list.co.uk/books Reviews | BOOKS
MODERN FICTION ALI SMITH Autumn (Hamish Hamilton) ●●●●●
A strange thing happened this autumn: Ali Smith didn’t find a spot on the Booker Prize shortlist. Yet she continues to be in the literary form of her life as she launches the first of a projected quartet (we can all surmise the titles of her remaining trio). This tale is ostensibly the portrait of a fond lifelong friendship between a now very old and comatose
man, Daniel Gluck, and Elisabeth Demand, a feisty 32-year-old art history lecturer on a ‘no-fixed-hours casual contract’. Gluck is a survivor of everything the 20th century threw at
European Jews like him, and has been an artist, musician and poet. Meanwhile, Demand goes around getting into reasonably minor spats with people in (and out of) authority.
Interwoven through the main narrative of their close
companionship (Elisabeth is sorely in need of a father figure) are period musings such as the Profumo scandal and the tragic life and death of Pauline Boty (British pop art’s sole female painter). Alongside those passages run more modern concerns such as the shape of a post-EU UK (Smith paints a pessimistic picture of an increasingly intolerant and violent Britain: one critic has dubbed Autumn ‘the first serious Brexit novel’). Smith keeps to the word of her title by invoking imagery of
nature turning a different colour as the seasons shift, while humans’ physicality alters as age creeps up on them: time and memory are core to the book. The Invernesian author’s ability to shift in and out of startlingly different thematic tones between chapters, even on the same page, from the seemingly pop-trivial to the philosophically dense, makes the consumption of Autumn a seamless and permanent joy. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Out now.
THRILLER DOUG JOHNSTONE Crash Land (Faber & Faber) ●●●●● POLITICS GERRY HASSAN Scotland The Bold (Freight) ●●●●●
Opening in Kirkwall airport just before Christmas, Crash Land plunges straight into the action. Art student Finn Sullivan meets enigmatic Maddie Pierce at the bar and their disastrous flight has massive consequences for the pair, as well as the Orkney community. With an underlying misogyny, Finn
isn’t a likeable protagonist but he is so naive and ordinary that the downward spiral of his life is completely relatable. You have to fight the urge to look away as he’s drawn into a complex web of lies. While there is a real fear of the truth being exposed, there’s a lack of threat in sections of the novel. The ambiguous nature of some of the crimes creates suspense but the ultimate lack of revelation feels frustrating.
The dramatic scenes are rich thriller material, tightly written with cinematic fight sequences where lives hang in the balance. The sparse Orkney landscape and tight-knit community lend a different dimension to the novel, depicting a land where the law seems to hold less weight and there is simultaneously nowhere to hide and space to disappear. (Rowena McIntosh) ■ Out now.
From its title, Gerry Hassan’s Scotland the Bold might recall the ‘wha’s like us’ rhetoric of romantic nationalists. His image of a bold Caledonia is more an aspiration than an affirmation, however. The author does not shy away from questioning the assumed progressiveness of the independence movement, and is particularly good on the often-unchecked nature of power and patronage in Scotland. Although Hassan’s take on culture is too broadly drawn, his willingness to challenge consensus across Scottish society is welcome. Although the book concludes with a loose manifesto written by a range of contributors, it is not a radical utopian polemic in the vein of Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism. Rather, it seeks to articulate a new kind of Scottish social democracy, one that goes beyond the SNP’s centrist managerialism, and what he sees, perhaps unfairly, as the ‘retro- politics’ of Corbynism. It would be good to see Hassan flesh out his proposals, but this is a timely and thoughtful overview of how Scotland got here and where it is going. (Stewart Smith) ■ Out Mon 14 Nov.
LITERARY FICTION MARGARET DRABBLE The Dark Flood Rises (Canongate) ●●●●● SHORT STORIES VARIOUS AUTHORS How Much the Heart Can Hold (Sceptre) ●●●●●
Margaret Drabble’s latest book is a heartfelt rumination on the process of ageing and inevitability of death. Francesca, an ageing care home worker attending a conference in the Midlands. As she reflects on the imperfect nature of her marriage to husband Claude, and the essence of her work, the narrative drives home the emotional intensity dealing with your last years. Though Drabble’s writing is littered
with good humour, there is a sadness to Francesca’s life which undercuts the warmth of memories, old friendships and the ever-present nature of the past. As the novel goes on, its narrative shifts between different characters. All of them are related in some way to Francesca, and each has their own cross to bear, be it a relationship that didn’t succeed or a chance that was never taken. In this novel, the dark flood is death
itself, but trust Margaret Drabble to take even the most worrisome of topics and make it witty, relatable and, most importantly, readable. (Rebecca Monks) ■ Out now.
This collection of short stories is far from the mush-fest its title suggests. Instead, it’s a commendably varied series of commissions from publishers Sceptre, who are using How Much the Heart Can Hold as a platform for the Sceptre Short Story Competition (the winner gets a cash prize and their story published in the paperback edition).
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s opener ‘Before it Disappears’ is a stark, unromantic snapshot of a young marriage coming to its end, and Bernadine Evaristo’s ‘The Human World’ closes with an expansive, sad look at humanity’s ills.
But its strongest entries are
sandwiched in the middle. ‘Codas’ by Carys Bray (A Song for Issy Bradley, The Museum of You) is a deeply touching look at family love; ‘Magdala, Who Slips’ from Donal Ryan (The Spinning Heart) is a haunting take on obsession; and ‘White Wine’ by Nikesh Shukla is a wonderfully nuanced snapshot of a man watching his little sister wake up to the realities of racism in modern Britain. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ Out now.
3 Nov 2016–31 Jan 2017 THE LIST 81