up-to-date with reviews of books I’ve read recently, just Exit Lines and Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden to do.

As usual when I’ve finished one book I’m not sure what to read next. I’m still reading Eden’s Outcasts: the story of  Louisa May Alcott and Her Father and have yet to get going again on The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney, but I fancy reading something different.

I go to a face-to-face book group and the next book we’ll be discussing is Climbing the Bookshelves by Shirley Williams. I think I’ll start reading it soon. I know very little about her, other than the bare facts that she was a member of the Labour party for years before becoming one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party, one of the ‘Gang of Four’. I particularly like the title of this autobiography, which came about as she and her brother liked challenges; one challenge being her

parents’ bookcases which ran from floor to ceiling like climbing-frames, with the added zest of forbidden books on the top shelf. Soon after I could read, I sneaked Havelock Ellis and Marie Stopes from that top shelf. I had learned from my brother that these were naughty books. They turned out to be very boring, but I was amazed by one illustration, a blurred spot underneath which was written: ‘This photograph of a human egg is several times life-size’. (page 3)

Although we’re not meeting until the last week in April I think I’d better start reading this soon as autobiographies/biographies take me longer to read than novels.

But I’d like to fit in something else as well. I have now built up quite a lot of books and samples on my Kindle and having watched some of the My Life in Books programmes last week I’m quite keen to read some of the books mentioned – such as Black Beauty, Crime and Punishment, The Moonstone, Treasure Island and Nicholas Nickleby, all of which I have at my fingertips. As usual, my wishes run away with me – so many books and not enough time to read all of them. And my reading time has been reduced recently as I have started to go to an art group. Painting, even though I’m terrible at it or maybe because I’m so inexperienced and lacking in talent, is just as time-consuming as reading – but it is so very enjoyable.

The Small Hand: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Susan Hill’s The Small Hand: A Ghost Story is a novella, quickly and easily read, but it is not a scary ghost story. I think it could have worked better if it had been reduced to a short story – I felt even though it’s short that it had a certain amount of extra padding that reduced the tension and atmosphere. It felt rather limp and I was more interested in the main character’s book searches than in his search for the ghostly owner of the small hand that creeps into his.

It begins well. Adam Snow, a dealer in antiquarian books and manuscripts gets lost on his way home from visiting a client when he comes across a derelict Edwardian house. Wandering around the garden he feels compelled to know more about it, to see more, to find out what had happened and why the house had been abandoned. It was there in the garden that he had a strange experience:

And as I stood I felt a small hand creep into my right one, as if a child had come up beside me in the dimness and taken hold of it. It felt cool and its fingers curled themselves trustingly into my palm and rested there, and the small thumb and forefinger tucked my own thumb between them. As a reflex, I bent it over and we stood for a time which was out of time, my own man’s hand and the very small hand held as closely together as the hand of a father and his child. But I am not a father and the small child was invisible. (page 7)

But as I read, despite the pleasure of reading Susan Hill’s descriptive writing, I began to lose interest in the plot. At the end I thought it was more of a sad, mournful tale than a ghost story.