First a knee update! There’s no cartilage left, and still inflamation behind the knee – so an Ultrasound Guided Steroid Injection is booked to deal with the latter. Knee replacements (the other one probably has no cartilage left either) will be the order of the day in due time. Even though I’m able to go private through work, it’s still taking ages. Meanwhile back to school tomorrow for INSET – joy! At least I get to let off some fire extinguishers this time in a refresher training session.
Now for a couple of short reviews…
All Fours by Miranda July
This novel seems to be on all the shortlists:
- Women’s Prize for Fiction
- Carol Shields Prize
- British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year
- and a book of the year 2024 by many other sites.
Sadly, it’s not on mine. It distinctly fell into the same bracket that I put Otessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation in that I kept on reading but wanted to throw it across the room the whole time.
A perimenopausal semi-celebrity artist based in LA has to go to NYC but hates flying. Encouraged by her husband, she decides to make a holiday of it and drive there, leaving Harris in charge of their child, Sam, whom she always talks of as ‘they’. Harris helps plan a meticulous route with stopovers.
Off she goes, but twenty minutes out of LA she realises she needs gas, so she pulls off the freeway at Monrovia. A handsome young man cleans her windscreen, and later she sees him again at a local eatery and an instant obsession takes hold. She books a room at a local motel, and basically goes no further! Full disaster woman having a mid-life crisis.
There’s a lot of sex in this book, from the title onwards, ironically not between her and the object of her desire. Sorry but I find that all boring. I’m not going to bore you with more details either. Oh, and I also really dislike the lettering on the front cover!
Source: Own copy. Canongate hardback, 326 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan
Luckily Mary Jean Chan’s second book of poems was totally different. Bright Fear is a wonderful collection with a host of themes running through it, most notably mothers – their own, plus their birth language of Chinese, and home country – they come from HK.
Several of the poems address her encounters with people confused by their perfect English and heritage. Sexuality is also key, a lovely poem near the end is simply called ‘Out’ – and imagines asking their parents, and then ends with their acceptance giving freedom.
The forms of the poems are largely varied, from blocks of prose as poems, to simple couplets, columnar and many others in between, including a concrete poem in the shape of a wine glass.
I enjoyed these poems very much, and wish I’d marked some quotations for you. I shall look out for her debut collection, Flèche, which Bookish Beck liked even more than this one, which she reviewed for Shiny here (with quotations).
Source: Own copy. Faber flapped paperback, 2023, 64 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Author Visit – Rachel Joyce
And finally, I went with a friend to see Rachel Joyce talk about her new book The Homemade God during the week in an event hosted by Mostly Books. She last came to Abingdon in 2012 for World Book Night at an event at the library to talk about The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (see my event report and review). I’ve only read one more of hers since, The Music Shop which I adored.
Her new book is her first one to have a family at its core – four siblings come together in Italy at their late father’s home on Lake Orta. He’s a celebrated artist, they are emotionally starved and there’s a heatwave, plus a much younger stepmother and a lost last painting. Plenty to unravel – and it sounds an idyllic place to research – she went there! I love the UK cover, but apparently the worm was too much for her publishers across the pond! The indie bookshop edition also has peachy sprayed edges with apple designs. I’m really looking forward to reading it soon.
Inevitably, I suppose, the questions were largely about Harold Fry – but the film – which Joyce adapted herself, being a longterm writer of radio drama and adaptations. I did love the film, a real tear-jerker with Jim Broadbent doing what he does best, and Dame Penelope Wilton giving a standout performance of repressed anger and emotion as Maureen.
It was a lovely evening, and Rachel was lovely to chat to as I got my copy signed – she remembered coming to Abingdon all those years ago.
BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
