list.co.uk/books Reviews | BOOKS
LITERARY ESSAY AL KENNEDY On Writing (Jonathan Cape) ●●●●●
‘There is more than one way to burn a book’, AL Kennedy tells us as she discusses censorship and suppression of art. This book is political, and not the technical examination of writing one might expect. On Writing is a collection in three parts: ‘the Blog’, ‘the Essays’ and a transcription of Kennedy’s one- person show Words. ‘The Blog’ is a riot of writerly insecurities
composed with an urgency of thought. Not many writers can reasonably sell their in-between scribbles were it not for cult infatuation. Here, Kennedy sells them a second time. ‘The Blog’ is anxious and often hilarious. Laid bare is the mind of someone who manages a fear of flying by a process of statistical mitigation – who dies both in an air disaster and on their birthday? ‘The Essays’ are less hyperactive than ‘the Blog’ and are more profound for it. Kennedy holds up formative experiences of her own against poignant historic and contemporary examples of injustice. As she dismantles the mechanics of oppression, the importance of art becomes visible. The portrait of poet Talha Ahsan’s captivity without trial awaiting extradition from the UK to the US resonates in a time when society’s preoccupation is austerity. Or there is Avraham Koplowicz, the child poet of the Jewish ghetto at Lodz, for whom Kennedy writes: ‘ . . . to understand many deaths we have to understand one, the absence of one life.’
The transcription of Words in the final pages is superfluous but
does not constitute a blemish. Timely in publication, On Writing is wit, sadness, and aphorism
for the writer, reader, and human alike. (Richard Elins)
W O L N V E K I
LITERARY DRAMA MAGGIE O’FARRELL Instructions For a Heatwave (Tinder Press) ●●●●●
POETRY LUKE WRIGHT Mondeo Man (Penned in the Margins) ●●●●● DARK FANTASY C ROBERT CARGILL Dreams and Shadows (Gollancz) ●●●●●
YOUNG ADULT CAROL RIFKA BRUNT Tell the Wolves I’m Home (Pan) ●●●●●
An overheated London is the setting for Costa Book Award winner Maggie O’Farrell’s sixth novel, where Gretta Riordan’s retired husband goes out for a paper one morning and never returns. The subsequent search for their father reunites Gretta’s kids, whose own lives are in varying states of breakdown. Through tight perspective shifts, O’Farrell expertly juggles the predicaments of the three children as she drives towards the terrible secret that will forever change the family’s view of their mother. The prose zips along and the dialogue is rich, with Gretta’s Anglo- Irish sentiments providing constant comic relief, although more period detail would have evoked greater nostalgia. O’Farrell’s strength lies in the complexity and depth of her characters, each described so vividly you half expect them to sit down next to you and ask what you’re reading. It is an absorbing read, and a genuine affection for the characters develops as the novel races towards its somewhat ambiguous conclusion. (Kevin Scott)
Performance poet Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads was an unquestioned highlight of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, earning gushing reviews for his witty, unsparing view of modern England. Several pieces from that show are reproduced here in his debut poetry collection, happily losing little without his cocky, assured delivery. Some, such as ‘The Ballad of Chris
& Ann’s Fish Bar’, benefit greatly from the chance to linger over their tender, pathetic humour, a clear- sighted examination of an unexamined relationship sadly eroding. For although Wright’s sprightly verse drips with cynical disdain for Tories, outraged tabloidese and the weekend excesses of a feckless working-class, there’s a rich strain of empathy coursing through his work, albeit one brutally evidenced in ‘The Ballad of Raoul Moat’. More Crappy Albion than Broken Britain, Wright finds elements to celebrate and indulge in the demonised aspects of our culture, rarely going too long without belittling his own status as a show-off, stay-at-home dad. (Jay Richardson)
Opening with a chapter in which a sweetly romantic couple are brutally disposed of mere pages after their introduction, this is a dark fairy tale in the truest sense of the word, and distinctly not for kids. But prod beneath its blackly imaginative surface, and it becomes clear that screenwriter and critic Cargill’s first novel has little substance to offer readers of any age. The story centres on Ewan, the child of the aforementioned doomed couple, stolen from his Texas crib by some otherworldly creature, and Colby, an unloved human child who has his eyes opened to the supernatural goings- on behind the veil separating human and fairy worlds. It’s a twisted mix of Grimm horror, fairy folklore and clichéd dialogue, with Cargill layering up ideas through stories-within-the-story, excerpts from fictional textbooks and chapters told from new characters’ perspectives. But in amongst the tricksiness Cargill fails to establish his characters as people that readers can care about, and their ensuing adventures are all blood-soaked surface and no feeling. (Paul Gallagher)
In this literary coming-of-age debut set against the height of the AIDS epidemic, we follow 14 year-old June, a refreshingly under-self-aware protagonist tasked with discovering her beloved, recently-departed uncle Finn’s past. The once-famous artist’s final portrait of June and sister Greta becomes the still centrepiece of her emotionally tumultuous life: petrified yet ever-changing to the beholder. Brunt captures sibling rivalry with
almost terrifying aplomb to paint the picture of a weird wee sister striving for approval. Self-doubt mars June’s attempts to read the complex portrait of her family’s conflicted grief; meanwhile Brunt lays subtle hints to gather beyond June’s first-person narration. Unspoken tensions and a gradual
uncovering of characters’ secret pasts build, making the novel an intriguing slow-burner with enough substance to back it up. At times too keen for big resolutions, this is nonetheless a solid effort that elevates the bildungsroman beyond today’s love-triangle-filled world of YA fiction. (Nicola Balkind)
21 Feb–21 Mar 2013 THE LIST 43