annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • First two novels
    • Sugar and Snails >
      • Acknowledgements
      • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
        • Birthday blog tour
        • S&S on tour 2022
      • Early endorsements
      • Events >
        • Launch photos
        • Launch party videos
      • in pictures
      • Media
      • If you've read the book
      • Polari
      • Reading group questions
      • Reviews
      • In the media
    • Underneath >
      • Endorsements and reviews
      • Launch party and events
      • Pictures
      • Questions for book groups
      • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • The accidental series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
    • Lyrics for the Loved Ones
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read
  • Main site

Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Guilt and betrayal: The Fall Guy and All We Shall Know

12/1/2017

6 Comments

 
Today’s two novels focus on characters whose lives have been blighted by past betrayal. Although their inability to forgive others or themselves results in episodes of apathy, their plights keep us turning the pages to the end. While we’re on the subject, here’s a link to my creepy flash fiction piece, “Betrayed”.

Picture
Picture
Picture
Charlie has invited his cousin, Matthew, to spend the summer with him and his younger wife, Chloe, at their second home in the Catskill mountains. They’re barely out Brooklyn when the differences emerge between the two men, and the consequent battles for supremacy; first over the choice and volume of the music, then over who should go back to fetch the wedding anniversary present that Charlie has “forgotten”. Both men are between jobs but, while Matthew’s career in hospitality has never really got going, Charlie has made his millions as a hedge fund manager and is now actively pursuing applying his skills to a more ethical enterprise.















Aside from irritation at his own inability to come to a decision about his future, Matthew seems happy with the arrangement: he loves the house and acting as the couple’s private chef, and shopping for the ingredients for gourmet meals. He’s also fond of Chloe, feeling that they have a mutual empathy and appreciation of the finer things in life. So it’s a personal affront as well as a moral dilemma about loyalty to his cousin when it comes to suspect that, when she drives down to the town, it’s not to attend her yoga class.

As tensions mount with the summer heat, and as more of the past resentments between the cousins are revealed, the reader is constantly reassessing the question posed by the title: who is really the fall guy? The close third person point of view, along with the perfectly calibrated hints and red herrings, might lead us to side with Matthew, but for how long? Tagged as a psychological thriller it doesn’t seem so until the run-up to the surprising finale, but it’s certainly a page turner from the start. Thanks to Jonathan Cape for my review copy.



Picture
Melody Shee is angry. Her tongue lashes at her hapless husband and the smalltown gossips of County Limerick who berate her for carrying another man’s child but, underneath, she’s raging against herself. Her anger brings relief from the nausea that’s confined her to the couch and from the guilt knocking at her temples over the mess of her marriage, her siding with her mother against a decent loving father and her childhood betrayal of a faithful friend, Breedie. Melody’s guilt is also a protection against her grief and self-compassion both for the girl whose mother died when she was fourteen and for the mid-30s woman with no friends, a history of miscarriages and university education that hasn’t brought her anything she might call a career. The question this short poetic novel explores is whether such a woman can be redeemed.















The father of her unborn child is named in the first sentence: seventeen-year-old Martin Toppy, the son of a famous Traveller whom she’s been teaching to read. When the sickness abates sufficiently for her to leave the house, Melody visits the “halting site” where another teenager, Mary Crothery, informs her that the Toppy family have taken to the road. Assisting Mary with her literacy, a friendship develops between the two women founded on shared loneliness and a mutual drive to protect. Like Melody, Mary is persona non grata in her community, having left a marriage arranged to unite two powerful Traveller tribes. Although not punished as harshly as she would have been a generation previously, Catholic Ireland still needs to express its disapproval of Melody’s condition. But a brick through the window is nothing compared with the violent feud that results from Mary’s transgression and leaves her fighting for her life.

All We Shall Know is a beautifully crafted and thought-provoking novel with an ending that took me by surprise. If it dwells a little too long on Melody’s decrepitude, there are compensations in the subtlety of the erotic tinge to her friendships with both Mary and Breedie, and in the disclosure of her mother’s death. Thanks to Doubleday for my review copy.



Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Norah Colvin link
15/1/2017 12:50:38 pm

Hi Anne. Both these books sound like interesting reads, each with a surprise at the end. I'm interested in the new way you have shared quotes from the books. Is it an experiment?
Thanks for linking to your story. The way the narrator reveals his story is very effective. I seem to think I've read it before, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment of it. Have a good week.

Reply
Annecdotist
16/1/2017 02:01:00 pm

Thanks, Norah, and glad you brought up the issue of representing quotes. I have used the photograph before, but that was when I wanted to show the whole page – I’m not sure this works so well. But I have been caught out a couple of times with the antics of my voice-activated software when I’ve dictated straight from the book and – perhaps because they aren’t my own words – haven’t noticed when it appears incorrectly on the screen. Sometimes I’d like to quote more but just seems too much trouble. I’m always looking for ways to make things easier for myself.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
19/1/2017 07:37:31 am

I wondered if it may have been for that reason. Quoting can be difficult at the best of times. I imagine voice activated software would only make it more difficult. I usually cut and paste when it's online. I've read that, in some versions of Adobe reader , it is possible to edit PDFs. It probably wouldn't be helpful to you either - more hand work, I guess. I think it is good to streamline where we can. I can never find enough opportunities for doing so.

Annecdotist
20/1/2017 05:56:39 pm

I can manage a bit of handwork – in fact to post on my blog I have to use the mouse to carry the elements across – but I do notice when I’ve done too much.
I know I can copy from PDFs, but again that requires the mouse, but have never needed to edit – but worth knowing.
It can be a nuisance that I’m not able to use the keyboard and mouse as much as I’d like, but I have to remind myself that it’s a lot easier with a computer than in the days of typewriters and I’m not obliged to do any of it. So I do think I’m lucky really. (And sometimes those mistakes raise a smile.)

Charli Mills
17/1/2017 04:38:42 am

You are off to a good start on books this year, Anne. Interesting how both books as a set challenge my thinking that modern lives can be interesting enough to read. Set in Ireland and evoking a modern twist on old values (and includes the Roma, if I'm interpreting Travelllers correctly) has my interest. Cousins from Brooklyn, one made good on hedge funds and the other in hospitality, a yoga wine sipping wife, not so interesting.

I like you "photo-quotes" and think it works efficiently!

Reply
Annecdotist
17/1/2017 09:23:19 am

Thanks, Charli, I’m very pleased with my reading year so far! I’m intrigued to learn that your preference for historical fiction connects to a view that contemporary lives are less interesting. You sparked a challenge for me to bring out the things that might engage you in contemporary fiction!
Like you, I wondered about Donal Ryan not using the term Roma. I don’t know if that’s because Irish Travellers actually have a different heritage that that’s the commonly used term there. Come to think of it, we don’t speak Roma much here either.
I can appreciate your lack of interest in the hedge fund manager and his relatives and friends. I picked this up partly because I’d read another novel by the same author and enjoyed it, and this one worked for me too.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    Available now
    Picture
    The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My third novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom, joshtasman, tedeytan, striatic, goforchris, torbakhopper, maggibautista, andreboeni, snigl3t, rainy city, frankieleon