When a family goes missing from a house they had specially built, its architect becomes obsessed with their disappearance. Minoru Aose is an architect, struggling with direction in his life. A recent economic downturn hit him hard, but he managed to find employment with an old friend, Akihiko Okajima. Okajima runs his own design company and it is while working for him that Aose designs the famous Y Residence, built near Mount Asama. It's a prize winning piece of architecture and has been profiled in industry magazines. The building was commissioned by Touta Yoshino and his family. A mystery occurs when the architect Aose discovers the family hasn't moved in at all. The beautiful residence, with its stunning north lighting, has been left empty. Why? Aose starts to inquire as to what has happened to the family. On a visit to the house he discovers it has been broken into, but a beautiful chair by the German designer, Bruno Taut, has been left behind. What could it all mean? As Aose delves deeper into the mystery, more and more layers are revealed, including his own backstory, which involved a peripatetic childhood and the early loss of his father. The many strands of this story are finally woven together and the reader discovers how art and fate can intertwine. Hideo Yokoyama's The North Light is an absorbing, slow moving novel of intrigue and fascination. There are many convoluted plot strands, but Yokoyama skillfully guides the reader through this dizzying labyrinth, making the journey a pleasure. The novel's main themes are about family and place, dislocation and loneliness. The novel also provides a meditation on art, and how it affects us emotionally, often working as a balm for the soul. The detailed descriptions of the Y Residence provides a calming, Zen-like experience in itself. Readers who enjoy immersive, slow-moving mysteries will get many hours of enjoyment out of The North Light. The North Light, by Hideo Yokoyama. Published by Riverrun. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Tony Birch revisits scenes from his working class youth in a finely crafted novel. Eleven-year-old Joe Cluny lives with his older sister Ruby and Mother Marion in a dingy working class suburb. It's 1965 and life is lived on the streets. News of who's doing what travels fast. The street is a lightning quick conveyer of information. Joe's father, Stan, is an absent figure. He runs a dodgy business and abruptly left Marion soon after Joe was born. It was a loveless marriage from the get-go, so Marion is happier without him. Joe attends the Catholic Our Lady's School, where the nuns instill terrifying stories of hell. The boy's only outlet is his relationship with his grandfather, Charlie. A retiree from his job as a street sweeper, Charlie collects unwanted junk and employs Joe to help him sort it. His time spent with his grandfather is a respite from the poverty of working class life and cruelty of Catholic school. Marion's younger sister, Oona, is having troubles. A feisty and assertive girl in her youth, she married Ray Lomax in a flush of youthful excitement, believing she was in love. But the marriage has problems, serious problems. One night Oona turns up at Marion's house distressed. It turns out she's been beaten by Ray. Marion tries to help, but Oona declares she's going back to Ray. The sisters fight, and swear not to see each other again. But Marion's daughter, Ruby, decides to make an impromptu visit to her aunt. What she finds shocks her to her core. Tony Birch paints a realistic picture of working class life in the 1960s, when women had little agency and men felt they could treat their wives any way they liked. The novel has a wonderfully gritty, pared back atmosphere, written in plain, direct prose. It was a time when people didn't have much in terms of material possessions, a fact highlighted by the junk trader Ranji, grandfather Charlie's good friend. As Joe, Charlie and Ranji go sifting through junk, looking for treasure, it's a reminder of how scarcity can create value. Found objects become revered artifacts. The very opposite of today's throwaway culture. The story isn't all doom and gloom, however. We are given hope that the future will be better. Joe grows up with strong female role models and learns from his grandfather the importance of respecting women. Wife beater Ray Lomax gets his comeuppance in a surprise ending. And there's a great scene where Joe's sister Ruby gets into fisticuffs with some bullying boys, and beats them hands down. A bracing and realistic portrait of working class Australia in the 1960s. Women & Children, by Tony Birch. Published by University of Queensland Press. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba A successful woman's self-image crumbles when forced to confront her past. Joan Scudamore seems to have it all. A husband, Rodney, is doing well as a lawyer. Three grown children – Tom, Averil and Barbara – are all settled in their own way. What could there be to complain about? On a solo trip back from Iraq, after visiting her daughter Barbara who has recently married and moved there with her husband, she gets stuck at a rest house in Tell Abu Hamid, a small town between Aleppo and Mosul. There have been floods and the trains are delayed as a consequence. She could be stuck there for days. In a random twist, she runs into her old school friend Blanche Haggard while in the dining room of the rest house. Blanche is travelling in the opposite direction, to Iraq to be with her new husband. The portrait we get of Blanche is of a reckless bon vivant who has left a trail of destruction in her wake. She's not a malicious character, but someone who has made mistakes in her life but whose attitude is to keep on moving. Joan can't help but contrast her life against Blanche's, and is full of self-congratulation on how successfully she's managed her own. This early encounter with the fast-track, no regrets Blanche Haggard, which opens the book, sets the scene for a series of personal contrasts. Blanche soon departs and Joan finds herself stranded at the rest house. She has a book to read, but soon polishes that off, only to find herself staring at the dry, endless sand dunes of Tell Abu Hamid. With nothing to occupy her mind, she starts going over her life – her friendships and relationships, and how she has conducted herself. Pretty soon she finds herself full of self recriminations, endlessly tortured by her own thoughts. She fears she is going mad and tries to escape by going for walks, then literally running, even praying, but finds there is no way out of the mind's relentless poking and prodding, that ceaseless internal critical voice. The reader soon learns that Joan is a perfectionist and a control freak, and her refusal to see reality, rather hoping to impose her version of it, has caused grief for both her husband and family. After this torturous confrontation with her true self, Joan decides to change, but can she? Can she let go of her steely ego that seems to offer protection of a certain kind. Agatha Christie wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Absent in the Spring was the third novel Christie wrote under this name, and was published in 1944. It was apparently one of her favourite novels and was completed in a matter of days. The novel's tight plotting and brisk pacing is reminiscent of a Christie murder mystery. She really is a technical magician, effortlessly weaving together a range of characters and their backstories and problems, making for a highly readable story. What is surprising is how starkly revealing Absent in the Spring is. One wonders, is Joan Scuadmore a self-portrait of Christie herself? The novel does an expert job of portraying that mad state of mind where guilt, anxiety, self-reproach can relentlessly assail us. In the desert, stuck there for days with nothing to do, Joan Scudamore quickly starts to crumble. Her strong character is a social fiction. Interestingly, the cast of hopeless characters that surround her (there are quite a few more Blanche Haggard-type train wrecks in Joan's circle), turn out to be, if not successes, at least admirable failures. We recoil at their bad choices, but respect their humanity. A brilliant, unforgettable psychological portrait from the Queen of Crime. Absent in the Spring, by Agatha Christie. Published by HarperCollins. $19.99 Review by Chris Saliba Melissa Lucashenko has written a cracking follow-up to her Miles Franklin award winner Too Much Lip. Award winning Goorie author Melissa Lucashenko's new novel Edenglassie alternates between two time frames. The first chapter set in 2024 (the year of Brisbane's bicentenary) introduces Eddie Blanket, a centenarian Indigenous woman who has taken a fall. She's a flinty old trooper and has seen more than her fair share of trouble. She's saved by a group of passing foreign students and taken to hospital. On the hospital ward she meets journalist Dartmouth Rice. Running into Eddie, he thinks he's snapped up a ripper of a story, and she indulges the journo with some embellished tales. Through Eddie, we meet her feisty granddaughter Winona. She's a sharp tongued activist who tells it like it is. When Eddie's doctor, Johnny, meets Winona he's smitten. It's almost a case of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew: can he satisfy her many criticisms and win her over? The major storyline takes place in 1854. Goorie man Mulanyin has left his home in Yugambeh Country and now stays with his law-brother Murree in Yagara Country, the area that is now Brisbane. There he meets the beautiful Nita who is a servant for the white Petrie family. They treat her well, but condescending attitudes nonetheless prevail. Meanwhile, trouble swirls around them. The white invaders – “dagai” they are called in the local language – are intent on grabbing as much land as they can, despoiling Country and over farming it, ignoring traditional ways of preserving the environment's status quo. Some whites, such as the Petrie family, are decent enough, but a murderous racism is on the rampage. Mulanyin and his family hope that the rule of law – Goorie law – can prevail, and the white invaders will retreat, but that looks less and less likely every day. When Mulanyin attends the botched execution by hanging of resistance fighter and lawman Dundalli, he is deeply shaken. While he dreams that he and Nita will have lots of children to replace his fellow countrymen who have been murdered, the walls start closing in on him. Edenglassie is an ambitious epic giving an alternative Australian history, one seen through First Nations eyes. The novel excels in creating a believable mid-19th century mise-en-scene. The descriptions of Country – its flora and fauna – are wonderfully rich, almost lush. The cast of Goorie characters are dynamic and three dimensional, with deep inner lives. The story of Mulanyin and Nita very much carries the reader away, hoping that their lives will be happy and fruitful. The contemporary narrative, set in 2024, is often brutally funny and the two timelines end up coming together in the most ingenious way. Razor sharp and brilliantly imagined. A book that all Australians should read. Edenglassie, by Melissa Lucashenko. Published by University of Queensland Press. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Louisa Hall examines reproduction, the treatment of women's bodies and technology's unintended consequences. The unnamed narrator of Reproduction begins by telling the reader she had meant to write a novel about Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein, but abandoned the project. It was 2018 and she was pregnant for the first time, suffering nausea and disturbing dreams. But parts of Mary Shelley's story “detached themselves from the page and clung to my life” and so she continued to ruminate on the subject. Reproduction is American writer Louisa Hall's fourth novel. It's divided into three sections: conception, birth and science fiction. It reads as autobiographical – some of the things that happen in it you can't make up – but Hall's prose manages to keep an elegant distance from her visceral subject matter, giving the text the formality and tone of fiction. This is quite a feat, considering how raw some parts of Reproduction are. The narrator describes a particularly difficult pregnancy – sickness, nausea, pain – and its aftermath, an almost life threatening case of hemorrhaging. In between there are miscarriages and further misery. Hall doesn't flinch from giving the reader all the details, often gorey. She describes pregnancy as like living on a totally different planet. The feeling is one of intense aloneness – even her husband is no use, failing to provide enough empathy and understanding. The third and longest part of the book, titled “Science Fiction”, concentrates on medical interventions in pregnancy and bioethical questions on genetic engineering. The narrator's friend, Anna, is a scientist whose work involves genetics, and when she becomes pregnant, with technological help, she starts making some interventions on her own pregnancy which are quite frightening. Weaved through this narrative of horror-like reproduction is a discussion of Mary Shelley and what influenced her to write Frankenstein. Readers might not know the biographical details of Shelley's life, the miscarriages and death of three of her children in infancy, and how deep her grief must have been. Louisa Hall speculates on Shelley's life and what could have caused her to write Frankenstein and her other science fiction novel, The Last Man. A visceral and confronting novel that raises many questions - emotional, legal and ethical - about the darker side of birth and pregnancy. Reproduction, by Louisa Hall. Published by Scribner. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Mma Precious Ramotswe is called upon to investigate two cases, one slightly comic, the other more of the heart. Two cases come to the attention of Precious Ramotswe, founder of the No 1. Ladies Detective Agency, and her redoubtable assistant, Grace Makutsi. The first case involves the goings on at a certain Cool Singles Evening Club. It seems that single women are being duped by married men. Mma Ramotswe sends in her husband's assistant mechanic, Charlie, to go undercover and investigate. Although he is quite the amateur, he finds out a considerable amount, but when he follows through with some poorly thought through advice from Grace Makutsi, it leads to an unintended and very undesirable outcome. The second investigation is more serious in nature and involves an American woman. She appears at the agency wanting help finding the relatives of a man who, although not a blood relative, was someone she considered her grandfather. There is a bitter-sweet ending to this story, as the woman doesn't find exactly what she was looking for, but experiences a larger truth that brings her much joy. From a Far and Lovely Country is an utterly enjoyable new installment in the No 1. Ladies Detective series. It can be read as a stand alone novel. Alexander McCall Smith deftly explains his characters' quirks and foibles, and how their dynamics interweave, especially Mma Makutsi's somewhat comic backstory as a top student at her secretarial school. The gentle pace and rich cadences of McCall Smith's prose are a joy to read. On the serious side the novel deals with the more subtle moral problems that we encounter in day to day life, guiding its characters tactfully through the labyrinthine difficulties that are part and parcel of all interpersonal relationships. An aesthetic, emotional and intellectual pleasure. From a Far and Lovely Country, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Abacus. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Some delightful whimsy for adults from much loved children's author Edith Nesbit Jane and her cousin Lucilla have received bad news. Their guardian has blown their inheritance and they must now be pulled from school. All that is left to the girls - they are actually young adults - is 500 pounds and a small cottage. It's up to them to show pluck and resolve and thus make something of themselves. Jane and Lucilla are thrilled at the news. They disliked school anyway. Rather than fret over financial catastrophe they imagine the start of a great adventure. The First World War has just ended, and there are many people down on their luck. One of them is a Mr. Dix, a war veteran, whom the girls stumble across in a gallery. They take him on as a gardener. When the girls move into a bigger house - again, a good piece of luck - they start a market garden business, selling mostly flowers. Soon they are taking on lodgers, many with dodgy reputations. No matter, even when the girls lose money, it's all really just a lark, nothing to get too worried about. The novel ends with marriage and much good cheer all round. The Lark was Edith Nesbit's final novel for adults, published in 1922. It's a difficult book to pigeonhole. It's neither really adult nor children's fiction, but more of a frolic, aimed at readers with a taste for the absurd and surreal, much like Lewis Carroll or Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. Nesbit's exuberant, life affirming prose also reminds of Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream. A magic holiday read that is a tonic and a delight. The Lark, by E. Nesbit. Published by Penguin. $29.99 A small community library run by the eccentric Ms Komachi changes the lives of five people. Five stories – five lives – all connected by one place, a community library in the Hatori ward of Tokyo. The library is run by Sayuri Komachi, a large, tall woman with perfect white skin. She sits under a sign that says “Reference” and stabs at felt pieces with a needle, making little toys. Her somewhat goofy assistant is Nozomi Morinaga, a young woman on her library training wheels. When patrons come to Ms Komachi's reference counter she asks, “What are you looking for?” She then prints out a list of suitable titles, but always adds in a book that seems completely off topic. It is these random books that take the library patrons on a new personal journey. Each of the five characters in What You Are Looking For is in the Library is going through some sort of personal problem. They are all searching for the right path in life, but find work and family getting in the way. Twenty-one year old Tomoka feels at a loose end in her job as a sales assistant; Ryo, a thirty-five year old accountant, dreams of opening up his own antique store; Natsumi, forty years old, is a magazine editor finding it difficult to get the right work / life balance with her young daughter; Hiroya, a thirty year old, is unemployed and feeling guilty about still living at home; and lastly, there is sixty-five year old Masao, recently retired and finding himself with no social networks. Through all of these individual stories, people gently find their way onto the right path. It's not necessarily an easy process, and they are all really just at the beginning of their journeys. Surely there will be other struggles to come. But the important thing for the book's characters is that they've had a change in mindset. They've learnt that life's circumstances won't allow them to completely live out their dreams, but with a few compromises, they can work towards honest self-fulfillment. Japanese writer Michiko Aoyama has written a wonderfully therapeutic novel. It will strike a chord with many readers as it excavates our most private thoughts, fears and ambitions, treating them with compassion and understanding. A feel-good book, to be sure, but one that skilfully examines the human heart and our need for purpose and connection. What You Are Looking For is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama. Published by Doubleday. $32.99 REview by Chris Saliba A box of letters reveals a tragic past. Jack Shine works on the docks in the Irish city of Cork. It's 1980 and Jack is forty-one years old. He's helping clear out his uncle Joe's house, which is up for sale. It is the house he was born and raised in. While cleaning up they find a box of letters and news articles. The letters are addressed to his mother, Rebekah, and are from a famous footballer named Matthias Sindelar. Rebekah had fled Vienna in the late 1930s, in serious danger as a young Jewish woman. The letters and articles reveal the essence of a passionate relationship between Rebekah and the Catholic Matthias. Eager to find out more, Jack travels with his Jewish (and German speaking) father-in-law, Samuel, to Vienna, trying to piece together more pieces of the puzzle. Rebekah had died when Jack was only 10 years old and had never explained this mysterious part of her past. The Paper Man (the title refers to the on-field agility of Matthias Sindelar as a footballer) is apparently based on real people and events. Irish writer Billy O'Callaghan has fashioned a slow moving yet absorbing story of love, desperate times and the tragic effects of war on everyday people. This is not a perfect love story by any chance. Matthias is portrayed as a bit of a womaniser, and Rebekah's parents are none too happy with their relationship, but O'Callaghan shows how war cut like a scythe through society. Those on the Nazis' hit list had to drop everything and run for their lives. We don't know how Rebekah and Matthias's relationship would have panned out had not war interrupted it. A poignant war story carefully told. The Paper Man, by Billy O'Callaghan. Published by Jonathan Cape. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba An Irish poet's legacy is generational trauma for daughter and granddaughter alike. Nell is a twenty-something freelance writer, knocking out dodgy travel pieces for online publications. She's in a sort-of relationship with Felim, a strapping lad of farming stock. Things are less than ideal, as Felim is borderline abusive. The sex is often rough and unsatisfying, but Nell is a bit of a masochist, prone to self-harm, and employs a wry sense of humour to try and rationalise her experiences. She has moved away from home, and her mother Carmel, to try and begin living an independent life, and hopefully forge a more independent identity. The two women, mother and daughter, have a complicated relationship, full of love, but also frustration and exasperation. Carmel is a no-nonsense woman, with a realistic yet also ironic outlook. She raised Nell without a father, conceiving her daughter randomly, seeing single motherhood as less complicated than a traditional nuclear family. Carmel's attitude to men is perhaps coloured by her father, Phil McDanagh, a famous Irish poet (as far as poet's can be famous) Phil McDanagh is a mildly comic figure, the proverbial Irish poet. Neither daughter nor granddaughter take him too seriously, although he is a major presence in their lives, despite the fact that he has passed away. The poetic Phil, in touch with the beauty of language and expression, dumped his wife Terry when she was suffering with cancer and quickly took up with other women. Old television interviews of Phil are available online, which are a focus of Nell and Carmel's attention, as they try to figure out what his relationship with them meant, and how it continues to shape them. Anne Enright has a great skill for describing life as it really is, with a focus on motherhood and its complex, often divided emotions. Nell and Carmel are undoubtedly close, and would do anything for each other, but there are fights and resentments. Enright also writes about the body in an almost Chaucerian way, with emphasis on menstrual blood and sperm, stark realities of life's cycle. All these elements put together – the natural insistence of the body, the challenges of mother-daughter relationships, a steady stream of bad or boring sex, a gnome-like poet father – create an emotionally messy yet compelling page-turner of a novel. Enright weaves much humour through her well observed prose, creating well rounded characters that readers will feel close to. A skilful portrait of intergenerational relationships, executed with wit and understanding. The Wren, The Wren, by Anne Enright. Published by Jonathan Cape. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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