"To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" by Joshua Ferris

An audio book.

Paul O'Rorke is a hard-working dentist living in NYC, obsessesed with the RedSox - he records each game on VHS. His father killed himself. He went out with a receptionist, Connie, for a while. She's a poet and she wanted children. His love affairs have always been obsessive, his break-ups traumatic. When in love he loses his own identity, giving his lover nothing to love. He realises that he uses guilt to get money from his patients, much as catholics use it. He's an atheist who's been involved with religious people. He's been prepared in the past to accept some of the limitations of Catholicism and Jewish because his girlfriends (or at least their parents) were believers.

He's rather anti-tech. Somebody has created a website for his surgery. He wants to shut it down, not least because it includes obscure religious quotes about the Amalokies faith. Posts under his name start appearing on Forums - is a disgruntled patient stealing his identity? The internet's distracting him from his job so he disconnects the surgery. He learns that he's been identified as an Amalokite - after DNA testing and heredity research. Ancient texts pre-dating the Bible are found. Amalokites were anti-semitic. He meets the 17th richest man in the States, Mercer, who's in the same situation as him and has doubts. He learns from his patients to live for the moment. He proposes to Connie but she quits from the job and goes to live with a poetry teacher. The RedSox threaten to mess up at the end of a season. Mercer cashes in his assets and kills himself.

In the penultimate hour there's a too long section about Grant Arthur wanting to become a Jew - circumcision; 6 hours of study/day - but not wanting to believe in God.

Other reviews

• Alex Clark (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour at times struggles to bear the weight of its conceit (digressions into the history of the Amalekites confound after a while), but at its best it is enormously impressive: profoundly and humanely engaged with the mysteries of belief and disbelief, linguistically agile and wrongfooting, and dismayingly funny in the way that only really serious books can be)
• samstillreading (I really enjoyed the first part of the novel. It’s witty and cynical, ... Paul’s lack of direction in terms of where his life is ‘going’ is quite funny to read ... But as the novel got deeper into religion, my mind tended to wander ... Chunks of the dialogue had a textbook feel, rather than the sharply balanced wit of Paul previously. I found myself skimming over these)
• mookseandgripes (Ferris it too keen to see the best in everything and can’t quite bring himself to be coruscating enough to truly hit hard. There are many fine comic digressions but Ferris too often pulls his punches far too early and ends up passing them off as clumsy and unorthodox (and weak) high fives. The book runs up a head of acerbic steam and then fizzles out to gently satirical. It dallies with serious intent and then plays it too safe. ... It’s a novel-length outburst of good-natured dyspepsia and about 200 of its 330 pages of far-from-original neurotic posturing fly by.)

"The Museum of Failures" by Thrity Umrigar

An audio book

Remy, 35, has flown from Ohio back home to Bombay to meet Janez's neice, Monaz. He plans to adopt her unborn child. He's been married for 15 years to a white American doctor, Kathy. He'd gone to the US to be a poet. His loving father died 3 years ago, and he hasn't visited his difficult mother since. He's bought a flat near his mother's for a couple of relatives so that they can care for her. He discovers that she's in hospital (perhaps electively mute and not eating). Monaz has changed her mind about handing the baby over.

He's Parsi, a shrinking minority. He meets up with Dina, an unmarried lawyer who, he suspects, had always wanted to marry his father. He's treated rather like a foreigner in India. He's noticed the increased xenophobia in the US. Monaz changes her mind again, insisting she wants to give birth in the states. He doesn't want to tell his mother about the adoption, nor does he want to tell her about Monaz coming to the US - because his mother had wanted to stay with them in the US. Kathy convinces him to tell his mother. He does, and Monaz gets on well with her. He begins to reconnect with his culture.

We go back to before Remy was born, from his mother's third-person PoV. Her first-born Syla was mentally disabled. The father was ashamed, and wanted a second child quickly. Remy is born. Syla punched and kicked Remy. Without fore-warning or permission, the father puts Syla in a care home. He claims that the mother has neglected Remy. She's allowed to visit Syla provided she didn't tell Remy. Syla died in a fire when he was little. His mother went into a mental home for a while after. When Remy is old enough for university, his father offers to pay so that he can study in the States. His mother says that if Remy leaves, she'll tell him about Syla. She delays, and when she sees how happy Kathy makes Remy, she decides to say nothing.

Remy tells people about his late brother. His father has turned from role model to the type of person Remy doesn't want to be. His mother turns out to have some good qualities. Remy insists that Monaz tells her strict father about the arrangement. Fearfully she does. Her father wants her to keep the baby, so he does. Monaz is grateful that Remy had made her tell her father. Remy decides that it's fate. Her mother arranges for him to see a 4 y.o. orphan. Remy thinks he's too shy at first, but finds a way to make the child relax.

The dilemmas - will Monaz give the child over? will Monaz tell her father? will Remy tell his mother about the adoption? will Remy tell people about his brother? - pile up after a while

• Jenny Maattala (there is a lack of unity throughout the first book. Although necessary to lay the foundation down for what is to come, at times the dialogue is redundant and monotonous)
• bookreporter.com (In getting to know and love his mother in an altered context, Remy starts to appreciate what is precious about his homeland. ... his stream of consciousness is more like a flood of self-observation. There isn’t a sight, sound, smell or person he doesn’t react to and analyze in minute detail. ... I also wondered about Remy’s unbelievably patient wife back in Columbus.)
• Mariam Tahir (Despite its many strengths, The Museum of Failures is not without its flaws. The novel occasionally belabours its political commentary, with pages full of reflections and inner monologue. ... Moreover, despite many beautiful passages, the dialogue sometimes feels forced, relying on clichéd metaphors that detract from the gripping plot.)

"The Suffering of Strangers" by Caro Ramsay

An audio book.

Glasgow. 2017. DI Costello sees married Archie Walker (Costella's sometime lover?) with a younger (30s) woman. She's given a case where Roberta and James' baby is taken from a car, replaced by a Down's syndrome baby. She's suspicious of James.

DCI Anderson (Costello's ex-boss) is working on cold cases. He visits the house of Gillian Witherspoon (an old victim) to find that she's suddenly died. His wife sacrificed her life to save their daughter Clare. He has a son, Peter. He helped a victim, Paige. He's single in a house worth £1.2 million. He visits Sally Braithewaite, someone he knew at university, a rape victim who could help the police promote their activities. She's married to Andrew, who used to do obstetrics but is now a cosmetic surgeon.

Abegail has a medical degree. Her husband is George. Jane and Malcolm are her children. Her sister Valerie has a law degree. Archie is her godfather. She has a drinking problem and wants a child. She may have tried to influence Archie. Her husband had an affair. Sally confesses to Anderton (who was recording the conversation) that she's had the child caused by the rape, and Andrew was selling babies and had kidnapped the child. She falls off a rooftop terrace. Pushed?

Actually, Sally (or Valerie?) abducted the child. Sally had sold her baby to a family friend. The Down's syndrome child has Anderton's DNA - sally's child was his.

With audio books I have trouble remembering all the characters clearly. In this book characters like Libby Hamilton and Paige have cameo roles that bloat the cast. I'm guessing that they appear in other books of the series. The characters in general are well written, and the plot's sufficiently interesting.

Other reviews

• Kirkus reviews
• Rob Weir (My late-to-the-table status notwithstanding, this is simply not a very well written book. ... This novel is overpopulated with characters. Again, I presume that much of the detective force has been introduced in earlier novels, but be wary of reviews that say this book works as a standalone novel. It does not. I had to make lists of characters and relationships to keep them straight. This is problematic on several levels. First, my list was much longer than it needed be. Ramsay drops names in ways that give a new reader few clues as to whether the character in question is relevant, or just police station wallpaper. The same is true of past and pending cases mentioned. Second, Ramsay complicates matters by introducing new characters whose relationships to the story are murky. ... Ramsay brings all of this to a conclusion through logic-defying subterfuge. If that's not enough–and believe me, it is–Ramsay tacks on a cloudburst of coincidences that revolve around Anderson.)

"Arrows in Flight" by Caroline Walsh (ed) (Scribner/Townhouse, 2002)

Commissioned stories from Ireland - sometimes entitled "Dislocation". In her Introduction, Walsh writes "There are a number of common themes ... - alienation, isolation, disaffection"; "Not surprisingly, the plight of men in what is seen by many as a post-feminist era is centre stage in these stories"

• Barber-Surgeons (Aidan Mathews) - Bevan is the barber of Roper, a surgeon. They talk at their regular appointments (over several years) about James Bond, Catholicism, etc. Bevan prepares for their conversations. He has trouble trying to get personal details out of Roper, who sometimes disappoints him with his language and opinions. Bevan has to go into hospital. Roper visits. Bevan asks if he's ever married. Roper says he's married with 4 sons. He tells Bevan that barbers and surgeons were once part of the same brotherhood, which makes Bevan tearful. He shaves the barber and cuts his hair. On the way out he's told that Bevan's case is inoperable. At the end he tells the nurse "we were very close. We came within a hair's breadth of each other" [A moving portrait of a longterm friendship.]
• These Important Messages (Blanaid McKinney) - Matt (who's 44, surprisingly) is a priest/teacher in Belfast. 4 months ago a 14 y.o. pupil killed himself. The boy had asked Matt about God. Now he's in London for 3 days with Laura, who he's known since childhood and has started a whirlwind romance with. She works in advertising. They have sex on the bus to her flat. The adverts overwhelm him, giving him a bad headache. They wander the streets on Sunday. He thinks she's secretly snorting coke. In a restaurant he starts to pray. She storms out. He walks the streets alone then sits watching an ice sculptor with a chainsaw make an angel. As it starts melting he walks away. Back at her flat he breaks up with her. She's heartbroken. He returns to work. He's asked to perform the service for the boy.
• It is a Miracle (Eilis Ni Dhuibhne) - 3rd person PoV - Sara, Irish, an immigrant librarian, has lived with Thomas (a novelist who sells 5,000 books a year) for 10 years. He was divorced.They live by a lake. They have separate beds. Her friend Lisa, a divorced mother, tells her she's remarrying - she met a Turk while on holiday. 1st person PoV - Sara's at a conference when she's put on the same table as an Italian man who has a 20 y.o. daughter. He cries when thinking about his separated wife. It's a miracle, he says, that he's found such an understanding person to talk to. She goes with Lisa to a funfair before she leaves for Istanbul. PoV goes from 3rd person to 1st person when they're stuck on the rollercoaster, then back to 3rd person. She e-mails the man she had a meal with abroad, telling him to write. [I'm not convinced. I can't fill the gaps]
• Playboy (Sean O'Reilly) - Ishka, 30, an ex mental patient, is clowning about on Dublin's Grafton Street, offering poetry. Anne-Marie is a nearby flowerseller. He's lost some poems a woman had given him, poems by her late husband. His mother has chucked him out. He goes to Caroline. He'd met her, nearly 40, a year before. She's big, unattractive, from Belfast. She's angry with him again - "Poetry's just a blow-up doll for you," she shouts. She chucks him out too. He pub-crawls, looking for the lost poems, takes E, gets into a night-club, meets Anne-Marie, who can see he's having a bad time. He entertains, performs from the tops of cars - people love him. A group of boys kick him to death. Anne-Marie's there at the end. [I like it.]
• Night of the Quicken Trees (Claire Keegan) - Margaret moves into a cottage. She thinks she's post-menopausal. 9 years before. she lost her virginity to a priest who left the cottage to her - the baby died. She's superstitious. Stack, 49, a bald virgin, lives next door with Josephine, a goat. Margaret starts having periods again. During a powercut at Xmas he invites her in for a meal - eel. A fortune teller says she's going to have another child. She asks Stack for sex and knocks down the dividing wall. She gives birth to Michael and leaves on a boat with him.
• Australia Day (Tom Humphries) - Peter Sheeds runs an Australian-themed bar, "The Boomerang". It's become trendy to people he doesn't much like - e.g. Timmy Boyle (48), head of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, who come in with Maud, once Peter's girlfriend. Peter's worried about some medical test results. A regular tells him it's only gallstones. [several good jokes]
• Ponchos (Joseph O'Neill) - Self-absorbed William Mason has breakfast each workday in a New York eatery. There are some bar-room stories. He's been married to Elisa for 2 childless years. The pressure has affected his sexual performance. Events remind him of maxims. He has trouble in the infertility clinic. When he returns to have another try, he sees Elisa in the rain, wearing her tasselled poncho. She has an umbrella, rain dripping from it to make it look like the tasselled poncho. [Not very much in it]
• Maps (John MacKenna) - After 10 years of visiting his father on Saturdays, the persona finds his father collapsed. He goes into hospital where he stays for years, stroke-damaged. The persona, in retrospect, thinks his mother had an affair. She left for a week. She returned, wanting to be loved, but his father changed, started drinking. She died when his father was 46. The persona had a few weeks notice but his parents had known for years. The persona (whose daughter died) tries to understand what happened - who knew what and when. His father thought his mother returned because she loved him - she'd given him crucial support before the persona was born. The persona thinks that nobody loved him.
• A Nuclear Adam and Eve (Molly McCloskey) - first-person Jane met Nina when they were 10. They became close. Jane's do-gooder mother invited "sad cases" to Sunday parties. Nina had teenage problems - there was a campaign of graffiti about her - dates, lipstick colour, private nicknames - though she was never named. Jimmy saved her when the delayed effect of the graffiti hit her at university. When he (then Nina's fiancé) was in alcohol rehab, Jane offered to be part of his supportive social network. Perhaps they got too close. Jane moved to another continent [My favourite. I like the lyrical style, the analysis of feeling, the wealth of little details, the flash-forward hints, the way the sections aren't in time order. See my article]
• Gracefully, Not Too Fast (Mary Morrissy) - Ruth was good at music when young. She had singing lessons with a blind man. Then she shared lessons with Bridget - prettier, with a better voice, but poor. When Ruth discovered that Bridget was illiterate she took advantage of it. Bridget stopped coming. Before long the teacher suggested that it wasn't worth Ruth coming. Years later she's giving budding literacy tutors an introductory talk. She gives them sheet music and asks them to sing it to show them the humiliation their pupils feel. [these 2 timelines are interleaved. I like the details about the blind man's family, and the classroom of people]
• Grid Work (Keith Ridgway) - He's 7' 2" and hates flying though he needs to do lots of it. Advisors and PAs run his life. His life is full of deals, arrangements, rescheduling, traffic, avoiding head injuries.

No duds and some impressive pieces.

"Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak" by Rishi Dastidar (Nine Arches Press, 2026)

Poems from Bad Lilies, The London Magazine, Magma, etc. Yves Klein, Wittgenstein, Warhol and Tolstoy are mentioned in titles. There are poems after pieces by Muriel Spark, Kevin Young, Vance Packer, Khadija Saye, A Tribe Called Quest and Michael Craig-Martin.

I thought I'd have trouble with this, and I was right. Many of the poems are beyond me.

• "A man of theory on the Via Publica" includes "110. Who needs a doctor or a best friend/ when you can have a press officer?", which is the only worthwhile part of the 14 part, 1.5 page poem, but it's a sentence that could easily fit into a comic novel.
• On p.27 the lines are ended with a slash and a linebreak.
• In 'Grand Rapid Prodigal', the 3rd stanza ends with "baffle-" and the 4th stanza starts with "ment". I wondered about this and so I did some counting. The first 5 stanzas are 4-lined. I can't see a rhyme pattern. I counted beats and couldn't see a pattern. I counted syllables - 10/9/10/9, 12/9/9/10, 8/9/7/9, 8/7/8/9, 9/9/7/10 - and couldn't see a pattern. The lines (except for the last) are all nearly the same physical length - is that why "bafflement" is hyphenated? So that no line pokes out? But why bother with box shaped stanzas?
• I'm puzzled by "Don't ask/ 'Where is my handshake?', try instead// buying a white single-stem rose/ for the gauche puppy you think// you'll never love - but you might" (p.69)
• "Reverse ghazal daguerrotype" has 7 couplets all having the first line "But then - and you ... again"
• "Flashback jukebox" has 9 couplets, each having the last word "jukebox".
• "Homophonically" is light wordplay, not really worth a poem - "Bear in mind you/ are nearly always/ bare in my mind" is 3/8ths of it.

Other reviews

• in Conversation with Sarah Howe (the idea of transience [] felt like a keynote sounding through the collection ... across all your books, you’ve been interested in history, in a variety of ways. And that’s true of this book, no less. There are numerous poems here that evoke and invoke poets of the past.)

"The Twist of a Knife" by Anthony Horowitz

An audio book.

The persona (Horowitz himself, sort of) wants to stop working with Hawthorne (ex-police) on books. He writes a play, "Mindgames", a comedy-thriller which gets to London after a succesful tour. The star, Tirian, is soon to appear in Tenet (he has a low opinion on the script and director). The first night is attended by the usual critics, including Harriet whose review, the first out, is vicious, suggesting among other things that Horovitz should stick to writing thrillers for kids because the audience is less discerning (Horovitz wrote the Alex Rider series). She also writes that it's neither comedy nor thriller though it tries to be both. Next day police knock at Horowitz's door and arrest him for murdering Harriet at 10am that morning. A knife (given to him by Akmed, the producer) with his fingerprints on it was the murder weapon. He's met the detectives Cara and Derek Mills before - he hoodwinked them and they want revenge. Hawthorne gets him released with the help of Kevin (a wheelchaired teenage hacker). Horowitz thinks that one of the cast framed him. He and Hawthorne interview the suspects. Harriet's daughter hated her and felt sorry for her hen-pecked father. Sky, an actress, has a rich father and is friends with Harriet's daughter. Akmed is going bust but Muriel still adores him. The director left his wife for an actress disfigured by a fire in one of his plays. Jordan, a native american, fears cultural appropriation. Harriet wrote a book, "Bad Boys", about Martin Longhurst (Akmed's accountant) - his 10 y.o. brother Stephen and a friend killed a teacher in a prank. His rich parents gave the teacher's widow money so their son could appear less guilty. It emerges that a theatre critic died years before, after writing a cutting review of a Horovitz play, "The handbag".

The police go to Horovitz's house to arrest him. His wife is there, and believes the police. Horowitz stays the night at Hawthorne's temporary flat, looking around while he's there to learn more about the man.

Hawthorne brings all the suspects together and in traditional fashion (so that Horowitz can make notes, Hawthorne says) explains what happened. Tirian killed Harriet because she was going to reveal that he was Stephen's accomplice. He tried to frame Jordan but messed up. Horowitz plans to make the tale into a novel. Hawthorne demands a big cut.

Does it successfully combine thriller and comedy? For me it does. I liked how writers are made fun of. Whenever Horowitz enters a house he checks to see if his books are on the shelves. A character has never forgotten how as a child he sent his favourite author a letter and never got an answer. Horowitz worries that he was the author in question. After reading the book I found that Horovitz wrote a play, "Mindgame", in 2001, etc.

Other reviews

• Viv Beeby

"Deep Cuts" by Holly Brickley

An audio book.

The 2000s in Berkeley, USA. Each chapter is headed by a song title, the song being played in the chapter or having a thematic significance. Percy (her first name's actually Eileen) is into indie music - she writes in a zine things like "I can't mush because my boobs are too big". She and Jo assess his songs and those of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, etc. His mother died young, his father started drinking and music's his therapy. Zoe's been his girlfriend for 5 years. He's been adopted by her family. Last year she told him she was gay. She tells Percy that she's cute and she can have him - she's already his music muse. Jo and Zoe become the first close friends she's made. When Jo and Zoe split, Zoe tries to chat up Percy who gently disappoints her. Percy tries to seduce Jo, who'd rather keep her as a music collaborator than a lover. Jo has to leave uni now that Zoe won't help him with his essays/exams. He starts a band called "Caroline" named after his mother and goes touring. Percy wants to lose her virginity before ending uni so she has sex with an ex in a car. It hurt. She starts mixing with prose writers, living with one of them, Raj. They don't have penetrative sex. Jo returns for a night and they have good sex. He admits that he'd slept with many groupies. When she angrily leaves him he finds solace in another girl.

Percy, by now 23, rushes to her parents, confesses to Raj (who dumps her), then decides she might as well complete the MFA writing course she's on. She confides in Zoe, writing long letters and getting practical advice, flat-sharing with her. On her blog she doesn't highlight the latest break-out indies, she uses songs to talk about herself, but she's running out of things to say.

She gets a job seeking Trendsetters. She gets Caroline's 2nd CD. She's thanked on it, but that's all. Jo gets the labelling corrected on the 2nd pressing so that she's a co-writers for some of the tracks. She goes to a concert of his and he asks if she's in the audience. His bassist, Luke Skinner, has left to start his own group. He asks her for help with producing. Jo is jealous.

She loses her job. She meets Jo by chance. He's odd-jobbing, doing the occasional tour. His most successful tracks are hers. They wonder if writing songs together is good for them. Zoe's moving out. They sleep together and think about buying a house.

Other reviews

• Alexanger Larman (charming but slightly precious)
• Kritika Narula
• 1girl2manybooks (It did not feel to me, like Joe was in love with Percy. It felt like Joe was in love with the impact Percy’s knowledge of music and arranging could have on his songs, and therefore, make him well known)