"The Bones Beneath My Skin" by TJ Klune

An audio book.

1995. Nate, 27, hasn't seen his parents for years. His father chucked him out for being gay. Now his father's killed himself and his mother, leaving Nate a cabin and a truck. He drives to the cabin to think about his life. He's lost his journalism job in Washington. An armed ex-marine, Alex, and a 10 y.o. girl, Art, have broken in. The girl can read fast, has never eaten bacon or seen toast, and may have special powers. She asks Nate direct questions that Nate sometimes finds therapeutic. She often speaks using phrases from Westerns - the books she's read. Nate wonders whether they're on the run. He fancies Alex and wonders whether the feeling's reciprocated. He manages to phone ex-colleague Ruth Davis, asking her for info about missing persons. Alex disappeared 10 years ago - some kind of secret soldier. The FBI arrive, describing the girl as an "it", saying that it's a test to see how the "it" would react to someone like Alex. The 3 of them escape despite roadblocks and helicopters.

20 years before, Art had landed on Earth, and started a symbiotic association with a man. The man was captured. Then Art transferred to the body of a brain-dead girl. Alex is helping Art to return home - Art's sure their race will return. The aliens only wanted humans to know that they are never alone. Nate wants the same message. Art is concerned about how Alex will cope when Art goes. Art lets Nate see into Alex's mind. Alex tells Nate he's bisexual.

We then get the story about Art's incarceration, how Alex (weakened by grief) was used in a test to see if Art could control people. Alex helped Art escape.

A comet has appeared. They track down Peter, the man who was Art's first host. He's started a Vegan community. He sees Art, a girl possessed by the being who once possessed him. He's a cult leader. He poisons his followers and drugs Nate and Alex, forcing them to play a Russian Roulette game until Art agrees to take him and his followers onto her mother ship. They manage to kill Peter. The FBI have found them. They escape thanks to Art's psychokinetic powers. The aliens arrive to take her away. She decides to stay.

17 years later: they've been living with new identities. The aliens arrive again. This time Art goes.

The mix of genres (including comedy) is entertaining. I like the opportunities that SF offers for the exploration of grief and love - how much does the body matter? How much can one know about an other? How many dates are tests or manipulations? Art seems like an autistic person learning about love.

Other reviews

• booksbonesbuffy (Klune explores several heavy themes, like family and belonging, and loss and grief, but also what it means to be human.)
• whatisquinnreading
• Annie Mills (Unfortunately, as the characters drive the story, the plot and the action take a backseat. It moves slowly at first; the characters spend a lot of time meandering around the cabin and sharing quiet, intimate moments together before they finally find a reason to leave or explain the truth behind what’s going on. That slow pace can feel frustrating at times, and it takes quite a while for the novel to really find its feet. ... The fact of the matter is, The Bones Beneath My Skin doesn’t have quite the same shine as some of the author’s later books. It’s a little messier and less refined.)
• Chris Kluwe
• Julia Kitvaria Sarene (There’s also beautiful LGBTQ+ representation, not just through the m/m romance, but through the gentle way the story affirms identity. The idea that people have the right to choose who they are and what they’re called is treated with quiet respect, and it adds another layer of warmth and acceptance to the story.)
• haleysbookhaven.com (the chemistry between Nate and Alex was severely lacking. They were bonded by proximity and their mutual fatherly love for Artemis, but I didn’t get the sense that if they’d met in more ordinary circumstances that they would have fallen in love. Art was the glue that held them together, and without her I suspect they’d eventually fall apart. ... How do you grieve a parent who committed such a crime as to kill your other parent? These questions are only ever briefly touched on. By not exploring them, Klune did a disservice to Nate’s character and the book itself. The plot of this novel is predictable and a lot of the time it’s meandering as well. That isn’t to say it isn’t entertaining, though. This is a cozy book, but there are also moments of darkness and tension and crazy action scenes, too.)

"All shook up" by Trebor Blanc

An audio book.

Preston. Covid is just about to start. Tommy West, 49, Elvis Impersonator, has been married twice and has a daughter Cilla who is his contact with his money-grabbing second wife. His van etc is all under his first wife's name. She's long been dead. He likes hash, and deals in it, specialising in old varieties. He's just about solvent. After a gig, Penny propositions him, recalling his one-hit-wonder days. She's fancied him since school. They go back to his flat. She tidies up and returns the next night, getting his key from Bernard, a married neighbour in exchange for sex. Meek Bernard's wife has revenge sex with Tommy.

Penny returns with a suitcase. She's been battered. Tommy takes her in and threatens her ex using karate moves from his act. His flat is broken into. Kevin Jackson is a thug who insists that Tommy performs for him, though he's been pre-booked on that day. Because of Covid Kevin's concert can't go ahead. Tommy has to return the deposit, but is skint. Kevin offers him a job instead - to transport an illegal immigrant from the coast. There are issues with a brothel managing to stay open. Trans-dressers come in handy.

Quite short. Some laughs. Some emotional loose ends.

Other reviews

• goodreads (2.9/5)

"The Essex Serpent" by Sarah Perry (Serpent's Tail, 2016)

London, 1893. Dr Luke Garrett (32, short, lame - nicknamed "the Imp") has fallen in love with Cora Seaborne, young widow of one of his patients. He's barely solvent. She encourages him. He has a tall, fair friend, George Spenser. After the funeral, Cora goes with maid Martha (a socialist) and son Francis (11, obsessive) to Colchester. She's not sad. She enjoys nature, collecting fossils. She's told about the Essex Serpent, a winged water-dragon that appeared in the area in 1669 then disappeared until an earthquake 8 years before re-awakened it. Charles (a political colleague of her late husband who's worried about Darwin's ideas) and his wife Katherine happen to be there. They suggest that she stay with William Ransome (a parson who lives on the nearby estuary at Aldwinter) and his wife Stella to explore nature. Their children are John, Joanna and James. Martha dislikes Spenser, though he likes her and donates money to her social housing cause. Garrett become famous among peers for successfully performing a difficult operation in Edward Burton, the victim of a knife attack. Martha subsequently befriends him because of his difficult housing situation.

Cora, Martha and Francis move to Adwinter. Cora tells William that he's wasting a good mind on religion - myth and legend. They both see a ship - an illusion. Cracknell is an old believer who once groped her. He fears the water-dragon. Martha influences William's clever daughter Joanna, who drifts from her friend Naomi. Cora gives a talk about fossils at Joanna's school. She doesn't rule out the existence of the water-dragon. The class of children seem possessed for a while. She asks Luke to visit her and help. Garret hypnotises Joanna. Her father is furious and severs contact with Cora. Cora returns to London.

Stella has consumption. At her prompting, Cora and William dance together, which angers Garrett, who sleeps with Martha. Willian defaces an old carving of the water serpent in his church. Cracknell dies - a victim of the serpent? Naomi disappears. Back in London, Edward's attacker attacks Garrett, damaging his right hand. Garrett proposes to Cora. Edward proposes to Martha. Both are rejected.

One morning there's a stench over the village. They go to the shore and find a 20ft rotting fish. The village celebrates - the mystery explained. Katherine contacts Cora to update her and question how she's cut herself off from Garrett and the Ransomes. Cora restores contact. She visits Stella, who's obsessed with all things blue and gets on well with Francis. Then Cora meets William in a field and they have sex after arguing. Meanwhile, Garrett considers suicide. What changes his mind is Spenser's friendship, though he hits Spenser when he next sees him, blaming him. Francis and Naomi's father think they see/hear a monster. Naomi is found in Colchester. She and Joanna, friends again, think they see/hear a monster. It's Naomi's father's lost boat, named after his dead wife. Stella is found by the water. Francis has helped her there. Martha is with Edward.

I remained interested, wondering where the various subplots would go. 2 little things -

• I like "I've never liked the look of you (do you mind?). But I seem to have learned you by heart" (p.259 - William in a letter to Cora)
• In "his visitor dredged her chips with vinegar" (p.203) should that be "drenched"?

Other reviews

• novelnotions
• M John Harrison (a novel of ideas, though its sensibility is firmly, consciously, even a little cheekily, gothic ... Perry artfully exploits her monster’s symbolic potential, leaving the reader to sort the many subtexts from the good red herrings, displaying both with a collectorly enthusiasm, on equal terms)
• julias-books (Perry also explores the position of women, from Cora, the scientist, for whom marriage had “so degraded her expectations of happiness” and for whom widowhood and thus the single life had “freed her from the obligation to be beautiful”, to Stella the model dutiful Victorian wife and mother, afflicted by a quintessentially 19th century illness. There is also Martha, Cora’s maid (although her exact position in the household slightly defies definition!), also a political activist who utilises the connections she has made through Cora to further her Marxist leanings.)
• j.d.levin (For the first 100+ pages, Perry's book wanders and winds through several seemingly unconnected storylines, leaving the reader without much of a solid thread to follow. ... many readers will undoubtedly meander through chapter after chapter of passable prose until stumbling upon a profound passage or plot point. Perry is strongest when she subverts expectations - which she does frequently throughout the novel.)
• bookssnob (the issue that I have with most modern fiction is the trend to have several plots happening at once, with a wide cast of characters doing things that are entirely unnecessary to the main story and are merely there for some sort of metaphorical significance. Such is the case with The Essex Serpent. What could have been a marvellously thought provoking novel about the conflict between faith, science, reason and doubt in the nineteenth century became a series of diluted romances between people who didn’t really seem to interact with or be necessary to one another at all, and the actual story of the serpent did get rather lost somewhere along the way.)

"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.