MY LIFE ON THE ROAD by Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem, glorious feminism goddess, now in her eighties, was in NZ in May for the Auckland Writers' Festival. I didn't get to go to her session - it was one of the first ones completely sold out, but I did read the review of the session. The review itself oozes adoration of this woman, and is an inspiring read in itself, I so wish I had been there.
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Quite literally her whole life has been in the orbit of the women's rights movement, with a grandmother being a delegate to the 1908 International Council of Women, amongst other achievements. Gloria's own observations of the way her mentally ill mother was treated by the male dominated health system and working environment of the 1940s and 1950s shaped her early feminist views, paving her future path. She is, quite simply, an amazing woman.

I actually knew very little about her prior to reading this book, only that she was a feminist icon, that she had founded Ms magazine, and if you wanted an opinion on anything to do with feminism, equal pay, abortion, same sex relationships, civil rights, womens' rights and health issues, then Ms Steinem was a great starting point. This book covers all those topics and a whole heap  more, but not written at all in a know-it-all fashion, in fact quite humbly and modestly, her main mission being to educate, enlighten, and to bring about social justice.  You can tell she is angry about these injustices, but I also think she has become resigned to the way our society is structured, controlled and managed by, essentially men.  Although she does have more than few things to say about how women have been brainwashed into not being 100% supportive of other women. She cites the negative reactions to Hilary Clinton when she and Barak Obama were both fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, and how women abortion picketers would turn up for an abortion, then later in the day be back out on the picket line.  Ms Steinem has been actively involved in every election campaign in the US since 1972. What would she make of the current electioneering going on at the moment? Unfortunately this book was already published.

I would guess that she never really had much time to give reflection to her life during her years of her most prolific activity. Now that she is older, and maybe has had time to think back on her life, this is where this book has come from. She looks at her life as being almost like that of a nomad,  of no fixed abode, always moving on and moving around, putting her immense talents where they are most needed. She takes the reader back to her childhood, to her life on the road with her parents until they separated when she was about ten. The family lived in a trailer, her father being a travelling antiques dealer. Her mother, it would seem, was an incredibly talented woman, a writer and journalist, who gave all that up when she became a mother. Mental illness eventually resulted in her parents separating, Gloria and her older sister living with their mother, and giving her her first insight into the unequal treatment of women, particularly working women, in society at the that time - 1940s/19050s.

Her path as an activist really began following a two year scholarship trip to India in the late 1960s, which opened her eyes hugely to injustice, and Ghandi's use of peaceful means to achieve results. Once back in America her quest for equality for women, Indian Americans, and African Americans truly began.  This book meanders back and forth through the years from the early 1970s to the present day, full of her tales on the road dealing with issues relating to these groups. She speaks to everyone she meets, recording their conversations, their stories, and using them to illustrate her causes - taxi drivers, nurses and doctors in abortion clinics, air hostesses, teachers, mums, campaign workers, politicians.  She has a special affinity for the American Indians, living on reservations for long periods of time, learning their cultural heritage, advocating for greater recognition of their traditions and ways of achieving results. Very, very enlightening.

We owe a lot to her, she battled extremely hard, under attack herself many times as she fought her cause - too pretty, too smart, too outspoken, too polarising - hardly surprising she was on the road all the time, maybe too scared to put down roots anywhere in case she was hounded down by all those people she managed to upset and annoy! The reviewer who attended the session referred to at the beginning of this review said about Gloria - 'You are the grandmother of my brain', and that pretty much sums this incredible woman up. Read it, give thanks and be humbled. Then give it to your daughters, because they carry the mantle of feminism into the future.

MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE by Alan Furst

My new favourite author, whom I have never heard of till recently. And yet he is a prolific writer of historical spy novels, having written fourteen in his Night Soldiers series since 1988, of which this one is number thirteen.  This is not flippant, airplane type reading, but more along the lines of Graeme Greene and John Le Carre - carefully plotted, very atmospheric, interesting ever changing relationships between the characters. I love spy/espionage/thriller novels, and when there is a historical framework as there is with the Night Soldiers series, I am in heaven. Most of this series is set in Europe and Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1944, with many of the characters appearing and reappearing throughout the series.

This particular story centres around the Spanish Civil War, at the beginning of 1938. Fascism is taking over Europe with the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and of course Franco on his way to smashing the Republicans. Cristian Ferrar is a Spanish emigre, living in Paris, his family living in a small town northwest of Paris. He is a brilliant lawyer, working for a top flight international law firm that also has offices in New York. He moves easily between the very different worlds of Paris, New York and his Spanish birthright, the epitome of the perfect European gentleman. He should have been a diplomat. His intelligence, his charm, his smoothness and above all his despair at what is going on in Spain lead him into the murky world of arms running to deliver arms and machinery to the south of Spain. Defeat is imminent, but they aren't going down without a fight.

There are a number of sub plots going on too, with the law firm representing many Spanish emigres, dispossessed by what is happening in Spain. This is in addition to Ferrar navigating his way around his unnerving new world, always alert to whether his compatriots are spies themselves or not. Which of course keeps the reader riveted to the pages all the way to the end. It's only 250 pages, and yet the writing is so concise and elegant, the words so carefully chosen, it is just so good. My latest author to stalk....

TE KAUHANGA: A TALE OF SPACE(S) by Antony Millen

I was asked to review this book by the author, a Canadian living and writing in Taumarunui, a small town in the middle of the North Island. A town perhaps not unlike Te Kauhanga, the fictional town in this novel. This is the author's second novel. I actually had a choice of any of the three novels he has published. I chose this one because of the interesting and diverse sounding characters in it. I was not disappointed.

One of the suburbs of this town is Taumata, climbing the slopes of a hill, of which the centre is an enormous tree, absolutely huge tree. Legend has that this tree is one of the legs of Tane Mahuta, Maori God of the forests, and it has a special place in the life of the town and the people who live there. The locals call the tree Taumata, it is the icon of the town, revered, a place of peace and quiet, the site of the town's  playground. It has been there, quite simply, for ever.

The characters who live close to Taumata are who this book is about, their interactions with each other and with the tree and its park. Montreal Perec is Canadian, from Nova Scotia and has lived in the house nicknamed the Lighthouse for thirty years. He goes for a walk around the town the same day every year; the rest of the time he remains in his house. He is a cartographer and is convinced he has at his fingertips the last resting place for a huge treasure that disappeared from his Nova Scotia ancestors. His only human relationship is an on line one, with a fellow treasure hunter who goes by the name of BloodyLegend45.  Then there is Sharon, who works in the local council office. She is admired and desired by many, but is a secret hoarder who lives in absolute squalor. This sad state of affairs relates back to her employment as an archivist. Stanley is the third main character in this story. He has an obsession with straight lines that rules the way he lives his life. He even walks through properties to maintain his straight line progress rather than walking around the street corner, He is constantly falling in and out of love with various attractive women living in the town, and slowly finds his barriers falling away as a result.

All of these characters have space and how they live in it, how it affects their souls at the core of their  hearts and souls. As we know space is an ever moving continuum, as it is in this story, as the characters find themselves constantly challenged by the events and people in their daily lives. With the tree at their centre.

I found myself quite engaged by the quirkiness of the characters, and how they manage what is going on around them.  There is great writing here, very enjoyable and fun to read. I think the writer really enjoyed writing large sections of this. His characters are well developed, real sounding people, even if a bit odd. But I did find some of the story line a little far fetched, as my very unimaginative mind set does not do fantasy/surreal/supernatural too well. So I really did not fully get sections in the latter third of the book with the strange appearance and subsequent disappearance of a homeless man; the cartographer finally losing the plot completely, and varying degrees of chaos taking place in the town.

However, despite the oddness that permeates many New Zealand novels, I did quite like it. Small town New Zealand - there is something very familiar and comfortable in reading about communities most of us have either lived in or have close ties to.

THE BLACKBIRD SINGS AT DUSK by Linda Olssen

This is an edited review of that done for LandfallOnLine, the online arm of Landfall magazine, champions of NZ literature since 1947.  Thank you for the opportunity.

The author, Linda Olsson, Swedish by birth, has lived outside Sweden since 1986, and in New Zealand since 1990. Her first novel, Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs, was very favorably received and made some good circuits in the book club scene. She has published two other novels since, with this latest being published in Swedish back in 2014.  

There are many devoted fans of Linda Olsson. Based on reviews I have read of her other books, this latest novel will be keenly read and enjoyed by those who like her writing, her themes of love, loss, memories, hope and moving forward. The writing is very beautiful, lyrical, gentle, slightly hypnotic even. Set in Stockholm from late winter to August, there is almost an ethereal quality to the writing, casting a sort of magic light over the city, where anything may be possible. Nothing in the writing seems forced, there is a natural flow to how conversations evolve, how stories are told through the dialogue, how relationships develop through the characters’ responses and reactions to each other. Sentences are short and uncomplicated, as are the chapters. It is easy to read, easy to put down and easy to pick up again.  

The cover on the original Swedish edition features a blackbird, in a room, sitting on a hand. Compare it to the cover of this latest edition with its orange silhouette of what could be any garden bird against a slightly clashing green background. A blackbird in a room? Perched and chirping on a hand? And yet this illustrates much more effectively what the novel is about than the orange/green/generic bird cover. Because the blackbird is central to the story, not only in its capacity as a songbird, but also as an analogy and personification of the main character Elisabeth. And perhaps for the author, being Swedish herself, a symbol of her homeland, her own memories, what she has left behind in leaving Sweden, and her personal identity. 

The blackbird is actually Sweden's national bird, becoming so back in 1962 following a nationwide vote. This choice was reaffirmed only last year in another vote, just to make sure that the blackbird still reigned supreme fifty plus years later, well ahead of its main rival the magpie. Oh, if only national referendums could be so easy....    Like most creatures, the blackbird hides away during the colder months, reappearing in the spring with 'its song...so beautiful. Sad and soothing at the same time'.  

The speaker of those words is Otto, a widower in his late sixties, who lives in an apartment building in Stockholm. Otto is a retired bookseller; he was married to Eva who has recently died. His is not an unsatisfactory life but there is a perceptive sadness to his existence, which seems a little pointless now that he no longer has his shop or a companion to share his life and the wonderful meals he cooks. He does have a lot of books though which he shares with Elias, a young man who lives in an apartment on the floor below. Elias is a very gifted artist who works as a cartoonist/graphic novel illustrator. He is severely dyslexic, seeing his world through pictures and images, but does enjoy being read to by Otto, and being Otto's weekly dinner guest. Their Tuesday night dinners are the highlight of Otto’s week. These two have a deep friendship, possibly on a par with an uncle-nephew relationship, mutually respectful and affectionate.

Elisabeth is a very sad and lonely woman, very depressed, although the reader does not find out the reasons for her deep unhappiness until the last quarter of the novel. It is January when she moves into the building. Silent, reclusive, alone, eating her way through packet soups, surrounded by unpacked boxes, haunted in her dreams by the Woman in Green, bills piling up. Life is bleak for Elisabeth.  There is nothing at this stage to tell us of who she is, where she has come from, why she is in such a poor emotional and physical state. The book begins in March, spring just starting to rise, the days getting just a little less dark. Her contact with the outside world is forced upon her by a chance, but unspoken encounter with Elias through the letter box in her apartment door, Elias 'posting' mail for her inadvertently delivered to him.  A book exchange follows which then brings Otto into the triangle as the reader of the book gifted to Elias by Elisabeth. Now that a pattern of obligation has been set up, Elisabeth finds herself forced into continuing this intangible and invisible contact for a few more book exchanges. Until the day the paths of these three people cross quite suddenly and unexpectedly when Elias is the victim of a homophobic attack.

As spring becomes summer, the days grow warmer and longer, so too does the friendship between these three. Otto feeds them, they share books, music, friendship. The walls Elisabeth has built around herself very slowly and gently start to fall away. She removes the paper wad that was silencing her door bell, she opens her unpacked moving boxes, bit by bit takes things out of them, she starts to care for her appearance, she lets Otto do some shopping for her, finally she ventures outside into the sunlight with him. And the blackbird returns to Otto’s window.

From his first contact with Elisabeth through the letter box in her door, Elias has been strangely captivated by her. Unable to use words to express himself, Elias has started drawing a blackbird. He has no idea where this is going, but is strangely drawn to this new arrival in the building who reminds him of a blackbird. 

  

This bird that Elias is compelled to draw is clearly an analogy for Elisabeth - injured, defenseless, delicate and weak, sometimes looking as if it is barely alive. And this becomes the driving force of the book - the half dead/half alive bird constantly lingering at the fringes of the story and of the friendships between Elisabeth, Otto and Elias. 

However, there is a fourth character in this story – the Woman in Green. She lives in Elisabeth’s mind, has done off and on since childhood, and with Elisabeth in her despairing state has taken up permanent residence. The Woman in Green does not like Elisabeth’s new friends, her increasing happiness, her finding the sunlight again. Elisabeth is clearly frightened of this presence in her, and finds herself constantly being drawn back to her inner darkness and despair. 

This constant push/pull between the Woman in Green and the blackbird as the symbol of new life, joy, lightness and happiness is at the very core of the novel, as they fight for Elisabeth’s essence. The ending, when it comes, is very ambiguous. How it is interpreted may well depend on the mindset of the reader at the time. How strange to think, that maybe when the book is reread at some future time, the ending may be seen differently.

I have enjoyed this novel more than I expected to, despite finding Elisabeth irritating and not fully believing in her character. The extremes in her new found happiness versus her intense sadness and hopelessness, and her quick switches between these two extremes just did not sit right. There did not seem to be enough shades of grey in her emotional range. But as I have not suffered with depression, it may well be that people do have such very different public and private faces. I guess we all do to a certain extent. Even though the main character is Elisabeth, I actually found Otto the most well rounded and developed character. Aside from being intensely likeable, he is the most motivated to make a change, is very self-aware, and very intuitive in his relationships with Elias and Elisabeth. I liked him a lot. As I suspect, will all those Linda Olsson fans who will enjoy this latest release immensely.

MY NAME IS LEON by Kit de Waal

Scramble the letters and you get LONE - the underlying theme of this book being the loneliness and isolation perpetrated on a child unwittingly thrust into the arms of the social welfare system. But don't let this put you off, because it is a really good read. Good story, great character in little Leon and written with such love and tenderness.

Leon is nine years old. He lives with his drug addict mother Carol and baby half brother Jake. Carol is white, Leon's absent father is black, Jake's married father is white, also absent. A mess of mammoth proportions in the making. Carol is increasingly incapable of caring for the children and Leon is thrust into the role of parent until, unsurprisingly, everything falls apart. Jake and Leon are taken into care, to the most wonderful arms of Maureen, long time foster parent with expert intuition in caring for damaged children such as Leon. Unfortunately for Leon, no one wants to adopt mixed race 9 year old boys, but a white year old baby boy is a different story, and it isn't long before, tragically, the two children are separated. For Leon, life goes from bad to worse, angry, confused, alone, completely lost and distraught. By chance he finds an allotment in the neighbourhood and befriends a number of the people who garden there. His new friends have their own problems and he slowly finds himself drawn into their world, without really understanding what it is all about. Leon is a most endearing child, intelligent, wanting to please, loving and responsive - just a normal average little boy wanting to live in a family with a mum, dad and brother. Such a simple want, so impossibly hard to achieve.

Set in the early 1980s, against the background of Charles and Di's wedding, suburban race riots, Margaret Thatcher's economic policies, and a social welfare system simply unable to cope with what it is tasked with, this book will break your heart. Told entirely from Leon's point of view, he is trying to make sense of the turns his life takes - losing his brother, unable to understand what is wrong with his mother, hating the social workers controlling his life, but unable to escape it. His story will be similar to the stories of many, many other children.

The author writes her story with plenty of first hand experience of being mixed race herself, growing up in a household where her Irish mother fostered many children, working in social services for a time where one of her jobs was to look at the experiences of black children who had been fostered to white foster parents, and the foster system as a whole. Apparently separating siblings was very common in the 1980s.  I wonder how many tears she cried while writing this, although the book is written with an undertone of anger and rage at the system.

This book should be absolutely compulsory reading for anyone involved in the care of children and families in the social services/justice system. Written with such insight, compassion and tenderness, it puts the child at the top of the care model. From what is in the media on an almost daily basis, it would appear not much has changed in 30 plus years. 

EVERYONE WORTH KNOWING by Lauren Weisberger

The Devil Wears Prada was a massive hit for the author, and of course turned into the marvellous movie with Meryl Streep and Anne Hattaway. Ambitious young woman in the big city, looking to break into high energy world of fashion, journalism, PR. Over time finds job not quite what was envisaged, loses herself and her friends in her new world, crisis time, leaves the business, finds new and better direction in life, refinds self and friends. Amen.

Crikey, why not try that formula again in another novel! Be onto another winner. Maybe....  Set in New York (again), Bette is unhappy in her banking job, dumped by her boyfriend, best friend just engaged to the worst possible man, all first world problems. In a moment of madness she chucks her job, and after spending time moping around feeling sorry for herself, her high profile journalist uncle introduces her to a PR wonder woman, big cheese of her own PR company that does stuff for 'everyone worth knowing'. Bette is immediately thrown into the world of the very rich, the very upwardly mobile, celebrities, socialites, wannabes, mostly unpleasant bitchy backstabbing wastes of space. Yet somehow Bette is a resounding success in this new job, somehow manages to avoid the drug taking that everyone else is doing, doesn't have any sex, falls in love with a bouncer, and remains a nice person. Gee whiz, that sounds like real life!

She has plenty of obstacles to face - New York's sexiest man, a gossip columnist who won't leave her alone, a boss who wants to keep seeing her in said gossip column, keeping her sleep quota up, upgrading her image - so many challenges! The crisis, when it comes, is complete and utter chaos, almost as good as giving Meryl Streep the brush off in Prada! But with Hugh Hefner and bunny girls instead. Really all quite hilarious, very contrived, perfect pool side holiday reading which is where I read it!

But way better than the book are the online reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Don't people love to trash and tear things apart! I know it isn't prize winning literature, but there are way worse books out there than this one. And who doesn't like a bit of chick lit to giggle over and lose oneself in.

Try this for size - "If you thought Devil Wears Prada was insipid, wait until you read this vomitous waste of valuable wood pulp, time, eyestrain and anxiety (the latter due to agitated anticipation of the novel's anticlimactic denouement)."

Or this one - "One of the worst books I've ever read. Stereotypical characters, dull plot, predictive and anticlimactic ending and superficial world building. The dialogues were unrealistic and immature. And don't even let me start describing this dull and pathetic excuse for a "love story" or spectacular failure of love triangle. Everything is horrible about this book."

Just the best reading of all really.

A LITTLE LIFE by Hana Yanagihara

It is really quite difficult to put into words the raw power of this novel. It is not just the utterly brilliant writing, mesmerising and completely engrossing, the author's  incredible insight into human nature, the mind, emotions.  It is also the story, in all its horror, tragedy and human-ness, of a life, not so little as it turns out, of Jude, and his lifelong friends who all meet each other while teenagers at boarding school - Jude, JB, Malcolm and Willem. There are also a few other characters pivotal to Jude's existence - his doctor Andy, his parents Harold and Julia and neighbour Richard. It becomes apparent very early on that some awful things have happened to Jude as a child, and with meticulous timing through the course of the 800-odd pages, Jude's early life is revealed. It is hardly surprising the legacy this abuse leaves on Jude as he grows to adult hood, desperately trying to ignore and hide his early life, and how this affects his relationships with those who love him, and who he so heavily depends on.

It is utterly compelling, horrific, confronting and heartbreaking. There were numerous times that I had to put this book down for short periods, it is so overwhelming in its writing and its content. Plus I had some very peculiar and vivid dreams over the course of the week that it took to read it. Not the usual reaction one would have to a novel! I loved the characters, for their goodness and their badness, their human-ness, their very existence and deep deep love not only for Jude, but also for each other. I do have to say that it is probably too long, about 200 pages too long, and numerous other on line reviewers have made the same comment. At times it is exhausting to read because it is so challenging, but it is so absorbing that once you have come up for air, you just have to dive back in and keep going. A little life that leaves a huge footprint on the lives of others.