My final round up for May seems to have fallen into a theme since all three books are centred around women’s experiences. One is a proper sci-fi spaceship-based adventure, one a dystopia (because I sometimes think every third or fourth book I read is dystopian) but the first is a bit more of a traditional Jane read. Which means a bit quirky…
Do Not Feed The Bear – Rachel Elliott
Sydney Smith’s family were creatures of habit who holidayed every year in St Ives (progressing from caravans to, gasp, a holiday cottage when Sidney was ten) but that all changed after a terrible tragedy. Now Sidney is returning to St Ives (alone and without telling her partner, Ruth, or her father, Howard) and we see her trying, and initially failing, to come to terms with what happened nearly four decades before. Her hobby, free-running, brings her to the attention of the town (who seem to mistake her need to climb onto and jump off buildings as a suicide bid) and to at least one person whose past intersects with hers.
The story moves back and forth in time to the holidays of the past and to the present day and is told from many points of view (including the odd dog). We revisit the first dead body Sidney ever saw – from both his and Sidney’s side – and are later reunited with the dead body’s bereaved fiancé. In fact, all the people we meet seem to be interlinked in some way – perhaps a hint of the fact that, no matter how hard you try, no life fails to impact on many others. Many of the characters we meet have great sadness in their lives but most of them (apart from a couple who, I’m willing to bet, nobody could like) are able to find a way back to at least the start of happiness by the end. An enjoyable lockdown read, with interesting characters and a sense of warmth.
Goldilocks – Laura Lam
A bit of a change here – Goldilocks is not a fairy-tale retelling but science fiction. Goldilocks, in this case, refers to the habitable zone around a star – not too hot and not too cold to potentially sustain human life. In the case of this book this zone is needed since mankind’s refusal to change lifestyle, even in the face of brutal climate change, means that a fresh start is needed sooner rather than later. Of course, this is a fairly common occurrence in ecologically inclined sci-fi: what is new here is the undercurrent of Gilead-style political misogyny. Yes, if you forced me to do the ‘x meets y’ definition I’d have to call it Handmaid’s Tale meets The Martian (and you’d have to force me – I made this comparison as I was reading the book – now I see that everyone is using it. Bah!). With a strong hint of reportage in characters that reminded me of both Trump and Elon Musk….
Naomi Lovelace is part of the crew of the Atalanta, a spaceship making its way to Cavendish, a distant planet which offers mankind an escape from the mess they’ve made of Earth. The mission and the ship they are on were the brainchild of Lovelace’s adopted mother, Valerie Black, and the crew were hand-picked by Black but, because of a repressively patriarchal political system, they are only there because, well, they stole the ship. Initially the crew, all women, are positive about what they have done – trusting Black to deal with demands from Earth to return the ship – but an atmosphere of mistrust soon emerge. Things begin to go wrong with the ship, Lovelace has health issues which will affect the whole crew and, it seems, Black is keeping secrets from them all. We move between the time on board the Atalanta and back to Lovelace’s childhood and youth – discovering more about the real character of Valerie Black as we go – and, finally, to a future where Lovelace is looking back and, finally, telling the truth about what happened on this fateful journey. This is good, thoughtful, science fiction which should suit readers of Becky Chambers – especially if they are also Atwood fans.
Q – Christina Dalcher
Another book for the Atwood enthusiasts and another which looks at a near future world in which life has become increasingly difficult for women. At first glance is seems as if some things in life have improved, at least from the point of view of Elena Fairchild, a teacher at one of the country’s elite schools. But we soon realise that the very fact of these high-level schools means that there must be other institutions with much lower standards. The constant testing of pupils has been increased, with previously high achievers suddenly losing so many marks (known as Q, standing for Quotient) that they drop from the highest-level schools to the lowest – large, residential facilities where parental visits (or trips home) are rigorously deterred. Which, in effect, means children taken from their homes with only a few days’ notice and never seen again. Despite Elena’s husband being instrumental in this educational policy she finds, to her horror, that her younger daughter, Freddy, has fallen into this group and that he is not willing to do anything to save her. Elena, however, spurred on by hearing about her beloved grandmother’s experiences in Nazi Germany, is forced to make some almost impossible choices.
Like most of the best dystopian novels this one is chillingly close to current reality. Not just in the control some governments (I’m looking at you, America) feel they need to have over women and their bodies but also in attitudes to education. Yes, I can see how testing can help to establish how well individuals are progressing, but when it becomes a purpose in itself it tends, as happens in this book, to be prejudiced against anyone who doesn’t conform to an artificially set norm. The story draws explicit parallels with the eugenics movement (beloved of fascist regimes everywhere) adding another level of worrying contemporary similarity. I was particularly fascinated by Elena and her husband’s backstory – former school geeks whose plans for revenge on high school bullies become a brutal repressive regime – and how she turns her back on what those plans have become.
Jane
Juliette lives what I think of as a typically Parisian life (because my knowledge of Parisian life comes from quirky French philosophical/romance novels). She isn’t unhappy – she has a job, she dates (but doesn’t find lasting love), she has somewhere to live – but her life contains very little actual joy. The nearest she gets to real contentment is on her daily commute when she imagines the lives of other passengers reading on the metro. One day, however, when the thought of the dreary day ahead of her at work feels too much to contemplate, Juliette decides to get off the metro a stop early and her life is changed. She finds a door, intriguingly wedged open with a book and, when she enters the rooms behind that door she meets the mysterious Soliman. Soliman never seems to leave his rooms, which are filled with books, but he employs a group of people (known as passeurs) who take the books and then pass them on to readers who they feel would be well-matched to each volume. Not the book they want, or the just one which will make them happy but the one they need. When he not only offers Juliette a role as a passeur but also asks her to look after his daughter when he needs to go away for a short while she finds herself living in the bookstore, running the whole enterprise.
Henri, like so many of the French heroes of my favourite quirky reads, has problems with love. He can deal with passion but is afraid of emotional connection and has failed relationships to prove it. He is trying to change, however, and is in London on his way to meet his son for, effectively, the first time. His journey is interrupted by personal heroism and a tragic accident and the bulk of the book is then set by Henri’s hospital bed as he lies in a coma. The story shifts from Henri’s own memories of his past – his Breton childhood, his career as a war reporter and his relationships with the mother of his son and with Eddie, his ex-girlfriend – to the point of view of both Eddie herself (still listed as Henri’s emergency contact) and Sam, his estranged son. There is also a secondary storyline featuring another patient in a coma – a young girl called Madelyn – and a recurring theme of dreams. Some of these dreams are the plans we all make – to marry the one we love or to have a good relationship with our children and/or parents – but many of them are perhaps better described as alternative realities for they are part of Henri’s own dream-state. In these dreams he never fathers his son, or never leaves the boy’s mother, or dies before the present: they effectively represent all the different ‘trouser-legs of reality’ which could have existed.
Frances Price is the widow of a very rich, very succesful and rather nasty man whose hedonistic New York lifestyle has burned through her inheritance. When the banks start to refuse her line of credit and serious men with clipboards start listing all her assets Frances manages to sell some of her less obvious valuables and sets sail for Paris with her grown-up son, Malcolm. They are followed on board ship by their elderly cat, Small Frank, who may or may not be inhabited by the spirit of the late Frank Price and make their way to an apartment borrowed from Frances’ oldest (and, probably, only) friend Joan. Selfish and spoiled Frances has decided she will spend all her money – every last cent – and then end her life: But can she continue with this plan as she and her son manage to accrue a motley collection of new friends and acquaintances – including Madame Reynard (an ex-pat), a psychic, a private detective, a doctor and his wine merchant friend?
From my earliest memory we have always been a dog family. We got Chum – a mongrel, so we named him for Pedigree Chum dog food – when he followed my step-Dad to our house as a stray when I was a couple of years old. Although Chum could be snappy with strangers, chased cars if he got out and loved to pick fights with any dog which was bigger than him he was brilliant with us children. He was my confidant when I felt hard done by, my Mum’s protector when we were all away at school and was even happy to put up with me using him to practice my bandaging skills. We had other pets – hamsters, gerbils, goldfish and even a tank of woodlice – but we never had a cat. There were lots of local strays which we were allowed to feed from time to time but Mum always said no to having one: I don’t know if she just doesn’t like cats or if she realised that Chum would probably make short work of most moggies, either way it wasn’t happening. Oddly my brother, sister and I now have cats so we were not put off and, when I look back over my list of books read, I realise I read far more books about felines than any other creature. My transformation to crazy cat lady has begun.
Many of these books have been written by Japanese authors – it seems that cats, like 
Schoch is a middle-aged man living on the street in Zürich and he’s getting by. He has a place to sleep, in a cave along the river banks near the allotments, he knows all the places to go to get adequate food and he could give up drinking any time he wanted to. Giving up drinking is easy – he’s done it lots of times – but when a terrier-sized, pink, glow-in-the-dark, elephant maybe it is time to quit for good. With a cast of alcoholics, circus-folk, evil scientists, vets and refugees this is a heartwarming book which looks at all kinds of issues around life, love and genetic modification. Partly because of the development of the character of Schoch as we unravel the life that led to him being on the streets, partly because of the warmth and humanity of Kuang, the Burmese oozie (or neck rider) and partly because of the elephant itself. Okay, maybe, more than just partly because of the elephant – what’s not to love about a glowing pachyderm small enough to sit on your lap? This is, in fact, the crux of the story – just because an elephant is only a foot high doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated like a proper elephant. And just because it is possible to create such a creature doesn’t mean we should. Add into this all that we learn about life on the streets, including how much the inhabitants care for their dogs, and elephant care and it is a very entertaining and interesting read. Although I now also know more about artificial insemination of elephants than I ever wanted to know…
Piglettes is about a group of girls in a provincial French town who find themselves the winners of a rather nasty little contest run by a boy at their school. They are voted as the winners of the ‘Pig Pageant’ – the ugliest girls in school. This is, obviously, out-and-out bullying but our main heroine, Mireille, isn’t going to give the bully the reaction he wants. She just laughs it off – although her internal monologue seems to show that she is not quite as happy with her life as she professes to be – but somehow, when she meets up with and talks to the two other ‘lucky’ winners, she decides that they will cycle across the country to Paris, selling sausages from a trailer, and gatecrash the President’s Bastille Day garden party. Like you do. The three girls, Mireille, Astrid and Hakima, are accompanied by Hakima’s brother (a disabled ex-soldier) and a wonderful friendship develops between them. Mireille is very much in charge initially – she is certainly the fiestiest of the three – but the others all come into their own as time goes by. There is a hint of love interest as Mireille has an instant crush on Kader (Hakima’s brother) but it is all very innocent – the main story is about the girls, how they learn to love themselves, to realise that they don’t need to change in order to fit in with other people’s ideals, and their refusal to accept that they are worthy of being bullied.
In The Bedlam Stacks Natasha Pulley brings us to a world which is undoubtedly real – the East India Company has become the India Office, malaria is still hampering Britain’s ambitions in the East and Peru has banned the export of the seeds or saplings of the trees whose bark supplies life-saving quinine. The main character, Merrick Tremayne, is a gardener/botanist who has worked as an opium smuggler for the East India Company during the Opium Wars with China is the perfect person to send in to try and succeed where others have failed. Tremayne, however, was seriously injured during his last mission and is living on his family’s dilapidated Cornish estate. He is on the point of taking a job as a curate when he is called to travel to Peru, accompanied by his good friend Clem and his wife Minna. There they find themselves in a world which is ruled by cartels controlling the sale of cinchona (the tree from which quinine is derived) but also superstition, religion and the mysterious geography of the region. This, of course, is where the magical part of the story happens. Living statues, exploding trees, a mysterious community built up from children with disabilities left there by the inhabitants of other villages deep in the forbidden forests, not to mention a key character, Raphael, the village priest who seems to suffer from a strange condition.
This book opens in 1988. In a music shop which is resisting the rise of CDs (although not modern music) and the march of progress generally. It is on a street with a small parade of the kind of shops which are closing down all the time – the book opens in a sort of dead-end. But it is the kind of glorious dead end that I, for one, would love to have on my doorstep. The owner of the shop, Frank, is a bit of a lost soul who is still mourning his beloved (but rather difficult) mother, who shies away from relationships and who, despite all this lives to help others through music. The man with the unfaithful wife who listens only to Chopin is reminded that he is not alone via the work of Aretha Franklin; a bank manager’s baby is lulled to sleep by The Troggs Wild Thing. He is, in the early days, pretty astute about music – he’s the only shop locally to stock the Sex Pistols and stocks all the big indy labels – but the rise of CDs is a problem. Frank won’t stock them and he becomes persona non grata with all the reps from record companies.
In the Postman’s Fiancée we meet Tania, a young Bavarian woman who moves to Montréal to improve her French. She falls in love with a customer at the café she works in, Bilodo a quiet and shy postman, even though they never speak beyond orders for drinks and food. When Bilodo has a serious accident and loses his memory Tania poses as his fiancée in an effort to make his love for her a reality. If you think of a cross between Amélie and While You Were Sleeping in book form (with additional haiku) you’d not be far off. The plot is rather like a French farce, as Tania tries to keep the amnesiac Bilodo from any contact with his past but it also has a strong thread of sadness (or maybe I should say ennui, it sounds more appropriate with a french twist) running through it. As well as the french feel to the book it has a rather spare elegance, like the haiku used throughout. I read this as a standalone novel but there is an earlier book, featuring some of the same characters, whose plot intertwines with it which I have now added to my ‘to-read’ list.
Jane & Bex book blog 