The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd (& Audiobook Blog Tour)
~This review contains plot spoilers.~
Sue Monk Kidd’s bold fourth novel started as a what-if question: What if Jesus had a wife? Church tradition has always insisted that he remained unmarried, but she felt that, given the cultural norms of the Middle East at that time, it would have been highly unusual for him not to marry. Musing on the motivation for airbrushing a spouse out of the picture, on the last page of the novel Kidd asks, “Did [early Christians] believe making him celibate rendered him more spiritual?” Or “Was it because women were so often invisible?” Although The Book of Longings retells biblical events, it is chiefly an attempt to illuminate women’s lives in the 1st century CE and to chart the female contribution to sacred literature and spirituality.
Fourteen-year-old Ana is a headstrong young woman with a forthright voice and a determination to choose her own life. Privilege and luck are on her side: her father is the head scribe to Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee; and the repulsive widower to whom she’s been betrothed dies, freeing her to marry Jesus, a travelling craftsman who caught her eye at the market. Ana’s aunt, Yaltha from Alexandria, is a major influence in her life. She had a rare chance at education and encourages her niece in her writing. Ana knows several ancient languages and fills every papyrus scroll she can get her hands on with stories of the women in the Bible. Yaltha also gives her an incantation bowl in which to write her deeply held prayers.
If you’re familiar with Kidd’s other work (such as The Secret Life of Bees and Traveling with Pomegranates), you know that she often explores the divine feminine and matriarchal units. Historically, Christianity has a poor record of acknowledging its patriarchal tendencies and redressing the balance. But Kidd imagines that, right at the beginning, Jesus valued women and was open to them having a life beyond domestic chores and childrearing. He involves Ana in his discussions about God and the nature of the Kingdom; they both see and take compassion on people’s suffering; together they are baptized by John the Baptist. And when Ana tells Jesus she doesn’t believe she is meant to be a mother – her mother and aunt took herbal potions and have passed on their contraceptive knowledge to her – he accepts her choice, even though childlessness could bring shame on both of them.
I appreciated this picture of a woman who opts for writing and the spiritual life over motherhood. However, Kidd portrays a whole range of women’s experiences: Jesus’s mother and sister-in-law submit to the drudgery of keeping a household going; Ana’s friend is raped and has her tongue cut out in an attempt to silence her, yet finds new ways to express herself; and another major character is a servant involved in the healing rituals at a temple to Isis. A practicing Jew, Ana finds meaning in other religious traditions rather than dismissing them as idolatry. She also participates in wider intellectual life, such as by reading The Odyssey.
Some descriptions make this novel sound like alternative history. If you’re expecting Ana to save the day and change the course of history, you will be disappointed. Ana is simply an observer of the events documented in the Bible. While she recounts the inspirations for some parables and healing incidents, during two years in exile with her aunt she only hears secondhand accounts of Jesus’s ministry. Her brother, a Zealot, disagrees with Jesus on how to usher in the Kingdom of God. By the time Ana returns to Jerusalem, the events leading to the crucifixion have already been set in motion; she can only bear witness. For her, life will continue after Jesus’s death, in a women-led spiritual community. From avoiding motherhood to choosing a monastic-type life, Ana has a lot of freedom. Some readers may be skeptical about how realistic this life course is, but the key, I think, is to consider Ana as an outlier.
Kidd has made wise decisions here: for the most part she makes her story line parallel or tangential to the biblical record, rather than repeating material many will find overly familiar. She takes Jewish teaching as a starting point but builds a picture of a more all-encompassing spirituality drawn from multiple traditions. Her Jesus is recognizable and deeply human; Ana calls him “a peacemaker and a provocateur in equal measures” and remembers him telling her what it was like growing up with the stigma of his illegitimate birth. The novel is rooted in historical detail but the research into the time and place never takes over. Engrossing and convincing, this is a story of women’s intuition and yearning, and of the parts of history that often get overlooked. It wouldn’t be out of place on next year’s Women’s Prize longlist.
My rating: 
The Book of Longings was released on Tuesday the 21st. My thanks to Tinder Press for the proof copy for review.
I’m the last stop on a small blog tour for the audiobook release: if you’re interested in listening to the first hour of The Book of Longings, visit the blogs below and follow the links. Each one is hosting a 10-minute excerpt. The final one is available here.
Women’s Prize Longlist 2020 Thoughts & Other Prize Reading Projects
Next Wednesday the 22nd, the Women’s Prize shortlist will be revealed. However, the winner announcement has been delayed until September 9th, so we all get extra time to read the finalists (which is handy since the 900-page Hilary Mantel is a shoo-in). I happen to have gotten through half of the longlist so far. There were some books I cared for more than others. Of the remainder, I plan to pick up a few more once my library reopens.
Here’s how I’ve fared this year, in categories from best to worst, with excerpts and links to any I’ve reviewed in full:
Loved! (5)
Dominicana by Angie Cruz: In 1965, 15-year-old Ana Canción, married off to an older man, leaves the Dominican Republic for New York City. With not a word of English, she feels trapped in her apartment and in this abusive relationship. Yet Ana is such a plucky and confiding narrator that you’re drawn into her world and cheer for her as she figures out what she wants from her life. This compassionate novel is proof that not all the immigration stories have been told yet. 
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo: A terrific linked short story collection about 12 black women in twentieth-century and contemporary Britain balancing external and internal expectations and different interpretations of feminism to build lives of their own. The prose is more like poetry: a wry, radical stream of consciousness. A warm, spirited book, it never turns strident. It’s timely and elegantly constructed – and, it goes without saying, a worthy Booker Prize winner. To win the Women’s Prize too would be unprecedented, I think? But no surprise.
Weather by Jenny Offill: Could there be a more perfect book for 2020? It’s a blunt, unromanticized but wickedly funny novel about how eco-anxiety permeates everyday life. Set either side of Trump’s election, it amplifies many voices prophesying doom, from environmentalists to Bible-thumpers. Lizzie’s sardonic narration is an ideal way of capturing relatable feelings of anger and helplessness. Don’t expect to come away with your worries soothed, though there is some comfort to be found in the feeling that we’re all in this together.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett: A memorable exploration of family secrets and memories. Maeve and Danny Conroy are an inseparable brother-and-sister pair. When their father dies, they become like Hansel and Gretel: cast out into the wilds by an evil stepmother who takes possession of the only home they’ve ever known, a suburban Philadelphia mansion built on the proceeds of the VanHoebeek cigarette empire. Patchett always captures the psychology of complicated families, and her sharp prose never fails to hit the nail on the head.
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson: Like a family saga in miniature, this short novel stretches backward from Melody’s 16th birthday party, held in Brooklyn in 2001, to explore previous generations of the African American experience. Chapters alternate between first- and third-person narration, highlighting the perspectives of all the major family members. I raced through to see who would follow in family footsteps, or not. The title is apt: the book is sometimes raw and sometimes tender. It’s an emotionally engaging story of loss and memory. 
Currently skimming (1)
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel: I’ve stalled around page 200. I’ll be totally engrossed for a few pages of exposition and Cromwell one-liners, but then everything gets talky or plotty and I skim for 20‒30 pages and put it down. My constant moving between 10‒20 books and the sudden loss of a deadline have not served me well: I feel overwhelmed by the level of detail and the cast of characters, and haven’t built up momentum. Still, I can objectively recognize the prose as top-notch.
Did not particularly enjoy (3)
Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner: To me this didn’t stand out at all from the sea of fiction about crumbling marriages and upper-middle-class angst. 
- Actress by Anne Enright: A slow-burning backstory of trauma and mental illness. I found I wasn’t warming to the voice or main characters and mostly skimmed this.
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: In comparison with other historical fiction, this fell short. Overall, I found the prose flat and repetitive, which diluted the portrait of grief.
Attempted but couldn’t get through (1)
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara – I’m wary of child narrators anyway, and the voice didn’t grab me within the first few pages.
Still plan to read (3)
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams- How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
- The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
Not interested (3)
Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie: Sounds subpar.- A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes: Say no to updated Greek classics.
- Girl by Edna O’Brien: I don’t care for O’Brien’s writing. Though this was well received by the critics, it’s not finding much love among my trusted bloggers. (Plus there’s the cultural appropriation issue.)
My ideal shortlist
(A wishlist based on my reading and what I want to read)
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Weather by Jenny Offill
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
vs.
My predicted shortlist
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Actress by Anne Enright
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Girl by Edna O’Brien OR Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Callum, Eric, Laura and Rachel have been posting lots of reviews and thoughts related to the Women’s Prize. Have a look at their blogs!
In this 25th anniversary year of the Women’s Prize, readers are also being encouraged to catch up on previous winners.
- I’ve read 13 so far (and am currently rereading On Beauty by Zadie Smith).
I already had Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville on my shelves, plus The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller on my Nook.- I recently found a copy of A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne at the free bookshop where I volunteer.
- On my current library stack are When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant, Property by Valerie Martin and Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels.
I can’t promise to be a completist about this project because the prospect of reading A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing and The Glorious Heresies fills me with dread, but we’ll see…
Other Prize Reading Projects
I’d been trying to make my way through some previous Wellcome Book Prize winners and nominees, but have been scuppered by my library’s closure. At the moment I have Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived (2017 longlist; passed on from my father-in-law) and Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes (2016 shortlist; from the library) on my pile to read or, more likely, skim.
I also had the idea to read all the Bellwether Prize winners because I loved The Leavers so much. (Known in full as the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, it is a biennial award given by PEN America and Barbara Kingsolver, who created and funds the prize, “to a U.S. citizen for a previously unpublished work of fiction that address issues of social justice.”) This project did not start particularly well as I DNFed Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron. However, I own copies of Mudbound by Hillary Jordan and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow and hope I’ll have better luck with them.
What prize lists or other reading projects are keeping you busy?
Women’s Prize 2019: Longlist Review Excerpts and Shortlist Thoughts
There’s a reason I could never wholeheartedly shadow the Women’s Prize: although each year the prize introduces me one or two great novels I might never have heard of otherwise, inevitably there are also some I don’t care for, or have zero interest in reading. Here’s how I fared this year, in categories from best to worst, with excerpts and links to any I’ve reviewed in full:
Loved! (5)
- The Pisces by Melissa Broder: This starts off as a funny but somewhat insubstantial novel about a thirtysomething stuck with a life she isn’t sure she wants, morphs into a crass sex comedy (featuring a merman), but ultimately becomes a profound exploration of possession, vulnerability and the fluidity of gender roles. It’s about the prison of the body, and choosing which of the many different siren voices calling us we’ll decide to listen to. It’s a Marmite book, but perfect Women’s Prize material.
Ordinary People by Diana Evans: Reminds me of On Beauty by Zadie Smith, one of my favorite novels of this millennium. It focuses on two Black couples in South London and the suburbs who, in the wake of Obama’s election, are reassessing their relationships. Their problems are familiar middle-class ones, but Evans captures them so candidly that many passages made me wince. The chapter in which two characters experience mental instability is a standout, and the Black slang and pop music references a nice touch.
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: Roy and Celestial only get a year of happy marriage before he’s falsely accused of rape and sentenced to 12 years in prison in Louisiana. I ached for all three main characters: It’s an impossible situation. There’s a lot to probe about the characters’ personalities and motivations, and about how they reveal or disguise themselves through their narration. I found it remarkable how the letters, which together make up not even one-fifth of the text, enhance the raw honesty of the book.
- Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss: It’s the late 1980s and teenager Silvie Hampton and her parents have joined a university-run residential archaeology course in the North of England, near the bogs where human sacrifice once took place. Nationalism, racism, casual misogyny – there are lots of issues brewing under the surface here. Women’s bodies and what can be done to them is central; as the climax approaches, the tricksy matter of consent arises. I ended up impressed by how much Moss conveys in so few pages. Another one custom-made for the Women’s Prize.
Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn: I just finished this the other day. It’s a terrific hybrid work that manages to combine several of my favorite forms: a novella, flash fiction and linked short stories. The content is also an intriguing blend, of the horrific and the magical. After her brother-in-law’s defection, Alina and her husband Liviu come under extra scrutiny in Communist Romania. Bursts of magic realism and a delightful mixture of narrative styles (lists and letters; alternating between the first and third person) make all this material bearable.
Did not particularly enjoy (2)
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: Magic realism and mental illness fuel a swirl of disorienting but lyrical prose. Much of the story is told by the ọgbanje (an Igbo term for evil spirits) inhabiting Ada’s head. The conflation of the abstract and the concrete didn’t quite work for me, and the whole is pretty melodramatic. Although I didn’t enjoy this as much as some other inside-madness tales I’ve read, I can admire the attempt to convey the reality of mental illness in a creative way.
Normal People by Sally Rooney: This book’s runaway success continues to baffle me. I kept waiting for more to happen, skimming ahead to see if there would be anything more to it than drunken college parties and frank sex scenes. It is appealing to see into these characters’ heads and compare what they think of themselves and each other with their awareness of what others think. But page to page it is pretty tedious, and fairly unsubtle. 
Attempted but couldn’t get through (3)
- Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton: A historical novel marked by the presence of ghosts, this is reminiscent of the work of Cynthia Bond, Toni Morrison and Jesmyn Ward. It’s the closest thing to last year’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. I only read the first 36 pages as neither the characters nor the prose struck me as anything special.
Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott: Full of glitzy atmosphere contrasted with washed-up torpor. I have no doubt the author’s picture of Truman Capote is accurate, and there are great glimpses into the private lives of his catty circle. I always enjoy first person plural narration, too. However, I quickly realized I don’t have sufficient interest in the figures or time period to sustain me through nearly 500 pages. I read the first 18 pages and skimmed to p. 35.
- Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lilian Li: Vague The Nest vibes, but the prose felt flat and the characters little more than clichés (especially scheming ‘Uncle’ Pang). I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland so was expecting there to be more local interest for me, but this could be taking place anywhere. Reviews from trusted Goodreads friends suggested that the plot and characterization don’t significantly improve as the book goes on, so I gave up after the first two chapters.
Not interested (6)
(Don’t you go trying to change my mind!)
- The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker: Updated Greek classics are so not my bag.
- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: Meh.
- Milkman by Anna Burns: Nah.
- Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: I’ll try something else by Luiselli.
- Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden: The setting of a fictional African country and that title already have me groaning.
- Circe by Madeline Miller: See the note on Barker above.
The shortlist will be announced on Monday the 29th. Broder and Moss will most likely make the cut. I’d love to see the van Llewyn make it through, as it’s my favorite of what I’ve read from the longlist, but I think it will probably be edged out by more high-profile releases. Either Evans or Jones will advance; Jones probably has the edge with more of an issues book. One of the Greek myth updates is likely to succeed. Luiselli is awfully fashionable right now. Emezi’s is an interesting book and the Prize is making a statement by supporting a non-binary author. Rooney has already won or been nominated for every prize going, so I don’t think she needs the recognition. Same for Burns, having won the Booker.
So, quickly pulling a combination of wanted and expected titles out of the air would give this predicted shortlist:
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Eleanor, Eric, Laura and Rachel have been posting lots of reviews and thoughts related to the Women’s Prize. Have a look at their blogs!
Fun with Titles
I’m certainly not the first to notice these rather similar titles – both of which appear on this year’s Folio Prize and Women’s Prize longlists. I preferred Diana Evans’s Ordinary People (), which I just finished earlier this week, to Sally Rooney’s Normal People (). The two novels look at fairly average situations – two Black couples with children in South London and the Surrey suburbs; a pair of university students in Ireland – and probe the emotional intricacies.
Michelle Obama’s Becoming is now set to become the bestselling memoir of all time. I enjoyed it as much as any memoir-loving fan of the Obamas would (), but after I found out that it was ghostwritten I couldn’t get that little fact out of my mind. By contrast, Anuradha Bhagwati’s Unbecoming is the memoir of a bisexual U.S. Marine captain and tells of the racism and sexism she experienced. It came out last week and has only six ratings on Goodreads, so it’s as under-the-radar as Becoming is overexposed.
Just one letter separates the titles of these two books. I’ve been slowly making my way through All the Lives We Ever Lived, Katharine Smyth’s elegant bibliomemoir about her father’s death and the comfort she found in rereading To the Lighthouse. I don’t know much about All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy, just that it’s set in 1930s India and Bali and has been longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Her previous novel, Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Which of the books from these pairs would tempt you?
Top 5 Reads of 2017 from Literary Relish
I asked Lucy Rock of Literary Relish about the best books she read in 2017 and she came up with this list of five terrific recommendations. Two of these I have on the shelf waiting to be read, and one of them I hadn’t even heard of…
Halfway through 2016, with an abandoned blog and a bun in the oven, reading panic really started to set in. All too aware of the impending decline in any serious ‘me’ time, I read in a bit of a blind frenzy, gobbling up Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice (for the first time – yes, really) and all 864 pages of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, to name but a few.
2017 has been a funny old year, veering from having hours to spend reading pinned to the sofa to snatching the odd minute here and there. I was feeling rather indifferent about it all but, in fact, looking back I’ve experienced some really great stories this year. Here are my top 5:
- William – An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
Newlyweds William and Griselda are enjoying a secluded honeymoon somewhere in the European wilderness when, unbeknownst to them, war breaks out: World War I, to be precise. Heartache and chaos ensue as they are thrust into the middle of the war-torn Belgian Ardennes. This is the most unique war narrative I have ever had the pleasure to read; Persephone Books rarely disappoint.
2. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
After reading her later (and bulkier) novel Americanah for book club last year, I felt it would be pretty poor of me not to pick up her earlier, Orange Prize-winning novel. It certainly didn’t disappoint, with a cast of characters that represent the breadth of Nigerian society; it turns out that my ignorance of the Biafran War was profound. I am a better (and considerably more entertained) person for reading this moving story.
3. East Lynne by Ellen Wood
Surely every girl needs a good period drama every once in a while, and this absolute stonker of a book is everything you need and more this Christmas, trust me. This Victorian sensation novel that charts the demise of Lady Isabel Carlyle following her elopement with fellow aristocrat Francis Levison is rather melodramatic and a mite far-fetched at times but, good golly, it is good.
4. Walking Home by Simon Armitage
A poetry fan I am not, but I do like Northern boy Simon Armitage and the Pennine Way, the subject of this novel, is a stone’s throw from my front door. In Walking Home Armitage recounts the time he decided to walk this tricky route ‘the wrong way around’ from North to South, paying his way through poetry readings at various eclectic venues across the way. He’s a funny guy, Armitage, and some of the bleak landscape he crosses is very close to my heart. Very enjoyable.
5. The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
I got all snobby about this list and tried to find something a little more unusual or a little more ‘literary’ from this year’s pickings, but the simple fact is that I have desperately needed pure entertainment lately and J.K. Rowling provides just that with her Cormoran Strike novels. A bit of well-written crime (which I hardly ever read) and lovely, atmospheric London feels.
Here’s to a little more ambitious reading in 2018. Merry Christmas, everyone!
A huge thank-you to Lucy for this guest blog!
Which one of her picks do you want to read first?
Catching Up on Prize Winners: Alderman, Grossman & Whitehead
Sometimes I love a prize winner and cheer the judges’ ruling; other times I shake my head and puzzle over how they could possibly think this was the best the year had to offer. I’m late to the party for these three recent prize-winning novels. I’m also a party pooper, I guess, because I didn’t particularly like or dislike a one of them. (Reviews are in the order in which I read the books. My rating for all three = )
A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman
(Winner of the Man Booker International Prize)
“Why the long face? Did someone die? It’s only stand-up comedy!” Except that for the comedian himself, Dovaleh Greenstein, this swan song of a show in the Israeli town of Netanya devolves into the story of the most traumatic day of his life. Grossman has made what seems to me an unusual choice of narrator: Avishai Lazar, a widower and Supreme Court justice, and Dov’s acquaintance from adolescence – they were in the same military training camp. Dov has invited him here to bear witness, and by the end we know Avishai will produce a written account of the evening.
Although it could be said that Avishai’s asides about the past, and about the increasingly restive crowd in the club, give us a rest from Dov’s claustrophobic monologue, in doing so they break the spell. This would be more hard-hitting as a play or a short story composed entirely of speech; in one of those formats, Dov’s story might keep you spellbound through a single sitting. Instead, I found that I had to force myself to read even five or 10 pages at a time. There’s no doubt Grossman can weave a clever tale about loss, and there are actually some quite funny jokes in here too, but overall I found this significantly less powerful than the author’s previous work, Falling Out of Time.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
(Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award; longlisted for the Man Booker Prize)
Following Cora on her fraught journey from her Georgia plantation through the Carolinas and Tennessee to Indiana is enjoyable enough, with the requisite atrocities like lynchings and rapes thrown in to make sure it’s not just a picaresque cat-and-mouse battle between her and Arnold Ridgeway, the villainous slavecatcher. But I’m surprised that such a case has been made for the uniqueness of this novel based on a simple tweak of the historical record: Whitehead imagines the Underground Railroad as an actual subterranean transport system. This makes less of a difference than you might expect; if anything, it renders the danger Cora faces more abstract. The same might be said for the anachronistic combination of enlightened and harsh societies she passes through: by telescoping out to show the range of threats African-Americans faced between the Civil War and the 1930s, the novel loses immediacy.
Ultimately, I felt little attachment to Cora and had to force myself to keep plodding through her story. My favorite parts were little asides giving other characters’ backstories. There’s no doubt Whitehead can shape a plot and dot in apt metaphors (I particularly liked “Ajarry died in the cotton, the bolls bobbing around her like whitecaps on the brute ocean”). However, I kept thinking, Haven’t I read this story before? (Beloved, Ruby, The Diary of Anne Frank; seen on screen in Twelve Years a Slave, Roots and the like.) This is certainly capably written, but doesn’t stand out for me compared to Homegoing, which was altogether more affecting.
The Power by Naomi Alderman
(Winner of the [Bailey’s] Women’s Prize)
I read the first ~120 pages and skimmed the rest. Alderman imagines a parallel world in which young women realize they wield electrostatic power that can maim or kill. In an Arab Spring-type movement, they start to take back power from their oppressive societies. You’ll cheer as women caught up in sex trafficking fight back and take over. The movement is led by Allie, an abused child who starts by getting revenge on her foster father and then takes her message worldwide, becoming known as Mother Eve.
Alderman has cleverly set this up as an anthropological treatise-cum-historical novel authored by “Neil Adam Armon” (an anagram of her own name), complete with documents and drawings of artifacts. “The power to hurt is a kind of wealth,” and in this situation of gender reversal women gradually turn despotic. They are soldiers and dictators; they inflict genital mutilation and rape on men.
I enjoyed the passages mimicking the Bible, but felt a lack of connection with the characters and didn’t get a sense of years passing even though this is spread over about a decade. This is most like Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy – Alderman’s debt to Atwood is explicit, in the dedication as well as the acknowledgments – so if you really like those books, by all means read this one. My usual response to such speculative fiction, though, even if it describes a believable situation, is: what’s the point? As with “Erewhon,” the best story in Helen Simpson’s collection Cockfosters, the points about gender roles are fairly obvious.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve read any of these books – or plan to read them – and believe they were worthy prize winners. If so, set me straight!
Review: How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus
“A story is like a net: you have to make your own; you have to throw the loops just right; you have to be careful what gets in and what gets out, what you catch and what you keep.”
Ten-year-old Ellie Fleck isn’t like the other children in her North Yorkshire town. The daughter of Pete, a grizzled fisherman, and Kate, an Irish Catholic woman who’s in a mental hospital after a presumed suicide attempt, Ellie was raised on stories of selkies and martyrdoms. Superstition infuses her daily life, making her afraid of pool trips with her classmates – it’s bad luck for fishermen to learn to swim – and leading her to expect her dead grandmother’s soul to waft in through an open window on Halloween night.
What with bullies’ beatings and her teacher Mr. Lockwood’s disapproval, it’s no wonder Ellie misses lots of school, going sea-coaling with her father or running off to the coast alone instead. But with Christmas approaching and Kate due home from the hospital, Ellie’s absences warrant an official visit. Social worker May Fletcher, the mother of Ellie’s new friend Fletch, is also concerned about Ellie’s home life. “How Saints Die,” Ellie and Fletch’s gruesome skit performed as an addendum to the school Nativity play, seems like proof that something is seriously wrong.
This is performance poet Carmen Marcus’s debut novel; from what I can tell it seems partially autobiographical. It powerfully conveys the pull of the sea and the isolation of an unconventional 1980s childhood. The dreamy, hypnotic prose alternates passages from Ellie’s perspective with shorter chapters from the points of view of the adults in her life, including her father, busybody neighbor Mrs. Forster, and May Fletcher. Marcus is equally skilled at the almost stream-of-consciousness passages describing Ellie’s trips to the sea and at humorous one-line descriptions:
Sand and salt in the cut, stinging. Her dad would know what to do. She wants him here, now, to show her. Without him the beach takes her up entirely, the shushshush of the sea and the coarse cackle of the waders at the waters-edge, creakcrackcreakcrackyawyaw; the wind tugging at the shell of her ear. All of it pulling, nipping, cutting at her – snipsnipsnip – and now blood, her edges ragged and wet.
Mrs Forster always smells faintly sweet and acidic like old Christmas cake.
– What are sins?
– They’re like germs but in your thoughts.
It’s easy to get lost in Ellie’s supernatural world of spirits and sea wolves, while the occasional outsider views make it clear just how dangerous some of her notions could be. Like Paula Cocozza’s How to Be Human, this sets up an intriguing contrast between magic realism and madness. The language is full of transformations and fairy tale tropes. I was reminded at times of Amy Sackville’s Orkney and Fiona Melrose’s Midwinter. Although there is perhaps one perilous situation too many at the climax and the resolution is a bit drawn out (and there is also less punctuation than I would like), this is still a strong and absorbing first novel and one I fully expect to see on next year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist.
My rating: 
How Saints Die is published in the UK today, July 13th, by Harvill Secker. My thanks to Louise Court for sending a free copy for review.
In Praise of Literary Prizes
I like a spot of competition. Whether watching Olympic figure skating, playing board games like Scrabble and Boggle, entering a low-key Oscars pool, or rooting for my favorites in American Idol seasons and Miss America pageants, I’ve always loved trying to pick the best. This means that literary prizes are hugely exciting for me, and I follow the races closely.
I’m particularly devoted to the Man Booker Prize. I was delighted to see Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life on the recent longlist (catch up on it here), a truly interesting set of books, diverse in terms of their genres and authors’ nationalities and nicely balanced between male and female writers (6:7). I’ve read four of the longlisted titles so far:
The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma (full review in May 2015 issue of Third Way): From a young Nigerian debut novelist comes a haunting tale of sibling rivalry and revenge. With sectarian riots afoot, the four oldest Agwu boys decide to make money by skipping school and fishing in the Omi-Ala River. Things get more complicated when Abulu, the local madman, issues a prophecy that seems bound to divide the brothers. The first quarter of the novel, especially, is drenched in foreshadowing (not always subtle, nor do the plot turns often rise above the predictable). Rich with prophecy and allusions, this owes much to biblical narratives and tragedies from Shakespeare to Chinua Achebe.- Lila, Marilynne Robinson – reviewed at For Books’ Sake
- A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler – also reviewed at For Books’ Sake
- A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara – reviewed at Shiny New Books
Next up: I’m reviewing The Green Road by Anne Enright for the November 2015 issue of Third Way. The Booker Prize shortlist will be announced on September 15th and the winner on October 13th.
Beyond the Booker, here are some of the other prizes I follow throughout the year, listed in vague chronological order:
The Not the Booker Prize run by the Guardian. On this year’s shortlist is Shame by Melanie Finn, a book I loved when I reviewed it for Third Way’s April 2015 issue. It’s a powerful story of regret and the search for redemption. Though it has elements of a straightforward psychological thriller, the daring structure and moral complexities are more akin to Graham Greene. In alternating chapters, Pilgrim Jones contrasts flashbacks to her car accident and the subsequent investigation back in Switzerland with her present-tense African odyssey. This is Conrad’s Africa, a continent characterized by darkness and suffering. The question of culpability remains murky, yet the possibility of salvation shines through. [Voting will take place in October.]
- The Guardian First Book Award (open to both fiction and nonfiction): the shortlist will be announced this Friday, August 14th. One entry, Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume, has already been chosen by readers, and the other nine are selected from publishers’ submissions. [Winner announced in late November.]
The Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers (under 39) went to Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour last year. [Longlist in September, shortlist in October and winner announced in November.]
- The Costa Book Awards give separate prizes for fiction, debut fiction, biography, poetry, and children’s books, and also choose one overall winner. [Category shortlists in late November, category winners in early January and overall winner on January 26, 2016.]
- The Folio Prize, only two years old, considers any work of fiction published in English; before the Booker expanded to include American entries last year, it was the most Catholic of the fiction prizes. Now it risks being considered redundant; especially since it lost its Folio Society sponsorship, it’s unclear whether it will continue. [Shortlist in February and winner announced in March.]
The Wellcome Book Prize is for medical-themed literature, fiction or nonfiction. Last year’s winner, The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, meant a lot to me for personal reasons but was also one of the most unusual and impressive memoirs I’ve ever read. I reviewed it for The Bookbag here. [Shortlist in March and winner announced in April.]
- The Pulitzer Prize is America’s premier literary award. I confess I often feel a little out of touch with the winners and don’t necessarily make a conscious effort to seek out the nominated books. I’d like to be more familiar with Pulitzer winners. Next year marks the prize’s centennial, so there’s no better time! [Winners announced in April.]
- The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is for any book that has been translated into English and published in the UK in the previous year. I’ve found some great offbeat reads by browsing through previous longlists. As of next year, the prize is merging with the Man Booker International award, which previously recognized the life work of a foreign author every other year. [Longlist in March, shortlist in April and winner announced in May.]
The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, the UK’s prize for comic literature, has run since 2000. Among the past winners are Paul Torday, Howard Jacobson, Terry Pratchett, Geoff Dyer, Gary Shteyngart, and (surprise!) Ian McEwan. I’ve read five of the winners, including Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn. [Shortlist in March and winner announced in May.]
- The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize). Ali Smith won the 2015 award for How to Be Both. [Longlist in March; shortlist and winner announced in June.]
Do you follow literary prize races? Do you make a point of reading the winner and/or the shortlisted books? All comments welcome!
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 