Chicago – She Reads Novels

Whenever you decide to read a book by an author who’s new to you, you never really know what to expect and there’s always a risk you won’t like it, particularly when it’s a debut novel like this one. Fortunately, I loved The Midnight Carousel from the beginning; it’s such an original, unusual story that I was completely captivated by it.

The carousel of the title is built in 1900 by Gilbert Cloutier for the Grand Exhibition in Paris. Gilbert is struggling to come to terms with his grief over the recent loss of his young son, so he decides to add some special features to the carousel in memory of the boy. This is the last thing he does before disappearing without trace. Over the years that follow, the carousel gains a sinister reputation when it becomes linked with further disappearances and Detective Laurent Bisset is asked to investigate. He thinks he has caught the culprit, but several years later history begins to repeat itself, leaving Laurent questioning whether he has made a terrible mistake.

Meanwhile, in England, Maisie Marlowe is being raised by abusive foster parents in Canvey Island, Essex. Maisie has no idea who her real parents are and the only things that sustain her through this miserable period of her life are her friendship with her foster brother and a picture of a beautiful carousel that she found on the beach. Eventually, an aunt comes to rescue her and takes her to live in the home of Sir Malcolm Randolph where she has just taken a job as housekeeper. Due to an unexpected sequence of events, Maisie ends up emigrating to America with Sir Malcolm where they open an amusement park in Chicago with a magnificent carousel as the star attraction – the exact same carousel as the one in Maisie’s picture and the same one that was built at Gilbert Cloutier’s factory in Paris.

When the disappearances begin again, Laurent Bisset is sure there must be a connection with the earlier incidents in France, so he travels to Chicago determined to uncover the truth this time. Here he crosses paths with Maisie, bringing the two threads of the novel together. I loved both characters and was interested in their personal stories – Maisie’s Dickensian childhood and her incredible change of fortune and Laurent’s dedication to making amends for his past mistakes – but I also enjoyed watching their relationship develop as they come together over the mystery of the carousel.

The mystery element of the book is not so much a whodunit as a howdunit. How can people be disappearing into thin air while riding the wooden jumping horses? Is the carousel itself haunted? Did Gilbert Cloutier place a curse on it? Is someone somehow snatching people from the horses without being seen? Although there were a few clues that I thought could and should have been noticed by Laurent and the police, I can also understand how they could have been missed. When we eventually get some answers, they are both clever and creepy and what I found particularly unsettling is that all through the book I never really knew whether I was reading magical realism or something with a more human explanation. The eerie atmosphere, along with the fairground setting, kept reminding me of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, but I think this is a better book.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Midnight Carousel and loved getting to know Laurent, Maisie and the secondary characters – I particularly liked Mrs Papadopoulos the dairy seller and Madame Rose the fortune-teller. I’ll certainly be putting Fiza Saeed McLynn on my list of authors to look out for in the future.

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

Edgar Rice Burroughs is not an author I’ve ever considered reading; neither his Tarzan series nor his John Carter of Mars books have ever appealed and I hadn’t thought to look into what else he had written. The Efficiency Expert was suggested by one of my blog readers (thank you, Cheryl!) and it proved to be an excellent recommendation. The book was published in 1921 and seems to be one of only a few novels Burroughs wrote about ordinary people leading ordinary lives.

Jimmy Torrance is in his final year at university when he discovers that, having devoted his time to football, baseball and boxing instead of his studies, he is now in danger of failing his course. After working hard for the rest of the semester, he manages to get his diploma and ‘would have graduated at the head of his class had the list been turned upside down’. Unimpressed, his father orders him to come home before he can acquire any more debt, but Jimmy heads for Chicago instead, determined to get a good job and make his father proud of him.

Arriving in Chicago, Jimmy begins to look for work but soon finds that his college education counts for nothing without any experience. Forced to accept that nobody is going to employ him as an office boy, let alone the general manager’s position he had hoped for, he embarks on a series of increasingly embarrassing jobs including selling ladies’ hosiery in a department store and working as a waiter in a disreputable nightclub. Eventually, just as he reaches his lowest ebb, he is offered the position of ‘efficiency expert’ in a factory. Things seem to be looking up at last – but when he notices a discrepancy in the company’s accounts, he must decide whether to act and risk losing the only good job he’s ever had.

The first half of the book is entertaining and quite amusing as Jimmy stumbles from one disastrous job to another, while repeatedly encountering two young women who are mystified to find him serving at tables one day and driving a milk wagon the next. Jimmy is very naïve when he first arrives in Chicago, assuming that as a graduate he will be able to walk straight into any job, and his story will resonate with other young people who have had to work their way up from the bottom. I admired him for not asking his rich family and friends for help, which would have made things easier for him, but it’s this same sense of pride and integrity that results in him losing or leaving job after job.

Jimmy makes two new friends in Chicago – a pickpocket and safe-breaker known as the Lizard, and Little Eva, a prostitute he meets during his nightclub job – both of whom become better people due to their association with Jimmy. There’s a clear message here that decent people can be found in all walks of life and nobody is beyond redemption if they are only given a chance. The more privileged characters in the book (or some of them anyway) are not shown in such a good light! There’s a romantic element to the story too, with Jimmy having three possible love interests. The one he ends up with is neither the one I’d hoped for nor the one I’d expected, but at least that means the book isn’t completely predictable!

After Jimmy starts working as an efficiency expert, the story takes a different turn and the book becomes more of a thriller than the light comedy it had seemed at the beginning. It’s exciting for a while, but I thought it fell apart slightly at the end, with characters who had become inconvenient to the plot being too easily disposed of and loose ends tied up too neatly. Still, this book was fun to read and although I’m still not drawn to Tarzan or the science fiction novels, I’m pleased to have found an Edgar Rice Burroughs book that I did want to read and did enjoy.

If you have trouble finding a copy of this book, it’s available through Project Gutenberg.