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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

The Complexity of Desire: He Wants by Alison Moore

15/8/2014

14 Comments

 
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One of the signifiers of good fiction is the early clarification of what the main characters want and sending them on a journey where they will be continually thwarted in their search to get it, right? With each of the seventeen chapter titles flagging up something the characters either want or don’t want, Alison Moore, in her second novel, seems on the surface to have taken this to heart. Lewis, doesn’t want soup or sausages but, when he was a child, he wanted to go to the moon. Sydney wanted to live in Australia. Lawrence wants a CD of The Messiah.

But Alison Moore is too sophisticated a writer to churn out a formulaic quest story. He Wants is populated by people who singularly fail to pursue their desires, or even to know what they are. Lawrence, an elderly resident of a nursing home, eagerly accepts the staff’s offers of tea, even when he already has one going cold on his lap. Lewis, his son, a retired RE teacher, eats the soup he does not want that is delivered each day by his daughter. Sydney, the childhood friend who mysteriously disappeared, wants to meet Lewis’s daughter but Barry Bolton gets in the way. Yet, despite their passivity, the reader can’t help rooting for these characters as it gradually dawns on us how, for most of his adult life, Lewis has wanted something he could never bear to acknowledge.

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The narrative unfolds over a single day in a bare, pared-down style in which the mundanities of ordinary life are given as much weight as the highlights. A trip to see the evangelistic preacher Billy Graham is a mind-blowing experience for Lawrence leading, among other things, to his eschewing the works of DH Lawrence (because of the sex), but we spend as much time on his helping his host in the garden as on his religious conversion. Lewis frets about overstaying his allotted time in the supermarket car park, but it’s only towards the end that we discover the real reason he’s banned from his favourite pub. In less skilled hands, this level tone might frustrate the reader but, with Alison Moore, the apparent banality is a sheer delight:

There are pictures hanging on the walls – small watercolours of boats in harbours, of woodland in the autumn, of setting suns. There is no modern art, nothing that, like a Rorschach image, might be open to interpretation (p71-72).

He Wants is a funny, touching, life-affirming novel about desire and the fear of the emptiness that lurks behind that desire that, according to some psychoanalytic models, lies at the heart of the human condition. I want you to read it. I want to read it again.

He Wants is published by Salt on 15 August 2014. Thanks to Jen for my proof copy. For more about Alison Moore’s writing, see my Q&A with the author regarding her Man Booker Prize-shortlisted debut, The Lighthouse. You might also enjoy this early review of He Wants by Rachel Cusk in the Guardian newspaper, although it does reveal a little more of the plot.


Having written my review a few weeks ago, I was about to post it when I saw that the latest prompt for the flash fiction challenge I’ve been following is on character motivation and, especially when this leaflet popped through the letterbox, I couldn’t resist tagging mine on here:

She wants cheesecake and a chocolate fountain but she can’t risk popping the button on her best black skirt. She wanted rosewood but her sister went for cardboard they could decorate themselves. She wants Abide With Me but her sister can’t abide it. She doesn’t want to argue, not here, with their mother at rest between them. Reluctantly, she takes a red felt tip and draws a heart, spells out MUM inside it in green.

She wants to be born again into a different family, a different species, even. She rather fancies coming back as a unicorn next time.

Apologies for the bizarre ending: unicorns have become something of a theme in many of our efforts at micro-fiction. But they’re not compulsory, so if you’re interested, you’ve got till next Tuesday to join in the flash fiction challenge and, even if you don’t, it’s worth reading Charli’s wonderful words on digging deep to discover her own characters’ motivation. But before you get lost in the profusion of links, please go to the comments box to share your reflections on my post.

Don’t forget to go to the comments box to share your reflections on this post. And, if you've enjoyed it, do consider signing up to receive regular updates via the sidebar.

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.
14 Comments
Charli Mills
15/8/2014 06:21:27 pm

It is August 15th...so I downloaded a copy of He Wants. You convinced me that I want it! I like how Alison Moore writes into the story everyday and follows it.

Funny! The tug and pull between siblings and what each wants and who gives in. Love the opening line and how it sets the tone for what follows. Unicorns! We just can't seem to escape the critters. :-) Great review and flash!

Reply
Annecdotist
17/8/2014 12:28:25 pm

Oops, I meant to change that "15th August" to "today" but must have forgotten in my excitement to post! I'm glad I managed to hope you, Charli, and do hope you enjoy it. I actually went to the launch on Friday evening (my first ever) where Alison read the first chapter which seemed even funnier to me hearing it the second time. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy it, there was quite a queue for the book signing, but I do hope the humour crosses the Atlantic. And such a strange coincidence that you were posting of motivation the very same week.

Reply
geoff link
16/8/2014 01:19:59 am

The pragmatic Ms Goodwin is sucked into the world of fantasy? Well, well, Charli Mills does take you places other prompts cannot reach. Your alliteration is excellent. Popping the button on her best black skirt. And boo hoo to domineering siblings!
As usual your crisply humorous review makes me want to read this. The pile grows...

Reply
Annecdotist
17/8/2014 12:33:05 pm

She certainly does, Geoff. I was as surprised as anyone to finish this one off with the unicorn. Glad you're tempted by the review and maybe I should add it's quite a short book at under 200 pages so shouldn't weigh heavily on your TBR pile. And, as someone who writes pretty good comedy yourself, I'd be interested if her deadpan approach works for you.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
18/8/2014 01:19:17 am

Anne, the book sounds like a great read, one I would enjoy; but I do love your flash! I love her desire to be born again into a different family, and especially to be born again as a unicorn. Your flash is quite similar to events I currently experiencing and I can identify (if in humour) with the desires! P.S. I hope they choose the cardboard for me and decorate it with hearts and butterflies.

Reply
Annecdotist
18/8/2014 04:44:12 am

Thanks for that feedback, Norah. My flash was probably inspired by a lot of things coming together, including the fine job you've done in keeping the Unicom theme going. I've never actually been to a funeral where people decorated the coffin, but it sounds a great idea. Perhaps it would be a bit like all the comments coming together on a blog post!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
18/8/2014 06:33:44 am

Yes! There could be quite a range of those comments. Some may be best buried with the coffin! But not those on our blogs! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
19/8/2014 05:57:01 am

Indeed – hurrah for comments!

Reply
Caroline link
19/8/2014 09:28:07 am

Hi Anne,
thanks for this review of He Wants.The reviews hve been building a picture of a book worth reading. Thanks for confirming it.I loved Alison Moore's earlier work. Worthy prize winner.

Reply
Annecdotist
19/8/2014 10:14:41 am

Thanks, Caroline, I unreservedly recommend it.

Reply
Paula link
22/8/2014 02:08:44 pm

Are there really cardboard coffins? Sign me up! And pass out colored markers with the funeral bulletin!

Reply
Annecdotist
23/8/2014 10:25:36 am

There are over here, Paula. Great idea, isn't it?

Reply
Caroline link
18/9/2014 03:59:34 am

Hi Anne,
thanks so much for this review, and for pushing me into getting hold of a copy of He Wants and then reading it. I think your review made sense of the rather fractuared ad flat style of the narrative. It's a sensitive review of a rather painful novel. I already admired Alison Moore's The Lighthouse and her short story collection The Pre-War House.
Thank you. Caroline.

Reply
Annecdotist
20/9/2014 09:00:41 am

Glad I was able to inspire you to read the novel and hope you didn't find it too painful? I think it's rather more cheerful than The Lighthouse. She's a great writer and has promised to write something about women next time – I'm really looking forward to whatever she produces.

Reply



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