slippy_underfoot's reviews
1093 reviews

In the early 1900s Arthur Kipps, a young London lawyer, heads up to Eel Marsh House to tidy up the affairs of the recently deceased, reclusive, Mrs Drablow.  The house is situated on a spit of land connected by a long causeway across treacherous marshes, and is cut off daily by the high tides. 

On learning that Arthur has come to deal with the house and Mrs Drablow’s legacy the locals avoid his eye and mutter darkly, changing the subject swiftly.

The local land agent refuses to visit the house with him, or send a clerk to assist, so Arthur must work alone in the house, sifting through Mrs Drablow’s papers.

He begins to experience inexplicable noises and mysterious, malevolent, presences as he uncovers a story of bottomless grief and black rage.

Can he find it in himself to stay, complete the work, and - perhaps - bring some comfort to the tormented soul of The Woman in Black?

Grimly creepy, with a nice echo of the classic MR James ghost story style without being too much of pastiche.  A lot of the classic British ghost story tropes are here - educated professional scoffing at local concerns, the pale figure in black, the rambling old house with that ONE room - exactly as you would wish them to be, and I enjoyed the unfolding of the tale, but ultimately wasn’t gripped or surprised by it.

This funny and affecting novel is narrated by Hera, a woman in her mid-twenties, living in Syndey. She’s a bit bewildered about her life. Only a few years earlier she and her friends were incandescent streaks of passionate ambition and snarkiness, and now there’s really only her left. Her friends have settled into the early stages of careers and longer-term relationships. Hera likes to give the impression that this doesn’t bother her, that she’s maintaining her independence and edge, and staying true to her (fairly unclear) principles.

After a cycle of short-term relationships and jobs Hera is starting to feel dissatisfied with her lot, and grudgingly accepts that she needs to at least appear to be growing up and taking ownership of her life. She starts work in a soul-sapping office and one of her coping strategies is to start a flirtation with an older colleague, Arthur. This soon gets serious and we learn more, but not all, about the unsettled nature of Hera’s childhood, and start to see that she may be overriding her own inner reservations about this affair because, as well as the love and sex and companionship she craves, she sees it as a low-effort shortcut to the state of “adulthood”.

Complications, of course, ensue.

This is a clear-sighted depiction of isolation, longing, passion, and the imbalance of power in relationships, presenting the things we endure for love until we reach a point where the imbalance must be confronted, and the fragility of the dream becomes all too apparent. Gray writes with verve and wit, skewering all her targets with a dead-eye for character and the delicate mechanics of social groups. It is one of those books – like Yellowface - where you find yourself wanting to shake the main character and protect them from themselves, while also understanding, if not condoning, their impulses. However maddening we find Hera’s capacity for self-justification, Arthur’s constant vacillation - or is it manipulation? – enrage and disappoint us as much as they do her.

An enjoyable, offbeat, tale of desire and heartbreak in the modern world. 

 How to rate this?

It’s a five star book for Luke Haines fans, not sure how anyone else would react to it.

I think he’s a genius with a small g, an outsider artist and musician who has distilled his view of freak/and non-freak cultural touchstones into this glorious and erratic part-memoir/guide to righteous rock and roll. Prince is worthless, the Go-Betweens are godlike, Billie Eilish will save us all yet.

Hard to define his combination of apparently unshakable ego salted heavily with amusement at it his own failings and inconsistencies.

Similar in tone to his two excellent previous volumes Bad Vibes: Britpop -My Part in its Downfall, and Post Everything.

A nonconformist hoot. 

Shows how wrong you can be…

This is our current book group book. We had Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine recently and this had a sticker saying “Perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant…”. That’s a sales technique which enrages me, so I had my nose turned up from the off.

I didn’t want to not read it, as it’s a book group book and I reserve the “not reading of book group books” solely for hopeless thrillers. I decided, loftily, to keep valuable reading time for other books and use an Audible credit to listen while driving. 

Although the narrative voice felt quite similar initially to “Eleanor…” I was soon engaged with the particulars of Elvira’s story and found myself reading on my Kindle when I couldn’t find a reasonable excuse to be driving.

It’s the tale of a neuro-diverse woman picking her way through life after her widowed mother is hospitalised. Fearful of being placed into care because of her “condition” Elvira, with the help of her neighbour Sylvia, draws up a spreadsheet of seven rules to help her “manage”. As human life is not as scientific and predictable as Elvira would like, these rules need constant revision with footnotes and additions.

Elvira’s difficulties with the contradictions of human nature become particularly exhausting when trying to unravel the complexities of her parents’ marriage and all the things in her past which were done for “her own good.”

As her world expands Elvira’s ability to cope is tested, but her self-confidence grows with each step forward she takes through this landscape of increasing change and uncertainty.

I did have a problem with the portrayal of Elvira’s difficulty with figures of speech. Given her age and the kind of life she’s had it is unlikely that this can be the first time she’s come across so many of them and it sometimes felt like cheap laughs at her expense. 

Otherwise Elvira’s “condition” is handled with warmth and empathy and she’s never depicted as trying to achieve “normality”. Rather her friends embrace her differences and aid her efforts to adapt by modifying their own behaviours to be more inclusive and supportive.

Really enjoyed this one. 

 Sarah Moss’s gripping memoir of her mental health struggles, UK release 29 August, is creative and affecting.

“This is a memoir in that it’s an account of what I remember. Memory is fallible.”

Moss initially uses a chorus to vividly reflect this, scoffing at inconsistencies and untruths – “You’re getting this from films, you have no idea” – playing down her emotions, accusing her of attention-seeking. This exasperated, gainsaying, voice stays with us throughout, but the source of it shifts tellingly.

She recalls active, intellectual parents with no time for the unhealthy inane 1980s, making her curious about other families, who seemed warmer, closer. These families eat fish fingers, food forbidden at home and which when visiting she declines, fearing to be thought greedy and weak. In the classic books she compulsively re-reads she’s told that self-denial, for women and girls, is a sign of “goodness”, so it’s easier just to be “good”, politely refuse the food, and deal with the hunger pains.

Moss provides such a vivid and painful insight in to the effects of her parents’ cold practicality. It left her feeling undervalued, loved perhaps, but uncared for and admonished constantly. We are with her through her school years, her friendships, and her initial battles with mental health and eating disorders. In more recent years her thoughts are filled with reprimands and compulsions, leading to a complete breakdown of her health. In care, she’s considered “not compliant” for not following her eating plan. If she could follow an eating plan, she argues, she wouldn’t be here...

Moss bravely shows the disjoint between her high level of privilege and her low level of contentment – what right do I have to be this distressed when others have so much more cause? In trying to understand this she foregrounds the pernicious effects of class, race, and gender politics.

This is a book about her, rather than her conditions. Even though we feel their ravages the heart and soul of this book is the real Sarah Moss who suffered and persisted, and who continues to have hope.

Moving and exquisitely written.
 
Thanks to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for this title, which I requested. 

Another captivating, mature, character piece from Pym.

Leonora is an elegant woman in her middle age who encounters James and his uncle Humphrey at an auction. Both men are captivated by her beauty and poise, something which Leonora thrives on as long as no-one expects to shift the relationship into the bedroom. Humphrey sees a potential wife, James’s attraction is - like his sexuality - a bit more ambiguous.

These three main characters revolve around each other, Humphrey wanting to be part of Leonora’s life, Leonora wanting to be all of James’s.  They find an awkward equilibrium for a short while, until events take a revealing turn due to Leonora’s insistence on perfection in all things.

Pym always does such graceful character work, adding shade and detail almost imperceptibly, in the same way the slow passage of afternoon sunlight through a window gradually shifts the shadows in a room.  We can start the day in a pleasant mood with a pleasant person and by the time they have left the house, gone to town, and dined we have seen all the facets of their character in their reponse to the mundanities and trivialities they encounter.  In this way Pym is able to finely illuminate the points at which adoration becomes obsession and fondness turns to loathing.

This book presents differing types of intimate relationship founded on anything but romantic love, and finds all of them, to a degree, oppressive and destructive. Even the casual sexual encounters don’t seem to be at all satisfactory for those involved in them.

The fracturing of such flawed characters could, in many other hands, elicit a “so what” shug, but the richness of characterisation here is such that we can always find some sympathy for those who feel out of time out of place, and out of hope.

Enjoyed that. 

Claudia realises she is falling in love with her stepson, and is both horrified and excited by the possibilities.

With her usual acuity Alice Thomas Ellis laces this short, deceptively light, tale with line after line of witty barbs, exploring relationships between women and their friends, their daughters, sons, mothers, and husbands.

The characters are swiftly and well drawn, and each has their own distinct voice - which can be quite rare in comic novels.

I had to stop myself just posting great swathes of it on Twitter, it’s so damn quotable:

“In Evvie’s view men were a nuisance with more or less nothing to be said for them.”

“True, she suspected, Charles, unlike most women, believed in the vaginal orgasm while refusing to credit the existence of the Loch Ness monster - but then so did most men, in her experience.”

“An idea conceived in drunkenness, considered in sobriety and found reasonable will, when the thinker is next drunk, have taken on something of the force of prophecy.”

Not a classic by any means, but I’m always delighted to spend time inside an Alice Thomas Ellis book.

What a great book.

Ignored author June has had a friendship of sorts with Athena since their college years. Athena is of Chinese descent, graceful, beautiful, and her books have been wildly successful. Both are obsessive writers who find it difficult to connect with people. When we join the story June is mulling that Athena just wants her around to remind her what failure looks like.

They have a night out together, which June is finding initially quite wearisome but later, while they drink and goof around in Athena’s apartment, they actually find themselves really enjoying each other’s company. 

Or so June tells us. 

As the apartment contains the manuscript of Athena’s next book, unseen by her agent or editor, and a freak accident finds Athena dead before the night is out and the manuscript in June’s bag, it becomes apparent that her entire narrative is one of self justification. 

As she reworks Athena’s manuscript and starts to pass it off as her own we can see that June will adopt any angle that might put her in a good light.

We see her make Really Bad Choices, ones most of us would never make and would find appalling, but she’s so painstaking in her self justification, so mired in her mendacity, that we can see exactly why SHE feels these are the right things to do even while we’re shaking the book and imploring her to think again.

As the nightmares - entirely of her own making - stack up around June we see how political, personal, and cultural barriers can impede the struggle for success for everyone, how frustrations can narrow one’s perspective into a beam of bigotry and spite, and how - in desperation - one can be grateful for support from any source, regardless of your repugnance at their stance on other matters. 

Trust me, I’ve hardly scratched the surface here. This book is so rich and provocative, finding pointed things to say from opposing perspectives on matters of race, cancel culture, cultural appropriation, and “misery lit” among others. 

It also flies along, is written and constructed beautifully, and is hugely entertaining while being enthusiastically and energetically disruptive.

Loved it. 

“But there are men – ‘Always, there are men,’ complains Cecily – who jostle and push for power.”

This brilliant book (UK release 11 July) follows Cecily with the same clarity and vigour as Garthwaite’s prior book, taking us through the triumphs and tragedies of the final years of Plantagenet rule.

@anniegarthwaite performs a miraculous alchemy in these books: the human stories at their heart ebb and flow with the tide of history, but are never swept under by the weight of it. She brings us a pacy, gripping, story of real people trying to do the best for their families and their country in unstable times. 

Though Cecily is the protagonist of both books, and we admire her capability and resilience, the same qualities are present in the women who stand against her, something Cecily acknowledges. The sins of her enemies are so very often sins of her own.

These books are promoted as feminist retellings of the Wars of the Roses. I’m not qualified to assess that either way, but the author doesn’t approach this by depicting her characters as temporally displaced 21st century people. Her characters are wholly of their time: a time constitutionally patriarchal and where dynasties are forged through advantageous marriages and the children they produce. 

It is here that Annie Garthwaite foregrounds the intelligence, durability, and influence of the women in the rival families as they circle each other: testing, observing, vying for dominance. We are shown the ways in which wives, mothers, and sisters use their skills and familial bonds to press an advantage. We also see the ways men can bring crashing defeat to the jaws of victory because of their lust, greed, and pride.

This is the story of the ruling class. Though we don’t spend much time with the commoners we feel their weariness with endless years of war. Every triumph brings a challenger, every truce sits uneasily. The people want peace, but a peace that is definitively won, not parleyed and strained. 

This is a gripping, moving, tale, even if you know the history going in, and a stellar sequel to Cecily. 

Marvellous.

Thanks to @netgalley and @vikingbooksuk, title reviewed at my request.