Summer’s favourites wander around the world a little taking in novels from Scandinavia, South Africa and the USA, beginning in June with Monte Carlo, a book by a Belgian author. Ending on the night of the first moon landing in 1969, Peter Terrin’s novella tells the tale of a God-fearing mechanic who becomes obsessed with the actress whose life he saves when she’s caught in a conflagration. He’s badly burnt, but she’s unscathed. Jack arrives home a hero but as the year passes with no word from DeeDee, no acknowledgment of his sacrifice, his obsession with her deepens. From its vividly dramatic opening, this beautiful dreamlike novella had me in its grip. I’m hoping that more of Terrin’s fiction will be translated soon.
Tom Malmquist’s In Every Moment We Are Still Alive is a piece of autofiction that also deals with trauma, this time the death of his partner a few weeks after the premature birth of their daughter, beginning with Karin’s emergency hospital admission and ending with their daughter’s first day at pre-school. Stunned by grief and exhausted by lack of sleep, Tom finds himself caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare in which he must prove himself to be Livia’s father. The novel plumbs the depths of Tom’s grief through which shine flashes of joy as he learns how to take care of his beloved daughter. I’m not entirely taken with the idea of autofiction but this is an intensely immersive, heart-wrenching book which I hope proved cathartic for its author.
June ended with Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land which explores the divisions between town and country through the clever, involving story of the Bredin family. Lottie – furious with the philandering Quentin but too broke to divorce him – finds a dilapidated house in Devon and takes the entire, thoroughly metropolitan family off there, renting out their London house in the hope of raising enough money so that both she and Quentin can buy separate homes. What she hasn’t bargained for is something nasty in the woodshed. A little like a modern Trollope, Craig is a vivid chronicler of the way we live now. I’m looking forward to the next instalment of her loosely linked state-of-the-nation novels.
Just one book from July but it’s a particularly lovely one. In Victoria Redel’s Before Everything five women, friends since school, come together when one of them is dying having called a halt to the emotional rollercoaster her illness has taken her on. The women gather themselves around Anna for what may be their last day of the constant conversation the five of them share, struggling with the imminent loss of the woman they love dearly. Redel uses a fragmentary structure for her novel – full of flashbacks, vignettes and anecdote – capturing the intimacy of death when the world falls away, all attention focused on the dying. It’s a gorgeous empathetic and tender portrait of friendship, shot through with a dry humour which steers it well clear of the maudlin.
Death and friendship are also themes in the first of August’s two favourites: Jens Christian Grøndahl’s Often I Am Happy. Ellinor stands in front of her dearest friend Anna’s grave and tells her about the death of Georg who was once Anna’s husband before she died in a skiing accident together with her lover, Henning, then Ellinor’s partner. Georg and Ellinor were married for decades but she has always felt she was leading Anna’s life. She’s a stepmother who has never felt the children were hers; accepted by the family but standing at its edge. Now that Georg has died there is no one that she wishes to talk to except Anna. Ellinor’s grief is such a private, painful thing, not a rending of garments or tearing of hair but a constant ache of absence as much for Anna as it is for Georg. This loving, forgiving friendship is at the heart of Grøndahl’s quietly powerful novella.
Summer’s last book is Fiona Melrose’s Johannesburg, an homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway which follows a set of disparate characters through a single day as one of them prepares for a party on December 6th, 2013. Just as Woolf’s novel reflected the preoccupations of her time, so Johannesburg offers us a snapshot of South Africa’s capital on the day after the death of Nelson Mandela. Melrose deftly knits the many threads of her narrative together, shifting smoothly between her characters and offering a microcosm of this complex country where white privilege often shuts itself away behind razor wire and navigates the constant stream of black hawkers from comfortable, air-conditioned cars. It’s an ambitious, expertly executed novel which made me wonder why I hadn’t read Melrose’s first book, Midwinter.
That’s it for summer, a season I cling on to for as long as I can. Autumn gets off to a darker start although not as Gothic as I was expecting…
All links are to my reviews on this blog. If you’d like to catch up with the first two instalments of my 2017 books of the year they’re here and here. And for those of you who’re flagging, it’s the home straight on Monday.
The Lie of the Land is on my Amazon wish list (a lengthy list!).
Excellent! It’s been called a Brexit novle by lots of reviewers but I prefer to stick with state-of-the-nation. She’s such an acute observer, and witty with it!
Just been catching up on your three best books posts. Several books I have heard of (some new titles I have missed) but none I have read. That’s because I read so many old books. Thanks for great lists I can come back and refer to. I definitely want to read Johanasberg although I have still to read Midwinter.
Thanks, Ali. I think you’re a Woolf fan so I’ll be interested to see what you make of the Melrose.
Considering these are all summer books, all the themes seem to be quite fraught and traumatising! Though perhaps redemptive in the end. Interesting selection.
Thanks, Belinda. I hadn’t really thought of it from that point of view, although I’m not usually tempted by traditional summer reading, I suppose.
I’ve enjoying reading your books of the year blog posts and looking forward to the rest! I hadn’t heard of Monte Carlo before but it sounds intriguing.
Thank you. I loved that book, such an odd dreamlike story but so memorable. Beautifully expressed, too.
I’m reading Johannesburg right now and it’s heading to be one of my books of the year.
It’s excellent isn’t it. Delighted to hear that.
Must try Fiona Melrose…
And I must get myself a copy of her first novel!
I haven’t read a single one of these books, in fact I’ve never heard of them either! Nice suggestions though, it’s always good to find hidden gems..
It is indeed!
Right now I’m thinking Before Everything would be a nice read. Stories about female friendship are always good!
If I’d had a runner up this year, this would have been it. Redel is a poet which is reflected in her writing and she doesn’t sugercoat the friendship between these five women who have been through a great deal together. I think you’d like it, Naomi.
I was thinking that I hadn’t read any autofiction but then realised that one of my favourite reads of 2017 was exactly that – Lola Bensky by Lily Brett.
Before Everything looks good but wondering if I’ve had too much grief fiction this year?? Is it terribly sad?
Oh, I remember you reviewed that. Before Everything is definitely not as sad as In Every Moment We Are Still Alive. There is sadness, inevitably but it’s also uplifting in it’s view of friendship – warts and all – and very funny at times.
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