We can choose our friends but not our neighbours, unless we happen to own a plot of land with cottages to rent or offer free to selected guests. In which case we should choose carefully: in a crisis, out in the countryside, we might have to rely on our neighbours more than we’d expect. But as renters and guests we might not have a say in the matter, as these two novels highlight. The first is about a woman unsettled by the folk beliefs of her neighbours in rural Scotland; the second about a temporarily covid-free community in upstate New York.
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Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe
After a disturbing incident in the classroom, a teacher flees her former life in London to rent a cottage in a remote part of south-west Scotland. At first, she relishes the solitude and wild landscape, although her disapproving neighbour puts a dampener on her trips into town.
She develops a friendship with her landlord, Grant, the somewhat reserved owner of Hare House and the surrounding estate. His flamboyant younger sister, seventeen-year-old Cass, is more forthcoming on returning from boarding school for the October half-term break, but are her stories of her deceased brother to be believed?
As winter closes in, and Cass becomes more eccentric, objects appear and disappear. Holed up in the manor house during a power cut, talk of witchcraft and madness make us wonder if anyone is safe. A perfectly paced and lyrical debut about how things are seldom what they seem. Thanks to publishers Mantle for my advance proof copy.
She develops a friendship with her landlord, Grant, the somewhat reserved owner of Hare House and the surrounding estate. His flamboyant younger sister, seventeen-year-old Cass, is more forthcoming on returning from boarding school for the October half-term break, but are her stories of her deceased brother to be believed?
As winter closes in, and Cass becomes more eccentric, objects appear and disappear. Holed up in the manor house during a power cut, talk of witchcraft and madness make us wonder if anyone is safe. A perfectly paced and lyrical debut about how things are seldom what they seem. Thanks to publishers Mantle for my advance proof copy.
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Russian-born novelist Sasha has had a dacha-style complex built in upstate New York, with a main house and separate bungalows for several friends. So it seems natural that, when the pandemic creeps across America, he would invite the people who mattered to him to ride it out in the countryside. Along with his psychiatrist wife and eight-year-old daughter, he looks forward to spending time with an outspoken former student, a famous actor, an itinerant socialite, and his two oldest friends. Over the coming months, they eat, drink, smoke and fall in and out of love.
I expected more depth and/or humour from a book by this highly renowned author, described as a masterpiece by one of his chums. I don’t think the reader is meant to like the characters – apart from the unsuccessful Vinod, perhaps – but I didn’t find them interesting enough to care for their ins and outs. (One exception is the landowner’s precocious adopted daughter; I’d love to read a rewrite solely from her point of view.) My interest sparked when it became political – addressing the implications for American immigrants with the backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests – but waned towards the cynical ending, with an unnecessary betrayal of a friend.
New Yorkers – not that I know any – would probably love this novel, along with men who secretly like chic lit but would never be seen with such a book in their hands. Thanks to publishers Allen & Unwin for my review copy.
Click on the image below to discover my novel about people cut off from the wider community, forced to rely on the company of people they wouldn’t choose as friends.
I expected more depth and/or humour from a book by this highly renowned author, described as a masterpiece by one of his chums. I don’t think the reader is meant to like the characters – apart from the unsuccessful Vinod, perhaps – but I didn’t find them interesting enough to care for their ins and outs. (One exception is the landowner’s precocious adopted daughter; I’d love to read a rewrite solely from her point of view.) My interest sparked when it became political – addressing the implications for American immigrants with the backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests – but waned towards the cynical ending, with an unnecessary betrayal of a friend.
New Yorkers – not that I know any – would probably love this novel, along with men who secretly like chic lit but would never be seen with such a book in their hands. Thanks to publishers Allen & Unwin for my review copy.
Click on the image below to discover my novel about people cut off from the wider community, forced to rely on the company of people they wouldn’t choose as friends.
Click below for more about my novel about friendship. I’m getting excited about the new blog tour at the beginning of next month.
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