"Really Good, Actually" by Monica Heisey

An audio book.

Toronto, 2019. Maggie (first-person, an over-thinker who's a lecturer) was a plump teenager who suddenly over-dieted before meeting John when they were 19. They married. Now, at 28, he's moved out. Nobody's fault really, it seems. Her supportive friends are Amira (in a year-long partnership, still a flirt), Clive (gay) and 2 Laurens, one of them emotional. She has a sister Hanna and divorced parents. She lists the things she and John did together, the things they disliked about each other, the things that happen in films to divorcing couples. John takes their cat.

She makes friends with Amy, a divorcee. She considers cosmetic surgery. She binge-buys (we get another list - she likes lists and listacles) and moves into a cheaper place. She's curious about how John's getting on. His friends let slip that he's dating again. A barista rejects her. She "flirted like a baby deer learning to walk". She lets mutual friend Kalvin stay the night. No touching, but it was nice. She reckons she's 30% gay and starts sleeping with both genders. She sleeps with Kalvin after all, then doesn't see him again. She meets a new man, Simon, then breaks up with him after an argument about his trust in therapy and her difficulty with being pitied. We learn that she's been phoning/texting John at least daily even though he's not been replying for several months. She very much wants him back.

Her life's a disaster, she thinks, but her tweets about it are doing great. She tries, half-heartedly, a threesome. She thinks about getting back with Simon, though when he phones she says she needs space. She stays at her father's. She helps at a dog shelter. She and Amy share a place. She feels happy being single. Simon txts to wish her a happy birthday. She's happy about that too.

There are several smart one-liners - e.g. "a level of fun I've never met outside of an advert for a chain restaurant"; "you cannot spring a goatee on someone!" - but the plot-trajectory is no surprise. Her range of distraction activities seem to work in the end - they're entertaining enough, though there are sections that don't seem to do much. It feels like an overlong book.

Other reviews

• Shahidha Bari (a book full of millennial witticisms and reliably regular deadpan turns. But the seemingly tireless facility for jokes and comic self-deprecation can also be wearing ... There’s certainly a breezy confidence to Heisey’s mode of storytelling via text messages and Tinder correspondence, but quickfire DM exchanges in an age of internet dating can also read like comedy sketches, obstructing the possibility of real insight.)
• Sarah Collins (I am a fan of complicated female characters, but I needed a bit more depth here, I needed more development, and I needed a bit more of a plot, ultimately that’s why this fell flat for me.)

"The well of Saint Nobody" by Neil Jordan

An audio book.

They first met when she, Tara, was a piano player, 15, and he, William, nearly 30, was a music judge. He commented on her small hands. They briefly met 6 years later in her post-punk years, then at Brighton (no details provided at first - later we learn it was a one-night stand). Years later, during Covid, in a county Cork coffee bar, he puts up an ad asking for a housekeeper. He's over 70 and has moved into the Rectory. He has psoriasis making his hands bleed. She starts the job. He doesn't recognise her. She helps him unpack - unpacking his life, she quips. There's an old well in the garden. She gets Peter (a clingy ex) to clear it. She provides a legend related to it, about healing, and indeed his bleeding hands are healed by the moss. He starts playing again. She thinks the well's being fed by the sea. They start sleeping together. When she tells him that they slept together in Brighton, they separate for 3 weeks. She doesn't tell him that she had a child who might well be William's.

2 junkies are in a Cleethorpes caravan. One of them has OD'd. The other takes his name, Alistair, and credit card. He was adopted. The new Alistair tried to find the biological mother. He watches Tara, looks around her house. He fishes while squatting in a caravan. They talk. He says that he'd been an addict, that the therapist had told him to find her. She decides to tell William about Alistair but he's not in. She tells her story down the well. Alistair breaks into William's house and looks around.

Later William sees Tara and "Alistair" on the beach, thinking that Tara's found a new boyfriend. William's moved - "It came to him, like all emotional things, too late to be of any use whatsoever". He's relieved when Tara says he's her son. "Alistair" tells Tara he's not her son and never pretended to be. She pushes him down the well. William and Tara eat 4 fish from the deep freeze - given by "Alistair". The well gains a reputation. People visit to be cured.

Alistair hadn't died. A year later he arrives in a wheelchair, still recovering. He stays. Eventually he's able to play the piano again, one-handed.

The author uses "she thought to herself". Fair enough. Jemery and ex-wife Suzanna (a literature lecturer) seem part of a detachable side-plot. The book has the coincidences of fairy tale, but I had the most trouble believing in Tara's feelings for William.

Other reviews

• John Banville

"three-toed gull" by Jesper Svenbro (Northwest University Press, 2003)

Poems from Kenyon Review, Parnassus, Chicago Review, etc. Most are at least a page long.

The Postscript by the co-translator Lars-Hakan Svensson is revealing -

• "The Starlings" ... begins with the speaker watching a swarm of starlings ... in Rome ... as [] the starlings settle down to sleep the speaker is reminded of a famous passage in Virgils's Aeneid that compares the souls of the dead to birds ... this association momentarily results in writer's block dispelled by the sudden appearance of a soldier who ... comments ... "They certainly know how to look after themselves!" ... the speaker imagines that the birds [dream of] a beautiful October afternoon ... This ... vision conjures up another presence ... that of a deceased friend ... Ludovica Koch, who was a connoisseur of ... Gutar Ekelof who, in his turn, wrote magnificant poems about Italy ... in the final lines ... flying up from a field, the starlings cause the two friends to "look into the sun" . [This poem] contains several features of Svenbro's mature manner (p.121)
• In the late 1960s and 1970s strong political pressures were brought to bear on Swedish poets (p.123)
• Svenbro had discovered Ponge partly through ... Printz-Pahlson ... who taught Scandinavian literature for many years at Cambridge University (p.124)
• Svenbro's discovery of contemporary Italian poetry, which after decades of restraint underwent a remarkable metamorphosis in the 1970s: suddenly it was possible to write "orphic poetry, political poetry, narrative and gestural poetry" ... A Roman poet Valentino Zeichen [] alerted him to various ways in which linguistic material of a supposed nonliterary kind could be incorporated as poetry (p.124)
• the previously restrained or concealed autobiographical impulse emerges as the dominant force, relegating the metapoetic or mimopoetic (p.125)
• Regrettably, neither Svenbro's very early work nor his most recent book is included, as they pose difficulties that the translators have not felt able to master (p.126)

A number of the early poems are what the Flash world would describe as braided pieces - 2 narratives are interlaced.

• In the history of the human voice the tendons of the skeleton/ form the sinews, the abutments of different vowel systems/ articulated around a constantly variable/ yet incorruptible consonant; the skeleton itself (p.7)
• So the poem is only the shroud left on the ground/ where its miserable crumpled heap is only a measure/ of victory announced by the butterfly's wings/ now ablaze in the sun when it finally flies out of language/ affirming its brilliant and dizzying love (p.10)
• The incident of the Soviet submarine in Goose Bay/ raises the issue of how we want our archipelago poetry to look ... Swedish literature's long-standing prioritisation of the air-force/ has gradually resulted in a visually advanced poetry (p.11)
• Seeing that so-called nature poetry ever since Romanticism/ is best defined as a thoroughly realized simile/ whose epic context simply has gotten lost,/ we repeat on this winter day the experiment/ of taking our stand in a simile near the middle of the Iliad (p.22)

I find some of these pieces interesting, and some other fragments (like "For a moment I am a prisoner/ of the poem I am writing", p.118) interesting but I can't bring myself to like any of the poems. "The Starlings" comes closest.

"Eurotrash" by Christian Kracht (Serpent's Tail, 2024)

25 years ago the narrator (now 41) wrote a novel, "Faserland" that ended in Zurich. He's been visiting his mother there monthly. Now she's phoned to ask him to come straight away. She's 80+, and had been in a psychiatric ward. Her father had been in the SS, then in a denazification camp, and had been into S/M involving young Icelandic women. The narrator's godfather had been into expensive S/M. His father, Christian Kracht, rich, is 10 years dead. The narrator saw George Clare in Suffolk to find out about his father's war history.

On her 80th birthday his mother told him that a bikeshop owner raped her several times when she was 11. He was raped when 11 in a anadian Boarding School. He was eccentric as a young man, wearing make-up until at 27 he wrote his novel with the PoV of an autistic snob. He's lived in New York, Tibet, Bangkok, etc. He thinks his father was autistic. He wonders if his mother was ever mad.

While with his mother he suddenly decides to take her on a holiday. He discovers that she has a colostomy bag. She used to (and still does) pretend to be dead. She drinks. She takes out of the bank the money she gained from arms investment, planning to give it away. People try to steal their money. We're told random facts about his life with elaboration - he's married, he'd set his Elementary school on fire, Bowie's his hero, etc. He hopes the holiday will be cathartic for him.

They argue. He comforts her with stories. She says she's had a life of disappointment, that's he's a bad son and that he writes badly.In the dark they look for Borges' grave (a novel of his ended like that) They're stuck in a cable car for 2 hours and she has to change her bag.

He'd promised to take her to Africa. In the end they mostly go around Switzerland seeing places from their past. When he returns her to her home (she's been asleep during the journey back) he says it's Africa and she plays along?

Other reviews

• Marcel Theroux (Eurotrash is a knowing book, with excursions into German history and allusions to Shakespeare, myth and pop culture. Part of its charm is the voice of its narrator, a self-aware snob-insider who is anatomising the avarice and insecurity of the privileged class he was born into. ... What stops the book from being just smart-alecky is the profound tenderness and insight it brings to bear on the mother-son relationship at its heart.)
• readingmatters (I have seen other reviews brand Eurotrash as auto-fiction, but I don’t know if that is true or whether it would be more accurate to describe it as meta-fiction)
• Jason Williamson (While Kracht’s life no doubt shapes the story, the narrator is nonetheless unreliable—as was the case in Faserland—often admitting to memory lapses or by getting facts wrong, such as the title of David Bowie’s final album. Thus, while the text regularly suggests a certain autobiographical authenticity, it then undercuts its own veracity, leaving the reader to decide what to believe.)
• Mphuthumi Ntabeni (This novel is in dialogue with its predecessor, Faserland. ... For example, he artistically personalises an abstract idea like Gedächtnislosigkeit (lack of memory) by making the mother of the Eurotrash narrator an alcoholic who is addicted to drugs that suppress her memory.... The stoma bag plays a metaphoric role in Kracht’s clever writing, as if she is dragging around the stink of personal and national history that he, as her son (progeny), must learn how to clean and change. ... Each time they try to give away some of the money she has withdrawn from her private bank, something comes up to distract them.)

"Lineage most lethal" by S.C. Perkins

An audio book.

Lucy Lancester (about 30 years old) researches people's family trees for a living. Pippa Sutton has employed her. Roselyn (Pippa's mother) doesn't want her side of the family history to be investigated. Her great-grandfather was in British Special Ops. At an event in a hotel Pippa owns, an unknown man gives Lucy an expensive pen as he dies, saying "keep them safe".

Lucy's grandpa is in his 90s. He's a pen collector. When Lucy shows him the pen he swaps it for another before she gives it in to the police. Grandpa used to be a spy. The dead man was Hugh, a forensic accountant and conspiracist. The pen held a microdot reader. They need to find the microdot. By subterfuge they get it from Hugh's possessions at the station. It contains a partly solved coded message which can only be solved if they find a particular edition of "The 39 steps". They think that the message is 8 names of descendents of the 8 spies involved with grandpa's mission. The chef (who'd had an affair with Roselyn) was the great-grandson of a spy. He's found dead - stabbed. Grandad has a car accident. A woman who's also on the list is found dead. They discover that someone else has been seeking old editions of "The 39 steps".

Lucy's car brakes fail when she and Pippa are in the car. They survive uninjured. Roselyn has a gambling addition which explains her odd behaviour. Mrs P (employed by Pippa) ties up Pippa and Lucy. She's upset that her ancestors were tainted because her great-grandfather was a traitor, and is taking revenge. Pippa and Lucy are saved by Roselyn and the police. Roselyn had thought that her ancestors were traitors but in fact they were heroes.

Slow, partly because characters explain to other character things that the reader already knows. And "she was visibly limping" needs work.

"Yellowface" by Rebecca F. Kuang (The Borough Press, 2024)

Novelist Juniper (June) Hayword, 27, is having a late drink with her more beautiful and much more successful writer friend of 9 years, Athena Liu, when Athena chokes and dies, despite June's Heimlich attempts. They met at Yale. Juniper takes Athena's just-completed manuscript, gets it accepted and with editor Daniella's help produces version without Athena's pretention, tragedy porn and obscurity. "The Last Front" is about the plight of Chinese volunteers in WW1 Normandy. She reads the source material, tries to learn Mandarin, and exagerates the depth of her friendship with Athena in case people doubt her authorship or see signs of Athena's style.

She publishes the book as Juniper Song (the middle name her hippy mother gave her). She turns down the option of using a sensitivity reader. The book's a big success. She sees Athena's ghost at a reading. She'd seen how Athena was transformed into a celeb (bio details cherry-picked) and feels it happen to herself. Adverse crits and accusations pour in. @AthenaLiusGhost's posts are the most upsetting. People rake through her old, offhand posts seek evidence. Support arrives later. People start attacking Athena's ethnic credentials - she used "almond-shaped eyes". June discovers that @AthenaLiusGhost is Geoff - Athena's white ex whose first novel flopped. Athena had talked to him about "The Last Front". June calls his bluff when he tries to blackmail her. Someone posts that "This book is so racist that it's obvious only a white person could have written it". We learn that Athena stole words from her for a student mag story.

After pressure for a follow-up she produces a novella, "Mother Witch", that starts with a sentence or 2 of Athena's then is about her (June's) mum. It gets respectful reviews. Then posts appear from others saying that they have the same sentence or 2 - Athena shared them at a workshop. The posts speculate on how much of the rest of the story was original.

Athena's mum still had Athena's notebooks. She doesn't want to read/reveal them in case they're embarrassing. Right-wing organisations support June. Her sales rise again. She wonders whether to give up writing, but she needs it. To conquer writers block she goes observing - real life becomes plot-twists. Her agent suggests IP work. She goes back to teaching and is inspired (she'd forgotten that writing could be a communal activity), but realises she's adapting students' ideas. She picks on a student who wonders whether June killed Athena and stole her manuscript. She goes to her mother's house, where she grew up. Her mother's going to sell it. June's old notebooks are there. Her mother wants her to retrain as an accountant. Somebody posts a review of her book, showing in detail how it seems to be written by 2 people. She's suddenly inspired to write when she has the idea of writing up the true story - something much like "Yellowface".

Anthena's account revives. June asks for a meeting. At night, at the top of steps, June converses with Athena's voice, confesses. Actually it's Candice, who lost her publishing job because of June. Candice has it all video-recorded. They fight. June wakes up in hospital. She realises that Candice can't reveal the video evidence without risking assault charges. She works out how to portray her book at a hoax and expose the rotten foundation of the publishing industry.

I enjoyed it - I understood most of the in-jokes and recognised the character types. June's sister Rory (Aurora), mentioned near the start, gets to speak briefly, half way through. She's an ordinary mother. I don't know why she's in the book at all.

The author has a MPhil from Cambridge, UK. I learnt that "barcons" are bar gathering at literary events.

Other reviews

• Anthony Cummins (it’s a thriller about the book trade – the appeal is niche – and you can sense Kuang’s uncertainty about what does and doesn’t need explaining)
• Wamuwi Mbao (ultimately as much about the loneliness of the writing craft as it is about theft, appropriation, guilt and complicity ... June is always close to grasping what the reader immediately perceives about herself and Athena: that, regardless of who succeeds and who fails, they are united by the loneliness of their chosen lives ... there are structural problems that take the polish off the novel. While Kuang is good at sustaining the vivid tension-and-reveal tempo, there are only so many times the fizzing fuse can be deployed before the reader’s patience begins to wear thin. ... The other problem is one of time stretch.... Yellowface manages the trick of feeling current, but there are moments of timeline yo-yo that tangle and pull at our suspension of reality)
• Brenna Taitano (when I completed my first listen, I agreed with some of the more negative reviews: hastily ended chapters, foreboding that never gets addressed, and weak metaphors. )
• Trevor Pateman (Kuang has a lot of fun and makes us laugh though there is sufficient (and clever) ambiguity to allow opposing sides to laugh at the same gags)

"Normal Rules Don't Apply" by Kate Atkinson

An audio book.

'The Void' - 2028. Barbara's a doctor. Her daughter's moved back to her to be within a school's catchment area. In a 5 minute incident all people who are outside die.

‘Dogs in Jeopardy’ - Franklin goes for a job interview. He's asked questions like "if you were a sanwich, what type would you be?" A horse tells him to bet on it. He wins £10k. Returning to his car, a dog talks to him.

'Blithe Spirit' - Mandy is a ghost. She was married to Greg and worked for a MP, Jonathon.

‘Spellbound’ - A fairy tale (where a childless queen is granted a wish and had a child, but breaks a promise) and a story (about a clergyman's family of 5 daughter and a son) are interleaved - the mother is a fairy-tale expert is is recounting the fairy tale. The princess is told that she and her mother will be released from a spell if she gives the witch a baby boy. A new au pair arrives at the family's house, asking to see the boy.

‘The Indiscreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ – Franklin stumbles into a relationship with Connie, 32. She takes him to visit her family. He's asked what instrument he'd like to be.

'Shine, Pamela, Shine!' - a retired, ever-inspiring primary school teacher whose been divorced for 15 years had 2 kids. His re-married ex had 2 kids.

‘Existential Marginalization’ - Tillie's toys dread her. One day she runs into the road and is put on life support until she is "switched off". The father leaves, the mother remarries. She chooses 2 toys to take to their new home and burns the others.

'Classic Quest 17. Crime and punishment' - Franklin and Connie plan a quick marriage. One of her sisters tries to sleep with him. Her father's found stabbed dead. He's arrested.

'Puppies and rainbows' - On a break from a film ("In a time of madness"), US actress Skylar (brought up on a trailer site) visits the Greenacres set, shown around by Franklin. She dates Price Alfie. An under-age porn film of hers is found. She has to give uup the prince though she oves him.

'Gene-sis' -Kittie recreates the world. Unicorns? She tries talking dogs and horses.

'What-if' - Franklin's driving a woman - a new assistant at the studio. She tells him what happened when she turned to the witch with a boy - the witch was dead. After "The divide" (?) the Classic Quest series remained popular, especially with middle-aged women. He gets royalties.

I had an audio book, so making notes was difficult. There may well be mistakes in the above. I'm unconvinced that all the interconnections are fruitful. The stories are entertaining a paragraph at a time, but I don't think any of the pieces could survive stand-alone as they are.

Other reviews

• Alex Clark
• Justine Jordan
• karissareadsbooks (Many of the stories end on an abrupt reveal or transition. Just as we might be beginning to understand the rules of the universe, it’s too late and we’re on to the next story. The fact that characters show up again helps and I therefore trusted Atkinson to take me through and explain where we were. For me, that explanation never came in a satisfying way.)
• Blue book balloon (There is an explanation, sort of, for the coincidences and links, lending a distinctly metaphysical touch to the book. It adds its own charm but the rest of the stories still very much stand in their own terms, every one of them. My favourite would, though, I think be Existential Marginalisation)