Annecdotal blog

Gabriel Viejo is writing the approved biography of Erik von Holunder, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, albeit currently less in vogue. When he travels from London to New York to interview Christie McGraw, the artist’s muse and mistress, he finds her living in a trailer park and unable to afford the cancer treatment she urgently requires.

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Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

18/9/2024

At sixty-six, Tom Kettle, seems to be spending his retirement like a much older man, avoiding thought or action apart from revelling in his memories of his wife and children and staring out to sea. When two young former colleagues from the Dublin Constabulary come to solicit his opinion on a case they are investigating, he does his best to host them in his tiny flat attached to a castle but is clearly overwhelmed.

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Women in Translation, 2024

1/8/2024

It’s a few months since I last posted a review so, officially, I’m no longer a book blogger. But Women in Translation Month is still special to me, so I’m sharing mini reviews of the eight translated novels by women I’ve read in the last twelve months. You can find previous years’ WIT posts by clicking here.

Nothing Belongs to You by Nathacha Appanah
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When her husband dies, Tara closes down both mentally and physically. Her reaction is understandable when we learn about the trauma of her childhood in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, the way the author chose to depict these, beginning with a character who is difficult to relate to, didn't work for me. Disappointing, as The Sky above the Roof was one of my favourite novels of 2022. Translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman.

Satisfaction by Nina Bouraoui
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A study in loneliness. Michele no longer loves her husband and is losing her son to his new friend. She doesn't belong in newly independent Algeria but feels no affinity to her native France. Her promised new job is a long time coming. She fantasises about an affair with another mother. All of this could have been related more economically but the shock ending makes it a novel I won't forget.

The Delivery by Margarita García Robayo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Born and raised in the Caribbean, a young writer has moved to the anonymity of Buenos Aires, where she receives a large crate from her sister containing her estranged mother.

I loved the deadpan voice that excuses the narrator from giving a rational account of how her mother and her supplies of food actually got there. I loved the overall unconventional banality of her life. But there was something missing, I'm not sure what, that made me feel I couldn't give it five stars. Maybe it was that, although she describes her neglectful childhood, I would have liked more of a sense of why she hadn't spoken to her mother for decades but they seemed to get along fine when they met.

Translated by Megan McDowell.

A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After the death of their beloved grandmother, two sisters, either side of forty, spent a week together at her house. Both are damaged by an abusive mother but Emma, the eldest, has done her best to protect her sister, Agathe, generally regarded as the more vulnerable and disturbed. Five years earlier, Emma felt she couldn't take it any more. Is this the moment for Agathe to grow up?

Translated from the French by Virginie Grimaldi, my copy was provided by Europa Editions.

Love at Six Thousand Degrees: A Novel by Maki Kashimada
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A woman goes to Nagasaki on a whim. There she has a loveless affair with a strangely melancholic young man. She ponders his religion (Russian Orthodox), her brother's alcoholism and suicide, and her mother's neglect of her in favour of her more troublesome sibling. She reflects on these issues more than the mushroom cloud that is meant to fascinate her (great cover by the way) or the child, husband and boring life she has left behind. Then she goes home and there's a small and fairly contrived twist. Sometimes there's less of a story in fiction than in real life.

Translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell. Thanks to Europa editions for my review copy.

Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The missionaries bully Rwandan villagers out of their treasured creation myths, replacing them with the not so dissimilar myths of Christianity. Decades later, the white academics arrive to study the folk wisdom, but should they trust what they are told? An all too credible parable of colonialism, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti.

Wenling's by Gemma Ruiz Palà
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My Spanish is rusty, but I think I got a stronger sense of what this memoir is about through the reviews of the original (or of the translation from Catalan to Spanish) than from the English translation. I'm not blaming the translator (Peter Bush), more the dull prose that buried the gems far too deeply. Or is it because I have no interest in the beauty industry? But I am interested in racism and migration.

Days & Days & Days by Tone Schunnesson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Great voice, irritating character, one of the better versions of the millennial woman wastes her life tropes. Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel.

View all my reviews

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What’s haunting Peterborough Railway Station? Platform Seven by Louise Doughty

5/3/2024

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Would you want to read a novel set on Peterborough Railway Station? If you don’t live in England, you might not have even heard of Peterborough but, for me, having spent a bit of time hanging around that particular station, it was a pleasant surprise to pick up this book and find it located there.

Even so, it doesn’t have the charm of London St Pancras with the drop-in piano sessions or the glamour of New York’s Grand Central. So it takes a skilled writer to render that ordinary setting intriguing and Louise Doughty is certainly that.

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Fish out of water in Nevada #99WordStories

23/1/2024

Charli tells us this week she feels like a fish out of water in Nevada. If she – a Californian – feels estranged, what would it be like for this Brit?

As it happens, I’ve been to Nevada. I had a major life event there. But, as I’m sure Charli would tell you, Las Vegas doesn’t represent the whole state.

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Wrecking Weather: A sorry tale of robotic helplines and a cli-fi flash #clifi #99WordStories

16/1/2024

At the end of last year, Storm Gerrit brought down our internet / telephone cable. When we texted our service provider, we expected we’d have to wait for a repair. Ours wouldn’t be the only household that had lost that vital connection. Not hearing back from the engineers and, with a bank holiday looming, Mr A managed a temporary repair.

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Families in recovery? Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

13/1/2024

Three brothers in their forties gather periodically with their wives and children for holidays, weekend breaks and celebratory meals. On the surface, everything is rosy, but secrets threaten every marriage; will the extended family survive?

I’d heard of this much-loved author but didn’t expect to pick up one of her books until an agent recommended them as a model for my own writing. Reading the prologue, I wondered how I’d plough through the next 600+ pages.

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On trial for murder or the colour of his skin? A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher

5/1/2024

In early 1952, a new preacher arrives with his teenage son in a small town in northern Vermont from across the border in Montréal. Walt Andrews is hard-working, intelligent, friendly and enterprising. As a bonus, he’s good at sport. Most of the congregation is happy with his appointment, although some are offended by the colour of his skin.

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My 12 favourite reads of 2023

30/12/2023

I’ve read over 100 books this year – according to Goodreads that’s more than 30,000 pages. Six were non-fiction, a couple were short story collections, and the rest were novels, thirteen of which were translations.
Read on for my twelve favourites.

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Families forced to change: The New Woman & Unless

26/12/2023

Here are two moving recent reads about families confronting a life-changing decision by one of their members and the changes they must make to accommodate this. The first is a trans novel published in 2015 which I’ve only just discovered; the second is a story I loved when I first read it on its publication in 2002.

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Two more fictional therapists: Other Women & The Family Retreat

21/12/2023

I’ve now collected over ninety fictional therapists, but I’ve always got room for a couple more. In the first of my reviews, the therapist is a relatively minor character in a recently published psychological thriller. In the second, she is one of two main characters in a novel published in the 1980s that purports to be about therapy. Hopefully, forty years on, she’s no longer practising. Let me know whether you agree.

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The Waiting Game

11/11/2023

I enjoy fiction that gives me an insight into lives different to my own, while illuminating a universal aspect of the human condition. In my writing, I hope to do something similar for my readers. I knew I could do the former in my current WIP – although wasn’t sure it would interest others until an extremely useful one-to-one with an experienced industry professional – but doubted my character’s situation was relatable.

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Young women battling to survive: Year of Wonders & The Marriage Portrait

5/11/2023

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I’m sharing my thoughts on two historical novels I’ve read recently, both featuring young women struggling to survive against the odds. The first is set in England in the 1660s, the second in Italy a century earlier.

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Luda by Grant Morrison and a flash fiction piece about confidence

14/10/2023

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Luci LaBang is a pantomime dame, beguiled by her co-star, Luda, a young man playing a young woman playing the show’s Principal Boy. Encouraged by the perfectionist director, Luci takes Luda under her wing to teach her the tricks of the trade. But dark forces are underfoot – is Luda victim or villain?

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Women’s Voices in Black History: A More Perfect Union & Night Wherever We Go

6/10/2023

October is Black History Month in Europe and the focus this year is on women. So I’m pleased to share my reviews of recent reads of novels by talented Black women writers which illuminate the lives of Black women in mid nineteenth century America. The first interweaves the narrative of another atrocity in which Britain was complicit: the Irish famine. The second shows how far women will go to salvage some control of their fertility.

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Inspired by the Brontës: Ghost Wife & Fifteen Wild Decembers

27/9/2023

We can’t get enough of the Brontës, can we? Whether it’s rereading the classic stories or rewriting them or delving into the lives of the authors, the sisters never seem to go out of fashion. So here are two recent reads inspired by them and their books. The first is a contemporary rewrite of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, while the second is historical fiction with a particular focus on Emily, the author of Wuthering Heights.

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Blanket or Blank It? #99WordStories

24/9/2023

At last week’s appointment I realised that, once again, I’d misunderstood a part of my medical regime. It’s ironic that the system that delivers the lab reports from my blood tests to my inbox prior to meeting my nephrologist is called Patients Know Best. Despite her efforts to learn to interpret up to two dozen readings without a grounding in biochemistry, this patient clearly doesn’t.

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Insect Nation #99WordStories

13/9/2023

The latest flash fiction challenge from the Carrot Ranch is to compose a 99-word story about the insect nation. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it got me thinking about how we humans underestimate the small creatures that live among us – or, perhaps, we live among. I didn’t have a suitable new review to pair my response with, so here’s a quote from a novel I read some time ago about a woman who runs a business resettling, rather than exterminating, household pests.

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Words for a painting

8/9/2023

I’ve missed a few flash fiction challenges lately but, when I saw the latest prompt, I couldn’t resist. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a project that combines stories with nature and visual art? Especially when invited to compose a 99-word story in response to such an evocative painting? (You can click on the image to learn more.)

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Coming-of-age against a backdrop of oppression: Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie & Fox Fires by Wyl Menmuir

30/8/2023

Two recent reeds that made my 2023 favourites list, tentatively linked by being partly set in countries emerging from oppressive political regimes. The first was more straightforward than the second, but both made me think.

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Of Cattle and Men and 11 Other Books by Women in Translation

22/8/2023

August is women in translation month, a time when readers prioritise books by women in translation – yes, it does what it says on the tin! – and I share the qualifying books I’ve read over the last twelve months. This year’s dozen represents nine languages (two up from last year) – Bosnian, Catalan, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Portuguese, Spanish – and six publishers (Bloomsbury, Charco Press, Europa editions x3, Maclehose Press x 2, Peirene Press x 3, Quercus).

Here I share one new review, summaries and links to reviews I’ve published over the last twelve months, plus mentions of three I didn’t get round to reviewing.

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Too much too young: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

4/8/2023

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Dickens’ David Copperfield brought to contemporary South Virginia is a worthy winner of both the Pulitzer and Women’s Prize. It’s a story of inequalities, addiction, child protection failures and attachment to community and land.

Demon’s voice grabbed me from the first page and never let go and the tragedies of his early childhood – kidult mother; dead-end education; foster carers starving the children and working them like slaves – wrenched my heart. True to the source material, it’s not totally bleak: people do care for Demon, although not always with the power to put things right.

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Canned fruit and commitment

27/7/2023