Summer still hadn’t got off the ground by August. Very little time was spent on our new deck, reading or otherwise, and only one book stood out that month, too.
Written in spare, crisp prose, Sarah Manguso’s Very Cold People was one of my books of 2022. Liars is the equally bleak story of a dysfunctional marriage told from the perspective of Jane whose relationship with John grows out of a powerful physical attraction. Her successful writing career stalls in the face of childcare, homemaking and hauling John out of various scrapes, her financial dependence forcing her to trail after him as he moves from one job to another. After fourteen years of telling herself she should be grateful for her happy family, the security John has somehow delivered and the resurrection of her career, she’s faced with the truth of her marriage’s dysfunction. Manguso unfolds her fragmented narrative in stark, striking prose.
September’s reading made up for August’s with three favourite authors delivering the goods plus an extraordinarily good if wrenching debut. The unnamed narrator of Tiffany Clarke Harrison’s Blue Hour is a photographer of mixed race whose parents and younger sister died in a car crash for which she blames herself. Her husband passionately wants a child while she is ambivalent and when she does conceive it ends in sadness and loss. Harrison’s writing is often poetically lovely, studded with vivid images that fit our narrator’s photographic eye. Racism and police brutality is the underpinning theme of the novel but it’s the love between our narrator and her husband, and their struggle to have a family that’s to the fore.
One of my favourite writers, Christine Dwyer Hickey writes beautifully crafted thoughtful novels, often from the perspective of women. Our London Lives is set against the backdrop of a vividly evoked London following Milly, eighteen and pregnant when she arrives from Ireland in 1979. She finds herself a job in a Faringdon pub, and a family of sorts, catching the eye of Pip, a promising young boxer. Nearly forty years later, Milly is still behind the bar when the pub closes its doors and Pip is struggling to stay sober, carrying around a set of letters of apology to those he’s hurt including Milly. Theirs is a story of bad timing, missed opportunities, stubbornness and bad behaviour played out against a background of a lovingly described London. I’ve enjoyed all of Hickey’s novels I’ve read, but this gorgeous immersive love story is my favourite. The ending left me quite tearful.
My third September treat was Elizabeth Strout’s new novel which I knew from the blurb would feature a meeting between Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton. As Strout fans will know, many of her characters recur throughout her loosely connected series; Tell Me Everything sheds a spotlight on Bob Burgess who struck up a friendship with Lucy in the pandemic. Bob harbours more than a liking for Lucy and she does for him, as sharp-eyed Olive observes. Olive’s now living in a retirement community and welcomes the exchange of stories she enjoys with Lucy, even if she is a little mystified by Lucy’s offerings. Written with a quiet brilliance and characteristic insight, Tell Me Everything is one of Strout’s best novels yet, packed with stories of ordinary, everyday people who sometimes lead extraordinary lives but often don’t.
Hard to follow that but Lissa Evans’ Small Bomb at Dimperley was another September delight. Valentine Vere-Thisset returns to Dimperley Manor in 1945 after he’s demobbed, finding himself elevated to the baronetcy when his missing eldest brother is declared dead. There’s no money for the patching up the house desperately needs but while Dowager Lady Iris’s solution is a wealthy match for Valentine, Zena Baxter, secretary to Valentine’s dullard uncle, hits on another plan. Evans takes some entertaining swipes at the aristocracy while the rest of the country happily throws deference to the winds, voting in a Labour government. Assumptions of superiority are niftily subverted with characterisation and plot developments that lead to a particularly pleasing ending. I loved this one: an uncomplicated, funny, very British delight.
There’s a surprising amount of partying in the final quarter of the year, reading rather than reality, fitted round the October holiday that finally got both H and I over covid. More about that next week. Meanwhile, if you missed the first two parts and would like to catch up, they’re here and here.
Thank you! I have the Hickey waiting for some Xmas reading.
I hope you love it as much as I did!
We had to have an October holiday to get over Covid, too! I loved Small Bomb at Dimperley, it’s got fierce competition so not sure if it’s going to make the Top 10 (20?) but I did enjoy it.
It really takes it out of you, doesn’t it. Hope you’re properly well now. Lissa Evans’s novels never fail to cheer me up!
I’ll read Small Bomb at Dimperley, that is bound to be great fun, and I’m taking note of all your other fine suggestions!
Lovely to hear that, Jennifer. You’re in for a treat with the Evans. I loved the way she skewered the aristocracy.
Our London Lives sounds really good—I’ll keep an eye out for it. Lissa Evans is enragingly good at what she does; Old Baggage is still my favourite of hers.
I love Hickey’s writing and, for me, this is her best yet. The Evans is so funny. A real treat!
Loved the Strout book. Hickey is another I want to read. Great selection.
Thanks, Lucy. The Hickey is so good. A brilliant read to lose yourself in.
Despite having Very Cold People on my TBR, the plot summary of Liars actually appeals more.
If I had to choose, I’d say Very Cold People is my favourite of the two but they’re both excellent. I think there’s an element of autofiction in Liars.
Your choices in all your posts for this years favorites are so interesting. I wish Lissa Evans book was coming out over here, but she says it isn’t (at least no contract yet)
Thank you! I’m so sorry about Small Bomb in Dimperley. Let’s hope it will come your way eventually,
I can buy it from UK but I don’t buy much fiction in case I hate it lol
These are all so tempting and I’d forgotten about Small Bomb… so thank you for the reminder!
You’re welcome! It’s a wonderfully cheery read.
Looking forward to getting to Small Bomb at Dimperley sometime, added to my wishlist following your original review!
You’ve a treat on store!
I’m currently listening to Small Bomb at Dimperley and loving it. Will hope to read the Manguso and the Dwyer Hickey next year too. I own the Elizabeth Strout, heh, so that’s a definite. Summer was good, wasn’t it?!
Definitely, for books, if not weather! I’m so glad you’re enjoying Dimperley. Is she reading it herself?
I loved Our London Lives, which I read at your behest. And I reserved Small Bomb at Dimperley from the library, and ended up having to take it back before I’d so much as opened it, because there was a long queue of readers waiting for it. I’ll have to try again ….
Such a great read, isn’t it. I hope you get your hands on Small Bomb at Dimperley again soon.
Me too!