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Si 10R T S TORY COLLECTION
WELLS TOWER
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
(Granta) 0..
Another month, another hotshot North American writer comes our way. With a splurge of fanfare arrives this debut collection from Wells Tower, who has previously contributed to the cult literary likes of McSweeney’s and The Believer. The hype, as is becoming the norm in these post-Eggers days, doesn’t quite match up to the reality. Within his nine tales, his main subject seems to be the disintegrating state of families and the attempts by members to engineer some kind of a renewal. So, we have conflicts between cousins, stepdad and stepson, and elderly wheelchair-bound father and unmarriable daughter. There is certainly a pleasing sparseness about Tower’s writing, though he's not scared to cock his gun with an imagistic flourish when the urge reaches him. In the gaps, though, there is a distinct coldness about the majority of his tales, which almost render them empty in the reader’s mind seconds after the finale has been reached and the next story has been embarked upon. Honourable exceptions are the sinister exit to the ‘Leopard' and the awkward denouement to ‘Door in Your Eye’. Much responsibility is loaded onto the stark oppositions within each story, exemplified best by the violent, estranged hubby and the grubby peacenik who has replaced him in ‘Down Through the Valley’. As the pair are thrown together on an awkward road trip, the tension is palpable. It’s a feeling that occurs only too infrequently throughout this debut. (Brian Donaldson)
FAMILY SAGA JAMES RUNCIE East Fortune (Bloomsbury) O
EAST FORTUNE
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Featuring an ensemble cast of characters and set in East Lothian. this tedious novel is trying to be a modern family saga. but fails on almost every level. The story
centres on the three Henderson brothers. all middle-aged and each a different kind of failure. Reclusive academic Jack begins a relationship With the yOung Polish girlfriend of a man he runs over in his car; senSibIe Angus is made redundant and dreams Of a new life in Italy: and hapless Douglas is a philandering alcoholic. Each of these characters and most of the others who pop up are paper-thin, middle class cliches. all self-
indulgent angst and self-
involved musmgs. The action. such as it is. switches from tortuous.
banal dialogue. mostly to do with completely unconVincing romances. to long-winded internal monologues. and there is absolutely no engagement With any of the ClumSily intertwmed storylines, making it all fall completely flat. (DOLig Johnstonei
GANGSTER NOVEL GF NEWMAN
Crime and Punishment (Quercusfi eee
This London gangster novel doesn't aspire to the lofty literary alluspns of its RuSSian namesake. Eschewmg Dostoevsky's musmgs on the moral dilemma of murder, crime writer and
T/ pr rture' Germ" Newman Lax. 3'1”: O'Je'. Judge Jenn Deec'i noes straight ‘r‘r the rug..:a' min a sex a" t .. ‘ei‘irte-tt.eiie<1
t' ,,;r—;;~neratir"1 n sto". _‘i a u idu. East End taiiiilf. that sitans t'ie ear“. Rifles to the irate 1070s And he spires up the lines o‘ the BHTIIQI‘S — boxer Jack. sister Catli. ‘ier herri- .‘.'orshiriiiing son Brian , ".‘llll‘. (ftl‘tltlf’itll reailife <:riiiiiiials lllCitl’ll'lC} hard riiaii-tiiriied actor John Bindoii and the Klfl‘. twms.
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It might be Iowbi'ow stuff, but it's certainly a page—turner and Newman possesses both a solid feel for time and place and the ‘nouse' to tie the Bradens' trials and tribulations into postwar British history, from Clement Attlee's supposed new age of prosperity to the beginning of Margaret Thatcher's reign of terror. Cushty.
(Miles Fielder)
POETRY COLLECTION LORRA MARINER
Furniture (Picador) .000
It's a far cry from Bridget Jones. but there's still something about Furniture that is likely to appeal to the chick-lit generation. British poet Lorraine Mariner's first full-length poetry collection is Suffused With the loneliness of big city life and drenched in
t"e "eartashe caused bi. axes dsanpc."tn‘ents Oi‘iei‘er ”Stanieg', a geiftlx a: ‘otx". 0‘ .i [VGRKUK‘ wit" a" ri‘iad'ttit". t t‘tt'ie'i.) arurumteh sets the tone for the torture rages, " Which the D‘sney tinged childhooo romantic dreams rt?r“€>'iihei€‘(l n "My Beast ‘o‘d in neatl‘» with the adult iiaii‘ of Assertineness Role Play and ‘Second \‘Viyes'
It all r‘reates an innocent. often humorous \.'.or‘d that's shattered by the Forward Prize nominated ‘Thursday'. a breakrieckvspeed portrayal of a journey to work on the morning of the t ondori l)<)llll)ll‘ig8. Arid i.-.«'hile there are some duds. it's this pou‘rtartul eriiotiorial r:ontrast that ensures Furniture is a touching set you'll want to revisit repeatedly (Yasmin Sulaiiiian)
SCI-Fl COMIC
PAT MILLS & VARIOUS
ABC Warriors: The Meknificent Seven / The Shadow Warriors iRebellion) eeee
More British SCi-fi action from QOOOAD With the 'Atomic'. ‘Bacterial'. ‘Chemical' robot warriors. bUilt to withstand any crisis. GOing right back to their debut in 1979, The Meknificent Seven shows the formation of the team and their first assignment to Mars. Pat Mills enVISioned a terraformed Red Planet of the future and as the
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 TRUE CRIME PAPERBACKS Peter Woolf The Damage Done Woolf grew up as a kid in London's criminal underworld and is now dedicated to helping others avoid the deadly pitfalls. Bantam.
Masher Mehmoed Confessions of a Fake Sheik This investigative journo has helped expose some pretty shady dealings in his time and here he writes about his brushes with the felonious. Harper.
Tlg Hague The Eng/ish Prisoner The story of a man's survival inside a Russian prison camp where he spent four hellish years for a relatively minor drugs offence. Penguin. Ann Ming For the Love of Julie This one comes from a mother seeking to overturn the 800-year-old double jeopardy law to get her daughter's murderer retn'ed after blunders allowed him to walk free and brag about his “perfect crime'. Harper Element.
Rees Kemp
Gangs II He used to be Grant Mitchell. He now puts his muscled frame in the way of all sorts of mad danger. This is a book about it. Penguin.
title Suggests this compilation has a heavy techno Wild West feel. Jump forward to 2003 for The Shadow Warriors. one of the latest ABC Warriors collections. and we're back on Mars again. This time the authorities are getting sick of the team bringing order to the lawless wastes. so they assemble a posse of mad, bad and dangerous to know robots whose sole purpose is to destroy Our mechanised heroes. There's more action but it lacks the black humour and satire of their earlier exploits. (Henry Northmore)
2-16 Apr 2009 THE LIST 33