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Books
Reviews
SHORT STORIES MICHEL FABER The Fahrenheit Twins (Canongate) “O.
The cover of this collection, the follow-up to Michel Faber’s bestselling Victorian epic The Crimson Petal and the White, shows two gnome-shaped silhouettes against an Arctic backdrop, a helicopter hanging incongruously overhead. It’s a strikingly odd image that hints at isolation and the vast spaces of the imagination, and it suits Faber’s fiction down to the ground. Here, Faber gives us a magic window that offers comfort to a woman depressed by her unlover neighbourhood and a darkness that reaches across the sky. ‘Andy Comes Back’ is the often hilarious tale of a man who wakes up from a coma, and finds the world oddly different. In the horrific ‘The Smallness of the Action’, a depressed mother tries desperately to shut her baby up. You wonder for a moment if you are reading magic realism, until the horrible truth dawns. Not everything is quite so strong. ‘Explaining Coconuts’ describes a scientific lecture given by a beautiful woman and is deadened by flat prose and repetitive jargon. It’s a story that stands out because it is exceptional: elsewhere, from the little epiphany shared between a drug addict and her daughter in ‘Serious Swimmers’ to the comic cat pastiche of ‘Tabitha Warren’, Faber offers intelligent, intriguing fragments that reach out to each other, finding strange connections and fuelling the urge to plough through this troubling and entertaining work in a single sitting. Some fans of The Crimson Petal might dismiss The Fahrenheit Twins as a stop-gap until Faber’s next long player. They would be very much mistaken. (James Smart)
ROCK'N'ROLL FICTION DOUGLAS COWIE
Owen Noone and the Marauder
(Canongate) no
This tale of excess is a strangely flat and rather innocent novel, mainly thanks to the choice of narrator from this American debut novelist. Owen Noone and the Marauder are an oddball electro-blues duo who gain unlikely stardom, in a career with more than a passing resemblance to the White Stripes.
Douglas Cowie has chosen to tell the story from the point of view of the Marauder (real name Brian), the monkey to
18 'I'NE LIST 25 Aug—8 Sep 2005
Noone‘s organ grinder. and it is this rather glassy-eyed point of view which detracts from what is otherwise a well-plotted and keenly observed tale.
The stuff about indie labels and local venues is spot on, but as the band reach tame the focus becomes hazy. and Cowie does resert to the cliche’ of the troubled rock star too easily. All in all, though. a decent stab at a tricky subject to pull off in fiction.
(Doug Johnstone)
SHORT STORIES EWAN MORRISON The Last Book You
Read (Chroma) 0000
Despite former employment as a producer on hideously tacky game show Naked Elvis, Ewan Morrison's CV entries for arts series Don't Look Down and four Scottish BAFTA-nominated shorts stand him in better stead for fiction writing. The first book from Edinburgh's new Chroma imprint is a confident and heartfelt selection of stories which flit between Scotland and America (where Morrison lived for a time while working on a screenplay). skirting aSSuredly by the text message and email- driven logistics of modern dating. and leave us with the warming but sometimes uncomfortable lesson that finding true love is simply a matter of defeating our own egos.
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Convincineg writing all ages and both sexes in the first person. Morrison equals the everyman patter of Irvine Welsh and the personable logic of Iain Banks. Yet there's also a precise mixture of the uncompromising and the tender that's all his own. and a full-length debut novel will be eagerly anticipated. (David Pollock)
RELATIONSHIP DRAMA JOHN IRVING Until I Find You (Bloomsbury) 000
At 820 pages long, this is a massively overwritten book. and it COLild've done with being roughly half its current length. With a name as big as Irving's. editors are presumably reluctant to confront the man, which is a shame because what is an OK
novel could've perhaps been a great one if some of the pointless excesses had been Curbed.
The stery concerns Jack Burns. dragged around Europe as a kid by a rather unconventional mother in search of a father who walked out on them. As the novel progresses and Burns grows. he has cause to doubt his childhood memories. and is forced to reassess his relationships. Clearly Irving's most autobiographical work. Until / Find You has all the author's trademark stuff — sparkling dialogue. early sexual enc0unters. bizarre familial characters — but his reportage style. lack of narrative drive and too much superfluous detail all make for a heavy read.
(Doug Johnstonel
Comics
SUPERHERO
MIKE KENNEDY & CARLOS MEGLIA
Superman: Infinite City (Titani DC) 00
When a powerful weapon bearing the mark “Infinite City Industries“ is unleashed on Metropolis. Clark and Leis track it down to a deserted Midwestern diner. ArriVing there. they stumble upon a gateway to Infinite City. the conseCIuence of a contingency plan
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implemented by Clark's father Jor-El when Krypton faced imminent destruction. But is Superman really ready to face his father?
Writer Mike Kennedy's background in computer games perhaps explains the weak plotting and. while Carlos Meglia's art is aptly leftfield for the depiction of a parallel universe Willi cartoonish cl'iaracters over photo- realistic painted backgrounds. the cluttered final effect proves more infuriating than awe-inspiring. As an original graphic novel from two relatively unknown talents this was a bold experiment from DC. but one whose quality hardly Justifies the expensive format.
(Dave Martini
ALSO PUBLISHED
Joseph Connolly Love is Strange A portrayal of both a country (Britain) and a family (the Coyles) in turmoil throughout the second half of the 20th century. Faber. Will Smith 8 Roger Drew The Joy of No Sex Illustrated unlovingly in the Alex Comfort style. this spoof tale of a chap who believes that sex can be easily replaced by taxidermy and matchstick collecting has been endorsed by the likes of Al Murray and Paul Whitehouse. Michael Joseph.
Dave Eggers (ed) The Best of McSweeney’s Volume 2 Another gathering of the finest clever clogs in US literature. including Glen David Gold. Jonathan Lethem and AM Homes. The next collection. due later this year, comes with a free comb. The nutters. Hamish Hamilton.
Shaun Hutson Twisted Sou/s A woman's life is crumbling around her so she takes refuge in a palatial house in the countryside. Except the local populace are an odd bunch riven by a bizarre brand of fear. Time Warner.