Category: Gender

Money, mothers and marriage: The Other Bennet Sister & Dominicana

25/3/2020

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mother in fear of penury will sacrifice a daughter in marriage to a man she does not love. Jane Austen famously satirised such mothers two centuries ago; Janice Hadlow’s debut novel gives Mrs Bennet’s unloved middle daughter Mary a makeover in similar style. Angie Cruz, while perhaps not intentionally channelling Pride and Prejudice, draws on the painful mother-daughter dynamic in her Women’s Prize longlisted novel about 1960s migration to New York from the Dominican Republic.

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Traditional cultures in transition: The Butchers & Hashim & Family

18/3/2020

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My two most recent reads are of novels that map cultural changes within two very different communities. The first is set in rural Ireland during the BSE crisis at the end of the twenty-first century, as more and more people turn their backs on a traditional form of butchering. The second starts and finishes in the two decades before the first begins, in the community of recent migrants to the UK from Bangladesh. While both include scenes of violence, the second is overall a cosy story of adaptation and resilience, while the first is a literary novel of linguistic and psychological depth.

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Problematic Masculinity: Our Fathers & A Man Who Is Not a Man

15/3/2020

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How do boys become men and what happens to those whose journeys go wrong? The first of these novels, set in Scotland, looks at what boys learn from their fathers when the son of a bully goes on to murder his family, apart from his younger son. The second is about a traditional coming-of-age ceremony in South Africa and the physical, psychological and social consequences of a botched circumcision.

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16 novels about Women’s History #WomensHistoryMonth

7/3/2020

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I’ve read a lot of excellent historical novels by female authors, but they don’t always (and this isn’t necessarily a criticism) forefront the female experience. For Women’s History Month I’ve plucked from my shelves, real and virtual, a few that particularly highlight the lives of women in days gone by. Firstly, I’m recommending 8 novels fictionalising famous and relatively unknown women; secondly I’ve selected 8 (from potentially hundreds) exploring historical happenings through a female perspective. All are from female authors who might yet become historical figures themselves!

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Staying afloat in choppy waters: Just after the Wave & On Wilder Seas

4/3/2020

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Allow me to introduce you to a pair of novels about literally and metaphorically staying afloat in choppy waters. The first is a cli-fi translated novel about abandoned children; the second a historical debut about a woman at sea in a man’s world. Both are page-turners, so read on!

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History with meddlesome jinns and fairies: The Ninth Child & The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

29/2/2020

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My two final reviews for February are of historical novels with touches of culturally-appropriate magic realism. They also feature the losses and gains of relocating from a major city to a rural area in a period of rapid social change. The first is about public health and engineering in nineteenth century Scotland; the second is set between the late twentieth century and the present in post-revolutionary Iran.

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Locating ourselves in literature and life: A New Sublime & Wayfinding #nonfiction

25/2/2020

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As these might be the only non-fiction books I read this year, I was keen to link them. So following on from two novels about dislocation, I’m delighted to share reviews about the opposite. Unfortunately I got myself lost in the first, aimed at readers with a more solid grounding in Greek and Roman antiquities, but managed to navigate better through the second, which is about literally and metaphorically finding and losing our way.

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A few things I’ve learnt through my first foray into self-publishing with a short story e-book freebie

15/2/2020

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Big round of applause, please people! The year’s still in its infancy and I’ve already achieved one of my aims for 2020. On the other hand, in terms of literary or commercial benefit, I’ve spent way too much time putting together my little e-book of short stories as a giveaway for subscribers to my newsletter. But, once I got going, I enjoyed most of the twists and turns of the journey, with even the hairpin bends and U-turns a chance to admire the view. As a small-press published inbetweenie author, I’ve always tried to stay abreast of what’s happening in self-publishing, but there’s a huge gap between reading about something and doing it yourself. Let’s see if I can consolidate my learning by describing the process and perhaps helping others to reach the destination without too many wrong turns.

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No prizes for guessing why I’ve paired The Slaughterman’s Daughter with The Island Child

4/2/2020

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That’s right, both novels are about daughters: the first a debut about the claustrophobic bond between mothers and daughters exacerbated by the claustrophobic island setting; the second a translation from Hebrew set in late 19th-century Russia about the consequences of a father teaching his younger daughter his unusual trade. Of course there might be other connections but, as you’ll see if you read to the end, right now, I’ve got fictional daughters on the brain.

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Women stepping in and out of traditional roles: The Shadow King & The Mercies

30/1/2020

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In what circumstances is it acceptable for women to abandon their traditional roles? What are the consequences if they should do so ill-advisedly? Although these two novels are set in different times and cultures to my own, they raised questions for me as to how far we can safely step out of line. The first novel pays homage to the forgotten women of Ethiopia who took up arms when the country was invaded by Mussolini’s troops. In the second, set in seventeenth century north Norway, the women have no choice but to do the jobs previously carried out by their menfolk when a storm at sea wipes out most of the male population, only for some to find themselves accused of witchcraft a few years later.

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Summing up my reading for 2019

31/12/2019

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I’ve read a lot of books this year. Sure, right, tell us something new! I surpassed my Goodreads target. Don’t you always? Isn’t it because you set the barrier so low? Yet but I beat it by almost 50%. Surely it’s about quality, not quantity? Indeed, that’s why earlier this month I shared my 13 favourite reads of 2019. Thirteen? Not ten or a dozen? You like numbers? Come on, let me show you some! I’ve got some pretty graphs too.

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Seeking sanctuary in strange places: Dolores & I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

27/12/2019

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In these two novels, a teenage girl needs a safe place to retreat from the world, but the sanctuary she’s chosen won’t easily let her go. In the first, a convent provides shelter to a girl fearful of the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy; in the second, a psychiatric hospital offers a welcome respite from the strain of appearing sane. It’s pure coincidence that the main characters’ names – Dolores and Deborah – begin with the same letter and that both remind me of my forthcoming novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home.

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Bicultural: The Topeka School & The God Child

22/12/2019

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Amid the painful aftermath of the UK ‘people’ voting in our pig in a poke, I had reason to remind myself of the literature on the cognitive advantages biculturalism. While I doubt our new PM possesses the skills or intellect to unite an increasingly polarised country – or even the desire, whatever might spout from his mouth – it’s essential if we’re to avoid civil war as we helter-skelter into economic and climactic ruin. So, although neither of these very disparate novels is primarily about straddling two cultures, I make no apologies for linking them via this theme.

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Drastic solutions to infertility: The Testaments & One Part Woman

17/12/2019

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What happens when childlessness develops from being a personal matter to a problem for society as a whole? In Margaret Atwood’s imagined Gilead an alarming drop in the live birth rate calls for Draconian measures, building a society where a woman’s mind and body are subservient to her reproductive potential. In Perumal Murugan’s rural South India, childlessness is a threat to the established order, with friends and neighbours pitching in with advice and criticism, indifferent to the infertile couple’s private grief.

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Classics reimagined: The Mere Wife & The River Capture

5/12/2019

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Here are two novels inspired by classic tales: the first, a feminist retelling of Beowulf; the second, a homage to Ulysses and James Joyce. No need to have read the source material to appreciate them – I haven’t – although the first probably works better as a stand-alone than the second.

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The Black Death: Nobber & To Calais in Ordinary Time

26/11/2019

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If I’ve reviewed any other novels set during the Black Death that swept across Europe in 1348, I’ve forgotten them. These two, published in the UK this summer, are likely to stay in my mind for some time. The first set in Ireland, the second in southern England, they’re very different, although both original in their language and style. And disturbingly topical as we’re catapulted towards an apocalypse – both politically and climatically – of our own.

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Women behind and before the camera: Delayed Rays of a Star & The Girl with the Leica

15/11/2019

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Here we have two recently published novels about women caught on camera, or doing the catching, casting a wide-angle lens on the turbulent politics of the first half of the twentieth century, with Fascism on the rise. The first zooms in on movie stars and/or makers: Anna May Wong, Leni Riefenstahl, and Marlene Dietrich. The second on Gerda Taro, a lesser-known (at least to me) feminist photojournalist, who died documenting the Spanish Civil War.

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Reign of terror: Beneath the Lion’s Gaze & Girl

13/10/2019

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Two novels, based on real events, about the impact on ordinary people of terrorising revolutions within two African countries. The first, a historical novel set in Ethiopia, is the author’s debut; the second, a fictionalised account of the schoolgirls abducted in northern Nigeria only a few years ago, comes from a writer with a career spanning almost six decades. Both are harrowing, empathetic and meticulously researched.

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When the wanderer returns: Older Brother & Arturo’s Island

7/10/2019

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Two translated novels in which the return of a beloved family member, after an unexplained absence, irrevocably alters the situation for those left behind. In the first, the wanderer is a younger brother who left Paris for Syria; in the second, it’s a father who has abandoned his son at their home on an island in the Bay of Naples. Both novels are narrated from the perspective of a motherless male.

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Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

30/9/2019

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Two historical novels in which young people are subject to brutal institutional regimes: in the first as comfort women in Singapore under the Japanese invasion; in the second as supposed offenders in Jim-Crow-era Florida. Both novels contrast the main character’s aspirations prior to captivity with their struggle to survive unspeakable cruelties with their sanity intact, and the scars they carry for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, for the reader who can vicariously accompany them, there’s some hope of redemption by the end. Read on, or jump to the end of the post for this week’s 99-word story.

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<<Previous

Money, mothers and marriage: The Other Bennet Sister & Dominicana

Traditional cultures in transition: The Butchers & Hashim & Family

Problematic Masculinity: Our Fathers & A Man Who Is Not a Man

16 novels about Women’s History #WomensHistoryMonth

Staying afloat in choppy waters: Just after the Wave & On Wilder Seas

History with meddlesome jinns and fairies: The Ninth Child & The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

Locating ourselves in literature and life: A New Sublime & Wayfinding #nonfiction

A few things I’ve learnt through my first foray into self-publishing with a short story e-book freebie

No prizes for guessing why I’ve paired The Slaughterman’s Daughter with The Island Child

Women stepping in and out of traditional roles: The Shadow King & The Mercies

Summing up my reading for 2019

Seeking sanctuary in strange places: Dolores & I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Bicultural: The Topeka School & The God Child

Drastic solutions to infertility: The Testaments & One Part Woman

Classics reimagined: The Mere Wife & The River Capture

The Black Death: Nobber & To Calais in Ordinary Time

Women behind and before the camera: Delayed Rays of a Star & The Girl with the Leica

Reign of terror: Beneath the Lion’s Gaze & Girl

When the wanderer returns: Older Brother & Arturo’s Island

Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

latest book:

2019 Reading Challenge

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