HARLEM SHUFFLE by Colson Whitehead

 This is a completely different type of novel from the amazing, but violent, gruesome and confronting The Underground Railroad - I still can't bring myself to watch the movie. There is a fair bit of violence in this latest too, but it is different type of violence - more on the lines of Tony Soprano being involved in waste management. We are immersed into Harlem, New York, in the 1960s. Ray Carney is the son of a small town crook/hustler with a certain reputation, long dead, but his legacy lives on in his son. Ray is sort of from the wrong side of the tracks, married to the lovely Elizabeth - from the right side of the tracks. He is desperately trying to walk on the right side of being an honest furniture salesman, but as time passes he finds himself drawn reluctantly and necessarily into the darker side of Harlem. The story traverses the decade of the 1960s, centred on the predominantly black Harlem community, the occasional intrusion of uptown white men or mid-town Jewish merchants, moving between the two communities. Ray has a cousin, Freddie, who is more like brother. Ray has spent numerous hours and $$$ getting Freddie out of various hotspots, which unfortunately drags poor Ray further into the dark side of Harlem. But Ray is cleverer than all of them put together and somehow, in a very entertaining and delightful way, with the odd bit of 'waste management' thrown in  - manages to outwit them all. I loved this. Brilliantly written, a  totally immersive experience into 1960s New York/Harlem, and into the mechanics of social mobility, the same whatever community you are a part of - black, white, Jewish, Asian. We are the same wherever we come from, whatever our backgrounds. Fabulous read. The author is a master of the language and I am sure there is more brilliance to come. 

HAPPY HOUR by Jacquie Byron

Franny thinks she is coping perfectly well with her life. A 65 year old glamour puss, sufficient financial resources to see her out, strongly independent in thought and deed, she lives alone in her very nice house and garden in a nice neighbourhood with her two much loved dogs. She eats and drinks what she likes, when she likes, she has her favourite coffee shop just down the road, people who love her and want to care for her. But it is not such a great life really for Frances. Her husband Frank died tragically some four years earlier and it is her grief that is ruling her life, not what she sees as her effective management and acceptance of this grief. She has photos of Frank in various guises over the decades dotted around her house and talks to him regularly. A photo of him in a BBQ apron is in the kitchen, one of him looking young, virile and handsome in the bedroom. She has friends and family endlessly concerned about her whom she simply sees as very annoying pests who just won't leave her alone. On the outside she seems to be coping but is she... Her endless alcohol consumption may be telling another story.

One day a new family moves in next door. To Franny's surprise, Sallyanne Salerno and her two children - 8 year old Josh and 15 year old Dee - somehow get under her skin, and slowly work their ways into her life. Naturally it all begins to come undone at a certain point, Franny having to confront some unwanted demons emanating from her frozen in grief state. She has to learn to live again, but does she really want to. 

It really is quite a delightful and fun story to read and enjoy. The two children are excellent characters. Josh is a divine little boy, already wrestling with not being the stereotyped 8 year old, preferring Franny's gorgeous collection of old clothes, silks, shoes, feather boas to playing cricket, rugby and doing boy stuff. Dee is a teenager caught between being a little girl and a young woman, trying to be something she is not yet ready for, very drawn to the sophisticated and glamorous Franny. Sallyanne is trying to be the best mother she can, getting away from her abusive husband and working full time. No wonder the children seek refuge with Franny and the dogs. But does she want them in her life?

There is some great dialogue, Franny has a mouth on her that I am sure any 65 year old woman would be proud of. She has never had children herself so approaches the whole business of relating to children differently from any other adults in Dee and Josh's lives, with some very funny and unexpected results. I liked this a lot - it is not in any way great literature, but it is funny, light and very enjoyable. 

THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY by John Le Carré

John Le Carré has been a favourite author for decades, ever since I read The Little Drummer Girl when I was in my 20s. His careful and even paced, possibly slow crafting of a story, the reveal of the characters, the extraordinary quantity of unspoken language and communication that takes place in the spy game, the subconscious reading of a situation or a person. It's mysterious, unreadable, grim, working up to the excitement of rare moments of monumental action then steep declines into the daily plod and grind. I read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last year, loved it, and was excited to be starting this second in the George Smiley/Karla trilogy. 

Not quite the same reading experience as Tinker, or of any other Le Carré novel I have read. For a start it is extremely long - nearly 700 pages. It is burdened down at the beginning with so much scene setting, so many characters, so much going on but none of it at any pace. It follows on immediately from Tinker in the late 1960s, starting in Hong Kong, the HK part of the Secret Service now in a total freefall, the fall out from Haydon shrinking operations in areas outside of England. In these first chapters we move from Hong Kong to London where Smiley is picking up the pieces, to Tuscany where Jerry Westerby - reporter cum spy is languishing. A multitude of characters are introduced and it takes a while of reading before some coherence and understanding takes place. Once it does however, the book becomes a riveting read, Le Carré deftly balancing the on-the-scene actions of Jerry (mostly) as he tracks down the players involved in the smuggling into Hong Kong - read the west - from communist mainland China of the brother of a highly influential and wealthy Hong Kong based businessman. Interwoven with this is a woman just screaming out to be rescued by Jerry, a pilot of dubious character as are all the SE Asian based characters - hence Jerry as the honourable one, numerous other bit players who flit in and out. Plus of course Smiley, Guillam, the other Circus experts, the Americans - the Cousins with their own investment in the situation, the British bureaucracy exercising its own desire for control and needing to appease the Cousins. It is complicated, at times tedious - especially the scenes where Smiley and co gather to figure out what to do next. 

The Hong Kong/Cambodia/Laos action however is fantastic. I was always relieved when the plot moved out of dreary office rooms and secret chambers where men (and one woman) in suits discussed what to do next. Le Carré must have spent time in these regions to depict so well the climate, the grubbiness, the hectic insanity and sleaze of the cities of Hong Kong and Bangkok, the unflappability of the SE Asian people versus the untidiness, loudness, boorishness of the expat mostly British population trying to survive in the sweltering and humid climate. Jerry makes a great spy, a man of great resourcefulness, cunning and flying by the seat of his pants. 

It is well worth a read, but do be prepared to spend time rather than racing through. I wonder if a cast of characters at the beginning would have helped - there are a lot of people in this book. 

SAVING MONA LISA by Gerri Chanel

The Louvre is one of those places in our Western civilisation that we hold in the highest awe and regard. It is much much more than just a building - even though it is old and beautiful in its own right. It has that intangible quality that lifts it above being a repository of stuff, an icon of Western collective history since prehistoric times, holding the art and artefacts of the world as we have come to know it. It is a building with its own amazing history, starting as a palace in the 13th century. It became a national museum in 1793, during the French Revolution, as a repository for art confiscated from French aristocrats and the church. Most famously it houses the Da Vinci painting Mona Lisa. With such a long history, plus being a living icon of Paris and France, it has seen much violence, uprisings, leadership changes and invasions. So with the impending arrival of the Germans in 1940, a huge operation was put in place to protect the thousands of treasures in this building, not just from bombing, fire, looting and disorder, but from the greedy hands of the Nazis, especially Hitler and his high ranking officials.  This book is that story. 

The guardians of the art were extraordinary men and women. Their passion and drive to protect the art, the insane logistical nightmare of moving it - paintings of all sizes, statuary and sculpture - huge things some of these paintings and sculpture were. Ancient Egyptian antiquities, Greek, Estrucan and Roman art, Islam art, prints, drawings, decorative arts. All of which required careful packing, transport by road in rickety trucks with rationed fuel over damaged roads to safe, dry and remote lodgings for however long the conflict would last. And all under the eyes of the Germans, most of whom had no idea what was passing them by on the roads or in the small towns. The top Nazi leadership knew full well what was going on, and the trickery used by the French, the delay tactics, the stretching of the truth, the hiding places, the clever and quick thinking of staff on site as the Germans came poking around - what wonderful, devoted and brave individuals these people were, who saw themselves as the custodians of the art in their care. France was lucky in one respect in that the Nazi who had the Louvre on his watch was also a very cultured man, very respectful of the Louvre, its contents and the staff, going a fair way himself to slowing down the inevitability of art leaving France. 

I really enjoyed the Them and Us style of the book, the strong spirit of patriotism and determination that holds all these people together. Naturally the Resistance features, people aren't quite what they seem, lives are lost, people get sent to concentration camps, But the art survives, the history and culture of France is untarnished, and most importantly the spirit of the people remains intact, strong and united. 

AFTER YOU'D GONE by Maggie O'Farrell

 It's five stars from me, Maggie O'Farrell's first novel, way back in 2000. Outstanding. I can't fault it, it is just fabulous, from its mysterious opening with Alice Raikes making a spontaneous leap onto a train from London to Edinburgh, meeting her sisters at the railway station, going to the toilet, seeing something so unexpected, surprising that she immediately jumps back on the next train to London. What on earth??? Then right to the ending, to the very last words when another completely unexpected and surprising thing takes place. I was totally enthralled from beginning to end, and wanted it to keep going. 

The day of Alice's fateful trip to Edinburgh ends with her lying in a hospital bed, in Intensive Care on life support, not expected to live, following her apparent intentional stepping out into a line of London traffic. Why??? And then the un-peeling begins. Two stories are told here, the story of Alice's life and that of her mother Ann. There is extensive intermixing of the two time lines, and gliding between the two main characters, even within the chapters, as the story builds up to that moment in the bathroom at Edinburgh railway station. We follow the story of how Alice's parents met, her childhood, her boyfriends and eventually the man she falls bonkers in love with and he with her. Ann's story is also told, beginning with fragments of her childhood, then her time at university, how she met Alice's father and their family life. There are complications in both marriages - that of Alice and John, and that of Ann and Ben. Quite different and unexpected complications. The plot regularly returns to Alice's hospital bed where she lies, the sad and frightened talk of her family going on around her, the upsetting and painful conversations with the medical staff. It is all so ordinary and yet it isn't. Oh, I wish I could say more about the plot...

The writing is sublime, perfection, how the author holds the lives of these two women, slowly building up to the day of Alice's accident is effortless. The characters are all extremely ordinary, relatable, fully developed and nuanced beings. You ache for all of them. The fluidity with which the plot moves back and forth from the present to many stages of the past, and back again is just so easy. I want to get my own copy of this book, so I can read it again sometime in the future, but I have to hand this back to my lovely friend, because it is one of her favourite books of all time. 

STILL by Matt Nable

 

Darwin, Australia, summer 1963. I doubt I can imagine a worse place for a) a woman of any size, shape, age or description b) an indigenous man, woman or child, or even mixed race c) an honest cop d) anyone who is of honourable and honest disposition. This thriller reeks of all that is bad in any society, and when it is mixed into suffocating and debilitating heat and humidity with no air-conditioning anywhere, it is not somewhere you want to be. 

Working amongst a viper's nest of dodgy cops is Senior Constable Ned Potter. He seems to have found himself a niche in his work, but is wearied by the culture of the police station he is working in. His discovery of a body in a piece of shallow marshland is the beginning of a long and dangerous road to solving a trail of criminal behaviour in the city and the cover ups that have taken place. Read for that - murders, bribery, rule by fear, corruption, blatant racism. The works. No one wants Ned to succeed. 

There is also a female character who becomes pivotal to the plot of the story. She is Charlotte Clark, married to one of the not so nice male characters. Only 23, she already sees that her husband Bobby is not the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, the loss of a baby certainly not helping things. She dreams of an escape, but doesn't know how to achieve it. 

I thought this was pretty good writing. The author is an actor and has been in his fair share of movies/TV series about this underbelly of Australia, as well as in the thriller genre - his last movie role was in The Dry,  adapted from Jane Harper's terrific first novel. Still is full of characters who fit the brief so clearly of that hardened, dried out, tough Australian man or woman we see so much in movies, on TV. The setting of the Northern Territory is outstandingly depicted and drawn. I felt as frightened when the plot moved to the marshlands, the dry bush, the long straight roads, the colourless landscape, as I did when the blokes were all trying to hold their own in the local pub, the air of menace and violence never far away. 

There are crocodiles but no bushfires. There are more dead bodies, domestic violence, people learning they are bigger and better than the place they live and the people they live with. It has plenty of tension, danger, and some unexpected surprises. It's going to make a good movie. Guess who may have written himself a part. 

THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig

 

A book for our times, when many many people are in intense despair at how covid has changed, damaged, ruined lives and traumatised so many of us. We all have a covid story of sorts - we should have after nearly two years of this - and we are allowed to feel crap about everything. But as a friend once said to me, after her recovery from a severe stroke at the age of 40. With the doctors wanting to switch off the life support, her husband said no, where there is life there is hope. And she lived. It may have been only another 10 years, but she lived to see her children grow up, her children had a mother while they grew up. That is what this book is about - hope. And we all need hope, even if it is for a sunny day tomorrow so that patch of garden can be attended to. 

Nora Seed has given up hope. Her life has turned into a great big fat nothing. Disappointed in love, her job under threat then gone, few if any friends, her beloved cat dying, none of her dreams or plans ever turning out and not being able to figure out why. She decides to end it all, leaving perhaps the most heart rending but extremely beautiful suicide note.

But it isn't curtains for Nora. She finds herself suspended in a different type of universe - the Midnight Library, manned by Mrs Elm, her old school librarian who took a special interest in Nora. In this magical place of endless moving rows of books of all shapes, sizes, colours, Mrs Elm offers Nora the chance to examine more closely the regrets she has had and how life may have turned out if she had taken that particular path or decision instead of the one she did. Now we all have done this in our lives - if I had taken that job instead of this one, or if I had learnt to play tennis instead of surfing, or gone home instead of walking into that bar one night. The list is endless, but of course we don't get a chance to see how our lives may have panned out if we had made one choice differently! We just wonder 'what if?' 

Nora's alternative life situations are fascinating - her childhood dream of being a geoscientist in Antartica could well have happened, and she was an excellent swimmer with Olympic potential. In another life did she become a famous Olympic swimmer? And wasn't she some sort of rock chick as well? So multi-talented, smart, sassy, spirited - what happened? And ultimately, what choice does she make? Does she realise she wants to live or does she still want to end it all? 

I loved this - beautifully written, it gets deep into the soul. Yes, it is of course completely unrealistic, and none of us can relive or change our pasts. But just given the chance to think about it, and place yourself in the Magic Library with a significant adult from your childhood, what book of regrets would you pick up, and how would you imagine things might have turned out if you took that path? It reminded me of Kate Atkinson's Life After Life with the life of Ursula Todd told in two ways - if she had died at birth or not, if she had died at each of the various pivotal moments in her life after that or lived. Again I adored this book. 5 stars for me as with this one. 

Author Matt Haig writes fiction and non fiction for adults and children. His books are quirky, magical, just a bit different and this one is all of those. He has suffered from depression in the past, so may well have called on some of his own experience in writing this. It does have a sense of the writer knowing what he is talking about! 

COMMON GROUND by Naomi Ishiguro

 

Two boys, outsiders in their own worlds, each used to spending time alone, one day randomly find each other. A friendship of sorts develops, one boy benefitting more from the friendship than the other. Ten years later, the tables are somewhat turned, the other boy in need of the relationship.  Great premise for a story, a classic tale of misfits, loyalty, and renewal. In this story, it is 2003. The first half of the story is narrated from the point of view of Stan who is 13 years old, a scholarship kid at a posh boy's school. His father has recently died of cancer, his mother is a mess, and Stan has no one to turn to, to talk to, to be a friend. He is bullied relentlessly by other boys and the only joy he has in his life is biking on the local common, where it is quiet, spacious and he can be alone with his misery and his thoughts. One day he meets Charlie, a bright confident and self assured 16 year old boy who seems to have a life of complete freedom. But he too is an outsider, part of the local Traveller community, that no one wants in the local neighbourhood. Together the two boys forge a friendship, cycling around, talking, getting into a bit of mischief as youngsters are wont to do. Stan loves spending time with Charlie's Traveller community, but knows it has to be a secret, and all along he begins to find the essence of himself. Until a terrible accident destroys the contact the two boys have together. 

Ten years later, it is Charlie's turn to tell the story. He is in London, trying to hold his life together. Despite his intelligence he just has not been able to get his life sorted. He drinks too much, his warehouse job is not going well. But he has the gift of the gab, is charming, handsome and pretty good at picking up the girls. One night he meets a young woman who bizarrely leads him to a chance meeting with Stan, now a journalist with a good job, a girlfriend, a flat, friends - a great life. But the dynamic  between the two has changed after ten years of no contact. Stan really wants to reignite the friendship, help his old friend who did so much for him. But life has got in the way.

It's a strange story really, I liked it - beautifully written and slowly rendered. But I didn't really find it completely plausible. The friendship between the two when they are boys lasts only a matter of weeks, I didn't think long enough to leave such an indelible mark on the two, to such an extent that ten years later, there is this compelling need to rekindle it. I remember friends I made at that age, they were intense for a period of time, usually short, loyalties are frail at that age, and I certainly wouldn't bat an eyelid if one popped up ten years later. Anyway, despite the possible unlikeliness of it all, it certainly is a well written and good story of enduring bonds, loyalty and how we can make positive differences in each other's lives.