Reviews
HORROR JONNY GLYNN
The Seven Days of Peter Crumb
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You have to wonder, upon reading Jonny Glynn’s debut novel, whether his friends can still look at him in quite the same way. After all, within just 45 pages we’re already treated to a detailed description of two Bangladeshi women being savaged with a claw hammer. And another of a crackhead prostitute getting kicked to death in an alleyway. Not to suggest Glynn isn’t a nice chap of course, but you do have to question the mind of a man capable of imagining Peter Crumb. Crumb (as you may have gathered) isn’t quite right. In fact, he’s fallen straight out of the nasty tree, and hit every sordid, murderous, drug-addled branch on the way down. It’s his last seven days on earth, and before he departs, he’s going to make a mess. Not only that, he’s going to jot down every detail for posterity. But then, Crumb’s not your average nut, and this is where Glynn excels. What initially appears to be a dirty, perverted down- and-out’s final mindless spree is revealed to be something much more complex: the last throws of a man once loving and loved, who’s been cracked by a violent episode years prior into two conflicting halves, one reflective, the other indiscriminately vengeful. Their dialogue forms Crumb’s struggle, as Glynn strips him back to formula and decides which wins out. Sometimes it’s sad. Sometimes it’s funny. Moreover, it’s daringly discomforting, like Amen'can Psycho unleashed on middle England. This is not a creation you’ll want to turn your
back on. (Malcolm Jack)
GOTHIC PASTICHE JENNIFER EGAN The Keep
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The slip-sliding new book from award- winning American novelist Jennifer Egan opens with a scene familiar from the 19308 Universal horror classics as Danny. a 36-year-old drifter, arrives at a castle in Eastern Europe. Summoned from New York by his rich and powerful cousin, Howard. to help him transform the 900-year- old pile intO a hotel, Danny is haunted by their shared past and suspicious of his cousin’s motives in inviting him tO join his entourage.
Egan has fun Subverting the genre. pitting her increasingly terrified protagonist against an ancient baroness and pitching him into a dangerous underground labyrinth. But is Danny the true protagonist or is it Ray, the creative writing student who narrates
Danny's tale? Because of the stOry-within-stOry structure. the narrative is stumbling and hesitant with Egan taking a labyrinthine route to make her points about the appeal Of fiction as an escape from dingy. unpleasant reality. Still, her prose is lively and insightful. making her tale worth persisting with.
(Allan Radcliffe)
BLACK COMEDY JOE TREASURE The Male Gaze (Picador) .00
I At first glance. The Male
Gaze is cheerful dick-lit. English bloke, stuck in UX. feeling detached from his wife. meets vivacious American woman for out-Of- character adventures. Things soon take a darker turn, as a young girl's suicide kicks Off a series Of events which sweep the rather tentative protagonist along. If you can cope
- with the gloriously
ridiculous series of
‘ l i JOE TREASURE
coincidences. and a few garish stereotypes Of Hollywood hippies. then Joe Treasure rewards the reader with a fast- paced plot and wry humour.
Some of the characters are delicately observed: the sink or swim attitude Of the foreigner abroad is
beautifully demonstrated
by David and his wife who flounder in this superficial culture while his attempts to cope with the mounting hysteria disrupting his world become more desperate. It's a promising debut novel. and an entertaining, intelligent read. with just enough wit for you to be a tad frustrated there's not more. (Sian Bevan)
FAMILY DRAMA CHARLOTTE MENDELSON When We Were Bad (Picador) .00
Charlotte Mendelson returns with a sweeping familial drama charting the decline and fall Of a well-tO-do. very Jewish London family funnelled through the revolving narrative ciphers Of three characters in crisis. Rabbi Claudia. son Leo and daughter Frances Rubin are dragged into the emotional mire by the surfacing Of repressed feelings and the struggle to maintain the appearance of success. The only escape seems
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tO lie outside Of domesticity and in the arms Of illicit lovers. The author herself strives for a realism inflected by individual consciousnesses. coming Off as an Liber— Jewish Virginia Woolf aSpirant. The result is a cultural and sexual voyeurism set in the all- tOO familiar realms of middle-class angst. As a family saga it’s certainly diverting but this book will not change your life. It will, however. make the perfect gift for friends and relatives who set their literary clocks by Richard and Judy and if it is picked up by book groups could do very well. (Suzanne Black)
TEENAGE DRAMA RICHARD
MILWARD
Apples (Faber) 000
The confused and lusty youthdom of Britain are everywhere at the moment from the seemingly daily scare stories on the tabloid
front pages and broadsheet Opinion columns to the hedonistic revelry of Skins. On iiterature's side. January’s Graffiti My SOtl/ by thirty/something Niven Govinden is now followed by Richard Milward's debut on the growrng pains Of the disaffected in Middlesborough. While this comes straight from the heart. borne of recent experience with the author clocking in at a mere 21 years. that doesn't necessarily translate into compelling fiction. and there are many clumsy elements to the tale which almost threaten to dent his naturally vibrant writing style.
Whether he can really get away with having a book called App/es while his key characters are named Adam and Eve is up for debate. but these two poor souls are assured a struggle of biblical proportions as they hurtle towards either nirvana or purgatory. A tempting but sour debut.
(Brian Donaldson)
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 HISTORICAL FICTIONS
Isabel Allende Ines of My Soul Based on true events. this is the story of the first Spanish woman to arrive in Chile with the Conquistadors of the 1500s Fourth Estate. Biyi Bandele Burma Boy A novel which tackles the experience of African soldiers in the Second World War with the central character a 14-year- Old private fighting in Burma and slowly losing his sanity. Jonathan Cape. Joseph Connolly Jack the Lad and Bloody Mary A WW2 London couple have their relatively conventional lives rent asunder when he inadvertently becomes part of the underworld. Faber Barbara Ewing The Mesmerist Two unemployed 19th centUry stage actresses relaunch their careers as hypnotists with great success but events from the past embroil them in scandal. Sphere.
Albert French Cinder A 19405 tale about racial division in the deep south of the good Ole' US of A set to a backdrop of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Harv/ll Seeker
‘ ‘ I’iS Apr I’llIX THE LIST 31