Category: Fiction

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

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The title of Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Tom Lake, doesn’t refer to a person, as I’d assumed before I started reading, but to a place – a town in Michigan with a theatre overlooking the lake. One summer in the 1980s, a theatrical group gather at Tom Lake to rehearse the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town. The role of Emily has gone to Lara, a young woman who previously played that same part in a high school production. Here at Tom Lake, Lara meets and falls in love with the charismatic Peter Duke, the actor who plays her father in Our Town and who goes on to become a famous Hollywood star.

Many years later, in 2020, Lara and her husband, Joe, are living on a Michigan farm with their three adult daughters, Emily, Maisie and Nell, who have all come home to be with their parents as the Covid pandemic sweeps across the world. While they help to harvest cherries from the family orchard, the girls ask Lara to tell them about her relationship with Duke. As they listen to her story unfold, they discover things about their mother’s past that makes them reassess everything they thought they knew about her and about themselves.

I loved Ann Patchett’s last novel, The Dutch House, so I was hoping for a similar experience with this book. Sadly, that didn’t happen, although I did still find a lot to like. It’s certainly a beautifully written novel, but I just found it a bit too quiet and gentle and I never felt fully engaged with the characters the way I did with the characters in The Dutch House. I know I’m in a tiny minority, though, and I expect to see Tom Lake on many people’s ‘books of the year’ lists in December.

Although the present day sections of the book are set during the pandemic, Covid is barely mentioned at all and it’s really just a plot device to explain why the family are all together on the farm with such little contact with the outside world. This provides the perfect environment for the three daughters to pass the time listening to their mother’s story without too many distractions – and a cherry orchard does sound like a lovely place to spend the pandemic. Something else which plays a much bigger part in the novel is Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; clearly the play and, in particular, the role of Emily are very important to Lara, but as I’ve neither read nor seen it I didn’t really understand the significance. It seems to be a play that is much better known and more widely studied in America than it is here in the UK and I wish I’d had at least some familiarity with it before I started this book. That’s possibly one of the things that prevented me from enjoying it as much as I’d hoped.

I do like Patchett’s writing, so even though this particular book wasn’t a huge success with me, I’m still looking forward to trying some of her earlier work.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett – #NovNov23

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In this new novella, published just in time for Christmas, Janice Hallett returns to the world of her earlier novel, The Appeal. Once again, newly qualified lawyers Femi and Charlotte are sent a folder of documents and are challenged by their former mentor, the now retired Roderick Tanner, to read through them all and solve the mystery they contain. And once again, the mystery unfolds in the town of Lower Lockwood where the amateur theatrical group known as The Fairway Players are preparing to stage another play, with the aim of raising money for the church roof appeal. This time, it’s that great British tradition, the Christmas pantomime! This year’s choice is Jack and the Beanstalk and rehearsals are about to begin.

Sarah-Jane MacDonald, the fundraising expert from The Appeal, and her husband Kevin have now been elected as co-chairs of The Fairway Players, a move that not everybody is happy with – particularly not Celia Halliday, who believes that she should be the one running the group. Celia is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Jack and the Beanstalk from being a success, but it seems that the pantomime is already destined to be a disaster and anything that can go wrong will go wrong. What has happened to the young couple who auditioned for parts and have never been seen or heard from since? Is it true that the giant beanstalk Sarah-Jane wants to use as a prop is made of deadly asbestos? Is it really a good idea to use a script written in the 1970s? And whose is the dead body that appears on the night of the performance?

Like The Appeal, this book is written entirely in the form of emails, texts, WhatsApp messages and other types of media. If you’ve read the first book you’ll already be familiar with many of the characters which will make things easier to follow, but if not I don’t think it will be too much of a problem as this one should also work as a standalone. The format of the book allows the different personalities of the characters to shine through very strongly, from bossy Sarah-Jane to snobbish Celia, so you should be able to get to know them quickly.

I found this a more light-hearted book than The Appeal, with lots of humorous misunderstandings and funny moments (I particularly loved Kevin attempting to buy ‘sweets’ to hand out to the children on performance night and accidentally purchasing something completely different instead). I felt that Hallett was trying to make this an entertaining festive read rather than a more serious crime novel, which does mean that the actual mystery is quite weak. The solution relies heavily on information that is only revealed by Tanner at the end of the book and I think it would be almost impossible to solve otherwise. As Tanner already knows all the answers, he doesn’t really need Charlotte and Femi’s assistance and there’s a sense that he has set them this task simply as a problem-solving exercise and to see what they will do with what they’ve learned.

Despite the mystery not being very strong, I enjoyed this book for the characters, the humour and the insights into staging a Christmas pantomime. Hallett’s next novel, The Examiner, out next year, seems to be unrelated to this one, but I wonder whether she’ll return to the Fairway Players in the future for another book.

Thanks to Viper for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Water by John Boyne – #NovNov23

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Water is the first in a planned quartet of novellas named after the four elements and linked by some shared characters and themes. I’ve enjoyed many of John Boyne’s longer novels so I was intrigued to see what he could do with a shorter format.

We begin with Vanessa Carvin arriving on an island off the coast of Ireland where she has rented a cottage in the hope of escaping from her past and starting a new life for herself. The first thing she does when she gets there is cut her hair and change her name to Willow, before settling into a quiet existence, going for walks, attending church and trying not to attract too much attention to herself.

The whole book is narrated by Willow and she reveals her secrets to the reader slowly, when she is ready to do so, but we know from the start that something has gone badly wrong with her marriage to Brendan Carvin, Director of the National Swimming Federation. Where is he now? What happened to their eldest daughter, Emma? Why is Willow estranged from her younger daughter, Rebecca, who refuses to answer her texts and keeps blocking Willow’s number? It takes a while for the truth to emerge but, once it does, it gives Boyne the opportunity to return to the themes he has explored in other books such as A History of Loneliness and All the Broken Places (Father Odran Yates, protagonist of the former, is even referred to once or twice as a friend of Brendan’s, strengthening the tie between the two books). These themes include the questions of whether we can be considered complicit in another person’s crimes just by choosing to look the other way when our instincts tells us something is wrong and whether there is always more we could and should have done.

Water is the title of the book, but that element is also worked into the novel in a variety of different ways. Not only is Willow’s husband a swimming coach, but the sea has a role to play in the fate of one of the other characters and Willow’s own name refers to a tree that grows by water. And of course, the island itself is surrounded by water, both physically and metaphorically separating Willow from her old life in Dublin. For such a short book (176 pages in the hardback edition) it’s a very powerful one. It deals with some difficult and uncomfortable topics but, as I’ve come to expect from Boyne, there are also some humorous moments to lighten the mood. I can’t wait to see how he tackles the other three elements; I’m already looking forward to the second book in the series, Earth, which is due in May 2024.

Thanks to Doubleday for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Benighted by J.B. Priestley

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This is the first book I’ve read by J.B. Priestley and a great choice for this time of year. Published in 1927, it was filmed as The Old Dark House in 1935, although I don’t think I’ve seen it so can’t comment on how similar or different it is from the book.

The novel begins as married couple Philip and Margaret Waverton, accompanied by their friend Roger Penderel, get caught in a storm as they try to drive home through the Welsh countryside one night. The rain is torrential and with the roads starting to become impassable, they decide to seek shelter in an old, crumbling mansion, the only house they can see for miles around. It doesn’t look very inviting…

It was the house itself that was so quiet. Driving up like this, you expected a bustle, shadows hurrying across the blinds, curtains lifted, doors flung open. But so far this house hadn’t given the slightest sign in spite of its lighted windows. It seemed strangely turned in upon itself, showing nothing but a blank face in the night. You could hardly imagine that great front door ever being opened at all.

The door is eventually opened by a huge, silent butler and as the trio step inside their sense of unease continues to grow. The house is home to the Femms – the strange and nervous Horace and his fanatically religious sister, Rebecca. The Femms reluctantly allow them to stay for the night, but it quickly becomes obvious to the visitors that they’re unlikely to get much sleep in such an eerie, unwelcoming house. After a while, they are joined by two more people looking for shelter – Sir William Porterhouse, a wealthy businessman, and Gladys du Cane, a chorus girl. The rest of the novel describes the unpleasant, frightening experiences the five guests undergo during their night in the Femm household. It seems that there are other members of the Femm family who haven’t made an appearance yet – and when they do, the guests begin to wish they had stayed outside in the storm after all!

Benighted is a short, quick read and one that I enjoyed, with a few reservations. By the standards of modern horror novels it’s quite tame – I would describe it as creepy and unsettling rather than terrifying – but as a book from the 1920s, it has clearly had a huge influence on what Orrin Grey in the introduction describes as the ‘old dark house’ subgenre. There’s nothing supernatural going on in the novel; the creepiness comes entirely from the portrayal of the odd, sinister characters, the descriptions of the dark, desolate house and the mystery surrounding a locked door upstairs and what lies behind it. I was intrigued to learn that the Addams Family creator, Charles Addams, drew the illustrations for the opening sequence of a 1963 remake of The Old Dark House, because there are some unmistakable similarities between the Addams and Femm families!

Perhaps the real horrors being described in Benighted are the effects of the First World War, which ended less than ten years before the book was published. Priestley himself is quoted as saying that the novel’s characters are “forms of postwar pessimism pretending to be people”. This leads to some long passages in which Priestley explores the mental states of the characters and how they are affected by their night in the Femm house, most notably Roger Penderel who has experienced various traumas during the war, including the loss of his brother at the Battle of Passchendaele, and has been left disillusioned and cynical. These passages added depth to the novel, but at the same time I felt that they slowed down the pace of the plot and pulled me out of the story. In the end, this book didn’t quite work for me either as a horror novel or a psychological study, but it was still an interesting read and has definitely piqued my interest in reading more books by Priestley.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken – #1962Club

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I’ve read and enjoyed several of Joan Aiken’s adult novels over the last few years – my favourite so far is Castle Barebane – but until now I’ve never read the book for which she’s most famous, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. It was first published in 1962, which makes it a perfect choice for this week’s 1962 Club hosted by Simon and Karen.

This is obviously a book aimed at younger readers and I’m sure I would have loved it if I’d read it as a child; however, I was pleased to find that it also has a lot to offer an adult reader. I’m definitely planning to continue with the next book in the series.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is set in England in an alternate history where the Stuarts are still on the throne in the 19th century. It’s 1832, early in the reign of King James III, and a tunnel between Dover and Calais has recently been completed, allowing the migration of a large number of wolves from Europe. In reality, of course, the Channel Tunnel wouldn’t open until 1994, so Joan Aiken really was ahead of her time – although obviously the idea had existed in theory for much longer! Other than the tunnel and the presence of wolves, the world described in this book doesn’t seem very different from the real world of 1832, but I’m assuming the alternate history element becomes more significant later in the series.

Being a children’s book, the story is told from the perspectives of two children – Bonnie and Sylvia Green. Sylvia, an orphan, lives in London with her elderly Aunt Jane, but at the beginning of the novel she travels north by train to Willoughby Chase to stay with her cousin Bonnie. Bonnie’s parents, Sir Willoughby and Lady Green, are going abroad for health reasons and have engaged a governess, Miss Letitia Slighcarp, to take care of the children while they are away.

Left alone with Miss Slighcarp, the girls discover that their new governess is not what she claims to be and has another motive for coming to Willoughby Chase. Soon Bonnie and Sylvia are sent off to a horrible school for orphans run by the cruel Gertrude Brisket. Hungry and miserable, they begin to plan a daring escape, but will they succeed – and if so, where will they go? Will their friend, Simon the goose-boy, be able to help them? And what exactly is Miss Slighcarp planning to do now that she is in full control of Willoughby Chase?

Now that I’ve read this book I can see why it is considered a children’s classic and has been so popular with generations of younger readers over the years. It has an exciting plot, child protagonists to relate to, kindly adult characters to love and villainous ones to hate, and an atmospheric setting with snowy, icy landscapes and packs of wolves roaming the countryside. Speaking of the wolves, they play a big part in two memorable scenes near the beginning of the book, but are barely mentioned after that as the human ‘wolves’ come to the forefront of the story instead. The influence of Victorian literature on Aiken’s writing is also very obvious, from the Dickensian names of the characters – Letitia Slighcarp, Josiah Grimshaw, Mr Gripe, Mr Wilderness – to the portrayal of Mrs Brisket’s school, surely inspired by Lowood School in Jane Eyre.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and just wish I hadn’t come to it so late! I’m already looking forward to reading the second one in the series, Black Hearts in Battersea.

This is book 41/50 for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom

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If you’re not lucky enough to be going on a cruise this summer, this 1934 novel by Ursula Bloom is the next best thing! It will give you the opportunity to visit Gibraltar, Marseille, Malta, Naples and Venice, all without leaving your own home. You’ll sail on the Allando in the company of Ann Clements, a thirty-five-year-old single woman who has never been abroad in her life…until now.

At the beginning of the novel, Ann is living in rented rooms in London and working as a secretary, having been left penniless after her father’s death. Her routine rarely changes – long days in a gloomy office, then home to do the ironing and sewing, with only two weeks by the sea with her controlling, bullying older brother Cuthbert to look forward to. She has almost given up hope of having any excitement in her life, until the day she wins a large sum of money in a sweepstake she didn’t even know she had entered. Ignoring Cuthbert’s advice to invest the money in a trust fund for his daughter, Ann decides to spend it on a Mediterranean cruise – and this one decision will change her life forever.

Even while she’s boarding the ship, Ann is having second thoughts. Is she really brave enough to travel alone? Has she brought the right clothes? Surely she’s too old and boring to be having an adventure like this! As the days go by, however, she finds herself doing things she had never imagined herself doing before and for the first time she begins to learn who she really is and what she wants out of life.

I enjoyed this book from beginning to end; Ann is an endearing character and it was lovely to watch her grow in confidence, start to think for herself and leave behind the shy, insecure woman who has grown up under her brother’s thumb. Having been convinced that she would remain a spinster to her dying day, she also meets several men on the cruise who make her wonder whether it’s not too late to fall in love after all. Yet I wouldn’t describe this book as a romance so much as a book about a woman discovering that romance is possible, if that makes sense!

I also loved the descriptions of the places Ann visits, particularly as I’ve been to some of them myself, as well as life on the ship itself, as Ann gets to know her fellow passengers. They are a real mixture of people and although Ann has some preconceived ideas (thanks to Cuthbert’s influence) regarding those who are ‘not her sort’, as part of her transformation she is exposed to new ways of thinking and starts to change her own views.

Wonder Cruise is the first novel I’ve read by Ursula Bloom, but it seems she was very prolific and wrote over 500 books under various pseudonyms, which got her into the Guinness Book of Records in the 1970s! If you’ve read any of them maybe you can help me decide which one I should try next.

This is book 6/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2023

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to decide to read Piranesi. Although I loved Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, this one sounded very different and didn’t immediately appeal to me, but I did still intend to read it sooner rather than later. Now that I have, I think Jonathan Strange is still my favourite, but I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to.

Our narrator, Piranesi, lives in a place he calls ‘the House’, a vast, labyrinthine structure containing hundreds of interconnected halls and vestibules. The lower levels of the building are flooded and there is a complex system of tides that only Piranesi understands. The House is his entire world; he believes he has always lived there and can’t remember any other way of life. His only human contact comes twice a week when he meets a man he thinks of as ‘the Other’ and assists him in his quest to find the Great and Secret Knowledge. Apart from himself and the Other, Piranesi is only aware of thirteen more people who have ever existed in the world, all now skeletons resting in the niches and alcoves of the House.

Piranesi is quite content with his solitary existence, exploring the enormous halls and passageways, studying the impressive statues he finds there and recording his discoveries in a series of notebooks. Then one day, everything changes. Could there be a sixteenth person in the world – and if so, who are they and what do they want?

I’m not going to say any more about the plot than that, partly because it’s a story that I don’t want to spoil for anyone who hasn’t read it yet but also because I found the plot secondary to the setting and the sense of place. The atmosphere Clarke creates really is wonderful; from the first chapter I felt fully immersed in the majestic, watery world of Piranesi’s House, a world that is somehow simultaneously both vast and claustrophobic. The book was published during the first year of the pandemic in 2020 and I’m sure if I’d read it then the themes of solitude and a life cut off from the outside world would have resonated with me even more than they did now. It’s no coincidence that Piranesi was also the name of an 18th century Venetian architect and artist famous for his etchings of ‘Imaginary Prisons’ showing huge subterranean vaults complete with staircases, arches and towers.

Towards the end of the book, as we finally began to learn more about the House and how Piranesi and the Other came to be there, I felt that the story started to slightly lose its magic. I had loved the eerie, otherworldly feel of the first half of the book and was less interested in the revelations that came at the end. Still, Piranesi is a very impressive novel and one that I would probably have to read again to fully appreciate everything Susanna Clarke was trying to say.