Old God’s Time: Sebastian Barry

“To him this was the whole point of retirement, of existence–to be stationary, happy and useless.”

66-year-old Retired policeman, Tom Kettle is leading a quiet, solitary life. His much-loved wife June died years earlier. His son Joe lives in America and his daughter, Winnie lives nearby. Or do they? Tom’s current home, where he “washed up,” is unusual; it’s a lean-to annexed to a white castle, and it overlooks the sea. With books in boxes still unpacked, Tom enjoys his days watching the sea, thinking, and soaking up his memories.

All his working life he had dealt with villians. After a few decades of that your faith in human nature is in the ground. It’s a premature burial, predating your own. But he wanted to be a believer again, in something. He wanted to live in his welath of minutes, the ones he had left anyhow.

It’s only been 9 months since he retired, and there’s the idea that he deserves this peace and quiet. The peace and quiet, however, all comes to an end with the arrival of two young policeman, Wilson and O’Casey, from his old station. They arrive, act awkwardly and say they need his help on an old case. But do they? Then Detective Superintendent Fleming pays Kettle a visit and repeats the request for help with the old case, yet when Kettle finally travels to the police station, it doesn’t seem that his help is needed at all. The cold case, now reopened, is the brutal murder of priest found in the Dublin mountains, and Kettle can’t even remember being the investigating officer. This memory gap is jarring and causes Kettle to have an “out-of-body experience.”

Kettle is an unreliable narrator. The plot gives us signs right away: there are surreal moments, dream-like memories, odd encounters, and gradually the heavy price of violence is revealed. The cold-case murder of the priest under investigation and the past of Kettle’s long-dead wife are inexorably tangled.

Old God’s Time is hard reading. There are sick, twisted people in the world who prey on children, and there are others who, for whatever reason, cover up those crimes. How do survivors live, carry on, and deal with the past? Kettle’s life has been blighted by violence and grief. How can one live with memories when all those memories are vile?

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The Next Time I Die: Jason Starr

“This version of me has made some bad decisions.”

Author Jason Starr marks a change of pace with his new novel, Next Time I Die. Starr has an impressive number of crime novels under his belt, with everyday ordinary protagonists who are caught in a web of criminality and claustrophobic deceit. In this novel, lawyer Steven Blitz is preparing for the upcoming murder trial of Jeffrey Hammond. Hammond, an artist, is accused of murdering three men, and Blitz has constructed an insanity defense. As he chews over his statement, his wife, Laura, a sometimes violent manic-depressive now off her meds, announces she wants a divorce. Laura tells Steven to leave and he drives, in heavy snow, to his brother’s home.

Stopping at a gas station, Steven encounters a man and a young woman engaged in a possible domestic dispute. Steven intervenes, the man stabs Steven in the stomach, stuffs the girl in the car, and drives off leaving Steven bleeding heavily. As he passes out, he hears a voice, “I saw you, Steven Blitz.”

Steven wakes up in a hospital, but something is horribly wrong. His wife, Laura, a viper at the best of times, is loving, sweet and concerned, and Steven suddenly has a daughter. Disoriented, Steven tries to latch onto the world he knew before he was stabbed, but he soon learns that the world he is in has no coronavirus, 9/11 didn’t take place, major political figures don’t exist, and while Steven’s brother Brian visits, Brian’s life is totally different. Of course, by this time, an alternate reality seems the only possible explanation. Hospital staff chalk up Steven’s behaviour as the after effects of concussion.

When Steven is released and returns to his life, the new version that is, he finds that Hammond, the psycho he was representing is not accused of murder, and Steven decides that Hammond has not yet been caught. Steven notes, “the idea of a free Jeffery Hammond terrifies me,” and he starts digging into Hammond’s life. When Steven starts getting anonymous threatening texts, Steven’s paranoia ramps up to fever pitch. Gradually as Steven sinks into his new life, he realises that he’s not one of the good guys, but surely he can’t be as bad as that sociopath, Hammond, right? You know, the sociopath who chops up his victims.

As always with any Jason Starr book, The Next Time I Die is a page-turner. The author’s strength lies in his ability to create relatable characters who seem to be bludgeoned by the sort of everyday problems most of us have. Starr seems to like to create these connections between reader and protagonist but then just as we relate, it’s off down the rabbit hole. …

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The Pharmacist: Ingrid Noll

“Margot was dressed in nothing but a black suspender belt and red boots, and she had perched her purple knickers coquettishly on her head.”

Pharmacist Hella Moorman is stuck in bed at the Heidelberg Hospital for Women. With nothing to do and bored to tears, Hella begins to tell her life story to her roommate, a very dull looking “ageing spinster.” It seems harmless to confess all, and the roommate, Rosemarie Hirte, following a hysterectomy and a cancer diagnosis, seems half asleep most of the time anyway. To Hella, telling all is “a kind of therapy.” Hella admits that in her past she “kept falling for men who were having an even harder time of it than I was.” That is a long way of saying they were LOSERS. Hella, who comes from a good family, has a pattern of trying to salvage hopeless men. By the time she’s an adult, she’s been accused of murder (nothing can be proved) and has had a string of awful men in her life. But she’s intelligent and becomes a pharmacist.

Enter Levin, a much younger man who says he’s studying to be a dentist. Within a short period of time, Levin has moved in, and good at spending Hella’s money, he persuades her to buy a flashy red convertible. There’s the impression that Hella is not very attractive; she’s the one who has to initiate sex with Levin. He doesn’t seem that interested, and he’s much more interested in the sports car. Hella admits the car has its uses: “it was fun roaring around with someone in a perpetual state of euphoria.”

Over time, Hella learns that Levin is to inherit his grandfather, Herman’s, impressive mansion and ALL of his money. Too bad the old chap won’t be reasonable and die. In the meantime, Levin, who can’t wait for his inheritance begins to siphon off valuables from his grandfather’s house. Levin employs a vastly unsuitable young woman named Margot to care for his grandfather. Margot looks as though she belongs on a stripper pole rather than behind a wheelchair.

Margot was no thrifty housekeeper but a thoroughly incompetent slut.

As Rosemarie listens to this sordid tale from her hospital bed, she occasionally jumps in with snarky, tart comments. At one point she interrupts Hella:

“Were you really so stupid as to actually marry that waster?” demanded Frau Hirte. “If so, then please skip the wedding, if you don’t mind, and go straight on to the successful divorce proceedings.”

Rosemarie doesn’t seem in the least concerned to hear that Levin was fascinated by Hella’s secret stash of poisons passed on from her creepy Nazi grandfather.

Hella’s tale is tinged with ‘if onlys.’ If only Levin will marry her … If only she can have a child … If only Margot would leave …

Here’s Hella’s wedding day with Margot stealing the show:

I looked so pretty, or at least so I imagined; my costume suited me perfectly and my father had put around my neck, with his own fair hand, the six rows of polished pearls and garnets which had belonged to his grandmother and which I had had my eye on for a long time. But then it all started to go wrong. I caught sight of Margot and was horrified. Was this the mangy cat who had, after a fashion, taken care of Herman Graber’s household? Before me stood a young woman in a black dress, the top half transparent and, at the back, plunging all the way down to the start of the valley between her buttocks; totally out of place, and no doubt paid for out of my money. And confronted with this package of aggressive, low-class sex, many of the men were asking eagerly, ‘who’s that, then?‘

Things become even more complicated when Margot’s husband, Dieter, Levin’s best friend and former partner-in-crime, shows up. Yes Hella’s life would be perfect … if only Margot would disappear. And then there’s the decision about which man of three (yes, three no less) she should choose. As Hella’s sordid tale continues, and becomes darker, we only have her version of events. She positions herself as an innocent bystander surrounded by users and yet is Hella the sort to be a victim? Is Hella a reliable narrator? This novel, with its dark transgressive humour, follows Hella’s lifestory as told to Rosemarie Hirte. Rosemarie, by the way, has a sordid tale of her own in Hell Hath No Fury.

Goodwill, dependability, loyalty and morality don’t stand a chance when sex is involved.

This was a great pick for German Literature Month.

What Was She Thinking: Zoe Heller

“You never appreciate what a compost your memory is until you start trying to smooth past events into a rational sequence.”

Zoe Heller’s What Was She Thinking, a tale of how Sheba, a married woman, a teacher, has a sexual relationship with Steven, a 15 year old pupil could have been ripped from the headlines, so perhaps, then, it’s not too surprising to discover that the author was inspired by a real-life case. The absolute brilliant aspect of the book is the unreliable narrator, Barbara, a bitter, caustic, lonely single woman, who works with Sheba. Barbara’s version is, in her words, “her own account of Sheba’s downfall” in which she played a “minor role.” In a sense, there are three people in this sordid relationship: Sheba, Steven and Barbara. Media opinion swirling around this case declares that Steven is the victim and that Sheba is the predator. But it’s also arguable that Barbara, who played a critical role in this mess, is the supreme predator. Barbara, possibly a closeted lesbian (I’d argue against that) or then again possibly just lonely, is a long term history teacher when Sheba arrives as the new pottery teacher in the art department at an appalling London school. At first Barbara dislikes Sheba, but in common with many teachers at the school, she quickly falls under Sheba’s spell. There’s something about Sheba that’s magical: she’s disingenuous, and just … nice. But as nice as she may well be, she’s fresh meat for the school delinquents. When Barbara steps in to help Sheba with a discipline problem, the two women strike up a relationship, and soon Barbara is visiting Sheba’s home where she meets Sheba’s daughter, Polly, Ben, her Down’s syndrome son, and Richard, her much older, egotistical husband.

“You’re Barbara,” a voice said. I looked up and saw a tall man with a lot of crazy grey hair standing in the doorway, peering at me through thick spectacles. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Richard.” Sheba had mentioned that her husband was older than her; I was taken aback to discover by how much. Richard was not yet what you could call elderly, but middle age was no longer a plausible category for him either. His shoulders had begun to slope in the manner of overburdened coat hangers. The backs of his hands had a shiny, yellowish look.

Sheba is infantilized by her pedantic husband. He “condescended to Sheba, as he condescended to everyone. And whenever he got a little tired, or felt the spotlight shift momentarily from himself, or had one of his opinions challenged too vigorously, he tended to lapse into petulant babyness.” By looking at Sheba’s family life, it’s easy to see that Steven was a reaction to her life and marriage. Sheba admits that with Richard, she’d “been allowed to stay a child.” That’s one way of looking at it. Barbara who understands Sheba’s childhood notes that it came instinctively to Sheba to step in the role of “handmaiden to a great, pompous man.”

So onto Steven, the grubby, grotty 15 year-old who is so attractive in Sheba’s eyes, that she’s weak at the knees and drops her knickers. Steven is boorish, coarse, not particularly intelligent, and let’s face it … throughly uninteresting. Of course this is not a relationship that is going to last. Sheba is an intelligent, yet oddly naive woman who puts her life, her career, her reputation into the hands of a yobo. As for Steven… he’s mad about Sheba until she bores him.

• 

What Was She Thinking is a perfect illustration of one of my pet theories: it matters not what or who the love object is, the love object is a vessel for the lover’s needs.

Barbara’s unreliable narration is as wickedly sharp as anything written by Muriel Spark. If we were to interview Sheba, we would probably get some sobby soppy version of her great “amour,” and Steven would probably present his own version of events (he does this later in the book), so how perfect that the narrator should deliver the tale with her own twisted, unreliable agenda. Barbara is a very lonely woman–a woman with resentments when it comes to the lives of others, and she’s spent a lifetime being left outside of the social sphere. While Barbara seems to love Sheba, there’s also a deep layer of resentment towards her. There are hints of another female friendship that turned rancid, and then when a male teacher appears to offer a hand of friendship, it opens the door to treachery. Barbara is content to take crumbs from Sheba, even as she circles around her, warding off a rival teacher, weaving a web of intrigue and dependency. But it’s when Sheba shows her lack of concern for Barbara’s cat (her sole companion) that Barbara’s claws come out. ….

This was a reread for me and I enjoyed the book with its deliciously wicked sense of humour even more the second time around. Here’s a final quote thrown in for fun. Oh the road to hell is paved with good intentions:

Such do-gooding fantasies are not uncommon in comprehensive schools these days. Many of the younger teachers harbour secrets hopes of “making a difference.” They have all seen the American films in which lovely young women tame inner-city thugs with recitations of Dylan Thomas. They, too, want to to conquer their little charges’ hearts with poetry and compassion.

And look where good intentions (or smokescreen?) led Sheba…. There’s more than one way to blow up your life.

The Ditch: Herman Koch

Herman Koch’s novel The Ditch is narrated by Robert Walter,  the middle-aged Mayor of Amsterdam. Robert is seemingly happily married and yet fault lines appear, subtly, but quickly in the novel. Robert introduces us very quickly to his wife saying “Let me call her Sylvia. That’s not her real name.” We know she’s not from Holland, and Robert adds “where she is from is something I’d rather leave up in the air for the time being,”  so we know we are not getting the full story. Robert tells his story his way, parceling out the information he wants to divulge, telling us his daughter’s name is Diana and then almost immediately retracting it, revealing that “Diana isn’t our daughter’s real name either.”

While Robert controls this unreliable narrative, he feeds us clues; his wife is from a country “about which a lot of preconceived notions exist. Notions both favorable and unfavorable. From “passionate” and “temperamental,” it’s only a small step to “hot-tempered.” A crime passionel.” It’s the sort of narrative that encourages the reader to fill in the blanks and to start guessing.

Although married to the mayor, Sylvia doesn’t like “public appearances” but she accompanies her husband to certain events especially when Robert wears his “most pitiful expression” and gives her a “hammy, imploring look.” Telling Robert not to “start crying” Sylvia agrees to attend the new year’s reception, and this is where all the the trouble starts. At the reception, Robert notices his wife, off in a corner with Alderman Maarten van Hoogstraten laughing and talking. The Alderman has his hand on Sylvia’s elbow and is whispering something in her ear. When Robert joins them, the conversation ends, but Robert suspects that his wife is having an affair. These suspicions become an obsession.

An unreliable narrator, a suspected extramarital affair … these are plot ingredients guaranteed to capture my attention. Given that I’ve read and enjoyed (to varying degrees)   The Dinner, Dear Mr. M, Summer House with Swimming Pool I expected to enjoy The Ditch. Robert is an interesting character: a glib, facile politician whose superficial slick social manner hides a somewhat spineless, neurotic individual. Unfortunately Robert’s discursive (rambling) narrative overwhelms the fault lines revealed in Dutch society. Intriguing issues emerge but are drowned out by Robert’s self-obsession and paranoia; he’s a slippery narrator and ultimately his paranoia and frequent digressions leave little to hold onto.

review copy

Translated by Sam Garrett

A Working Mother: Agnes Owens

“You never realise how much you detest your kids until you take them somewhere.”

When A Working Mother opens, mother-of-two, Betty decides to return to work. It’s a decision based on need, and as Betty tells her husband Adam, “we need money. The kids need clothes, apart from the fact that we like to eat.” For the record, Adam doesn’t work and seems to be maladjusted, according to Betty, from his war experiences. Betty’s decision to get a job, while practical, just becomes another weapon in the arsenal of marital skirmishes. Their bitter marriage is full of recriminations, but there’s one thing Adam and Betty agree on: Booze. Drinking is their only shared interest, and their social life is composed of ditching the kids, going to the pub and boozing it up with Adam’s best friend, Brendan. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, to learn that a great deal of Betty’s wages go towards alcohol.

But back to Betty’s search for work. … She contacts the mysterious Mrs Rossi, the fortune-telling owner of an employment agency, and in spite of having no experience in the legal field, Betty is temporarily employed by an elderly lawyer, Mr Robson. Although there are several women in the typing pool, he favours Betty–perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that he fondles her and discusses his book which is a study of “human behaviour in animals.” Mr Robson soon wants to know how the war affected Adam sexually, and then he offers Betty a permanent job. She’s invited to his home to do extra typing on the weekends.

Betty’s life (and story) is split between work where she hits Mr Robson up for money, her home life: fighting with Adam and ignoring the children, spending time with workmate Mai, and Betty’s surreptitious trysts with Brendan. Yes, he may be “backwards,” and have greasy hair, but Betty has chosen him for a lover. Perhaps access is the main reason for her choice. Betty is the driving force in this relationship, and naturally Mr Robson is fascinated by this aspect of Betty’s private life:

“Sorry I’m late,” I said to Mr. Robson, smoothing down my crumpled blouse. “I’ve had a terrible weekend.”

“Dear, dear,” he said. He was reaching up for a book on one of the sleeves called The Joys and Fears of Extra-marital Bliss.”

Gradually we see Betty is an unreliable narrator. On one hand, Adam is supposedly damaged by the war, but then she admits at one point, they married right after he was released from prison. Mai certainly seems to have a different opinion of Adam. And what about Mr Robson? Is he getting his thrills at Betty’s expense or is he being exploited?

The activities of this deluded old man made me want to puke. It seemed I had displayed my soul to him for a few paltry pounds. On the way home I calmed down. There was no harm done really. I would display a lot more than that if the price was right.

I’ve read a few books by Agnes Owens and thoroughly enjoyed them all. Betty is a wonderful narrator: tart, bitter, self-promoting–this is a woman who is having sex with her husband’s best friend, a youth with diminished capacity. She’s a neglectful, disinterested mother, a backstabbing, false friend, a worker who extorts from her employer, and as the story develops, she sinks into a seedy, possibly fabricated, version of events. Is she a victim or the instigator?

As for Mr. Robson, I have done nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that anyone can prove anyway, and as for Brendan, if I’ve done anything to be ashamed of it was more out of pity than anything else. Surely it is only fair that I leave all this confusion for a better life. After all, we’re only here for a few fleeting moments, as Adam often says. 

Darkly funny, this is a twisted look at subversive female behaviour. A Working Mother should appeal to fans of Beryl Bainbridge.

Hell Hath No Fury: Ingrid Noll

“How am I to know you’re not some criminal lunatic?”

Ingrid Noll’s Hell Hath No Fury is a darkly funny tale of obsession, murder, and female competition for a worthless man. The tale, told by an insane stalker who sees her actions as perfectly reasonable and granting her a new enthusiasm for life, examines two questions: how far would someone go to get what they want and do they really want it anyway?

52 -year-old dowdy spinster Rosemarie Hirte leads a quiet life; she’s a good, reliable employee, and she’s only had a couple of romantic relationships. After being dumped by a fellow law student in her youth, she never managed to finish her degree, but instead moved into the insurance business. Now she lives in an apartment in Mannheim, and she has a friend, Beate, a woman she first knew in school. Beate, at one point, had everything that Rosemarie didn’t: a husband, a home, a family, and a social life. “Deep down” Rosemarie is “consumed with hostility towards so much sunshine,” but when Beate’s marriage ends, the two women become closer.

Due to Beate’s drive towards self-improvement and new experiences, Rosemarie first sets eyes on middle-aged academic Rainer Witold Engstern. She becomes obsessed with him, has her hair cut, begins wearing clothes that are “romantically frivolous,” and begins stalking him.

Throughout this tale, the figure of Frau Romer, an older woman who works with Rosemarie, flits in and out of the narrative. With significant health issues, she lodges her elderly dog with Rosemarie, and the dog becomes a prop in Rosemarie’s twisted schemes to be with Witold.

Now I had a crazy idea. I thumbed through the telephone directory. Where did my Rainer Witold Engstern live? Or should I just call him Witold? My first flick through produced nothing, but at last I struck oil. R. Engstern, Ladenburg–got him! Good grief, with no rush-hour traffic, I could drive there in fifteen minutes. I even dug out a street plan of Ladenburg and found his street too, a little way outside the old town. The dog was giving me questioning looks. I felt young, thirsting for adventure. I still had a jogging outfit from my last day at the spa in Bad Sassbach, although I never wore it. So, on with that, dog on its lead, down the stairs, into the car and off we go!

A few trips, later spying on Witold’s house, Rosemarie decides the mess in his home is due to his “slovenly bitch” wife, who is conspicuously absent. It’s the appearance of Witold’s wife that sets a macabre chain of events into motion, and as Rosemarie wheedles her way into Witold’s world, the women in his life don’t realize that they have a rival who will stop at nothing to win the prize. Such as it is…

Hell Hath No Fury is brilliantly and unreliably narrated by Rosemarie. She tends to see what she wants to see, and this twisted vision leads down the path to murder. Rosemarie is the sort of woman people don’t notice, a woman defined by her status and not by the bitter, seething, buried cauldron of repressed desire and emotion bubbling away just under the surface. She lives the life of a “martinet,” keeping her spleen to herself when parents wax on about their children and their love lives. Rosemarie loathes the parent-child bond, hates other women, especially if they are attractive and can cook, and she knows she is one of the “leftovers sat on the fringes like fossils.” She’s always been hiding in plain sight, but it’s her desire for Witold that unleashes her true nature.

As the story progresses, Witold is clueless, and being in his self-centered, not particularly bright orbit, Rosemarie begins to wonder if the prize is worth all the effort, but by this point, she’s narcotized by “an addictive urge,” the power of wielding life and death.

The dark humour springs from the incongruity of Rosemarie as a serial killer and the tart, spiteful inner dialogue about the people she socialises with. Most of Witold’s friends include her as a form of kindness which is rather wasted on Rosemarie. Rosemarie’s thought processes seem so very reasonable, but juxtaposed with her actions, the story takes on a macabre comic tone. She toys with the idea of whether or not to kill someone with the lightness of tone that’s more appropriate to deciding which shirt to wear.  At one point she experiments with poison and decides: “No I told myself, poisoning is not my thing.”

And when I arrived at the last page, I laughed out loud.

Highly, highly recommended

Translated by Ian Mitchell

(This is one of my picks for German literature month, and many thanks to Caroline for pointing me towards this author. )

 

The Murder of My Aunt: Richard Hull (1934)

Murder has several sub-categories: there’s the Crime of Passion, murders for monetary gain, murders for revenge, and the list goes on. When the victim is known to the murderer, naturally, the possibility of motive (or motives) can help solve the case. So the dilemma arises, then– how to murder someone if it’s obvious that you are the most likely culprit?

Edward Powell lives with his Aunt Mildred just outside of the Welsh town of Llwll (which Edward pronounces ‘Filth.’) Edward prefers Surrey, but if he could choose to live anywhere, he would move abroad. The novel opens with snobbish, pretentious Edward launching into a long vitriolic attack on Wales.

There is a high street. It has a post office, from which the letters are occasionally deviled and occasionally not–some grocers, dealing almost entirely in tinned food of the most elementary and obvious kind at fifty per cent more than the proper price; and some butchers, selling mainly New Zealand lamb, Danish bacon and Argentine beef, which is ridiculous in a countryside which, whatever its defects, is full of sheep–peculiarly stupid sheep–and very inquisitive pigs.

There’s one cinema in town but Edward does “not consent to be seen” there as the locals smell. But then does Edward like anything? Yes he does, he loves leisure, loves his car which is named “La Joyeuse,” loves his Pekingese So-So, and loves his French novels

Edward and his Aunt Mildred are more like each other than they’d care to admit, and the two embark on a contest of wills concerning Edward’s smutty (according to his Aunt)  French novels. Edward wants the latest shipment delivered to his aunt’s house and she wants him to start hoofing it to town to pick up the package. A power struggle ensues over petrol with Edward planning to siphon petrol from his Aunt’s car, but she’s so intent on making him walk, that she actually siphons the petrol off herself.

With just a tiny amount of petrol salvaged from his Aunt’s sabotage attempts, Edward tries to drive to the town and then is forced, when the car runs out of petrol, to walk. He realises that he’s the laughing-stock of the townspeople and is so angry, he swears he will kill his Aunt. This is where Edward’s problems take a turn: how can he kill his Aunt, who is both the guardian and trustee of the family nestegg, when he is her heir, and her death will, naturally,  leave him as the only suspect? Edward reasons that her death must be an ‘accident,’ and so he proceeds to create one … or two …or three.

The story is mostly narrated, unreliably, by Edward, so we get his side of things: his victimhood, his loathing of all things Welsh, etc, and yet reading between the lines, Edward is a lazy, good-for-nothing, who sponges off his Aunt. She wants him to get a job, horror of horrors, which he feels is “degrading,” although he toys with the idea of being a poet. At one point in the book I thought that Edward’s sole redeeming feature was his love for his Pekingese So-So, but one of my favourite sayings is : “sometimes you don’t want to be the object of someone’s affection,” and this is certainly the case with poor So-So, so reader beware. I think the passages concerning So-So’s involvement with one of the fabricated accidents is meant to be ‘funny,’ but it really isn’t.

The book presents a ‘pressure cooker’ murder (a term I use to describe a murder that is created by enforced proximity–a situation so intense that murder of one of the parties seems to be the only solution–when it isn’t in fact. The real solution is that one of the parties involved should move away … asap.) For its structure the novel is sound, and its psychological aspects fascinating, but it is a mostly interior tale which involves Edward’s long complaints: Wales, his aunt, the locals, etc. They all get a sound whipping, and while these passages are witty and entertaining, the lack of action makes the novel drag at some points. Plus I can’t forgive the incident with So-So.

Review copy.

The Fall Guy: James Lasdun

James Lasdun’s The Fall Guy lingered on the shelf for some time, but the enthusiasm of the Gerts drove the book closer to the top of the pile. Good thing too, as this book is just the sort of read I crave. Why: the viewpoint of an unreliable protagonist, a summer holiday, and the nebulous morality of a handful of characters.

The story is told through the mind of main character Matthew, a British chef who moved to America and is between jobs after selling a restaurant. He’s a part, an outer part, of his wealthy cousin Charlie’s life. Charlie, an investment banker who was ‘let go’ is also between jobs, but whereas Charlie has a considerable family fortune to bolster his lifestyle, Matthew does not. The third main character here is Charlie’s second wife Chloe, and when Charlie invites Matthew to his second home near the town of Aurelia in New York State for the duration of the summer, Matthew jumps at the chance.

What should be an idyllic summer is actually a season of tension, unease and strange undercurrents which shift beneath the three main characters. Charlie spends most of the time alternating between his next career move and meditating, Chloe is supposedly attending yoga classes, and Matthew is a sort of go-fer, using Charlie’s card to buy high-end food items with which he prepares nightly meals. While the three people share an address, they don’t share space apart from meal times.

The summer thickened around them. Soon it reached that point of miraculous equilibrium where it felt at once as if it had been going on forever and as if it would never end. The heat merged with the constant sounds of insects and red-winged blackbirds, to form its own throbbing, hypnotic medium. It made you feel as if you were inside some green-lit womb, full of soft pulsations. 

The relationship between the three characters, on the surface, seems comfortable. Matthew admits (to himself) a “general feeling of enchantment” in Chloe’s company. Everyone says the right things, and yet… the relationship between Charlie and Matthew, under scrutiny, seems strained. Can this be explained by the gap in their social status? There’s something unhealthy and unspoken here: a toleration instead of a family bond. A gap in fortunes and social status can (and often does) create awkward moments. That’s definitely true here, and there’s the feeling that Matthew ‘pays’ for his board by running errands and cooking meals. Plus there’s an undercurrent of an alternate agenda from Matthew. He wants to “jumpstart his career,” and there’s a falseness, an element of hanger-on to this relationship.

Matthew, who is bewitched by Chloe, admits that “the woman who was so obviously the right woman for Charlie, was, so to speak, the right woman” for him. He’s content to admire her, and bask in her company, but the situation shifts when Matthew discovers that Chloe is having an affair, and it’s this discovery which shifts the unease into overdrive.

Meanwhile the sight of Charlie working or meditating, or driving off in his tennis gear, formed an image of increasingly irritating innocence. Even his pleasantly mindless activities were losing their charm, their soothing rhythms broken by gusts of crackling interference from a situation that had nothing to do with the problems he was trying to sort out. 

James Lasdun creates an odd love-quadrangle here with Matthew as the bit player and yet one who places himself in the power position in the affair. Matthew could tell his cousin Charlie, but should he? After all, if he tells Charlie, Charlie will be devastated and there goes Matthew’s relationship with Chloe (not to mention the cessation of his summer holiday). At first Matthew’s discovery is a moral dilemma but as the novel continues, Matthew’s role becomes much darker.

The Gerts describe the plot as Hitchcockian, and I agree. The Fall Guy plumbs the depths of dark human emotions while teasing the reader with the possibilities of the true, twisted nature of the relationships which exist between these characters.

Highly recommended. Mixed opinions on Goodreads, but I loved it.

New World in the Morning: Stephen Benatar

In Stephen Benatar’s New World in the Morning, Sam Groves, married to childhood sweetheart Junie, has two children 12-year-old Matt and 15-year-old Ella. Sam, at age 39, the owner of a second hand shop named Treasure Island, would appear to have the perfect life. He is happily married, his wife loves him, and they live in a gorgeous, roomy home, the former rectory in Deal, a dwelling they both admired in their youth.

A visitor to Deal, an attractive woman named Moira, steps into Sam’s shop. Shortly, after meeting Moira, Sam spends a Sunday with his wife’s large family, and it’s a good look at Sam’s place within the larger family network. It’s clear that Sam feels that he’s been co-opted by the family, and that married at age 19, life passed him by. He didn’t attend university but instead married June, and her parents helped finance their current life. Meeting Moira stirs Sam’s buried resentments and desires while fueling a desire for excitement. The seeming perfection of Sam’s life evaporates as he connives to juggle his stable home life with Moira, who lives in London.

Sam’s a bit young for a mid-life crisis, but in essence that’s what occurs. He starts worrying about his appearance, decides to adopt an exercise regime, and absolutely intentionally sets out to deceive both his wife and intended mistress.

Sam is our unreliable narrator, and so we only see events through his eyes. We have a Kingsley Amis self-absorbed character here–someone who lives lightly while leaving devastation in his wake. Sam doesn’t see consider the impact of his behaviour on others and he selfishly seeks gratification, with no thought about the results of his actions. (For animal lovers, the dog is the first casualty, but this aspect of the novel is well created, isn’t too painful to read and serves to highlight Sam’s egocentric world view.)

Of course there’d have to be deception. But purely for the common good. It was through Moira that I was going to grow and blossom and bear golden fruit: through me that Moira was going to encounter love and passion and fulfillment. And Junie would awake to find an incomparably more thoughtful and devoted husband.

In fact, according to Sam, his infidelity is paramount to a heroic selfless act: “one thing was sure … both of them would benefit. I’d be doing it for the three of us.”

It may seem that Sam sheds his faithful, plodding married life too quickly, but as the book proceeds, Sam’s long held-discontent is evident (he has ambitions to be an actor for example and still imagines that a career awaits). After a row with Junie, it’s clear that Sam’s version of life doesn’t match his wife’s.

Sam’s one sided, self-justified view can be nauseating, especially at the beginning of the novel, but New World in the Morning is elevated to wonderful domestic comedy by its sly humour–all at narcissistic Sam’s expense. While Sam blithely plots a double life, somehow we know that he won’t get away with it. While pretending to visit a old friend, he sails off in a state of euphoria to London, floating on denial, wishful thinking and armed with food from Junie. It’s in London that the plot really begins to take on deeper significance as Sam creates elaborate stories for Moira and his slippery sociopathic behaviour escalates.

This novel checked a lot of boxes for me: the unreliable narrator, dark humour, the easy shedding of a decades long life. Sam annoyed the hell out of me at first, but soon I was thoroughly enjoying his descent and the inevitable consequences. This one will make my best-of-year list.

I read Benatar’s wonderful Wish Her Safe at Home a few years ago.