The Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett #USfiction

 

I suspect, like me, many of you have heard about the basic premise of this story. The book seems to be everywhere (which is partly why it was selected as our October book club book). It features a fictional town inhabited by African Americans who have light skin, 'lightness, like anything inherited at great cost, was a lonely gift.' People who felt like they could not, and did not, belong in a white world or a black one. Mallard was a town for those 'who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes.'

The story is about identical twins, Desiree and Stella, who grow up in this town. One marries a dark man and has a very dark baby, horrifying the inhabitants of Mallard, and the other decides to 'pass' as white and disappears from all their lives.

However, this is not the only vanishing or 'passing' or pretending to be someone else, that is considered by Bennett in The Vanishing Half.

The idea of 'passing' is examined alongside gender identity, transgender, drag queens and the games that many twins play, pretending to be the other to confuse their family and friends. Bennett also makes one her characters an actor to discuss what is real, what is make believe and our ability to inhabit a character to tell a story. Another character is a 'hunter' who helps to find people running from the law, bad debt and bad people. He helps find those who want to disappear. He understands disguises and subterfuge and the lies people tell when they create a new life. Mixed in with all of this is the common, every day desire we all feel at different points in our lives, to start over - the end of a bad marriage, the death of a partner, to escape childhood friends etc. 

Do we create our own identity? Or do we spend our lives deconstructing other people's ideas of who we are (or should be)?

It was fascinating stuff.

Naturally, the contrast between one twin living a life as an African American and the other as white is the predominate theme. The life of plenty and ease for one, compared to the hard work, living on the edge of poverty and fear for the other. Yet it's not all ease for one and it's not all fear for the other. Bennett's story is far more nuanced than that.

Passing requires one to be constantly vigilant and constantly 'in role'. A back story has to be created and remembered. The fear of being exposed creates tension and keeps one on guard the whole time. It's impossible to relax or feel like you completely belong.

Bennett covers off a lot of very complicated, complex ideas about who we are, how identity is determined or created and how we judge and classify others. She shows us how the childhood experiences of each twin leads to the choices they make. We see it play out again, with their daughters, growing up in very different worlds, struggling to find who they are, where they belong and with whom. The whole idea of nature or nurture is woven through each story line, and each character, in that messy, mixed up way we all experience.

Coincidence plays a part in the story, which could be annoying for some readers. As can the omnipresent narrator. But both devices worked for me. Bennett incorporates both successfully to negotiate the various time jumps within the story, the 'seeing forward and backward at the same time', that allows the reader to see what all the characters are experiencing. We see that 'passing' or changing identity, can be permanent or temporary, tragic or fun. It can be liberating and painful. A relief and guilt-ridden at the same time. 

Bennett leaves us with the lies, or stories, we all tell our selves and our families. Are they really lies? Or are they a natural desire to reframe our lives into the one we really want? That 'better' self that makes us feel whole or complete or more like our real selves? 

Who gets to decide what is real or not, in the first place? The performer or the audience? Are we pretending, performing or projecting? Are they secrets or an act of privacy or a bid for personal safety? Bennett doesn't judge or moralise. She doesn't ask us to condemn Stella for her choices, or Reese, or Barry, or Jude, or Kennedy, or Early or Adele. 

Stella is not made to pay the ultimate price, usually asked of characters in her position. There is no dramatic moment of exposure. There is no guilt-ridden martyr sent back to where she came from, in disgust and ridiculed, welcome nowhere and understood by no-one. The moral of the story is not to stay with your own kind at all cost. It's about making your own life in whichever why that feels right to you. 

There's a whole lot more to say about this story and I'm sure my book club will go there tonight. 

Favourite Quotes: 

• The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.
• That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone.
• Jude wanted to change and she didn't see why it should be so hard or why she should have to explain it to anyone.
• You shouldn’t tell people the truth because you want to hurt them. You should tell them because they want to know it.
• The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.

Heartstopper Vol 2 & 3 | Alice Oseman #GraphicNovel

 

After thoroughly enjoying my time with Charlie, and his new boyfriend Nick in Heartstopper Vol 1, I knew I had to complete the trilogy to see how things turned out for them. 

The being in love part turns out to be pretty easy for these two sweet guys in Heartstopper Vols 2 & 3. The hard part is coming out to everyone at school. 

Last year Charlie was badly bullied when some kids at school found out he was gay. Naturally he's reluctant to be the centre of school gossip once again. For Nick, things are a little more complicated. He likes girls, and now he also realises he likes guys. As the captain of the football team, this is not an easy thing to come to terms with. How does he tell his family that he's bisexual and what if he gets bullied like Charlie did last year?

By the end of Vol 2, Nick has told his mum, and together, they have told a few close friends.

Vol 3 sees the boys very excited, planning a school trip to Paris. There's a lot of cute stuff about them working out how to be good boyfriends to each other, how to talk openly about what's going on for them, how they feel etc.

They tell a few more people, and realise that most people are cool with them being together. The Paris trip goes well until Charlie faints one day at the Louvre, and Nick starts wondering what else is going on for Charlie.

Oseman leaves us with a cliff hanger in Vol 3 as we see Nick google what he suspects is Charlie's problem, which leaves ME to assume that a Vol 4 is in the works! Huzzah!

This is pure teen romance from start to finish.

Sweet, gentle and awkward. 

The Gravity of Us | Phil Stamper #TeenFiction

Teen romance, The Gravity of Us never quite reached the stars it was aiming for. 

It took me ages to finish this cute story about budding online journalist Cal and 'astrokid', Leon. The romance was sweet, tender and funny and the stuff about NASA's astronaut program that both families were caught up in, was fascinating too, but when I compare it to Oseman's Heartstopper trilogy, it doesn't.

The reader could feel the effort required by Stamper to put the book together. It often felt like he was trying to do too much. But it also had some lovely, lovely moments and ideas around belonging, taking risks and living in the moment. It was also nice to see social media being used by the characters as a positive, pro-active tool to bring like-minded people together and to effect change, although I also suspect, it is this very social media use that will date the story very quickly.

The moments that felt most forced, or clunky, were around Leon's anxiety issues and Cal's reporting, when Stamper's storytelling became earnest and informative. 

So, it's a bit of an odd read really. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. I appreciated it's good intentions and tender heart, but sometimes the execution left me cold. I'm obviously not the target audience, having left my teen years behind me many, many moons ago, but at that age I was looking for romances that felt believable. Perhaps that's where this one doesn't quite hit the mark. Everyone was too exceptional to be real.

Fun but forgettable.

Book 13 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

Heartstopper Vol 1 | Alice Oseman #GraphicNovel

How can someone so young be so successful already? Alice Oseman has been a YA publishing sensation for 6 years now. She was only 19 when her debut YA novel, Solitaire first appeared. 

Solitaire is narrated by Tori Spring 'a pessimistic...teenage speed skater with a penchant for solving mysteries'. The story is all about her, but Tori's younger brother, Charlie and his doting boyfriend, Nick appear in the background. 

As time went by, Oseman found herself wondering how it was that Charlie and Nick actually got together. Their back story grew out of sketches she drew when she should have been studying for her A-Levels.

A couple of years later, she launched Heartstoppercomic on tumblr.

Heartstopper Vol 1 was first published as a Kickstarter project in 2018. Hodder and Stoughton then published it in 2019.

I give you this much author detail, because all I can really say about this charming, heart-warming graphic novel is how much I loved it. It's sweet and cute and full of gentle, awkward teen romance. Charlie knows he is gay. Nick is still working it out. Meeting Charlie changes everything, for both of them. 

Oseman has created a story that feels authentic and timeless. And there are two more volumes to follow. 

The final pages include some costume (uniform) notes plus character guides that include birth dates, gender, Hogwarts house and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Lots of fun and highly recommended for anyone who loves love.

Cherry Beach | Laura McPhee-Browne #AWW

I've been dragging my feet about writing (or finishing) off several reviews for books read a month ago. Part of the problem has been a recent return to work which has left me wondering how on earth I used to fit everything in before Covid-19 came along and slowed things down for a while. But the other part is having little desire to say anything right now.

I enjoyed Cherry Beach. It was angsty and full of the drama of young adult friendships and relationships. From my vantage point (many years away from this often torturous period of life) I could appreciate the difficulty one has in moving on from childhood friendships that fail to crossover into an adult relationships. It's not easy to let go people you no longer share anything in common with, except some childhood memories. Despite the love, the shared experiences and all the best intentions, some friendships do not go forward. And that's okay. But it's not always easy to know this when you're young, or to know how to do so gracefully. The graceful part is especially hard to negotiate.

The common ground can disappear, different experiences move you away from each other and a friendship that once enriched and supported you, becomes a drag on your energies and brings you down. How do you move on? How do you protect yourself from any fallout? How do you honour what you once had?

Hetty and Ness are two such friends, trying to navigate their way through the twenty-something phase. They leave behind Melbourne (and their shared childhood) to have a year living overseas in Canada. Their lives veer off into vastly different directions. 

What happens next is exquisitely bittersweet, yet captures the intense emotions of young adulthood perfectly. The insecurity, the anxiety, and the hugeness of what life might become. Which road to take, who to be with, who to trust and love and who not to. Sadly, some young people set off down a road of self-destruction and those on the sidelines can do very little to stop it. Adult responsibilities and choices can be a burden or you can embrace them. This is that story.

This a debut novel by Laura McPhee-Browne. She is a social worker in Melbourne and her writing has appeared in a variety of journals and magazines.

The gorgeous cover art is by Emma Currie.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson #USfiction

I'm struggling, at the moment, to find the right words to describe my reading experiences, yet at the same time, I'm going through an amazing reading phase, with three back to back stunners. Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout, Girl, Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo and now Red at the Bone.

My journey with Red at the Bone began about three months ago when our rep gave me an ARC and said 'watch this one, it could take off.'

I then spotted it on several of the lists that Kate @Books Are My Favourite and Best listed on her list of lists for 2019.

When I finished Olive, Again the weekend before Christmas, I wanted something completely different, new and slim. Red at the Bone jumped out of my TBR pile for all those reasons...and I'm so glad it did.

But how to review such a splendid reading experience?

Normally I avoid Goodread reviews and other blogs until after I've finished reading and reviewing the book myself, but when I'm struggling to write, I will turn to outside sources to find inspiration, or in this case to find a spark to fire me up.

Most of the reviews reflected my time with the book. They loved the writing style, they loved the family and their strength and resilience.

However, one reviewer caught my eye. She talked about the misery heaped upon misery that made it impossible for her to read or enjoy this book. I was left wondering if we had even read the same book! As the day wore on, I could feel a response forming, a rebuttal building up that had to be proclaimed.

I didn't know whether to feel sad or envious that someone could see the events depicted in this novel as misery upon misery. Had this reviewer had such a fortunate life that they and their extended family had never experienced any of the things within this story? Or was there something else at play that I wasn't aware of?

In the lifetime of the three generations in this particular family, we had some racial and gender discrimination events, a teenage pregnancy, a move, illness, some LGBTQ issues and eventually a death or two. We also had love and hope and resilience. We had a family living in the times they were born into as gracefully as they could. Different personalities coped in different ways. The times they lived in impacted on the choices they could make.

This was a family that valued hard work and education...and family. Because ultimately, during those times in all our lives when things go pear-shaped, it's the love and support of family that gets you through. I couldn't see any of these events as misery heaped upon misery. I just saw well-lived lives full of the joy and drama of human existence. Things most of go through at different times.

I understand that a structure that jumps between time lines and points of view is not for everyone. If it's just a device to hang a story on, then I get frustrated too, but Woodson used the different time lines and points of view to circle around one big event, that changed everything for those left behind. The poetic writing style may not suit everyone either, but I love elegant distillers of beautiful language, so I happily went along for the ride.

I didn't know anything about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, but I do now. It wasn't necessary to have a full understanding of this event, to appreciate the choices the family made, as the story was about the consequences of those choices rather than an expose of the event itself. It was simply part of the family back story, much like the Depression and WWII informed my grandparents and parents views of the world. A powerful memory for those who lived it, but fading to insignificance for the generations that follow, who have their own demons or life-changing events to negotiate. Woodson was adept at exposing this generational divide.

As an outside observer, I'm acutely conscious of the race issues that plague America. They play out on our screens, in the books we read and on the news. In Australia, we have enough of our own issues to go on with, yet somehow, the American experience seeps into ours as well. Such complex topics are not easy to solve or discuss and they attract a wide variety of opinions, including the 'let's draw a line in the sand and call it done' approach. Simplistic solutions like this will never work all the while there are people alive who remember. Because memory becomes story, which then gets passed down from one generation to the next. All the while there is memory and story, that line in the sand will constantly shift.

However, we can choose which memories we turn into stories. And we can choose how to tell those stories. We can choose what lessons we want to learn and which ones we want to pass down to future generations. Woodson has chosen trauma triumphed by love.

I for one, will be looking out for more work by Woodson. Her voice and style appealed to me and I want to know more.

FranKissStein by Jeanette Winterson

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering how best to write the title of this book - FRAN KISS STEIN like the cover, FRANKISSSTEIN like the title page of the book or Frankissstein like Goodreads.
FranKissStein appealed to me, but it's not a version I've spotted anywhere else.
Whatever you call it, though, Frankissstein: A Love Story was fascinating stuff.

• I was never bored except in the company of others.

After reading McEwan's Machines Like Us earlier in the year, I was in the mindset to be thinking about AI, robots and what our future world might look like as technology takes hold or even takes over. It was very interesting to be able to compare and contrast two such prominent authors and their approaches to the topic and their different ways of weaving a story around it.

• The timeless serenity of the past that we British do so well is an implanted memory - you could call it a fake memory...where the turbulence of the past is recast as landmark, as tradition, as what we defend, what we uphold....History is what you make it.

Last year I also read Shelley's Frankenstein and a bio about her and her mother (Romantic Outlaws). All of this gave my reading of Frankissstein a much richer experience as my knowledge of the original story and details about Shelley, and her mother's life, were still fresh in my mind.

Winterson weaves together several strands of story. We start with a reimagining of Shelley's time in Italy with her husband, Percy, her sister, Claire, Lord Byron and Dr Polidori where she first develops the idea for her story Frankenstein.

• Percy - the mystery of life is on earth, not elsewhere.

We then jump to now, or perhaps a now just minutes away, where sex bots, AI, cryopreservation and cephalic isolation are becoming the norm. Our modern characters are called Dr Ry Shelley (a transgender doctor/journalist), Ron Lord (the sexbot king), Claire (the admin assistant who keeps popping up everywhere in different roles), Poly D (the Vanity Fair reporter) and Prof. Victor Stein (a TED talking scientist).

• Victor - I want to live long enough to reach the future.

Later on, Winterson also brings in an alternate ending for the original story, with some time in the lunatic asylum, Bedlam. Frankenstein has been admitted by Captain Walton, after he found him floating by his ship on an ice floe. To make it even more interesting, the director of Bedlam, Mr Wakefield, then invites Mary Shelley to his facility to talk with the patient who claims he should have 'perished on the ice'. Love it!

• Ry - I am what I am, but what I am is not one thing, not one gender. I live with doubleness....I am in the body that I prefer. But the past, my past, isn't subject to surgery. I didn't do it to distance myself from myself. I did it to get nearer to myself.

To round out the tale, we finish with a glimpse into the life of Ada Lovelace, Byron's mathematician daughter.

• Ada - It was hoped that numbers would tame the Byronic blood in my veins....My life in numbers has been as wild as any life lived among words.

There are so many ideas to explore within these pages - gender, duality, consciousness, religion, soul, history, change and knowledge - just to name a few. What's real and what's false? Does history repeat itself? What's the difference between privacy and secrecy? Is history memory or fact? Are inventions dreams or machines? What does it mean to be alive? Can technology be bad or good, or is just the use it gets put to?

• Byron - we are haunted by ourselves, he says, and that is enough for any man....The human race seeks its own death. We hasten towards what we fear most.

We also have books in books, with references to Albert Camus, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood and Ovid.

Winterson's delicious imagery emerges from page one and draws you into the various strands of story, with a poetic, Romantic writing style for the 19th century sections morphing into a more jarring, rapid speak for the now.

• every solid thing had dissolved into its watery equivalent.
• We were all around the fire that night, the room more shadows than light, for we had few candles.
• We update ourselves individually and generationally. We can adapt within a generation to a changing world.

Ultimately, I found Frankissstein to be the more satisfying, complex read. Machines Like Us failed to excite me or fully engage me in the discussion that McEwan was aiming to stimulate. Whereas Winterson stimulated me from start to finish. But, I've just realised, none of that really tells you why I enjoyed this story so.

The technical stuff obviously played its role, but the stuff I'm still thinking about two weeks later is all the discussion around gender, personality and who we really are.

What is it that really makes us human? From the stories well tell about ourselves to the way we chose to present ourselves to the world. It's an age-old process that flows over into the kind of future we end up creating for ourselves. We merge fact and fiction, dreams, beliefs and misconceptions, until we have something that makes us unique. Or does it?

Favourite Quote: Humans: so many good ideas. So many failed ideals.

Favourite Character: Ry Shelley, who seemed to inhabit quite a bit of Winterson's own persona, and certainly captured my own doubts and questioning way of viewing pretty much everything.

Favourite or Forget? Loved it. It would make for a great book group discussion.

Facts:

• Longlisted for 2019 Man Booker Prize

How It Feels To Float by Helena Fox

In recent times I have been mostly writing quick reviews for the kids books I read on Goodreads, but every now and again I read one that I feel is worthy of a bigger post here. A book that I want to spend more time with, thinking about it - it's impact on me, the writing, the story, the characters.

This is one of those books.

How It Feels to Float came to me highly recommended - not only by my rep, but also by the mother of the author, Helena Fox.

The Pan Macmillan blurb says,

Biz knows how to float. She has her people, posse, her mum and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, and who shouldn't be here but is. So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she doesn't tell anyone about her dad. Because her dad died when she was seven. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface - normal okay regular fine.

Dark, runaway thoughts and floating are all clues that this seemingly regular teen story about not fitting in, feeling awkward about one's body, one's sexuality, social gaffs, drinking, kissing the wrong people and kissing the right people at the wrong time is going to move into heavier territory at some point.

Fairly soon we realise that Biz, our extraordinary protagonist, is clearly experiencing life a little differently to everyone around her. She floats, or dissociates out of her body when things get too stressful, too awkward or too weird to cope with. She has visits from her dead dad, a man who was obviously struggling with his own major mental health issues in the lead up to his death.

Mental health, illness, sexual confusion, grief and loss are all big topics in young people's fiction right now, and a part of me nearly groaned out loud when I realised where this book was heading. But within a few chapters, I was hooked by Fox's poetic language and Biz's moving, authentic story.

I also loved the locations - all around the Illawarra region plus the train trip out west to Cootamundra, Temora and Wagga that were woven naturally into the story. I feel it is so important for us to have stories that reflect our own lives, in places we know intimately, so that we can own the messages they have to tell us and not just push them away as things that happen to other people, over there somewhere far away from us.

Without reading the author's acknowledgements at the end, you could still fairly safely assume that the author has had first hand experience with mental health issues. Her descriptions of Biz's thinking and reactions are so heartfelt, instinctive and genuine that they can only come from personal knowledge.

Biz's descent and torment are sympathetically drawn as is her search for a safe emotional harbour. Eventually this becomes a story about how to be anchored, or grounded and how be present, instead of floating away, perhaps permanently.

How it Feels to Float was an intense read, that drew me in, gradually, compulsively, urgently until I was left feeling like I had just read one of the best YA's I've read in a very long time.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get my thoughts together about The Song of Achilles, but sitting down to write about my response to this amazing story is probably a story in itself!

It was during my early high school days that my love of history developed. My first history class took me into the fascinating world of Tollund Man - the mummified bog body found in 1950. I was amazed at what scientists and historians were able to deduce from these remains about the world and times he lived in. There was even a Seamus Heaney poem - my first (very young) adult experience of seeing how we have always made up stories and songs to help us interpret and reinterpret our history and give meaning to our present day experiences.

Some purists and classicists may disapprove of this mode of story telling, but retelling old stories with modern sensibilities helps to keep the old stories alive. Old ideas such as hubris can be brought to life for contemporary audiences to ponder about how it might present itself now.

That's what Madeline Miller does so well here.

Using the well-known, very masculine, very war-like story of The Iliad and turning it into a romance between Achilles and Patroclus gives this old story a new lease of life. This is still a world of men and war, but Miller gives a us a chance to see this world through the eyes of Achilles goddess mother, Thetis and through the ideas of a captured Trojan girl, Briseis.

The first half of the story that fills in the childhood back story of both young men is the most interesting part to my mind. It shows the human side of Achilles before he gets caught up in his prophecy and god-like fate. I also found their first love scene to be one of the most tender, beautiful moments I've ever read.

Once we moved into the world of The Iliad proper, I felt less involved until Briseis turned up. Seeing the camp though a female lens while being reminded of how the lives of women and children were affected by this long siege was a nice touch.

I also enjoyed the scenes between Patroclus and Achilles that showed their relationship at work - how they influenced each other, how they debated, argued and compromised, how they knew each other so well that they knew what to say and how to say it to appease or enrage each other.

It is these contemporary humanising additions that allow a modern reader to reach into the old story again to find deeper meaning. Reading between the lines and filling in the gaps is the realm of all artists. Reinterpretation is a continual process, dependant on the era and experience of those doing the reinterpretation.

Homer's Iliad was just one (and possibly the first) interpretation of the events that happened on the plains of Troy to explain to those left at home and those who came after, what happened. We all seek meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to make sense of big world events. Our search for understanding, knowledge and insight is perennial.

Revisionism is a natural, organic process that occurs during, and for, every generation. The Song of Achilles is a stellar example of how that can work.

Favourite Passage:

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another....We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

Favourite Character: Briseis - she is brave, loyal and inclusive.

Favourite or Forget: Favourite, but not likely to be a reread. Highly recommended to lovers of historical fiction, Ancient Greek retellings, or for those looking for LGBTQI themes.

Facts: Winner of the Orange Prize 2012

Poem: The Song of Achilles

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

I've loved Japanese literature for many years now, but since visiting Japan earlier this year, my fascination and interest has exploded! Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto popped up on several lists as a great contemporary example of Japanese literature.

Kitchen is a slim book containing two stories - Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow - both deal with death, grief, mothering and healing. Kitchen is the longer of the two and I was enchanted from page one. The language is deceptively simple and at times I worried that it was too simple. I wasn't sure if this was a translation issue or part of Yoshimoto's urban grunge charm. Except that somehow, very quickly, with no fuss or bother, Mikage's tragic tale crept into my heart and stayed. 

Yoshimoto has created two beautiful, tender tale about loss and how to move forward from it. Her writing is suffused with innocence and warmth. Although her characters experience discontent and confusion, loneliness and urban angst, ultimately there is hope and love. 

In her Preface, Yoshimoto says,

Growth and the overcoming of obstacles are inscribed on a person's soul. If I have become any better at fighting my daily battles, be they violent or quiet, I know it is only thanks to my many friends and acquaintances.

Both these stories are testimony to this belief. Friendship acts as a band aid for heartbreak. Being connected and making room for others in your life is what gets you through the tough days. For Yoshimoto's characters, this connection often occurred around the rituals of food, eating and tea drinking.

A dream-like almost mystical element imbued her work as well. Both stories have a dash of magic realism or other-worldliness, that I found to be appealing in a very Japanese way. The emotion is subtle and subdued and the cast of characters quirky and eccentric in a 1980's version of Harajuku style. I suspect that this particular version of Japanese gender fluidity might meet with some raised eyebrows by current Western thinking, however it felt culturally and historically appropriate to my burgeoning knowledge of Japanese society.

Yoshimoto said that her two main themes are 'the exhaustion of young Japanese in contemporary Japan' and 'the way in which terrible experiences shape a person’s life'.

I'm not really sure that I spotted the exhaustion of which she speaks, but there was certainly an ennui and disconnect with the more traditional values of Japanese society.

I decided to not include any quotes in this post, because when I tried, they didn't work out of context.

If you enjoy minimalist, zen-like Japanese literature, then I think this will work for you. But if Murakami, Yoko Ogawa, Hiro Arikawa or Takashi Hiraide are not your thing, they stay away from the Kitchen!

In 1987 Yoshimoto won the 6th Kaien Newcomers' Literary Prize for Kitchen. In 1988 the novel was nominated for the Mishima Yukio Prize and in 1999 it received the 39th Recommendation by the Minister of Education for Best Newcomer Artist. In 1988 she also won the 16th Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature for the novella Moonlight Shadow, which is included in most editions of Kitchen.

First published in 1988 and translated into English by Megan Backus in 1993.

White Houses by Amy Bloom

White Houses was my latest book club pick, chosen by me. I felt a weird sense of pressure to enjoy the book on that account. But the best I could summon up in the end was a mild kind of appreciation.

It took me a while to pinpoint my disconnect. 

The first person narrative was a start. I'm not philosophically opposed to first person as a device, but I have to feel a real connect to said person to go along for the first person ride (like the young narrator in Washington Black that I'm reading and loving right now). I struggled to feel that kind of affection for Lorena Hickok. I felt a tremendous amount of compassion for her horrific childhood and admiration for her ability to rise above it. In fact, that's one of the human conditions I find most fascinating - in fiction and in real life. Why do some people with horrific childhoods, succumb to its sordidness, always the victim, yet others find a resilience and sense of agency to remake their adult selves? It's the stuff of great story. A mix of genetic predisposition, environment, the power of education (usually), luck (sometimes) and a mentor/someone who believed in them all along (often but not always). All wonderful tools for a story-teller to play with. But Bloom didn't really go there with Hickok's back story. I'm still none the wiser about the how or why she overcame her ghastly childhood.

When a story is based on someone's real life story, the fiction writer has some boundaries and proprieties that may restrict their creativity. And the reader (or this reader at least) often has some reservations and frustrations around what really happened and what's made up. Which is my usual beef with fictionalised biographies/histories. I love a good story and I love narrative non-fiction, but combining the two just doesn't seem to work for me. It seems to be a literary lesson I am slow to learn!

Second was the whole jumping around with time thing. Again, I'm happy to play with multiple timelines, but I need to know when it's changing. The second half of the book lost it's way thanks to so many unannounced jumps in my opinion.

Thirdly, the writing. I kept waiting for some sparkle that never quite arrived. The was a flatness, a dullness that sucked all the emotional possibility of the story. At first I thought this may have been a deliberate technique to illustrate the bleakness of Hick's early life (which as I said above, I found very intriguing), but when the circus story, then the romance itself also failed to come to life, I concluded that the writing was just not working for me.

My fourth problem took longer to pinpoint, until I remembered my reaction to reading Hazel Rowley's Franklin and Eleanor biography about seven years ago. By the time I got to the end of the bio, I realised that I had come to strongly dislike both Franklin and Eleanor as people. I admired their politics and public service, but they treated the people who loved them and worked for them appallingly. They both made tremendous sacrifices and compromises to the do the good that they did do, but those sacrifices and compromises usually also sacrificed and compromised those around them.

Hickok's story in White Houses brought all these thoughts flooding back.

A friend who read and loved this book, was moved by the descriptions of love, whereas I found it hard to see the love story at all. The love felt so one-sided to me. Not quite unrequited, more desperate and needy perhaps and completely controlled by Eleanor to suit her schedule and agenda. Hickok gave up so much to get the little crumbs of love and friendship that Eleanor handed out.

This one particular paragraphed moved me beyond words though,

I don't care why the light burns. I think that even if you are both old ladies riding side by side on the second Avenue subway, with one of you going home to three grandchildren and a doddering husband, you can lock eyes, and remember when you weren't. You remember that very pleasurable and surprising thing that was done to you by the wrinkly old bag of bones next to you and you breathe in memory the weight and the mortality and the sensible shoes are just costume, falling away, and your real selves rise up, briefly, dancing rosy and naked, in the middle of the subway car.

One paragraph in a whole book is not enough to sustain my interest though. I pushed myself to finish White Houses and resolved to never read any more books about Franklin or Eleanor!

Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls

Things a Bright Girl Can Do is a YA story that grabs its title from a much older book called Three Hundred and One Things a Girl Can Do. Published in 1911, it included things like how to decorate a church, make coloured fires, the rules of croquet, how to pitch a tent, do magic tricks and how to make a parachute.

However, Nicholls has not written another how-to book for girls. Her bright girls are coming of age in pre-WWI London with the suffragette movement in full swing and the threat of a war on the horizon. As you would expect from Sally Nicholls, Things a Bright Can Do is well-written and well researched.

One little thing kept bugging me though. Nicholls went to a lot of trouble to describe the time and place and she gave the reader a fabulous feel for what life was like for a Victorian girl, but she kept ascribing her main character, Evelyn adolescent behaviours and thoughts that resembled a modern teen. Given that the 'surly, self-absorbed teen' is a modern construct, dating from around WWII, it felt out of place and unauthentic.

It may have been a device to engage the modern teen reader, but I feel that lovers of good historical fiction can cope with the idea that society viewed the teen years very differently at different times. And that it might even be constructive to have that conversation with modern teens.

Once we got passed this little hiccup though, the book settled into an exciting, absorbing story.

Three young women are our protagonists. Evelyn from a wealthy family, is well-educated, but only so far. Her brother gets to go to Oxford but not Evelyn. She's expected to marry the boy next door and give tea parties. Instead she gets caught up in the suffragette's cause and finds herself going from handing our leaflets, to marching, to stonewalling parliament house and getting arrested. A life-threatening hunger-strike causes her to rethink her beliefs and the best way to express them.

May is from a Quaker family. She and her mother are heavily involved in helping the women's cause via non-violent protests - petitions, meetings, letter writing campaigns. After her mother is declared bankrupt for non-payment of taxes (a choice she made in protest about not being able to vote), May questions if this is the best way to change people's minds. May is also gay.

Nell is from the poor streets and comes from a large family, living hand to mouth, day by day. Nell has grown up wearing her older brothers hand-me-down clothes, but it has never worried her. She prefers wearing pants and playing cricket with the boys. She is attracted to girls. Nell gets impatient with suffragettes (and politicians) who talk a lot about social justice but do little to actually improve the lot of women and children living in the slums of London.

World War One changes everything for all three girls. In good ways and in bad.

The relationship between May and Nell is explored thoughtfully, whereas Evelyn's relationship with Teddy feels less well-developed. Perhaps because Teddy is not as well drawn as the three girls are by Nicholls, until right at the end, when he has been injured in the war.

Having Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth still very much in my mind, I was impressed to read a section that was obviously referencing Brittain's thoughts and experiences in the lead up to the Battle of the Somme. In her afterword, Nicholls acknowledged her gratitude to Brittain as the character of Evelyn obviously has a lot in common with Brittain.

Nicholls certainly writes an engrossing historical fiction and like all writers of history she has to make choices about how best to tell the story she wants to tell which involves what to leave out, what to gloss over and whether or not to go for accurate use of language. Nicholls choices are not jarring or even deal breakers, but they are evident to the adult reader.

All Fall Down was an earlier YA book by Nicholls about the Black Plague that I also enjoyed.

Book 13 of #20BooksofSummer (winter) drop-in title
21℃ in Sydney
16℃ in Northern Ireland
I read this book during the July #reversereadathon

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Last week Mr Books and I went to the movies for the first time this year!

I know! How did that happen? How can our life be so busy that we don't make time to go the movies anymore? Surely having adult children living at home means less work and running round? And more to time to ourselves?

We will have to find a way to get better at this sharing a house with other (young) adults stuff.
And, of course, I shouldn't complain. One day they will leave home; one day rents and house prices in Sydney will become reasonable and do-able for the average person again and on that day we will miss them terribly.

But for now, let me get back to being excited about the movie we saw last week.

Viceroy's House stars the wonderful Hugh Bonneville as Lord Mountbatten and Gillian Anderson doing an amazing version of Lady Mountbatten. The story follows their time in India in 1947 in the transition of British India to independence and the eventual Partition of India and Pakistan.

It was a very thought provoking and timely story about the catastrophic and on-going problems that occur when one country meddles in the internal politics of another. Self-interest, the divisive nature of religion, the British policy of divide and conquer and the need for secure oil reserves all played a part in the unravelling of Colonial India. Britain (and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) are still dealing with the after effects of this time to this day.

Last month I received an advance copy of Arundhati Roy's latest novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. It was 'highly confidential' and strictly embargoed. I resisted the urge to read it straight away, to avoid any temptation to tattle on social media!

After coming home from watching Viceroy's House seemed like the perfect time to begin. That would give me one week to read the book before the embargo lifted on Monday 29th May 9am (EST).

The first thing that struck me was the use of local lingo. I enjoy learning new words and phrases. Sometimes Roy gave us a context for these words and sometimes she didn't. For example:

'You mean I've made a khichdi of their story?' she asked.

I looked up khichdi to discover it is a rice and lentil dish common to South Asian countries. In India it is one of the first solid foods fed to babies.

'I'm a mehfil, I'm a gathering. Of everybody and nobody, of everything and nothing.'

Mehfil is a place where music and dance performances occur.

'Sach Khuda hai. Khuda hi Sach hai.' Truth is God. God is Truth.

After examining Aftab he said he was not, medically speaking , a Hijra - a female trapped in a male body - although for practical purposes that word could be used. 

There were also some lovely turns of phrase early on:

No matter how elaborate its charade, she recognised loneliness when she saw it....And she had learned from experience that Need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.

However, at page 29 I started to struggle. My initial enthusiasm waned. I began to feel manipulated, the situation felt contrived, then Salmon Rushdie's Midnight's Children jumped into my mind.

I loved and adored Midnight's Children with such intensity that any other simply pales in comparison.

So I put The Ministry of Utmost Happiness aside and quietly dubbed it instead #ministryofutmostdisappointment. The ABC TV Bookclub had announced they were reading it for their 6th of June show. I thought I would wait to see what they all had to say, before deciding to continue or not.

Most of them had something positive to say about the language, one of the characters and the structure, but when asked at the end, if they would recommend the book to anyone, most said not really. They enjoyed reading it, and were glad that they had read it, but found it uneven and as Marieke Hardy said 'I like other books better and I'd recommend them instead'.

To summarise - if you didn't like The God of Small Things then you may or may not like this book too. But if you loved The God of Small Things then you most likely will find this disappointing.

I for one have decided to abandon this book at pg 49.

I have too many other books I really want to read.

But I'm very keen to read your reviews.
Feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments below. You can hyperlink it by using the code <a href="URL">word</a>

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

For four days I've been trying to write a review that would do this rich, engrossing, mosaic of a book due justice.

It wasn't so much writer's block as writer's muddle.

There was soooo much to say! I couldn't even decide which lens or which perspective to choose?

Because I was enjoying Do Not Say We Have Nothing so much, I began researching stuff before I had finished reading.

I looked up the classical pieces of music conducted by Glenn Gould* that Thien mentioned throughout the book (Bach's Goldberg Variations and Sonata for Piano & Violin no 4) and listened to them as I read the book.

I researched the politicians and artists who were real people. He Luting (1903 - 1999) was a real composer and he really did say 'shame on you for lying' when hauled before a televised interrogation during the Cultural Revolution.

I researched the L'Internationale** to find out the various interpretations of the phrase that Thien used in her title.

I simply couldn't get enough of this book - I wanted to know more, delve deeper. I wanted to totally immerse myself in the reading experience.

On the surface, this is a story about a Chinese composer called Sparrow and the things that happened to him and around him during his lifetime. A lifetime that encompassed the extraordinary events from the Chinese Revolution to Tiananmen Square.

However, Thien weaves in many threads and motifs, until we have a story within a story, across three generations and two continents. She plays with recurring themes, copies of copies and the cyclical nature of history.

Music is a big part of the story and I found her descriptions of the creative process and the interpretation of music mesmerising.

Equally mesmerising, but in a horrifying way, was the astounding use of double-speak by politicians and revolutionaries during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China.

Thien showed some of the effects of 'self-criticism', 'struggle sessions' and 'denunciations' on the creative mind as they learnt to silence their talents and learnt to live without their language.

One of the major themes developed throughout the story was the life of homosexuals in China*** during the Mao years. Sparrow and Jiang Kai obviously had an intense loving relationship that could not be realised openly. One had to become a hard-line revolutionary, destroying art and lives, while trying to protect his friend from within, who eventually fled the country. While the other stayed, gave up his career as a composer, married and worked in a radio factory of the governments choosing.

Later on, Sparrow's daughter, Ai Ming, also developed very strong feelings for her female neighbour during the heightened times surrounding Tiananmen Square.

Thien intertwined mathematics, etymology, translation, calligraphy, memory, disappearance, loss, free-will, and the nature of time seamlessly. There were moments of humour and moments of pathos.

I have read some reviews that felt Do Not Say We Have Nothing was too wordy. Not for me. I loved every single moment and thoroughly enjoyed the multi-layered, enchanting nature of Thien's loquaciousness.
However this book will not be for everyone.
Hopefully this review will help you decide whether it's for you or not.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a keeper for me. I plan to reread this one day and I will be devastated if this book doesn't win one of the book awards that it is currently shortlisted for (Booker and Giller Prizes as well as the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award).

Below are some of the results of my research (thank you wikipedia):

• The Chinese Soviet Republic (1931-1937) adopted a 19th century French socialist worker's song called L'Internationale** as their anthem. There was a line in the original (Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout) that according to Wikipedia could be translated as 'we are nothing, let us be all'.

• Qu Qiubai translated a version of this song from Russian into Chinese in 1923 which changed this line to mean 'Do not say that we have nothing.'

• To my mind, the Chinese version has a sense of martyrdom inherent in its phrasing. They are being watched and judged by others who say they have nothing. Whereas the English translation seems to resound with solidarity and a proactive intent.

• The anthem later became a rallying cry for the students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

• Glenn Gould* (25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian pianist. He became famous for his interpretations of Bach's music. His methods of recording, splicing, mixing and editing his performances in the studio caused controversy at the time. Critics questioned the authenticity of his work and made claims of imitation. More delicious multiplicity on Thien's behalf.

• Historically China, was tolerant of sexual experimentation and same-sex couples. However in 1949***, homosexuality was declared to be a sign of Western bourgeois decadence and vice by the Communist Party. 

• Treatment of homosexuals during the Cultural Revolution was harsh, many were humiliated in public and some were executed. They were forced into heterosexual marriages and all LGBTQ art and culture was destroyed. However, all sexual activity and discussion was considered lustful and decadent during this time. Personal choice was not important. Affairs, sexual freedom and even sex education in schools were all considered enemies of class. Neutral gender clothing was promoted and monogamy expected.

• Some of the books read by the characters during the story - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Kang Youwei's Book of the Great Community and Border Town by Shen Congwen.

• Thien was born in Vancouver. Her mother was born in Hongkong and her father was born in an ethnic Chinese area of Malaysia. They met whilst studying in Australia. The immigrated to Canada in 1974 just before Thien was born.

Where the Trees Were by Inga Simpson

One of my good friends has adored Inga Simpson's previous two books, Nest and Mr Wigg, so when Simpson's third book hit the stands recently, I knew it was time for me to see what it was that Anne loved so much about Simpson's writing.

Where the Trees Were appealed to me for lots of different reasons.

First up the stunning, bark-inspired cover created by Allison Colpoys - love it!

Secondly, the childhood section of this book is set in the Lachlan Valley - which is also where Simpson grew up near Grenfell - and where I spent my teenage years in Cowra.

Most of my friends lived on farms, riding bikes, herding sheep, catching the bus in for school every day, just like the characters in the book. One of my friend's even had a spot on her farm where we could occasionally spot a platypus in the creek.

Everything rang true, even down to the part about the boys leaving school in Year 10 to help out on the family farm, the tragic car accident that happened in every year in a rural school and all the clever science kids heading off to ANU for their tertiary studies.

I realised that Ambelin Kwaymullina's comment “to find yourself in story is the right of every child” is also the right of every adult.  I was ridiculously excited to read a story set in my own backyard and to see so many of my childhood experiences reflected in Where the Trees Were.

The alternating chapters that featured the adult story were set in Canberra. The childhood wrongs were gradually revealed through adult eyes. Subtle layers of meaning were peeled back. Indigenous land rights, burial grounds and environmental concerns were explored.

I learnt a lot about arborglyphs (burial trees), sadly a topic that I had never heard about before.

Simpson also teased us with some tantalising information relating to her next project - a history of Australian nature writers - as her protagonist, Jayne, uncovered some 19th century native flower artwork.

The only jarring note was the alternating chapter switch between first person and third person narrative. There were many times in the grown-up chapters when I wasn't sure who was talking, Jayne, or her partner Sarah. But perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Overall, a satisfying, intelligent work that has inspired me to seek out Simpson's previous two novels.

Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Usually, I prefer to read the book before I see the movie, but in this case, our long hot summer got the better of my good intentions.

I recently escaped the heat by watching Brooklyn and Carol back to back in our local cinema.

Both movies were fabulous for very different reasons and I came away determined to read both books as soon as possible. I decided to use this experience to test the movie-before-the-book theory.

It has taken me a month to get both books read but I can now confidently say that I preferred the movie of Brooklyn a little more than the book.
Really!

I engaged with the movie characters far more than I did with their book versions and I experienced a wider range of emotions. The book, of course, had more detail and back story which was interesting, but the movie had a heart and soul that won me over in the end.

The movie of Carol was tremendous and very moving, but quite different from the book which made the reading experience almost like discovering the story anew.

Carol was a good title choice for the movie because it really was all about Carol. Carol as observed by Therese (and us). Perhaps this evolved during the filming thanks to Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Carol. Blanchett is such a dominating presence on screen, that like Therese, we're a little in awe of her splendidness.

In the movie we never really feel like we get into or under Therese's skin. There's a vague sense of Carol as the older, experienced cougar-like woman seducing the younger, innocent ingenue. The movie really delved into the devastating impact of Carol's sexual choices. The happy ending came at a very high cost.

The book, originally titled The Price of Salt in 1952 and published under a pseudonym, showed us a much more informed and nuanced Therese. She was clearly very aware of how she was feeling and what she was hoping for with Carol. She gained several personal insights along the way about why she had such a strong fascination for the older, glamorous woman.

The ending of the book, was not only a happy one, but one that allowed the reader to see that the new relationship forged by Carol and Therese would be one based on a more equal footing. It was actually Therese's coming-of-age story.

This theme was reinforced by Highsmith's choice of reading material for Therese when she first visited Carol - James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
Goodreads tells us that:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man represents the transitional stage between the realism of Joyce's Dubliners and the symbolism of Ulysses, and is essential to the understanding of the later work.

The novel is a highly autobiographical account of the adolescence and youth of Stephen Dedalus, who reappears in Ulysses, and who comes to realize that before he can become a true artist, he must rid himself of the stultifying effects of the religion, politics and essential bigotry of his background in late 19th century Ireland.

This was obviously an important clue about Therese that Highsmith left for her readers to tease out for themselves.

Carol turned out to be one of those rare cases where the book and movie were both fascinating but for rather different reasons.

Freya by Anthony Quinn

It has been ages since I read a book in manuscript form.
Its kind of fun.

There are no cover distractions, author bio's or quotes from other well-known authors.

It's all about the words on the page.

And the words that make up the story of Freya by Anthony Quinn are very well-chosen ones indeed.

Quinn gives us Freya's coming of age story.

Freya worked as a Wren during WWII.
At the end of war celebrations she meets up with a young woman, Nancy, who becomes her best friend through all the trials and joys of the subsequent years at Oxford and in London as a journalist.

Quinn writes an easy-to-read, easy-to-believe friendship (despite a few writerly conveniences). There are allusions to Brideshead Revisited (especially in the Oxford scenes) and a big nod of homage to My Brilliant Friend.

Apparently there are some characters from Quinn's previous novels in here, but having never read any of the others I was unaware of these connections until recently and it certainly didn't impact on my enjoyment of the story.

This is old-fashioned story-telling at its best.
Quinn uses Freya to show us life in post-war England. We also explore broader world events and issues like the Nuremberg trials, women's rights and the homosexual witch hunts of the 50's through Freya's eyes.

It's not often that I yell at the pages of a book in frustration, but Quinn succeeded in getting me so riled up when Freya was unable to hold her tongue at a crucial point in the story. It was completely in character, but, oh so annoying. I nearly threw the book across the room.

I also enjoyed  the numerous literary references throughout Freya - Waugh, Maugham, Austen, Henry James and Trollope - just to name a few. Books IN books certainly seems to be my thing this year.

And there were loads of Thelonious Monk jazz moments as well (I've included Freya's favourite piece below) to keep us vibing along.

Freya would make a fabulous holiday read - an engrossing, page-turning story - easy enough to put down when it's time for a dip in the pool and easy to pick up again when you're done and the cocktails have arrived!

Reckoning by Magda Szubanski

I began Reckoning knowing about all the rave reviews.

This can be a good thing or a very bad thing. Expectations are high and it can be hard to meet them.

However, in this case, there was nothing to fear.

From the very first sentence I was in wow! mode.
I was impressed; I was enthralled.

Szubanski has written a celebrity memoir way above and beyond the usual fare or remembrances. Perhaps it has something to do with the Polish word rozumiesz - understand - which dominates Magda's narrative.

This memoir is not just about memory and truth. It is about understanding - the drive to really know and understand what happened and why and what its impact has been and continues to be. And with that understanding comes a sense of judgement - a reckoning - was it wrong or right - is there blame to be apportioned? Guilt to be felt?

This story is very personal,

He needed to forget. I needed to remember. For him, only the present moment would set him free. For me, the key lies buried in the past.

But it also seeks to find a universal truth,

She knows the horrible truth that, while suffering is universal, the world cares more about some people's suffering than others. 

This is the memoir of a woman who has worked hard to work things out. An intelligent, caring woman who has been brave enough to expose her soul, her fears and her inner life for us all to see.

Reckoning is one of the best memoirs I've read in quite some time.

Later: I had the chance to hear Szubanski speak at the Sydney Writer's Festival - my thoughts about that chat are here.

Heat and Light by Ellen Van Neerven

One of the things I love about the new Stella Prize is that it encourages me to read authors & books that I might otherwise overlook.

Heat and Light had slipped under my radar last year, but when it was shortlisted I did a little research and found some very interesting reviews.

I dived in with great anticipation. An anticipation that quickly moved onto enjoyment and excitement at finding such a wonderful new voice in the Australian literary arena.

The only problem is I lost my notes!

This book is divided into three very distinct sections.
As I usually read several books at once, this structure allowed me to put this book down between sections to savour the story, & read something different, before coming back for the next section.

I wrote my thoughts about each section on the bookmark I was using. It is now gone.  Lost.
And my thoughts were beautiful, literary pearls of wisdom!

Ellen van Neerven has an interesting background. She is from the Yugambeh people of the Gold Coast with Dutch heritage. Her stories & writing style reflect this curious diversity.

Heat is about Pearl, an Aboriginal woman who doesn't know where she belongs.The story is told from her extended family's point of view as they all struggle with their own sense of identity & belonging.

Water was my favourite of the sections.
Set in the near future with a major environmental crisis looming & frightening political double-speak the norm, a new species of plantpeople are earmarked for extinction.
Water is sexy, disturbing & very provocative - I couldn't put it down.

The final section, Light, consists of ten unconnected short stories, that again, feature themes of belonging & family.

Van Neerven's writing is light & easy on the surface but hidden layers and complexities of emotion bubble up when you least expect them.
I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.


This review is part of my Australian Women Writer's Challenge.

El Dorado by Dorothy Porter

El Dorado (2007) was the final verse novel written by Dorothy Porter before her death in 2008.

It's another dark crime story with a psychological twist, but unlike Monkey Mask, her earliest work, this one is set in Melbourne.
We follow Detective Inspector Bill Buchanan in his attempt to solve a spate of child killings. He calls in his childhood friend Cath (now a successful Hollywood mover & shaker) to help with some of the more curious details of the murders.

The writing is crisp, clean & evocative. But I have to admit it wasn't as gritty, lucid or as passionate as Monkey Mask.
MM got under my skin in major way. It moved me, it captured my attention and took me along for the ride, big time.

I enjoyed El Dorado but it didn't sweep me up and carry me away like I was expecting... or hoping.... but maybe my expectations were impossibly high.

You could also say that El Dorado was more polished - a mature story compared to the raw, soul-searing newness of Monkey Mask. It was still full of wonderful imagery as only a verse novel can achieve (that continues to linger days after I finished reading it). Porter also had lots of interesting commentary about the aging process & the impact of childhood memories.

Falling in love also gets a look-in as Cath describes that crazy feeling...

my heart is falling
into her beautiful face

my heart is tearing open
its presents
in a giddying storm
of Christmas beetles' wings.

As well as love of Sydney...(you can take the girl out of Sydney but not Sydney out of the girl...)

And his Sydney had always
loved him lavishly back.

The arching surrender
of her scorching blue skies,
the silky shiver
of her rolling-him-over
surf.

Her beautiful smell.
The Harbour on a hot midnight
oozing ferry diesel and oily green water
while glowing Luna Park
sprawled and clutched
like a drunk date.

Oh Sydney.

The ending felt a little rushed with a whoosh of smoke and mirrors, but sometimes tying everything up in a pretty bow isn't the thing to do.

This post is part of the Australian Women's Writers Challenge & also part of the Birthday Reading Challange as Dorothy Porter's birthday is today, the 26th March 1954. Happy Birthday Dot!