Booker Prize Shortlist Reads by Kennard and Perry & A Prediction
I’ve now read all but one of the novels on the Booker Prize shortlist (is it any surprise that it’s the longest one, The Disappearers by Marlon James, that I’ve been too daunted to attempt?). Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry are both poets, which tends to indicate that particular care will be taken over the prose. Apart from that and having unnamed first-person narrators, I see no similarities between the two books, which are wildly different in tone. I have a preference, and I bet it’s not what you expect. Both: Public library
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
This was uproarious entertainment from the meta first line onward: “If you met anyone as whiny, as disobliging and egocentric as the average narrator of a novel in real life you’d find them unbearable.” An out-of-work actor in his late thirties who survives from one murder mystery dinner theatre gig to the next sees an ad for an unusual job. All he has to do is sit silently at the back of a university lecture hall each week, wearing a black leather bag with eyeholes. The professor is repeating a famous psychology experiment about attitudes changing through repeated exposure. For the narrator, being black bag is about freedom from his identity and inhibitions; maybe, also, finding solidarity. For his friend Claudio, who streams footage of himself gaming for a living, it’s a potential investment opportunity. For Justine, a married academic the narrator meets on campus, it’s a chance for kinky anonymous sex. I laughed out loud at the narrator’s habits of imagining his life in a 19th-century Swedish village and voicing his parents’ dog’s thoughts, and at so many random lines:
Is it not the case that for most of my life I have felt like I have just put a large crisp in my mouth during what turns out to be a quiet and pivotal scene in a play?
In the kingdom of dumb f*cks the guy with the English major is king.
Think of the moment, following the 2008 subprime crisis, when cupcakes proliferated like a cancer.
Ridiculous the plot may be, but it’s as hilarious as the novel is at the sentence level. For all that, it is still a cogent critique of modern masculinity, hypercapitalism and artificial intelligence (the scene where he and Justine go to see an AI-produced film, The Orb of Homuncules, is side-splitting). My criticism would be, as I’ve heard from various others, that the novel is overlong and slightly aimless in the second half; it could easily lose the 80 pages covering Claudio’s temporary absence. Still, when’s the last time a Booker nominee was this much pure fun? 
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
An unnamed curator arrives at a historic palace to stage its rooms with scenes of historical accuracy, tenderly rendered in the sort of detail only the most attentive visitors will register. Among other things, she’s an aficionado of high-quality, lifelike (expensive) fake food. She throws herself into the work as a way of distracting herself from the emptiness of her personal life since her partner left. We figure this out by reading between the lines, because she’s quite cagey: “At this point, certain things had happened in my life. I was ready to immerse myself.” She also finds herself unexpectedly drawn to the archivist, referred to by they/them pronouns. Her sections are in one- to two-page fragments, titled in a way that can obfuscate or signal an interpretation, such as “Peeking through a Crack in the Curtain and Seeing Another Curtain.” My favourite passage came from “All Work Is Holy”:
The rule is this: it must appear as if the person or people have just left the room. The viewer must feel as if the air is alive with their energy, that they only just missed them, that they will be back in any moment. If this isn’t the case, the scene is no more than an arrangement of objects. The scene is dead.
Indeed, the French phrase for “still life” is nature morte or dead nature. To try to bring history back to life, Perry devotes all but the first 55 and last 26 pages to a recreation of an unwilling medieval king’s court. He’s only on the throne because his two brothers died. There are rumours of infidelity concerning both him and his wife, and talk of removing him for incompetence. Soon they will all pass from life into legend.
I loved the late scene when the curator is introducing the exhibit to visitors and hears their ideas about how we know what happened in history – this is like a transcript of absolutely the best uni lecture or event Q&A ever. What gets preserved and passed down, and why? To what extent is there meaning in physical artefacts? These questions are compelling, yet I only really engaged with the contemporary storyline, while the historical pastiche felt like sub-Hilary Mantel, occasionally evocative but often edging towards pretension. 
I’d already read:
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison: A “dull, watery postapocalyptic slog [that] sheds no real light on the past, present, or future”. 
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: About “a likeable Everyman with the same …secrets and struggles we all have.” It’s “the most engaged Strout has been with the present day, and the most specific she’s gotten about political outrages.” 
John of John by Douglas Stuart: One of my books of the year. “Cal seeks to reconcile his sexuality and artistic goals with his family’s expectations and his devout upbringing. The characters’ power plays and acts of desperation are heartrending, but mischief and love of colour and crafts lend lightness.” 
Here’s my thinking…
Masculinity is a/the theme in four of this year’s shortlisted novels (from the Kennard: “men are mostly frightened and crazy and very easily misled”) – and in last year’s winner, Flesh by David Szalay, too.
I’ve felt sure that The Disappearers or John of John would win: previous winners whose works normalize homosexuality. I would want the latter to win for its beauty and emotional power, but I think the former more likely as the judges (including Raymond Antrobus, who is British Jamaican) may have an eye on the whiteness of recent winners.
Elizabeth Strout may be doomed to be a Booker bridesmaid. I don’t think this is her best book, but I wouldn’t mind if it won.
I would actually be delighted if the Prize went to the wildcard, Black Bag. But I can’t see that happening. The same goes for the Harrison (please oh please).
Let’s say, though, that the judges want something completely different. Then perhaps May We Feed the King is it. Mary Beard (chair) and Patricia Lockwood, in particular, came across as huge fans during the shortlist announcement event.
I’m torn, so I’ll just go with the novel I loved the most: John of John by Douglas Stuart.
What’s your prediction for the winner?
Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl
“Ten years ago, my smile walked off my face, and wandered out in the world. This is the story of my asking it to come back.”
Sarah Ruhl is a lauded New York City playwright (Eurydice et al.). These warm and beautifully observed autobiographical essays stem from the birth of her twins and the slow-burning medical crises that followed. Shortly after the delivery, she developed Bell’s palsy, a partial paralysis of the face that usually resolves itself within six months but in rare cases doesn’t go away, and later discovered that she had celiac disease and Hashimoto’s disease, two autoimmune disorders. Having a lopsided face, grimacing and squinting when she tried to show expression on her paralyzed side – she knew this was a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, yet it provoked thorny questions about to what extent the body equates to our identity:
Can one experience joy when one cannot express joy on one’s face? Does the smile itself create the happiness? Or does happiness create the smile?
As (pretty much) always, I prefer the U.S. cover.
Women are accustomed to men cajoling them into a smile, but now she couldn’t comply even had she wanted to. Ruhl looks into the psychology and neurology of facial expressions, such as the Duchenne smile, but keeps coming back to her own experience: marriage to Tony, a child psychiatrist; mothering Anna and twins William and Hope; teaching and writing and putting on plays; and seeking alternative as well as traditional treatments (acupuncture and Buddhist meditation versus physical therapy; she rejected Botox and experimental surgery) for the Bell’s palsy. By the end of the book she’s achieved about a 70% recovery, but it did take a decade. “A woman slowly gets better. What kind of story is that?” she wryly asks. The answer is: a realistic one. We’re all too cynical these days to believe in miracle cures. But a story of graceful persistence, of setbacks alternating with advances? That’s relatable.
The playwright’s skills are abundantly evident here: strong dialogue and scenes; a clear sense of time, such that flashbacks to earlier life, including childhood, are interlaced naturally; a mixture of exposition and forceful one-liners. She is also brave to include lots of black-and-white family photographs that illustrate the before and after. While reading I often thought of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face and Terri Tate’s A Crooked Smile, which are both about life with facial deformity after cancer surgery. I’d also recommend this to readers of Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss, one of my 2021 favourites, and Anne Lamott’s essays on facing everyday life with wit and spiritual wisdom.
More lines I loved:
imperfection is a portal. Whereas perfection and symmetry create distance. Our culture values perfect pictures of ourselves, mirage, over and above authentic connection. But we meet one another through the imperfect particular of our bodies.
Lucky the laugh lines and the smile lines especially: they signify mobility, duration, and joy.
My rating: 
With thanks to Bodley Head for the free copy for review.
Born Digital by Robert Wigley (Blog Tour)
Robert Wigley spent a career in finance and is a father to three teenage sons. For two years, he learned more about their generation by meeting with 200 young entrepreneurs, one per business day. That combination of research and personal experience fuels his first book, Born Digital, which is about the unique challenges faced by Generation Z.
He found that, with young people spending an average of seven hours a day online, technology can exacerbate mental health issues, especially with the doom and gloom and lack of authenticity found on social media. Rather than making people feel more connected, technology tends to increase loneliness and reduce face-to-face interactions. Popularity and hook-ups are sought over meaningful, long-term relationships, while multi-tasking leads to an overall lack of focus.
This book brings up so many issues, including the potential for online surveillance and manipulation, and the problem of anonymity plus a failure to effectively verify users’ age. I’m still a smartphone refusenik because I want to carefully guard my time and attention, so I was particularly interested in the statistics and stories Wigley conveys about what it’s like for young people who have grown up with smartphones. This is a book I’ll be keeping on the shelf for future reference. It would of course be very relevant to parents and teachers, but I found it enlightening as well. Here’s a few-page excerpt to whet your appetite.
Chapter 6
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE JUGGLER’S BRAIN
My youngest son is at home with my wife and me; my older two are in London. We are all glued to Chelsea (who they all avidly support) playing Manchester United in the semi-final of the FA Cup. Chelsea scores, and my son screams with excitement and then starts his hilarious victory dance in front of the TV. The family WhatsApp channel bursts into life. Ping, ping. My wife has sent a picture of my youngest in front of the TV. My eldest has replied saying ‘doing exactly the same’. Everyone is high on a cocktail of Chelsea scoring, WhatsApp pinging and the humorous pictures and messages that it conveys.
Pleasurable human experiences result in the release of dopamine in the brain. The dopamine attaching itself to receptors in the brain causes the feeling of pleasure we experience. Most pleasurable experiences cause the release of a small amount of dopamine. Broadly speaking, to start with, the more dopamine, the more pleasure.
Normally, this release of dopamine is a good thing. It encourages us to seek out what is healthy or beneficial in our environment. It’s so important, in fact, that neuroscientists have given it a central role in a type of fundamental human learning called reinforcement learning. I will explain how technology companies abuse reinforcement learning to modify human behaviour so that we maximise time on their platforms and apps. What scientists have found is that dopamine is related to the prediction of rewards. If a reward is received but not anticipated, an increase in dopamine is seen. And if a reward is anticipated and not seen, a decrease in dopamine is seen. Since our brains are wired to optimise rewards, this means that humans will be motivated to seek out new rewards in any given situation, do anything they know delivers a reward repeatedly and avoid anything which gives them negative effects. Technology companies design their platforms and apps to make them addictive using this science. Receiving a notification, a like on Facebook or Instagram, a match on Tinder or a win in Fortnite all trigger dopamine releases. Being blocked by a friend or killed in the game causes a decrease in dopamine.
The problem starts when you seek out dopamine regularly and repeatedly as most people could be tempted to, given the pleasurable effect. The brain starts to develop a tolerance for dopamine. So more dopamine is needed to generate the same degree of pleasure. In the natural world, the availability of rewards is largely out of humans’ hands. On technology platforms, it is designed in and can be made almost infinitely abundant. Addictions develop because two things happen. The brain produces less dopamine per stimulus, and the brain feels less stimulated by each new release. So more, larger stimuli are needed, requiring the addict to seek them.
Sean Parker, Facebook’s Founding President, said in 2017, ‘We need to give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while … exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology … the inventors, creators … understood it consciously. And we did it anyway. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.’
Mirror neurons fire in the brain when an animal acts and observes the same action in another. You smile, I smile back. This may explain why some people unwittingly imitate their companions, sitting similarly in terms of leg positions or with their heads cocked at a similar angle. Some neuroscientists believe that mirror neurons form the basis of emotions such as empathy. If true, to develop and display empathy requires the physical observation of a counterparty during the intercourse – something, of course, that social media chat doesn’t deliver.
While neuroscientists debate precise mechanisms, it seems reasonably well accepted that bonding situations – a mother feeding or hugging a child – result in the release of oxytocin, which itself triggers the release of dopamine and serotonin. This leads to pleasurable feelings of comfort and security and builds the bond between the baby and the parent or carer. We have seen that dopamine leads to pleasure, and serotonin boosts feelings of wellbeing and collegiality. Paul Zak, one of the original researchers into the effects of oxytocin, described this as Human Oxytocin Medicated Empathy (‘HOME’). Bonding and empathy require at least physical proximity or engaged face-to-face engagement to occur. This is one of the reasons why it is so important that babies are not distracted with iPads fixed inches in front of their faces in their recliners before they are two, and equally important that parents must not be distracted from fixing their baby’s gaze, eye to eye, by combining feeding or bonding time with use of their own devices.
Eye-to-eye contact seems to be critical not just as a baby, but throughout life. ‘Whether it’s affection, amusement, arrogance or annoyance, our eyes convey how we feel. And the ability to read another person’s eyes, face to face, is one of the best predictors of a person’s social intelligence,’ says King. Referring to the conclusions of Simon Baron-Cohen’s ‘reading the mind in the eye test’, she says. ‘The better you are at inferring someone else’s mental state by looking at their eyes, the more likely you are to be prosocial, perform well in groups and respond empathetically.’
My thanks to Midas PR for the proof copy. I was glad to take part in the blog tour. See below for details of where other reviews and features have appeared.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
