Reviews
LITERARY DRAMA ANDREW WILSON
The Lying Tongue (Canongate) COO
After his biography of Patricia Highsmith. Andrew Wilson's first foray into fiction emulates his idol. brimming as it is with sexual ambiguity and dark intent. His protagonist Adam Woods is a thinly sketched aspiring novelist who finds himself personal assistant to a forgotten literary enigma in exile. Delivered in the first person, Woods' deliberate and increasingly devious voice initially appears contrived as. incarcerated in the old man's Venetian palazzo. he finds himself Increasineg obsessed with the idea of an illicit biography. Only in the
second part of the book
does Woods own sinister past begin to
SHORT STORIES MIRANDA JULY
present itself, drawing back the curtain on author Wilson's chilling potential.
As such. The Lying Tongue is a slow- building. atmOSpheric debut that lives by intrigue more than character or insight and reads much like the mysterious. imaginary 60s crime novel that lies at its narrative centre. There is a bold self- conscious quality at play too. Wilson eventually questioning the very nature of authorship. (Mark Edmundson)
WAR DRAMA OWEN SHEERS
Resistance (Faber) eeee
September 1944. The women of a remote valley in Wales wake to find their husbands have disappeared In the night with neither explanation nor warning. Within weeks. a German patrol moves into the valley on some unstated mission. their commanding officer assuring the women that. contrary to
No One Belongs Here More Than You
(Canongatel 0000.
reports of rape and murder by occupying forces. they will not be harmed.
So begins an uneasy peace between the women reeling from their husbands' disappearance and the battle-weary patrol. Owen Sheers occasionally gets carried away with his descriptions. giving the impression of trying to get in every turn of phrase he can think of. but in the main, his style is movingly expressive. His evocation of a Nazi- occupied Britain describes a country of women hoping to contact their dead husbands. brothers and fathers through ouija boards. set amid brutality. tentative friendships and clandestine resistance. The book is both poetic and shocking.
(Katie Gould)
CRIME SATIRE
NURY VITTACI-II The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics (Polygon) 0000
CF Wong is having a bad day. The office he shares with his Australian assistant Joyce is about to be demolished by property developers. and he also seems to be on a collision course with some vegan terrorists who have recently invaded his home city of Shanghai. The fifth
I’ll admit, I feared this book. A debut collection of short stories from an LA-based performance artist and indie filmmaker? Surely it’s going to be all pointlessly quirky characters, self-obsessed existential ennui and vacuous ponderings and interactions? Assumptions which only prove what a dumb schmuck this reviewer is, because this is the finest, most moving and funny, weird and wonderful collection of stories I’ve read in
some years.
Miranda July’s extraordinary imagination and wonderful empathy for her characters blend seamlessly in these tales set in the dumbfounding world of modern relationships where hope is a beautiful but fragile thing. The ghost of dysfunction haunts the pages, and while there is plenty of strangeness it’s never quirkiness for the sake of it, rather the author pinpoints the extremes to which we’ll go to find some meaning in life. Humour and heartbreak combine brilliantly in stories like ‘Something that Needs Nothing’ about an unrequited lesbian affair, and the extraordinary ‘Ten True Things’ which tells of a secretary’s obsessive interest in her
boss’ wife.
The writer’s portrayal of the paradoxes of modern life is profound in these stories which are frequently hilarious, often emotionally crushing, but always incredibly, precisely perceptive. And she saves the best til last with ‘How to Tell Stories to Children’, which manages to sum up a lifetime of maternal pain and joy in 25 pages bristling with remarkable life. A talent this original and insightful clearly didn’t come from any creative writing course production line, and deserves to be acclaimed from the rooftops. (Doug Johnstone)
ifafiw77”’
. n 5 x #117: anagram» ' magma} 2: a»;
“111nm
; a nun vrrucm
instalment of Asian writer and journalist Nury Vittachi's Feng Shu/ Detective series is as scurrilous and readable as ever.
His penchant for freeze framing the plot while he pencils in a cross hatch of cultural anomalies is one that owes more to the novels of Douglas Adams and Simon Louvish than the more obviously comparable Alexander McCall Smith. Vittachi rips into the paradoxes that pervade life in the largest city of the People's Republic of China with a glee of the Iibellous gossip columnist he once was. Delicious stuff.
(Paul Dale)
SOCIAL HISTORY ANDREW MARR A History of Modern Britain
(Macmillan) 000
The cynical and lazy may wonder what would be the point of purchasing 600 pages by Andrew Marr telling us about the development of Britain
. since 1945 when his
simultaneous TV documentary series will do the same thing. But with more pictures. Yet. this would do a
disservice to Marr's
concise yet entertaining prose style which never fails to get across his boyish excitement about the world of politics while managing to squeeze complicated economic theory or social policy into a nutshell without being patronising.
.-\ N I.) R I". \\v’
M A R R
“£“"y"k‘
A HISTORY OF
MODERN BRITAIN
'yVV'
And after all. such a book is built for dipping into and choosing a particular era's drama. While this thunderous tome is largely impressive. the result is a history told from a distinctly establishment view, witnessing the past thr0ugh the eyes of those in the frontline of government or the official parliamentary
opposition. and rather
ignoring the vital role played by those who battered away at the
, fringes of political life.
(Brian Donaldson)
Books
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 HISTORY PAPERBACKS Terry Jones Barbarians You might have seen this on telly last year as the former Python charts the progress of the rough lot who had a tough battle or two with the Romans. BBC/Ebury. i James D Tabor The Jesus Dynasty A controversial interpretation of the life and history of the man they call Mr Christ. Element. James Reston Dogs of God The epochal events of 1492 are recalled with the horrors of the Inquisition, the defeat of the Moors and the rise of the lad Columbus. Faber. Roger Moor-house Killing Hitler Here comes a study of the assassination attempts made upon the Nazi leader's life and brings a fresh perspective on the histOry of the Third Reich. lelico. James T Patterson Restless Giant Obviously. if your name is James. chances are you might write a history book. This one covers modern US histOry from the scandals of Watergate and the 2000 election. OUP.
24 May-7 Jun 2007 THE LIST 25