Books
Reviews
BLACK COMEDY MARK WATSON
A Light-Hearted Look at Murder
lChatto & Windusi 0000
Mark Watson has been described as ‘a Will Self with dignity’. Admittedly, it was in his spoof biography for the 8802 comedy Time Trumpet. And reading A Light-Hearted Look at Murder, ‘Will Self with humility‘ seems rather more appropriate. Watson’s debut novel, Bullet Points, shared Self’s interest in and suspicion of psychiatry and in this new one, he creates a world reminiscent of the lofty currnudgeon’s parallel universes, a more recognisable reality for sure, yet one that’s still only sporadically connected with society in the bleak corners of a tower block, university campus or prison. Nevertheless, his freaks are more human and sympathetic than Self’s grotesques and his sense of moral enquiry more evident.
As one of the UK’s most successful young stand-up comedians, Watson is concerned with the limits of freedom of expression. Here, he embodies this in Andreas, a German postgraduate studying at Cambridge in the 19803 who establishes a relationship and a lookalike agency with Rose, the fifth tallest woman in Great Britain, for which his Adolf Hitler is their star turn. Twenty years on and he’s languishing in prison, his story revealed to his pen-pal Alex, an adrift young woman letting the unfolding tragedy of this unusual couple eclipse her own. Gradually translated from the stilted German by her flatmate, the chapters alternating between Andreas’ past and Alex’s present, it’s a compelling memoir and if the conclusion is somewhat equivocal, Watson’s economic, understated style makes the lead-up by turns unsettling and amusing. (Jay Richardson)
SOCIAL DRAMA T M SPANBAUER
Now is the Hour (Jonathan Cape) 0..
With a flower in his hair, 17-year-old Rigby John Klusener is hitching his way to San Francisco. reCIting an abbreviated litany of the chain of events that forced him to come Out: 'Flacho. Acho. Billie Cody pregnant. Georgy Girl. my broken fucking heart.' Spiralling like a smoke ring from the endless cigarettes consumed throughput. Rigby's story starts and
ends in the same place.
the second and penultimate scenes idenuCal
Now Is the Hour
Spending 500 pages inside an introspective teenager's head can be diffiCUlt. and the supporting characters. including Rigby's lover George Serano and best friend Billie Cody. are somewhat marginalised. It's the small town itself. evoked through repetitive.
28 THE LIST 19 Jul-2 Aug 2007
claustrophobic accwnulatiOn of period detail. that exists most convinCingly. There's some strikingly beautiful writing here — even the one climactic moment of Violence is tender and dreamlike — but the stOry of a good. bookish Catholic farming boy coming out to himself is not an especially new one. (Kirstin lnnesi
TRAVEL ADVENTURE ROBERT TWIGGER
Lost Oasis (Weidenfeld & Nicolsoni .0.
Following in the footsteps of explorers such as Theodore Alrnasy. the inspiration for The English Patient.
author and macho adventurer Robert Twigger deCides to search for the lost oasis of Ze/ura. But this is no simple chronological guest tale. The catalyst for this search is his family's move from England to Egypt and the book is as much abom false starts. philosophical rumination and lyrical description as it is about adventure.
Lost: Oasis
Unsure whether to proceed by car or foot into the desert. hampered by Egyptian bureaucracy and faced wrth one of the most arid and hostile envrronments on earth. Twrgger initially joins an expedition led by Colonel Ghali. ‘a hard» ass with a bayonet- enhanced walking stick'. Later. Tviigger heads out into deep desert wrth his mate Steve and a home-made wooden trolley. Reading Lost OaSis is a bit like enc0untering a mirage: at first glance it looks solid. but on closer inspection slides and shudders. paradise receding by the minute. (Hannah Adcocki
HORROR DRAMA JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST
Let the Right One In lQuercusi .00
Swedish magician turned stand-up comedian turned novelist John Aivide Liiidqust's first book features numerous sleight-of-hand tricks and sly Jokes. In the
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opening chapter the reader is wrongfooted about the fate of the protagonist. Oskar. an introverted 12-year-old boy who befriends his new neighbour. a young giri named Eli who's actually a vampire iaged 200.. What follows is a freakish love story in which Oskar finds there's more to life than the liVing.
AlthOugh there are shades of Anne Rice in Lindgvist's debut. it's as much about being an outsider railing against conformity as it is about blood draining thence the title riff on the Morrissey song 'Let the Right One Slip ln'i. The miserable SlOCkllOllY‘ suburb Blackeberg in which Oskar exrsts iai‘o' where Liridgvist grew up proves to be a greater threat to the s0ul's wellbeing than the pointy-toothed interloper. and it provides plenty of material for Lindgvist's sharp sociai commentary ilvliles Fielderi
DEBUT NOVEL
TOD WODICKA All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well lJonathan Capei O...
What an exceptionally odd yet utterly compelling debut novel this is. quite unlike the typical. semi- atitobiographical splurge most first—time authors deliver. In All Shall Be Well. . . . American writer Wodicka has created a hilarious yet tragic anti-hero up there wrth Garp and Yossarian in the form of Burt Hecker. a sixty- sornething medieval re- enactor and ‘.‘./|(,l()\.".’(-)f wrth a serious home- made mead habit and two dysfunctional and estranged children. When Hecker, mentally retreating into the
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James Lee Burke Pegasus Descending The daughter of Detective Dave Robicheaux's dead best friend is going off the rails and he is keen to save her. Especially when she starts behaving similarly to another girl who recently committed suicide. Phoenix.
Denise Mina The Dead Hour The current queen of Scottish crime gives us a chance to revisit this corker about family, religion, drugs and morality. Bantam. Vena Cork Green Eye At Billings College Cambridge. life seems idyllic until a rapist goes on the loose with terror. chaos and murder getting slapped onto the curriculum. Headline. Stella Duffy Mouths of Babes A fresh Saz Martin mystery in which she is unable to settle into her new role as a mum when a mystery caller arrives forcing her to relive events she’d prefer to keep in the past. Serpents Tail.
Qiu Xiaolong When Red is Black Quite probably the most enigmatic title of the month. In this third in the Inspector Chen series clues start to dry up after a writer is murdered in her study. Sceptre.
sanctuary of his faux medieval world. sells the family home and goes on a pilgrimage across modern Europe to find his son, using the cover of the 900th birthday celebrations of St Hildegard von Bingen. his resulting dislocation and descent into chaos is both fantastically funny and incredibly moving. A deeply intelligent and perceptive writer. Wodicka ‘.'.’I(}l(lS his talents lightly but effectiver creating an oddball family saga imbued wrtli incr'edil>.e resonance and pathos that Will live long iii the memory Highly reconintended.
iDoug JohnstoneI