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GOTHIC DRAMA HELEN OYEYEMI
White is for Witching (Picador) O. -
HELEN OYEYEMI
There is clearly much promise in the 24-year- old fingertips of Helen Oyeyemi but the scorching hype she's been on the end of to date has been a little excessive. Her tale of a Devon-based family torn apart by the mysterious loss of the matriarch and haunted by the ghosts of their heritage has enough drive to keep you ploughing through but the novel's faults ultimately outweigh its pleasures.
Having various tellers dipping in and out is not a worry in itself. but when their tone is often identical. the reader can spend too much time trying to work out exactly who has been passed the narrative baton. And though she does have a tender turn of phrase on occasion, she really needs to ditch the likes of this: 'She wasn't angry. She was just being deontological'. Perhaps over-ambition is the main problem as White
; is for Witching is flat when it seeks to be
profound and
I bamboozling when it tries to be haunting.
9 (Brian Donaldson)
SATIRICAL TALE
gaerrnev
ROTTEN
(Jonathan Cape) me ».
l
This debut novel by a graduate of New York's Hunter College takes its title from Donald Rumsfeld’s famously bamboozling quote. Jeffrey Rotter may have given himself a high watermark of unintentional satire to live up to. but he fortunately produces a killer of an opening line: The obvious way to
describe water is with adjectives'.
Obsessive. eccentric
and comic book geek
Jim Path infuriates his
wife with underwater
experiments and a bizarre desire to build a
museum to the evolutionary Aquatic Ape theory. His path
crosses with Les Diaz. a Department of
Homeland Security agent whose job is to
' f The Unknown Knowns
SOCIAL TRAVELOGUE CHRISTOPHER MCDOUGALL Born to Run
(Profile) ”.0 -
parks for their susceptibility to attacks. Path thinks Diaz is a long-lost merman. Diaz thinks Path is a terrorist. The Unknown Knowns is based
around a frankly unlikely
concept. but it 's in Potter's expertly
; worked. dryly satirical.
inspect pools and water ?
often tenderly emotive prose that the book finds its strength. (David Pollock)
MODERN DRAMA MONICA ALI In the Kitchen (Doubleday) ee- - .
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IN ’l‘lll llx'l'l'tflll'N
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All
This third novel from Monica Brick Lane Ali ticks plenty zeitgeist boxes: multiculturalism in today's Britain. the seedy business of human trafficking and the apparently exciting world of top-class chefs. But despite some nice writing. In the Kitchen is riddled with problems, both
(Paul Dale)
turns up dead in the hotel kitchen's basement. and Gabe becomes obsessed with a mysterious Eastern European girl he sees at the scene. The unravelling of Gabe's life IS handled clumsily and remains utterly unbelievable to the end, while the forays of the plot into the forced labour and prostitution of many immigrants to Britain feel overworked and force-fed. Well- intentioned but preachy and. unforgivably for All. full of stereotypes. This is a seriously flawed novel.
(Doug Johnstone)
TRAVELOGUE COMIC GUY DELISLE Burma Chronicles (Jonathan Cape) O”.
French-Canadian animator and cartoonist Guy Delisle previously documented his experiences in far-flung inaccessible countries with Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China and Pyongyang: A
Journey In North Korea.
structurally and in terms
of character.
Gabe Lightfoot is executive chef at the Imperial Hotel in London. with a beautiful girlfriend. his own restaurant in the pipeline and everything peachy. until a porter
His third graphic travel memoir takes Delisle to an even less accessible territory. Myanmar, where he lived with his baby and wife who worked there in a non-
Cuy Dilillt
BURMA (HRONItLES
governmental
; organisation. Once
again. it's a very
readable mix of
reportage and personal
? reflections on the daily
lives of people in a place that we otherwise only hear about through sensational news
§ headlines.
Like his fellow traveller
Joe Sacco (Palestine,
Sale Area Gorazde).
Delisle delights in small, humorous and
humanising details
. about these shunned
locales. from getting
involved in a water-fight with the native kids to
marvelling at how
members of the military junta are terrified of one 5 another. And his low-
key observations are
rendered with
deceptively simple
i words and pictures. the clarity of which no
doubt arises from
Delisle's animation day
job. (Miles Fielder)
In 2001. former war correspondent and much-injured running nut Christopher McDougall asked his doctor why his foot hurt so badly. The medic. an expert in sports medicine. informed McDougall that at over six foot tall. his body was simply not built for the kind of abuse that jogging delivers and that he should take up cycling. Obstinacy and passion led McDougall to seek other opinions. all of which seem to concur with his doctor’s. Unable to say goodbye to an activity he saw as his undeniable right. McDougall went in search of the reclusive Tarahumara peoples in Mexico's Copper Canyon. The Tarahumara (a name they were given by barely literate Conquistadors who raped and pillaged them and their homeland in the 16003. hence their continuing social reticence) are actually called the Raramuri or The Running People, and their athleticism. endurance and running prowess is unsurpassable. Desperate to know their secrets. McDougall goes on a treacherous journey into their mysterious canyons. It is a trip that is to bring him into contact with the good. the crazed and the just plain weird.
Like an energy-drinking Carlos Castaneda educated on the Newsweek features and books of Christopher Dickey (son of Deliverance writer James), McDougall creates a fascinating portrait of a truly egalitarian and beautiful race. one that has removed itself from the corporate spectre of the modern world and all its collected idiocies. Recommended for sports and non-sports fans alike.
ALSO pueusnao ; 5 CRIME ?
' NOVELS
Walter Mosley The Long Fall Moving away from Easy Rawlins and the 19508. Bill Clinton's favourite writer brings us a modem-day New York Pl Leonard McGill. Weidenfeld & Nico/son.
Nun Vlthchl The Feng Shui Detective 's Casebook A murder in the Philippines. 3 kidnapping in Thailand and grand theft auto in Singapore keep CF Wong on his toes. Polygon.
Stuart Mull-Id. Blind Eye 08 Logan McRae is on the trail of a vicious crime lord branching out into dmg wars. gun running and prostitute rings in the Granite City. HarperCol/ins. (31de Kent A Time of Mourning A new series which reportedly merges Michael Dibdin with Muriel Spark. introducing the Florence-based private detective Sandro Cellini. Atlantic.
"than lesser Woman wlth Birthmark More Nordic noir with the fourth novel featuring Inspector Van Veeteren. on the case of a killer who is dispatching middle- aged people in their homes. Macmillan.
30 Apr-14 May 2009 ml LIST 3: