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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

The pull of the wild: Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson

13/2/2016

11 Comments

 
Finding a fifty euro note while crossing the Piazza Farnese near her home in Rome, nineteen-year-old Katherine interprets it, not as a stroke of luck, but as the first of several messages signifying that her life is about to change. When she hears an English couple in a cinema discussing a friend of theirs with an apartment in Berlin, she feels that after “so many dry runs and rehearsals” it’s time to act. So, instead of taking up her place at Oxford University, she wipes her computer files, throws her smartphone in the river and boards a plane for Germany. A series of chance encounters take her progressively further from her itinerant journalist father and her friends in Rome, through Russia and into the frozen bleakness of Northern Norway in winter. As she jubilantly sheds her real identity to follow increasingly risky opportunities, the reader wonders if she’s in the process of finding or losing herself.
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Katherine is still grieving for a mother lost some years ago to cancer and for her father’s apparent neglect when he leaves her for weeks at a time in pursuit of the news. As she imagines the various ways he might search for her, she is testing him, punishing him, but there’s an extra layer to her sense of abandonment. Katherine’s quest is also an enactment of her grievance at her origins, as an IVF-created embryo waiting in the cold, like a hostage, for eight years while (in a fantasy) her parents enjoyed their lives without the constraint of caring for her (p142):

My emotions are still frozen, my nerve-endings numb. Sometimes I imagine I have been carved out of ice, like a swan in a mediaeval banquet, and that my heart is visible inside, a gorgeous scarlet, but motionless, trapped, incapable of beating or feeling.

More tragic still, since her mother’s cancer was the result of IVF, Katherine feels responsible for her death. Even before she embarked on her journey, an episode of self-harm should have signalled her vulnerability (p59):

Seizing a pair of scissors off the table, I snipped at the flesh at the base of my thumb … The blood slid down my wrist with real purpose. Sometimes I have to prove that I exist. That I’m vibrant on the inside. Colourful. I’m not a freak, an experiment. A shell.

Katherine’s recklessness is a prime example of manic reparation, in which the person attempts to fix themselves without fully acknowledging their pain. She is an engaging character, even as we despair at her choices and beg her to come home. Rupert Thompson is the extremely versatile author of nine previous novels, including one of my favourite all-time reads, Divided Kingdom, so I was looking forward to reading his latest. I’m delighted to say that it did not disappoint. Thanks to Corsair for my review copy.

I immediately thought of Katherine when I came across the latest Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge to write a 99-word story about wild spaces. My character, Sylvia, feels the pull of the wild, but she has a much more conventional alter ego.

Miss Prim Takes a Break

“A fortnight in Bognor with your mother again, Sylvia?” The manager smirked as he copied her dates onto the chart. “Don’t forget to send us a postcard!”

Sylvia smiled demurely. That smart arse wouldn’t last five minutes where she was headed. Soon she’d exchange her handbag for a backpack, the trill of the phone for birdsong, fluorescent light for the wide open sky. Watercooler gossip for solitude, delicatessen sandwiches for line-caught fish fried over an open fire. Somehow the pleasure of her wilderness retreats intensified in the knowledge that, back at the office, they knew her as Miss Prim.


For a longer piece of flash fiction on running wild, see In Praise of Female Parts. For a slightly longer story on the wish to invent oneself anew, see my short story Doctoring.

For another novel about a childhood on the edge of the wild North Sea, see my review of Elemental and, if you comment by 16 February, you’re in with a chance of winning a free 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.
11 Comments
Sarah link
14/2/2016 01:03:25 am

What a gorgeous description and review. This seems like something I'd love (when in the right mood) as it seems heartbreaking but beautiful. The excerpts are amazing. Fantastic flash!

Reply
Annecdotist
17/2/2016 11:52:43 am

Thanks, Sarah, I'd certainly recommend it.

Reply
Charli Mills
14/2/2016 09:38:31 am

An interesting review of what sounds like an intense read. Your flash makes me smile, thinking of Miss Prim in the wild. A patient one she is to put up with the office to wait for her retreats. Wow -- I read In Praise of Female Parts, and that's a powerful story. I'll get to Doctoring soon!

Reply
Annecdotist
17/2/2016 11:54:58 am

Thanks, Charli. I think Miss Prim wants to keep her wild places secret -- she doesn't want the riffraff from the office invading her treasured space.
Thanks for reading In Praise – I'm not supposed to say it but I do like that story myself!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
17/2/2016 05:50:10 am

I like the sound of this one, Anne. It sounds like an enjoyable read. I was intrigued by Katherine's thoughts about her origin frozen in time. I was also interested to find that this author also wrote one of your all-time favourite reads. That is a recommendation in itself. Like Charli I read "In Praise of Female Parts" and will come back for the next installment (of time) for the rest of "Doctoring". How sad is "Female Parts". At least all pleasure is not lost to her, even if she can't share it with anyone; but to have an active mind trapped in a useless body must be one of my greatest fears.
Love your flash. We are not always what others think of us!

Reply
Annecdotist
17/2/2016 11:58:27 am

I thought it was an interesting way of writing about IVF – I'm sure I've read stuff from the point of view of parents but I don't think I've come across anything from the perspective of a frozen embryo!
Thanks for reading In Praise – yes indeed the prospect of being so physically helpless is terrifying, although of course people do manage it somehow.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
10/3/2016 10:23:25 am

I hope it is never my lot! Or yours! :)

NorahColvin link
10/3/2016 10:27:44 am

I have just downloaded the audiobook version of Divided Kingdom. I'm looking forward to reading it. It will be next in line. Thank you for the recommendation, and especially for the link bringing me back here for the reminder. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
10/3/2016 02:45:28 pm

I hope you enjoy it, Norah. It is a bit weird!!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
26/3/2016 09:38:30 am

I'm possibly about half way through, Anne. Interesting premise. A dystopian-type future that seems to be set in the present. I'm not quite sure how it would work, but he does seem to maintain the situation regarding the rearrangement quite well. I am looking forward to seeing how it all works out (or not) at the end. Thorpe Hall reminded me a little of a location from Jakob's Colours, another one of your recommendations. I had to remind myself a couple of times that the story situation was different.

Annecdotist
26/3/2016 05:23:50 pm

Interesting connection – I'd have to go back to the novel as I can't even remember Thorpe Hall – nor can I remember if it all worked out in the end, although of course I wouldn't tell you even if I could!
As you can probably gather, it's a long time since I read it but I do remember strongly been impressed.


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