The first part of April’s paperback preview began with one of last year’s favourites as does the second. Ex-bookseller Alice Slater’s Death of a Bookseller took me so vividly back to my own bookselling days I felt I’d been restocking the shelves only yesterday. Set during the run up to Christmas, Slater’s hugely enjoyable novel follows Roach, who’s worked in the dingy Walthamstow branch of Spines for nine years, and Laura, one of three seasoned booksellers parachuted in with the aim of saving it from closure, on whom Roach becomes fixated, convinced she’s hiding something. This was such a nostalgic read for me, although I should point out nothing nefarious happened in my branch of Waterstones, at least while I worked there.
In Brandi Wells’s Cleaner our narrator works the night shift, cleaning an office block, giving the occupants of her favourite floor nicknames, shifting papers she thinks need attention, leaving treats for some and taking revenge on others. When she discovers a phone hidden in the CEO’s office she sets off on a trail which will eventually lead her to a scandal explaining the company’s downturn. A wee bit too long, this is a funny, entertaining debut.
There may well be a touch of the speculative about Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz or perhaps a rewriting of history as Cahokia seems to be the site of an abandoned metropolis beside the Mississippi. In Spufford’s version of the city, a fragile peace and harmony is threatened by the discovery of a body on the roof of a skyscraper in 1922 sparking off a series of revelations in what the publishers are describing as ‘a lovingly created, richly pleasure-giving, epically scaled tale set in the golden age of wicked entertainments.’ Elle’s review sealed the deal with this one for me.
It was that cover that first attracted me to Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter which sees the titular queer black porter putting up with being called George by his white passengers even though his name’s Baxter. It’s 1929, and Baxter has ambitions to become a dentist but knows he’s lucky to have a job at all. When his train is delayed for two days by a mudslide, the secrets of his more than usually demanding passengers begin to be revealed and Baxter distracts himself with thoughts of his secret love affair. Very much like the sound of that.
Michael Magee’s much talked about debut, Close to Home follows Sean from his squalid Belfast flat the night after a bender has seen him assault a guy at a party he’s gate-crashed, through his two hundred-hour-community service sentence. Sean tells us his story with deadpan humour beginning with the assault the details of which he can barely remember or admit to himself. He knows he needs to sort himself out but temptation is constant, jobs are few and the future looks hopeless. Always in the background is the legacy of the Troubles either in the form of murals on his grandma’s estate or in the damage done to those who went through it which has trickled down through generations. Bleak at times, it’s a novel which offers hope as Sean finds his way towards the possibility of a future.
That’s it for April. A click on a title will take you to either to my review or to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more, and if you’d like to catch up with part one it’s here. New fiction is here and here.
Thanks for the shoutout, and I’m so glad I’ve persuaded you re. Cahokia Jazz. It really is wonderful.
You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to reading it.
I also loved Cahokia Jazz, and liked the Magee much more than I was expecting to.
I’ve been throughly convinced to read the Spufford! I’m pleased to see the Magee getting so much attention, particularly as there’s an autobiographical element to it.
Probably lucky that I’m not busting for any of these – I’m snowed under with Stella Prize reading!
I know you’re on a deadline for that!
I really enjoyed Golden Hill so the Spufford will probably end up on my TBR at some point. Death of a Bookseller I must look up too–I remember reading another book with the same title when you were reading this.
I remember that, too. Wasn’t it a British Library crime novel?
No, this wasn’t quite crime though it had a ‘mystery’ element. A young man arrives in 18th century New York with a 1000 pound bill, causing all sorts of suspicions and reactions. I read this with my last 15 books of summer challenge I think.
I must look it up. Sounds good!
Here’s my review: https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/book-review-golden-hill-by-francis-spufford/
It seems from your comment but you didn’t quite get on with this on your first go
You’ve persuaded me to get Death of a Bookseller – I’ve always wondered what those people get up to when they’re not answering idiotic questions from customers 🙂
Ha! Perhaps Alice Slater worked in a more exciting shop than I did.
I’ve always been a Francis Spufford fan, so was very disappointed to be unable to engage with Cahokia Jazz – a friend had the same reaction. But reading the comments, perhaps I should have persisted? I also didn’t persist with Cleaner, though at a time when I was glutted out with Must-Reads, I may have been influenced by the comment in your review that it was a tad long. But I’m up for the Slater, the Mayr and the Magee!
I hope at least one of those hits the spot for you! I didn’t get on with Golden Hill at all so I’m trusting Elle and Laura’s judgement on Cahokia Jazz.
Whereas I loved Golden Hill …. It takes all sorts, luckily!
Indeed, it does!
All of these sound tempting! Cleaner sounds ripe for adaptation, maybe I should read that first before the tv series arrives…
There’s an idea! Half-hour episodes would work well.
The Spufford and Cleaner really appeal. I was in the minority on Close To Home which I didn’t really love, but it seems to be doing very well.
That’s interesting, Cathy. It certainly seems to have attracted a lot of attention. Fingers crossed for the Spufford.
An interesting batch. Good to see work roles getting an outing – it’s often a neglected aspect of life in novels, which is odd given how much time we all spend working.
I couldn’t agree more. I suspect offices/shops are regarded as boring but they can be places of high drama.
Despite not usually reading modern crime, Death of a Bookseller sounds great. Perhaps more than the usual crime novel.
Definitely! There’s a great deal about bookselling in it which appealed to me.
I really loved The Sleeping Car Porter; it made me laugh out loud a couple of times and there’s still one scene that I vividly remember. We have the same cover here, but your font is a little more fancy. Of course I want to read that bookseller story too, for all the same reasons.
Isn’t the cover great? Very keen to read it. I hope you love the Slater as much as I did.
Death of a Bookseller will definitely suit some of my subscription readers, so I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it so much. 🙂
I should say that much of my enjoyment came from the bookselling detail although I’m sure lots of readers without that experience would enjoy this one..