From a day in the life of a city in mourning to a week in a busy hospital, in both these novels a large cast of characters tell not only their individual stories, but the story of the settings that shape their interlinked lives.
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Johannesburg by Fiona Melrose
Gin has returned from New York to her native Johannesburg to throw a party for her mother’s eightieth birthday. It’s not only because it coincides with the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela that makes this contentious, but also because her mother, Neve, would much rather spend the day quietly with her dog. Gin, a visual artist with an eating disorder, being more adept at arranging flowers than cooking, it falls to the maid, Mercy, to shoulder the bulk of preparations, when she’d much rather have gone along to the Residence a few blocks away to pay her respects. We follow various characters in short sections throughout the historic day, not only the humans in Neve’s household, but also the dog, as well as people from the community beyond its high walls, including Gin’s spurned lover, the lawyer, Peter, and the homeless man, September, and the sister who tries to care for him.
When I realised the novel was a homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I wondered if this would prove a distraction. In lesser hands it might have been, but I found it a sheer delight. The beautiful prose and excellent characterisation would make this a gripping story even without the literary allusions – some of which, it being a few years since I read Mrs Dalloway, I’m sure I missed – but with them, the novel is raised to another level, and one can’t not admire the author’s skill.
What made it work so well for me was the socio-politics of contemporary South Africa, as the baton of oppression is passed from the whites to the blacks. This is particularly well represented in September’s narrative arc: after being badly injured and horribly disfigured when police and/or security guards opened fire on a group of striking miners, he has kept up a solitary protest at the offices of the mining company (where Peter is employed), continually ignored until the moment he isn’t. On the domestic scale, I loved the bonds of mutual disappointment binding mother and daughter, and felt for them both.
Johannesburg is Fiona Melrose’s second novel, following on from Midwinter with its focus on masculinity, which I reviewed earlier this year. Thanks to Corsair for my review copy. Follow the link for two other novels set in South Africa and, because they’re about health care, they segue neatly into my next review.
When I realised the novel was a homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I wondered if this would prove a distraction. In lesser hands it might have been, but I found it a sheer delight. The beautiful prose and excellent characterisation would make this a gripping story even without the literary allusions – some of which, it being a few years since I read Mrs Dalloway, I’m sure I missed – but with them, the novel is raised to another level, and one can’t not admire the author’s skill.
What made it work so well for me was the socio-politics of contemporary South Africa, as the baton of oppression is passed from the whites to the blacks. This is particularly well represented in September’s narrative arc: after being badly injured and horribly disfigured when police and/or security guards opened fire on a group of striking miners, he has kept up a solitary protest at the offices of the mining company (where Peter is employed), continually ignored until the moment he isn’t. On the domestic scale, I loved the bonds of mutual disappointment binding mother and daughter, and felt for them both.
Johannesburg is Fiona Melrose’s second novel, following on from Midwinter with its focus on masculinity, which I reviewed earlier this year. Thanks to Corsair for my review copy. Follow the link for two other novels set in South Africa and, because they’re about health care, they segue neatly into my next review.
Histories by Sam Guglani
A hospital is an emotional cauldron: the high stakes and the tedium; the fear of pain, illness and death; the disgust, embarrassment and/or eroticism of intimate touch that would, in other circumstances, be taboo. Such potential for human error in how this is managed, patients cared for and sometimes cured. Despite the popularity of TV hospital dramas, it’s not something I come across often in fiction, apart from the clichéd doctor-nurse romance. So the buzz around Sam Guglani’s poetic portrait of a week in the life of an English hospital is not surprising, especially when it’s so well written.
Narrated in short interlinked chapters from the points of view of doctors, nurses, patients and ancillary staff, Histories is a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation on the business of healing, or otherwise. In fitting with the author’s background as a consultant oncologist, the emphasis is on the medics, from medical student to consultants across different specialisms. But that doesn’t mean Sam Guglani gives the doctors an easy ride. Far from it: often fearful, emotionally blunted and/or arrogant – the latter quite possibly a defence against the first – there’s a suggestion that, in saving lives, they miss the point. The vibrancy of patients and themselves. The lower orders – particularly the hospital porter and the cleaner – are perhaps idealised, although it’s a valid point that those who aren’t actually employed to be empathic sometimes manage more compassion than those who are. Although almost all the characters are more self-reflective than they might be in real life, together they build a credible picture of the conflicts within the system that are so hard to overcome when it’s in everyone’s interest to turn a blind eye. Thanks to Riverrun for my review copy.
Follow the link for my reviews of two other novels set against the backdrop of the NHS. For a theoretical, but highly accessible, perspective on the psychodynamics of healthcare, Observing Organisations, is worth your time – the price seems to have escalated since it was first published, so borrow it from the library!
Narrated in short interlinked chapters from the points of view of doctors, nurses, patients and ancillary staff, Histories is a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation on the business of healing, or otherwise. In fitting with the author’s background as a consultant oncologist, the emphasis is on the medics, from medical student to consultants across different specialisms. But that doesn’t mean Sam Guglani gives the doctors an easy ride. Far from it: often fearful, emotionally blunted and/or arrogant – the latter quite possibly a defence against the first – there’s a suggestion that, in saving lives, they miss the point. The vibrancy of patients and themselves. The lower orders – particularly the hospital porter and the cleaner – are perhaps idealised, although it’s a valid point that those who aren’t actually employed to be empathic sometimes manage more compassion than those who are. Although almost all the characters are more self-reflective than they might be in real life, together they build a credible picture of the conflicts within the system that are so hard to overcome when it’s in everyone’s interest to turn a blind eye. Thanks to Riverrun for my review copy.
Follow the link for my reviews of two other novels set against the backdrop of the NHS. For a theoretical, but highly accessible, perspective on the psychodynamics of healthcare, Observing Organisations, is worth your time – the price seems to have escalated since it was first published, so borrow it from the library!
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