“At that ultimate vanishing point I will find the meaning, the nub. I will be reduced from the awful loneliness of space by the inevitable merging of those distant lines.”
The second novella in Thea Astley’s Vanishing Points is Inventing the Weather. In this story, Julie, the wife of Clifford Truscott, is a woman who after years of a humiliating marriage, rediscovers herself. In the first novella, The Genteel Poverty Bus Company, the curmudgeonly former academic-turned-hermit, Macintosh Hope finds that the solitude of his tiny island paradise is ruined when Clifford builds a trashy resort on the neighbouring island. Clifford is not the main character, and he’s only seen as the obnoxious crass property developer who will stop at nothing to get his way.
In Inventing the Weather, Clifford is in his natural habitat. He’s a terminally unfaithful, boorish husband whose blatant affairs have been tolerated and ignored by his long-suffering wife. The man even has the nerve to tell Julie to “whip up some lunch” for a trip for three on his yacht: Julie, Clifford and a topless Mimsie (his latest secretary).
Sometimes watching the television I suspect there is only one sex in the world. All the news is about men making money, cheating each other, killing each other, and playing football.
One day, Clifford announces that he’s moving out. According to Clifford, a man who never takes responsibility for his actions, Julie “brought” on his departure by her actions. What a winner! Clifford is leaving to be with his mistress-du-jour, the ludicrously named Laramie. But Julie, who hasn’t complained about his “path strewn with libidinal disasters” for the entirely of their marriage, puts a wrench in Clifford’s plans for sexual romps with Laramie, by announcing that she is leaving and that Clifford and Laramie can deal with the kids. There goes the romance (sex). Clifford is of course, outraged. To him, Julie is an unnatural mother (men can leave their families, but women can’t). It’s a bold move by Julie, and it’s a move she comes to regret, but her decision is not about leaving her children but finding herself. And this she does.
There’s a great scene in which Julie visits her Clifford at their former home and meets Laramie: a woman it seems who has no illusions about Clifford’s character:
My supplanter, an organized brunette, appears behind him. Her face is unexpectedly resigned. She sums me and the situation and it concomitants up immediately.
“You’d better come in,” she offers over Clifford’s stubborn shoulders.
My aggression has inexplicably become humility. I am looking for redemption. I ask if that will be alright. She winks at me. Winks? I can tell Clifford wants to flatten me. Any moment he could start hurling jardinières. “Of course,” she says.
“But maybe that’s your idea of achievement, universal loathing.”
The volumeVanishing Points contains two novellas written by Thea Astley: The Genteel Poverty BusCompany and Inventing the Weather. The protagonist of The Genteel Bus Company is the curmudgeonly former academic 60-something Macintosh Hope whose quest to abandon civilization leads him to a futile battle against a crass property developer.
The story opens with Macintosh at the home of Laforgue, a former work colleague: also attending are James Binnaway, Marie Binnaway, Professor and Mrs. Stager, Estelle Pellatier, and Christopher Sweers. It’s a reunion of sorts. The “get-together” is to discuss “Interpretation of the art,” but Macintosh, unable to bear the thought of spending hours in this company, leaves silently in the middle of the night.
As the story unfolds with a back-and-forth timeline, it becomes clear that Macintosh has become increasingly antisocial. After a contentious, abbreviated academic career, full of “constant bickerings,excessive carping about the timetabling, the lateness of tutorial assignments, the dwindling attendance at lectures,” Macintosh had “a stint as personnel manager in a soft drink factory.” This was followed by a short-lived business venture: The Genteel Poverty Bus Company:
Minimal charges for people who couldn’t afford much but wanted travel without the barbaric racket of the nineties.
He’s joined in this endeavour by Binnaway who is on one of his frequent spousal separations. On what turns out to be the last tour, Bernie Gamble, a young man suffering from chronic ill health, joins the group of travellers. There’s a connection between Gamble and Macintosh, and when the tour ends, they are fated to meet again.
After the collapse of The Genteel Poverty Bus Company, Macintosh retreats even further from society–first to a beach hut and then finally to a tiny island where his solitary life is disrupted by Clifford Truscott, a property developer who has built a (noisy) resort on the next island. Macintosh, with his solitude now ruined, unleashes war on the resort.
The Genteel Poverty Bus Company raises some interesting questions: The hermit, the recluse: is society the problem or are they the problem? “Was he [Macintosh] a man who had to keep running or was he being pushed?” And when someone like Macintosh wants to keep his pristine area pristine, away from the riff-raff, are the motives selfish or unselfish? It’s easy of course to dislike Clifford Truscott and his crass trashing of an island, but then there are other examples that come to mind in which residents of a high-end resort adamantly oppose the low-end accommodations being built right down the road from their paradise. Do they have the exclusive rights to Paradise or should it be shared?
Gamble, who understands Macintosh, asks him “do you ever think that solitude is a selfish pleasure?” The only two people in the novella who can actually stand to be around Macintosh are Gamble, a young man with a great deal of wisdom, and Binnaway whenever he puts his turbulent marriage on hiatus. So it doesn’t really seem the case that Macintosh is being selfish by not sharing his life with anyone (no one’s beating down the doors to shack up with him). The world is not losing by him not spreading the wealth of his presence. Is he selfish when he decides to wage war on the island holidaymakers? I would say yes.
I actually looked up solitude and selfishness: various studies state that being alone makes or ‘turns” one more selfish (I would never have guessed that anyone studied the topic). Other loners vigorously oppose the idea that selfishness enters into solitude. Macintosh seems increasingly unable to deal with people, yet as Gamble notes, Macintosh is energised by conflict. Stick Macintosh in town or a village and he’d be arguing with someone about something, parking spots, rubbish bins, fences. He’s a fascinating character study; thriving on conflict yet avoiding it.
The second novella: Inventing the Weather will be renewed next.
I came to The Slap from Australian author Christos Tsiolkas via 2 television series adaptations: One Aussie and one American. Both series are well-worth catching, and they are interesting to compare. But back to the book. The plot is simple enough: one hot day friends and family gather for a BBQ held at the home of Hector and his wife veterinarian Aisha.
Those attending include:
Gary and Rosie and their three-year-old son, Hugo.
Television writer Anouk and her much younger actor, boyfriend, Rhys.
Harry (Hector’s cousin), his wife Sandi, and their only son Rocco (8)
Teenager, Connie (who works at a veterinary clinic with Aisha) and her aunt Tasha.
Teenager Ritchie. His mother, Tracey also works at the clinic with Aisha and Connie.
Bilal (former yobo now a recent Muslim convert), long time friend of Hector, Bilal’s wife Shamira and their children.
Hector’s parents Manolis and his wife, Koula, both in their 60s. Even though Hector and Aisha have almost been married for 2 decades, Koula still can’t get over the fact her son didn’t marry a Greek girl. So Aisha isn’t ‘good enough’ even though she’s a wonderful wife, mother and a hard-working professional woman. Hector is actually the one who isn’t good enough. Hopped up on valium and doing coke at a family BBQ. Really?
Everything is going swimmingly but for a few incidents. Hugo, known to have a “violent temper,” doesn’t play well with others, and in a tantrum he smashes the game remote. There are no consequences for Hugo. Due to Hugo’s age, the older kids are told to tolerate his behaviour. However, at one point, Hugo has a cricket bat, and when he’s told he’s “out” of the game, he raises the bat as if to strike Rocco. Rocco’s father, Harry jumps in and slaps Hugo. Rosie calls the police and the BBQ breaks up.
THE SLAPoccurs very early in the novel (page 40 in my copy), and then the rest of the book follows the fallout of the incident through the voices of various characters: Hector, Harry, Rosie, Manolis, Connie, Ritchie, Anouk, and Aisha. Rosie presses charges against Harry, and of course this leads to divided loyalties as the BBQ attendees are dragged into the squalid mess. Rosie, Aisha and Anouk are lifelong friends. Rosie expects Aisha to take her side, but Aisha’s husband, Hector “wished he had delivered” the slap. There are other divisions in the novel: Hector, Harry and Manolis are all Greek. Aisha is Anglo-Indian (father from Lahore, mother anglo-Indian). Bilal (formerly ) is an aborigine while Gary and Rosie are white. There are economic divisions: Harry is wealthy while Rosie and Gary are barely scraping by. The BBQ guests find themselves asking if Harry was out of line, and if so is it a criminal matter. As the plot continues I considered the awkwardness of having to deal with someone else’s out-of-control child, but the novel’s issues are far deeper than Hugo being slapped.
The Slap takes a look at toxic masculinity. Hector and Harry are both unfaithful to their wives, but the ugly extramarital sex scenes (esp. Harry) show how violence meshes with sex. Harry appears to adore his wife, Sandi, but in reality she has a place, a space in his life, and there are consequences if she crosses a line. Harry seems to think the good old days included violence between husband and wife–giving the wife and kids a good whack if they ‘get out of line’ or hell–even if you just feel like it.
He could hit her now, he could, like his father would have, to see how far he could go, how far she’s let him and how far he’d let himself.
Those of us who grew up with violence in the home, come away either thinking that it’s a default position or else it’s totally unacceptable. With Harry, it’s the former.
But now to Rosie and Gary. And they get my vote for The Most Toxic Relationship in a book filled with contenders. The cluttered marital battleground for Rosie and Gary whittles down to Hugo. Rosie still breastfeeds and Gary, a failed artist who looks for any excuse to blame other people for his failure (and the horror of ‘bourgeois’ success) wants her to stop. Fair enough, but Gary’s violent, useless and a heavy drinker. Breastfeeding is a solace and a defensive position for Hugo, a way of avoiding consequences, but it’s also a consolation to Rosie for her horribly unstable past. She rebonds with Hugo by breastfeeding, but this has become a poor, unhealthy substitute for acceptable social behaviour, and it’s also a way to covertly counter Gary’s role in the home. Rosie seems at first glance the dominant one in the relationship, yet Gary’s viciousness seeps through frequently.
Harry can’t stand Rosie, and the feeling is mutual.
The child looked up at him and Hector, quizzical but friendly eyes. There was something both obscene–and possibly because of that-something erotic about seeing such a grown child still drinking from his mother. A quick thought came to Harry. What would she do once the brat started school? Would she be sticking her jugs through the school fence?
Ok, so the book examines toxic masculinity, so what about the females: Aisha seems like the perfect wife and mother until she isn’t. Rosie … well good luck dealing with a teenage Hugo. Anouk is my favourite character in the book. She has escaped the mire of a toxic marriage stew and maintains a limited-shelf life relationship with a good-looking actor who is low-maintenance. Rosie and Aisha compromise in order to maintain their marriages. They give a little here and the next thing you know… Rosie’s life is a living hell. Aisha seems to have ‘it all together’ and has come to terms with her husband’s immaturity (no wonder he’s sniffing around a teenage girl–that’s about his maturity level) but at what cost?
When we read, we are in the company of the characters. Sometimes this can be pleasant, exhilarating or ugly. I expect ugly in crime books, but The Slap is focused on ordinary people in suburbia, so perhaps this is why its ugliness is disturbing. Some voices are stronger than others (as is often the case in novels that break into separate voices). There’s no one to like here which isn’t necessarily a problem, but many of the characters frustrated this reader. The book version of Rosie seems more sympathetic than the screen version, but ultimately everyone seems trapped by their wedding rings. I wanted to tell the two teens, Connie and Ritchie to run for their lives!
“What? I’ve got mental health problems. In the olden days they put people like me in asylums.”
At the end of Katherine Collette’s novel, The Competition, the author explains that this novel was inspired by her experiences with Toastmasters. The organization in the novel, however, is called SpeechMakers (nothing to do with Toastmasters)–and the author points out that “the more negative, money-oriented aspects of SpeechMakers” are “made up.”
The action in the novel takes place at the SpeechMakers Public Speaking Championship held in Brisbane at the annual national conference. The plot involves a handful of characters who are in attendance either as competitors or organizers. There’s Keith, a member of SpeechMakers for 36 years; SpeechMakers is his life but that enthusiasm is not shared by his absent wife. Keith was at one time a mentor to new member, Frances. Frances, a troubled young woman, living at home on borrowed time, is there for the 40k prize money, and she’s managed to wing the expenses by using her parents’ credit cards–without their permission. There’s Neil, a Doctor of Accounting, a shy young man who has the power to bore you to sleep with his conversation but who comes alive on stage when making a speech.
What was a doctor of accounting anyway? Some kind of psychologist for people who couldn’t add?
Neil is not an eager participant, but his mother, coach Judy has enough drive for the pair of them.
Keith, as a long time member, is disturbed to see that SpeechMakers is taking a decided turn towards moneymaking. Everything costs. Nothing is cheap. There are workshops ($$), coaching sessions ($$), lectures ($$) and special seminars ($$)–not to mention merchandise.
The goal seemed less as Randall had so aptly put it all those years ago, to find your voice so much as to locate your wallet. Keith didn’t see why they needed to charge a joining fee and a one-off up front administration fee. In addition to the ongoing membership fees, which seemed to increase each quarter, and the compulsory contribution for ‘attendance and involvement’.
The entire structure of things is beginning to smack of a pyramid scheme. To gain a title within the organization such as “Highly Esteemed” you had to “either recruit 32 individual members or oversee the establishment of a new club.” And there’s a $20 dollar commission for each new member recruited.
“Only” the 120 semi-finalists competing in the national championship are “asked to attend” a tour of the “newly-renovated headquarters of SpeechMakers Australia.” Cost $280. Frances doesn’t see the point of the tour or the cost but she’s told she “might be disqualified” if she refuses to join the tour.
Keith couldn’t help but do a mental calculation: two thousand people each paying the $1800 conference fee was … nearly four million dollars. It never used to be so expensive.
Or so over the top. This year’s championship wasn’t only the semi-finals and the grand final; it was a four day extravaganza.
On the first day of the conference, Frances sees Rebecca Chu, a girl she knew in high school–the last person she wants to see on the entire planet. Obviously seeing Rebecca makes Frances horribly nervous, and gradually the reasons for this nervousness are revealed.
This was a fun, light and off-the-beaten track sort of read. Reading the book was an immersive introduction into the fictional world of SpeechMakers, and it becomes clear that the finals are fiercely competitive, and that to many members, this is more than a hobby–it’s a way of life.
The subject matter here is, at least for this reader, unusual. The tone of the book is light and amusing in spite of the tension of the competition. Some people will do anything to win, no shock there, and while SpeechMakers states that it exists in order to help each member find his/her voice, that voice may, it turns out, need to make a very special speech.
Sally Hepworth’s domestic thriller The Soulmate unfolds through two voices: Pippa, a married ‘wills and estates’ lawyer, and Amanda, the wife of a billionaire. Amanda sacrifices everything to support her husband in his career and often turns the other way in order to ignore some shady business dealings. Pippa is married to Gabe, a stay-at-home dad who looks after the couple’s two children. Pippa tells everyone the two little girls are “Irish twins,” (less than a year apart). At first glance, Pippa and Gabe would appear to have an idyllic marriage, a idyllic clifftop beach home and an idyllic life. The one wrinkle on the horizon is that their clifftop home is actually a well-known suicide spot, and since they moved in, there have been numerous would-be suicides talked down by Gabe.
One day, Pippa and Gabe notice a woman standing on the cliff edge. Gabe rushes out to talk to her while Pippa calls the police, but before the police arrive the woman falls to her death. There was something about the interaction between Gabe and the woman that bothers Pippa–the way that Gabe appeared to argue with the woman, the position of his hands after the woman’s fall. …
From this point, everything starts to unravel. The story unfolds through Pippa and Amanda’s voices, in two time frames. Amanda, it turns out, is/was the wife of Max, Gabe’s one-time boss, and she’s the one who jumped to her death. Gabe tells the police a foolish lie–that he didn’t know the woman who threw herself off the cliff. Given that it’s going to be easy for the police to discover that Gabe knew Amanda, the lie seems … well… as suspicious as hell.
The tawdry tale is told by two women who reveal through their voices, now/then, the inner unhappy workings of their marriages. I am not fond of narrators who are ghosts/dead as questions begin to dart through my head. Can they see everything? Are they in limbo? Plus it seems like a type of narrative cheating in a way. For this reader, Gabe was an incredibly annoying person and Max was one dimensional. As for Pippa… I can understand someone telling themselves (or others) that their lives are great, etc, but Pippa’s delusions are something that need to be addressed by a professional. The book started out strong but then petered out into people being stupid. Looking at online reviews, it seems that many fans were disappointed.
“[Teaching] that might have been the best thing in her life. And reading. Escaping from self.”
Amy Witting’s novel, Maria’s War, a story of displacement, acceptance and secrets is set in Leicester Gardens, a Sydney “retirement village,” which is part of a larger complex. There are villas for the better-off and more independent seniors; there’s also a nursing home for the ill, and a hospital block. Retired teacher, Erica Bromley moves into Leicester Gardens after the death of her only friend. Erica, or Brom, as she is known to her former students, does not find the transition to life in Leicester Gardens easy. Erica selected Leicester Gardens mostly due to the “advertised attraction” of bush walks. But she is told by the manager that she cannot walk alone and must be accompanied by another resident. Meals are communal, unless requested otherwise, and the residents have firmly developed relationships, cliques and rules of engagement. Maria, a long term-resident, seems to be Erica’s most promising companion, yet Erica is all too aware that she must not favour Maria’s company too much or she risks the hostility of some of the other, already prickly, residents.
The book is called Maria’s War, and the book opens with Maria being interviewed by Neil, a young man hired by Maria’s family to write her history. Neil has a romantic interest in Maria’s granddaughter, which is not reciprocated, and when Neil works that out, he finds himself becoming impatient with Maria’s story.
So what is Maria’s story? During WWII, Maria, a Lithuanian catholic, was separated from her husband. He was press-ganged into the Wehrmacht while she, displaced with her baby daughter, survived the war after many hardships. Maria recounts some of her history to Neil, and keeps other parts of it secret. Neil senses that he is receiving the expurgated version, and can tell when Maria hits a memory she can’t or won’t discuss. Many of Maria’s actions and decisions were made under harsh circumstance, and now, in the telling, her hardships seem shadowed by the moral implications she must live with. From a distance one can never fully recreate the atmosphere, the pressures, the tensions and the fears that led to one decision over another.
It seems like memory is a live thing, unpredictable. I had not really expected that.
For this reader, the novel excelled at the petty jabs of residents towards each other for perceived grievances or rule-jumpers. If one resident receives a letter or postcard, the others expect news of the outside world to be shared. Communal life in the dining room is banal and predictable. Conversations must be on certain topics and not run off the rails, and Erica finds that she must conform, yet with Maria, she is more her true self. Unfortunately most of the residents remain 2 dimensional shady forms like pieces on a chess board.
It’s as if there are two novels here: Maria’s War and Erica’s life and integration in the retirement village. A BIG coincidence brings these 2 stories together but it is a clumsy device. Maria’s War is not up to the standards of I is for Isobel, Isobel on the way to the Corner Shop, or AChange in the Lighting. The latter is my favourite.
Sally Hepworth’s domestic suspense novel, The Younger Wife, begins with the wedding of Melbourne-based heart surgeon, Stephen Aston, a man in his 60s and Heather, a 30-something interior designer. It’s a big wedding, with Stephen’s two daughters, Tully and Rachel in attendance. The groom is old enough to be the bride’s father … well it’s an old story. But wait … there’s something really odd about this wedding. Stephen’s ex-wife, Pamela, is also a guest. Stephen insists that even though Pamela and he are divorced, she should attend as she’s still family. Pamela, by the way, is living in a care home with dementia. Backstory: Heather was hired for home renovations by Stephen and Pamela when they were still married. Shortly after Stephen met Heather, he put Pamela in a care home. A month after moving Pamela into the care home, he filed for divorce and announced his upcoming marriage to Heather. Alarm bells were going off in my head with this information. And I’m not the only one. Most of the guests feel uneasy about Pamela’s presence, and this unease is proved warranted when something goes horribly wrong. …
The novel segues to a restaurant dinner organized by Stephen. He invites his daughters Tully and Rachel and, there he introduces Heather as his fiancée. Tully and Heather are floored. They are still adjusting to the relocation of their mother to a nursing home, and they had no idea their dad was even dating. Tully’s first reaction to Heather is to assume she’s going to “destroy their lives.” Rachel plays a cooler hand, but both young women struggle to adjust to the news.
Under different circumstances, Rachel might have felt pleasure at this meeting. For example, if her father had started dating someone after mum died. A nice widow named Beryl, perhaps
The story moves from Stephen’s announcement up to the wedding. While both Rachel and Tully try to adjust to the news that they are shortly to have a young stepmum, both young women face other challenges in their lives. Rachel, who runs a bakery business from her home, discovers mysterious contents in her mother’s hot water bottle. Tully, who lives in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in Melbourne, faces an uncertain future. Both sisters have ‘issues;’ Rachel, who doesn’t date, has never dated, tends to eat her feelings, and Tully has picked up a nasty little habit since she was 11. Rachel, unsettled by the news of the wedding combined with the contents of the water bottle, tries to ask her mother some questions, but it’s a roll of the dice when it comes to whether or not Pamela will recognize her children. As events roll on, Rachel and Tully begin to question every thing they know about their parents.
All the characters have secrets, and all of those secrets will be uncovered by the time the book ends. The story unfolds through the voices of an (initially) unnamed woman, Heather, Tully and Rachel.The Younger Wife is a page turner. I liked the relationship between the very different sisters. Yet while this story is highly readable, I had some issues with a couple of things. 1) Tully’s husband, Sonny, makes a MAJOR mistake (no spoilers) but Tully basically shrugs and that’s that. Of course, underneath Tully’s acceptance and nonchalance, it’s NOT ok, and this is evident by her later stressed out, self-destructive behaviour. Sonny is appalled by his wife’s behaviour, and Tully waits for the lightening to fall. But wait…. Sonny isn’t called to account for his actions.
2) Another issue I had was with the character of Heather. The choices she makes after one particular incident pushed credulity over the edge. Can’t say more than that without spoilers. One’s past makes one more vulnerable in certain situations and to certain relationships, I get that, and I agree,BUT when the evidence is irrefutable … c’mon. What sort of idiot accepts PILLS after YOU KNOW what the truth is? Heather’s behaviour makes her … well either NOT a credible character or not the sharpest tool in the toolbox (yes even taking her past into consideration.) Still, in spite of these flaws, I liked the way the author showed that the ideal family is sometimes rotten to the core. It takes being inside that family to know the truth.
I’ve read and enjoyed Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall and Big Little Lies so on to Nine Perfect Strangers which the Gerts, who gauge my tastes with great success, said I would enjoy. Nine Perfect Strangers was made into a TV series and I enjoyed that while noting that some things didn’t quite work. It’s always great fun to read the book and compare the series, or vice versa.
Nine Perfect Strangers is set at the Tranquillum House health resort which is about a 6 hour drive north of Sydney. Nine people, as the title suggests, book a 10 day retreat, and they all have their reasons for needing a very expensive “boutique health and wellness resort.” The director of Tranquillum House Maria Dmitrichenko, or Masha offersan “exclusive Ten-Day Mind and Body Total Transformation Retreat,” with the promise that “in ten days, you will not be the person you are now,” and that they “will leave Tranquillumhouse feeling happier, healthier, lighter, freer.” Here are the 9 guests:
Frances, a twice-divorced, overweight, successful writer of tacky romance novels. She was recently bilked by an internet dating scammer and her career is in freefall.
Napoleon Marconi, his wife Heather and their daughter Zoe. Zoe’s twin brother committed suicide 3 years previously and while the 3 Marconis are bonded by tragedy, they each harbour secret guilt about Zach’s death.
Carmel, an insecure mother of 4, with body image issues, whose husband left her for a much younger woman.
Ben and Jessica, a young couple who won the lottery and have been drifting apart ever since.
Lars, a gay divorce lawyer whose partner wants a child.
Tony, a former professional football player who is now divorced and eating and drinking his way to an early grave.
Staff-wise, there’s Masha, a former corporate executive who runs the show, and Yao and Delilah, her two assistants.
Nine Perfect Strangers is an entertaining, funny, light, slightly bloated read with a few nods to the complications of the human condition. The guests (and staff) are all damaged in various ways by life experiences, and they need to heal. Ben and Jessica were high school sweethearts and winning the lottery has ruined their marriage. Jessica sees her life in Instagram posts and is on a never-ending quest to surgically improve her body. Problem is “the more Jessica changed her face and body, the less secure she became.” Ben can hardly stand to look at the ‘new’ Jessica, and the love of his life is now his Lamborghini.
Sometimes when she spoke normally, when she was just being herself, he could forget the frozen forehead, the blowfish lips, the puffy cheeks, the camel eyelashes (“eyelash extensions”), the fake hair (“hair extensions”), and the fake boobs, and there, for just a moment , was his sweet Jessica, the Jessica he’d known since high school.
The ‘trips’ were boring to read, and the characters are mere types, and not fully fleshed. The character of Frances stole the book and the series (IMO), and the series added some sex and a thriller subplot–both of which were mercifully absent from the book. I particularly loved the deprivations of Masha’s programme and how some guests tried smuggling in contraband and expected to be pampered for all the money they spent and not … well… you have to read the book. But possibly the most entertaining section (in the book) involves Masha’s meltdown. She’s a lot more fun in the book than in the series.
Masha said, “Do you know, there was a great man. His name was Steve Jobs.”
Lars who has been expecting her to say the Dalai Lama, snickered.
“I always admired him greatly,” said Masha.
“Not sure why you took all our iphones away then,” muttered Tony.
“Do you know what Steve Jobs said? He said that taking LSD was one of the most important, profound experiences of his life.”
“Oh well then” said Lars, greatly amused. “If Steve Jobs said we should all take LSD, then we really should!”
“That’s the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.”
Liane Moriarty’s engaging novel, Apples Never Fall is a tale of marriage, family dynamics, and buried resentments. The story unfolds through 2 timelines: 69 year-old Joyce Delaney is missing. She sent a garbled text to her 4 children saying she was going ‘off grid,’ but that’s very unlike Joyce. Stan, Joyce’s husband for 50 years isn’t the one to report his wife missing, and that seems strange, but then they weren’t on the best of terms. The second timeline goes back to some months earlier when a young, distressed girl comes knocking at the Delaney home, looking for help, late at night. The chapters then go back and forth in time.
Stan and Joyce were tennis champions who owned their own tennis school, complete with cafe. Joyce, a veritable dynamo, raised 4 children while still playing tennis and running the school. Now Stan and Joyce are newly retired, and Joyce is adjusting to domestic life with Stan. Their busy, active life used to be full of obligations, constant diversions and interruptions. But now Stan sits in the recliner, nursing his knees, watching TV and munching crackers while Joy constantly listens, via headphones, to podcasts. She also accompanies a widowed neighbour to a creative writing course on how to write your memoirs. Joyce hasn’t written hers yet (and is only in the class for the neighbour’s sake) but in spite of her lack of intent, Joyce already has a title “Regret […] A Regretful Life by Joy Delaney.”
All the Delaney children were/are excellent tennis players, but none of them became champions. Each one bears the burden of a childhood spent training, winning and losing matches along the way.
When he was a kid, all he’d wanted to do was to beat his older brother in anything and everything. It was the point of his entire existence. Winning his first match against Logan had felt like a cocaine high except just like cocaine, it also made him feel sick. He always remembered with resentment and mystification how nausea had tainted the edge of his win, how he’d gone to have a shower to cool off and thought he was fine, but then he lost his temper with a tennis kid who had wandered through the back door of their house. He hated it so much when kids thought their kitchen was a clubhouse facility. It was almost like he’d felt guilty for beating his brother, as if being two years older gave Logan a lifelong right to win against Troy.
In adulthood, all 4 children have tangled issues with relationships. Amy, the eldest, a “free spirit,” can’t keep a job, or maintain a relationship. She’s spent a lifetime in therapy with no end in sight. Her younger sister, Brooke, who is “too driven,” is separated from her husband. A physical therapist with her own struggling PT clinic, Brooke gave up tennis due to blinding, painful migraines. Troy, freshly divorced, now an extremely successful trader, sabotaged his marriage and now regrets it. Logan’s longtime girlfriend just dumped him. Logan, a professor, has decided he’s going to give up dating and that way he won’t lose again. Each of Delaney children are shaped by competitive tennis.
“So been on the court lately?” Troy gave Logan a speculative look.It had been years since they’d played each other. Logan gave an irritated exhalation as if Troy had asked this same question multiple times before which he was pretty sure he had not.
“No, not for a while now.”
“Why not?” asked Troy genuinely interested.“Not even with mum and dad?“
“No time,” Logan fiddled with his left wrist as if to indicate an invisible watch.
“No time?” repeated Troy, “what a crock of shit. You’ve got time to burn.” Logan shrugged. Then he said suddenly as if he couldn’t help himself. “I don’t get how you play socially.” He saidsocially like the word smelled.
“I enjoy it,” said Troy truthfully. He had friends he played with on a semi-regular basis both in Sydney and New York. They were all former competitive players like him. He won maybe 70% of the time.
“Keeps me fit. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You’re saying you don’t care if you win or lose?”
Now that Stan and Joyce are on their own, it’s dull. Life has changed in retirement; “Last year they had sold their business, and it felt like everything ended, juttered to a stop.” But late one night, there’s a knock at the door and a young girl, Savannah, claims she’s escaping an abusive relationship and just happened to arrive, by cab, at their home. Naturally Stan is suspicious, but Joyce cannot turn the girl away, and that decision is partly to spite Stan. Savannah stays, cooking marvelous meals. What was supposed to be a temporary measure turns permanent. ….
The detective investigating Joyce’s disappearance questions each of the children and, the husband of course. Stan’s reactions aren’t right, and the detective senses that Stanley knows more than he’s saying. Then there are the kids …. who find themselves taking sides in this situation. The investigation brings the siblings together with each one slipping into old familiar roles as they “regressed,” into old rivalry.
This well paced novel examines the Delaney family dynamics and the powerful resentments that lurk under the surface of a long-term marriage. The Delaney children have complicated feelings–jealousy, resentment, and anger–towards their parents when it comes to Harry Hadad, their father’s star pupil. The children all have a love/hate relationship with tennis–admiring the game but resenting the other players who took their dad’s attention–and that isn’t helped by the fact that Stan took the side of his most promising protégé who cheated in a match against Troy. Family politics are complicated at the best of times but add competitive tennis and the tennis students, sometimes gifted children, who suck up the parents’ time. Outsiders probably envied the Delaney children, and while they were certainly lucky in many ways, they all paid a price when it came to tennis. There’s the underlying knowledge that the Delaney children never met their father’s expectations, and then there are Stan’s mysterious disappearances. …
The characters are all well done, and these 4 may be siblings but they all have different approaches to life: Troy throws money at problems, lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle, and can’t understand why his siblings don’t envy him. Logan has a problem committing to the woman he loves, and sets his sights comfortably low. Amy can’t settle down and Brooke is tightly wound, seemingly perfect but always stressed out. The siblings’ competitive relationships with each other play a role in the tale too as the search for Joyce continues.
Sometimes Logan saw something in a woman that Troy didn’t seestraight away. When they were in their late teens, they both dated girls called Tracy, and Troy developed a secret, shameful crush on Logan’s Tracy. She was the superior Tracy. The worst part was Troy had met Logan’s Tracy first, so he could have made a move, but he didn’t see her appeal until Logan saw it.
This was an excellent read, with an overly long-drawn out ending the only negative. I listened to the audio book version which was read by Caroline Lee. Caroline Lee is Australian and it was easy for me to imagine that I was listening to Joyce.
Big Little Lies was made into a series, as was Nine Perfect Strangers. Apples Never Fall would be perfect for a TV series.
Last year, Max Barry’s novel Providence made my best-of-year list. Providence, a science fiction novel, follows a ship’s crew as it heads into the Violet Zone, deep space, as the battleship, on a search and destroy mission, hunts for Salamanders, a hostile race locked into a war in space with humans. Providence tackles big questions such as AI vs. human intelligence–both come with flaws. It’s been over a year since I read Providence and I still think about the book almost daily. Roll onto 2021, and it’s The 22 Murders of Madison May. When I first saw the name of Barry’s latest, the title seemed to have a playfulness to it–and I thought about that. ‘Murder’ isn’t playful at all, so the playful aspect comes from the name Madison May. The name is a bit stripper-ish, a bit actress-y.
The 22 Murders of Madison May is also science-fiction, a parallel universe novel. When the story opens, Madison May, a sweet, young real estate agent is about to show a home, a “dump.” Since she’s meeting the buyer, a man named Clay, alone, she takes his photo for “security.” Clay seems more interested in Madison than the house, and she begins to get bad vibes. There are horrible bite wounds on his arms, all in various stages of healing. He locks the doors, takes Madison’s phone and asks her to come into the bedroom to talk. Madison, who is a naturally perky person, decides that the best course of action is to humour Clay, at least until she can run, and after all, her office has Clay’s photo and all his information so “it would be crazy for Clay to do anything.”
Once in the bedroom, Clay tells Madison that he’s traveled from another world just to see her.
“All this …” He gestured to … the room, the curtains? No, no: the world of course. “It’s a drop in the ocean. There are more worlds. More than you can count. They look the same but they’re not, not if you pay attention. And you’re in all of them. Everywhere I go, you’re doing different things. Every time I leave, it’s to find you again.”
That day, reporter Felicity Staples is asked to cover a murder. That’s not her usual beat, but since Levi, the paper’s crime reporter is out, Felicity goes to the crime scene. Real estate agent, Madison May is the murder victim, and outside of the taped crime scene a man and a woman stand watching. The crime scene is bloody, and “the drywall had been carved open with thick slashes. There were five angled prongs crossing a circle.” What do the marks mean?
Felicity discovers that the “insignia” carved into the wall is the same insignia on a cap worn by man who was outside of the crime scene when Felicity arrives, but the police don’t seem interested in her tip. A little amateur detective work on logos leads her to The Soft Horizon Juice Company. From this point, things don’t add up: there’s a man, named Hugo, who should be in Sing Sing for murdering his wife, walking the streets of Manhattan. Just what is The Soft Horizon Juice Company and how is it connected to Madison’s murder? After being shoved off of a subway platform, Felicity returns home but there’s something off…. . She’s still a reporter, her boyfriend is still tried-and-true Gavin, but there’s something not quite right:
She felt off-balance. There was somethingwrong and she couldn’t figure out what.
Felicity inadvertently becomes mixed up in the hunt for a serial killer, but unlike most serial killers, Clay travels to parallel universes to kill the same woman. Over and over again.
So that’s enough of the plot. Max Barry’s entertaining novel is mind-blowing for those of us who love or believe in parallel universe theory. This could be a grim read, but the author seeds this with light touches. Felicity’s boyfriend is slightly different in each universe; sometimes better, sometimes not. As Felicity steps into and adjusts to, her subsequent new lives, parallel universe travel brings up some moral questions.
“There’s no time travel. You’re in a physically different place. It shares an ancestor with where you’re from, but at some point it split. Since then, it evolved independently.”
“You’re saying there are two worlds? A real one and a … a secret–?”
“Many worlds. Detaching and refolding all the time. Nothing makes one more real than the other.”
“Parallel dimensions?” she said, groping for a concept. “Is that what you’re saying?”
His Futile Preoccupations ..... 
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