Well, this is a turn up for the books (sorry) – I seem to have already read all but one of the paperbacks published this June that I’m interested in. I’ll kick off with one of the few successes from my Baileys Prize wish list back in February: Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory which made it onto the longlist but not the shortlist, sadly. Within the first brief paragraph, Gappah manages to hook you with both a grisly death and the announcement that our narrator, a black Zimbabwean albino now on death row, was sold to a strange man by her parents. Memory slowly reveals her story finally delivering a devastating denouement. A multitude of well-aimed barbs are shot at modern Zimbabwe along the way, all spiced with a hefty helping of Memory’s acerbic wit.
Stephanie Bishop’s The Other Side of the World was also on my Baileys wish list, more in hope than expectation it has to be said. Despite its rather insipid jacket it’s a smart, elegantly understated piece of writing which looks at the complexities of parenthood and marriage, belonging and dislocation, following Charlotte and her family across the world from her beloved Cambridge to Australia where her husband Henry is intent on proving himself. Bishop tackles the tricky theme of motherhood with an unflinching honesty, exploring its contradictions with a powerful subtlety.
Marriage and motherhood pop up again in Gebrand Bakker’s June. It’s set largely on a single 
Saturday in a small Dutch village but at its centre is Queen Julianna’s visit on June 17th 1969 nearly forty years before, a day of celebration which turned into tragedy when a farmer’s two-year-old daughter was killed. Her mother has regularly taken herself off to the hayloft over the forty years since the accident, ignoring all attempts to talk her down. There are no fancy descriptive passages littered with similes and metaphors in Bakker’s writing: it’s clean and plain but richly evocative for all that.
Patrick DeWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor has more than a touch of the Gothic fairy tale about it: a dour castle sitting atop a remote mountain, warring factions complete with a heroic ‘exceptionally handsome’ captain, a fair lady with whom our own hero falls in love and a satisfying arc of redemption. It opens with seventeen-year-old Lucy Minor leaving home to take up the titular position of undermajordomo. His mother sees him off from the cottage door, barely waiting for Lucy to close the garden gate. Lucy is glad to be on his way, hoping for adventure, convinced that he is meant for better things. Like DeWitt’s previous novel The Sisters Brothers, Undermajordomo Minor has a richly cinematic quality which brought to mind Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel in its almost cartoon-like depictions of the odd world in which Lucy finds himself. A thoroughly entertaining novel.
The only unread title in this month’s paperback publishing schedules that takes my fancy is Liza Klaussmann’s Villa America, largely because I enjoyed her debut, Tigers in Red Weather, set in a slightly Gatsbyesque world – although at the end of the Second World War. This new novel features the Fitzgeralds entertained, alongside the likes of Picasso, dos Passos and Hemingway, by Gerald and Sara Murphy in their villa on the French Riviera until a stranger arrives and the dream shatters. Novels peopled by historical figures are sometimes far from successful but such was my enjoyment of Klaussmnn’s first novel that I’ll be giving this one a try, and that cover is lovely although it would have been so much more elegant without the Tigers in Red Weather inset.
That’s it for June. A click on a title will take you to my review for the books I’ve already read and to Waterstones website for the one I haven’t. If you’d like to catch up with the month’s hardbacks they’re here and here.
Ah, look, a list of novels I mostly haven’t read but own in hardback! Good stuff, as always. I am slightly concerned about the woman on the cover of Villa America though: she’s a very odd shape and I’m really not sure how that dress is managing to stay up (or not, judging by how low the front is…).
Thank you, Naomi, and I’m sorry for your pain… I think it fits the period and milieu well but the inset looks dreadful.
There’s a few on here on my wishlist… those from Gappah, Bakker, Bishop & Klaussmann – just not enough hours in the day to read ALL the books I want to
Always the problem, Poppy. I can certainly vouch for the first three – all well worth your time.
Really like the evocative and often very funny (and very sad) Petina Gappah novel. As a trailing spouse (and coach for expat families), I obviously find the description of ‘The Other Side of the World’ quite intriguing, so I think I’ll have to seek it out.
I would love to have seen the Gappah on the Baileys shortlist. I very nearly decided not to read the Bishop because of its jacket but its beautifully written and the subject so sensitively handled. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Oh, yes, the Liza Klaussman, what a beautiful cover marred by the inset. Shame that. Good read BTW. I got caught up in wondering what happened to the actual building and chatted to Liza about it: http://www.tripfiction.com/lisa-k/
Excellent! Thanks so much for the link. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could peel off the offending inset…
Villa America is very good — enjoy! I liked it so much better than Tender Is the Night, the Fitzgerald novel the couple is said to have inspired.
Thank you, Rebecca! Bought it Friday…
This is the first I’ve heard of June – I must have missed your review of it! All of these look good, but if I had to choose just one, I think I’d go for The Book of Memory!
Good choice, Naomi! I think I reviewed June before we were acquainted.
You might be interested to know that The Other Side of the World won a major lit prize in Australia last week: it won Literary Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
I didn’t know, Kim, and I’m very pleased to hear it. I’m not sure how well the book did in the UK but I felt is was ill-served by its slightly saccharine jacket. It’s a lovely piece of writing.