Praiseworthy

In Praiseworthy, Alexis Wright has written a saga revolving around an Aboriginal community, Praiseworthy, situated near the sea in northern Australia. The main characters in this story are Cause Man Steele, also referred to as Widespread and Planet, his wife with Chinese ancestry who was known as Dance and their two sons, seventeen year old Aboriginal Sovereignty and eight year old Tommyhawk Steele.

It takes 723 pages of small print to tell this allegory of Aboriginal people striving to exist in their own country under rules devised by white men. This results in the creation of a confused no man's land where plans and ideas keep changing depending on the mood. To add to the challenges a huge haze has descended on the area where Praiseworthy is situated. Widespread is convinced that this is the result of global warming and he is determined to find his own solution.

Around the town are many feral donkeys and Widespread decides that he needs to round up as many donkeys as he can to form a business enterprise delivering and carrying goods and people when transport using fossil fuel is no longer available. However he needs a special flagship donkey for this enterprise and spends much of the book traipsing around the country in a broken down car looking for the perfect donkey to be the mascot for the enterprise. When he finds a contender the donkey travels back to the community with him in his car. 

Dance lives in her own world and is obsessed with moths and butterflies which live in the area in abundance. As her relationship with Widespread diminishes she decides to try and find a way to travel to China as a refugee - to return to the country of part of her family. Widespread and Dance live on land in the local cemetery and are convinced that they are traditional owners of this land which does not impress the other inhabitants of the area.

 The two sons of Widespread and Dance do not get on and live different lives though each is aware of the other's presence at different times during the book. 

Aboriginal Sovereignty marries the girl who had been promised to him as a wife since they were children. He is seventeen but she is fifteen. This is OK according to Aboriginal law but not according to white man's law. The girl is sent away to the city for 'safety'. When Aboriginal Sovereignty is arrested he escapes from custody and is last seen disappearing into the sea, a place where many local young people commit suicide.

Tommyhawk is obsessed with social media which he accesses on his phone and other devices. He regularly follows all the reports on white men's views about life in Aboriginal communities including how the communities are inhabited by pedophiles. Tommyhawk wants to leave Praiseworthy to live in safety with white people in Canberra. It is Tommyhawk who reports his brother marrying an underage girl to authorities.

When Aboriginal Sovereignty disappears the local people form search parties to search for him along the beach and in the nearby waters. They are watched over by the spirits of the past who reflect on life in general and changes since their time. From this point Aboriginal Sovereignty becomes a theme of the book as well as the name of a character.

Praiseworthy is also full of churches representing a variety of sects who also try to have an influence in the community. Aboriginal elders, past and present also have words to say about what is happening in Praiseworthy and environs.

As well as Aboriginal Sovereignty, some of the themes in the book include attitudes to the effect of white man's laws and regulations on Aboriginal communities, the development of many Aboriginal communities relying on Canberra for handouts for projects, 'bridging the gap', abuse of children, global warming and care of the environment in general. 

There are several stories meandering through the novel as the plot is revealed through a river of time, often reversing on itself. There is humour in many places, often dark humour, as the author attempts in this saga to encourage the reader to think about the impact of colonisation on the life of the Aboriginal people.

Praiseworthy is the winner of the 2024 Stella Prize, the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award and also the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award. The novel also won the 2024 James Tait Black award for fiction (awarded by the University of Edinburgh) and also the Hawthornden Prize for imaginative literature.

Think of the Children - Sydney Review of Books - 5 June 2023 

Praiseworthy by Alix Wright - How can one novel contain so much? - The Guardian 28 April 2023.

Open Throat

Open Throat, written by Henry Hoke, is a novella narrated by a hungry mountain lion as it observes the world around it. In 156 pages we learn of the life and thoughts of the mountain lion as it regards its environment in a park under the Hollywood sign near Los Angeles. The lion manages to survive but food is not plentiful and there is often danger. It watches hikers walking the various trails in the park and also keeps an eye on a tent settlement where homeless people live. However when a hiker sets fire to one of tents the mountain lion is forced to find safety elsewhere as the fire spreads throughout the park.

The mountain lion finds itself in an urban area as it seeks refuge. Eventually it hides in the cellar of a house where it encounters a teenage girl who befriends it until her father discovers the mountain lion in the house.

The book reads as a prose poem. There is no punctuation but each sentence begins on a new line and there is double spacing between each sentence making it easy to read. The state of the environment, homelessness and inequalities in LA are some of the themes in this work as the mountain lion struggles to survive.

Open Throat was nominated for the 2024 James Tait Black Award.

Though the Bodies Fall

Michael Burns lives with his family in an isolated house at Kerry Head on the Irish coast. The area is known for the cliffs which have served as a suicide spot over the years. Michael's grandparents made it their mission to try and help the 'visitors' who came to the cliffs and many lives were saved. This role was passed to Michael's parents, particularly his mother who made the saving of those planning to commit suicide her major role in life.

Though the Bodies Fall by Noel O'Reagan is the story of family and how a feeling of responsibility can overtake the awareness of the needs of other family members.

After his father died, Michael was drafted into assisting his mother with her mission. After finishing school he did escape for a few years but ,when he finally returned home, assisting the 'visitors' became his obsession to the detriment of his relationships with other family members, his career and his health.

The story is revealed in several time frames. As well as viewing events in the present, we see life when Michael and his two sisters were children as well as Michael's failed marriage. The novel deals with how Michael's life deteriorates as his sense of duty to others overtakes his life. Throughout the book the descriptions of the landscape add to the atmosphere of the novel.

Though the Bodies Fall is on the short list for the 2024 James Tait Black Award.

Lori & Joe

Lori and Joe have lived in a small cottage in the Lake District for twenty-five years. One day when Lori takes her husband his morning cup of coffee she finds him dead in his bed. She considers calling an ambulance but it is obviously too late so she leaves him there and goes for a walk in the fells. 

It is November and a heavy mist encompasses the fells. Lori is waiting for the light to break through, even for a short time, during her walk. As she progresses through the terrain that she knows well, Lori reflects on her life - the good and the bad. 

She reflects on her relationship with her husband who appears to have been the dominant member of their partnership. He frequently played recordings of his favourite classical music and expected her to also appreciate it though she had different musical tastes. Lori wanted a family, Joe didn't. Lori wanted a dog. Joe didn't - though he eventually allowed her to keep a cat. Lori often refers to Joe's fancy bike that resides at the end of the kitchen table. She can now move it to the shed.

But Lori also reflects on death - the people she knows who have died. She reflects on the past as well as the present. Her thoughts are revealed in short blocks and are frequently repeated, each time with a little more information. This moving backwards and forwards through Lori's memory creates a poetic effect in the writing. The heading in each chapter allows the reader to see the progress that Lori is making in the walk through the fells. The weather balances her mood. 

Lori & Joe by Amy Arnold is a one hundred and fifty page reflection on Lori's life. It is a book that should be read without interruptions to fully appreciate the flow of Lori's thoughts and the landscape of the fens.

Lori & Joe was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2023. It has also been shortlisted for the 2024 James Tait Black Award for fiction.

Demon Copperhead

The winner of the 2023 James Tait Black award for fiction is Demon Copperhead by American author, Barbara Kingsolver. The writing of this book was inspired by Charles Dickens' novel, David Copperfield published in 1850 which traces the life of the main character as he struggles to grow up and survive during difficult times in Victorian England. He gradually learns that despite the difficulties that he faces there are people who will try to help him.

In Demon Copperhead Damen's father dies before his birth and his mother attempts to bring him up in a community of poverty in Virginia. This had been a mining area but by the beginning of the twenty-first century the mines are closed and the people who remain in the area struggle to survive. Much of the population, including Damen's mother, are addicted to a variety of substances and when Damen becomes an orphan he becomes a victim of a foster care system where boys spend time with adults who are only interested in the money they receive for fostering a child, not helping a child in need.  

As in David Copperfield there are people prepared to help Damen but he is not always ready to accept assistance when it is offered. This is a story of poverty, unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction, death and a failed foster care system, but at the end it also a story of survival against all odds.

My father once told me that when reading a book you should read at least forty pages before deciding to go no further. I seriously thought of giving up on this book, especially in the early chapters, but once the author concentrated on letting the main character tell his story in real time, instead of providing description of his environment and early years, I decided to keep reading and did finish this long story. 

The book is only 546 pages but I am sure that it would have been more readable at 300 pages. There is only so much repetition of misery until, in my opinion, it becomes too much. However the many good reviews of this novel show that other readers have a different opinion.

Bolla

Bolla by Pajtim Statovci is on the shortlist for the 2023 James Tait Black award in the fiction section. 

Set before and after the Kosovo civil war the novel recounts the story of two young men who are students at university. Arsim is Albanian while Milos is Serbian and they live in a community contested by both nationalities. Arsim is recently married when he meets Milos in a cafe. Their relationship develops and Arsim finds himself living two lives which becomes complicated when his wife discovers that she is pregnant.

Eventually Arsim and his family leave Pristina to live in a safer community while Milos joins the Serbian army. Many years later Arsim and Milos meet again but Milos' life has been destroyed by war and Arsim is attempting to establish a new life alone in Pristina. There are only memories.

Entwined throughout the novel is the legend of Bolla a snake like creature who appears once a year and devours everything in its path. Arsim writes a version of the story where a blind girl meets the Bolla and they agree to meet each year.

Kosovo conflict - Britannica

After Soppho

Sappho lived between c. 630 – c. 570 BC on the island of Lesbos in Greece. She was known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. 

In the novel, After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz combines possible incidents from the lives of female authors, poets, artists, actors and singers who were known for promoting feminism in the battle for freedom, justice and control of how they wanted to live their lives. These women pushed against the boundaries in a male dominated society.

A chorus of narrators question whether modern feminists owe more to the beliefs and ideals portrayed in the the remnants that have survived of the works of Sappho or to the beliefs of the Trojan prophetess-princess Cassandra, condemned to be unbelieved even as she foretold a terrible future.

Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Eileen Gray, Lina Poletti, Virginia Woolfe , Vita Sackville-West, Romaine Romaine Brooks, Ida Rubinstein, Natalie Barney, Isadora Duncan, Nancy Cunard, Gertrude Stein, Anna Kuliscioff, Rina Faccio and Radclyffe Hall are some of the characters who lived in the late nineteenth century / early twentieth century who appear in the vignettes woven together to form this novel.

This book by Selby Wynn Schwartz was long listed for the 2022 Booker prize.

It is on the short list for the James Tait Black award for 2023.

Interview with Selby Wynn Schwartz about the book, After Soppho.

Review in The Guardian 20 July 2022 - After Sappho

Bitter Orange Tree

Bitter orange tree by Jokha Alharthi and translated by Maryilyn Booth is one of the four books on the short list in the general fiction section for the James Tait Black Awards for 2023.

Zuhour from Oman is a student at a British University. As she tries to work out how to fit in with her new environment she consistently remembers events involving family that have occurred now and in the past. 

The main story that haunts her is that of her grandmother, Bint Amir, who is not actually her grandmother but was adopted into Zuhour's family. Bint Amir's story appears throughout the book in segments concluding in the final section. It is Bint Amir who looks after Zuhour's father, Mansour,when he is a boy. She also plants and tends the bitter orange tree in the family's garden.

Zuhour also reflects on the situation of her older sister, Sumayaa, whose personality dramatically changes after her marriage to a man who turns out to be an abusive partner. 

Zuhour's fellow class mates include Pakistani sisters Kuhl and Suroor who are also struggling to adapt to family expectations when faced with other possibilities. Suroor loves a fellow student Imran but her parents would never approve of the relationship because of his parent's low social status.

During the novel Zuhour reflects on relationships in her family and how decisions are often based on tradition and expectations on how people should behave, especially to preserve the honour and status of the family. 

In this novel there is no consistent narrative, just a collection of  memories and accounts of events which together portray the concerns, remorse and regret experienced by Zahour. At times I found it confusing trying to keep track of what was happening, especially as so many of the names of characters are similar. However the author succeeds in providing the reader with a glimpse of life and expectations, especially for women, from a different culture.

A Shock

Set in Camberwell, London, A Shock by Keith Ridgway is a collection of inter-connected short stories usually involving people from the LGBT community. Most of the stories appear to be independent but characters from different stories appear throughout the book and often reveal part of a previous story from a different perspective. The Party and The Song are two such examples. The interwoven stories form a novel. This book won the 2022 James Tait Black Award for Fiction.

Memorial

Memorial by Bryan Washington is another novel nominated for the James Tait Black Award to be announced in August 2022.

Mike is an over-weight Japanese American chef who works in a Mexican restaurant. His partner, Benson, is a black American with HIV who works in after school care. They have been together, on and off, for four years. Both men have issues with their familes, especially with their fathers. They are also not sure where their relationship is heading.

When Mike discovers that his father is dying in Osaka he decides to go and see him and support him until the inevitable happens. Meanwhile Mitsuko, Mike's mother, arrives from Tokyo and stays with Benson while Mike is away. When Mike returns and announces that he plans to return to Japan to continue to run the family business for a while, he and Benson must decide whether Benson will go with him.

The story is told in three parts - part one and three from Benson's perspective and part two providing Mike's viewpoint. Narrative, without quotation marks is used for much of the book which is OK once you get used to it. There is also a great deal of profanity which does become monotonous.

Gradually we learn about the lives of these two men and about their insecurities. The issues with their disfunctional families are also revealed as the two men gradually decide how they want to live their lives. Attitudes to race as well as to sexual preference is also a theme in the book.

Libertie

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge is one of the nominations for the James Tait Black award to be announced in August 2022.

Libertie and her mother in America as free women. The story starts during the American Civil War when families and individuals fleeing from persecution arrive in the small community where Libertie and her mother live. Libertie's mother is a doctor and has been assisting refugees for some time. Libertie's mother is also determined that Libertie should also become a doctor and that they should form a mother- daughter medical practice. However Libertie knows that this is not the life she wants to live.

The novel deals with Libertie's struggle to determine who she really is and what she really wants from life. The relationship between mother and daughter is an important theme of the book along with race relations and how people from various walks of life view people who look different or have different beliefs.

Alligator & other stories

Each year in the James Tait Black award shortlist for fiction a book of short stories is included. The title this year is Alligator & Other Stories by Dima Alzayat. The author was born in Syria, lived in the USA and now lives in the UK.

The nine stories in the book reflect an aspect of Syrian life and culture and / or what it is like to be different in another country. The stories are told by different people and a variety of writing styles are used to suit the content of the story.

As an example  Alligator, the longest of the stories, is a tale of racial intolerance in an American town, formerly known as Alligator, in Florida. Several stories are interwoven with the main one being the lynching of Syrian settlers in 1929. The story is revealed using a number of devices including newspaper articles and interviews from different time periods.

Once We Were Syrians involves the writing of an essay for school about the Syrian Refugee Crisis including comment on recent history of Syrian, especially the effect on refugees forced to relocate to another country. The speaker in this story is an older lady who is being interviewed by her great niece, though the girl's questions are not provided. The completed essay ends the story.

Ghusl describes the preparation of a body for burial in Syria, normally a ritual undertaken by men but in this case by a woman tenderly caring for her brother's body.

Other stories include:

• Disappearance - when a child disappears from the streets of New York, a mother fears for the safety of her own sons, restricting them to their appartment block. Then one disappears.
  
• Only Those who Struggle Succeed is centred around an event at an office Christmas party and the affects of that event on the life of a female employee as she tries to rise up the corporate ladder .
  
• Summer of the Shark concerns a group working in a call centre in America when disaster strikes in New York on September 11, 2001.
  
• A Girl in Three Acts tells the story of a young girl trying to adapt to a new life after the death of her parents
  

The First Woman

The First Woman, published as A Girl is a Body of Water in the USA, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is another short listed book for the 2020 James Tait Black Award to be announced in August 2021. It will also be featured in the 2021 How to Read a Novel course on Future Learn where participants will use part of the book to look at characterisation in novels.

Twelve year old Kirabo lives in a village in Uganda with her grandparents and extended village family. She has never known her mother but her father visits from Kampala when he can. Life in the village is very much structured around tradition and the law of the clans. Women know their place and girls who want to pursue an education are informed that their prospects of getting a husband will be limited.  In this patriarchal world, however, there are members of her family who encourage Kirabo to continue her education. 

A theme of the book is mwenkanonkano or feminism in a patriarchal society and the book describes Kirabo's quest to establish her role as an individual, able to make her own decisions on her own terms. Part of understanding Ugandian society is via learning and understanding many of the stories that form the culture. Nsuuta tells her the story of early times when the first man came from the land and the first woman from the sea. Women therefore cannot inherit land or make decisions regarding land. Only men can do this. 

Kirabo also wants to know who her mother is and this quest reveals a number of family secrets as well as providing her with a better understanding of the relationship between her grandfather, grandmother and Nsuuta, a longtime friend of her grandmother and a confidante to Kirabo. Most of the novel is set in the 1970s however there is one section where the story of the relationship between Kirabo's grandmother and Nsuuta is explained.

There is also political danger to be faced by the villagers during an insurrection against the regime of Idi Amin (president of Uganda in the 1970s).

This is a beautifully written book about a young girl looking to establish a role for herself in a confusing and structured world.

A Children's Bible: a novel

American author, Lydia Millet in her book, A Children's Bible, has written a novel describing the potential fate of the environment by incorporating metaphors from biblical stories.

A group of adults who attended college together many years ago have hired a large holiday house for several weeks. Between them they have a number of children, most in their late teens though there are several youngsters in the group. The younger generation decide that they would prefer to stay away from the parents as much as possible so end up camping away from the house. The parents seem not to mind and intend to enjoy themselves, drinking, smoking, dancing plus occasional drug taking. There is a definite divide between the parents and the older children with most of the teenagers preferring to ignore their parents altogether.

Evie's eleven year old brother, Jack, is very concerned about nature and the environment and he and his friend, Shel, spend spent much of their time exploring the area around the house. He also likes reading and one of the adults gives him a copy of a Children's Bible which he investigates when not reading his other books. When Evie is concerned with Jack's possible reaction to the bible stories Jack tells her that God is nature, Jesus is the environment while the Holy Spirit is concerned with making things and art.

As the story progresses analogies can be made by the reader to biblical stories and characters. When a storm hits the area where the families are holidaying, Jack and Shel collect animals to keep them safe as in the story of the flood in Noah's Ark. The storm severely damages the house and the surrounding area is flooded so the teenagers decide to transfer to a house owned by one set of parents. With roads blocked this is not possible so they end up camping on a farm where they meet Burl who was floating on the water. Burl later goes to the top of a nearby hill where there is better phone reception to talk to the owner of the farm. On return he announces that it is OK for them to stay provided that they do not break any of the directives made by the owner.

There is also the birth of a baby and three people known as angels (as they restock nearby hiking stations) arrive at the farm. The next section becomes a metaphor for events in the book of Revelation.  The teenagers have access to food supplies and appear to be coping when a gang of men arrive with guns and threaten the occupants of the farm plus the parents who eventually looked for their children. As events look dire a helicopter descends carrying the owner and a group of armed men. Much violence occurs but the teenagers and their parents are rescued and decide that the roads should now be clear enough for them to travel to the house as previously planned and attempt to start a new life there. The teenagers make plans for a sustainable future, however convincing their parents of necessary changes proves impossible. 

In this novel there are references to many bibical characters and events, Noah, Moses, God, Jesus  plus the Apocalypse to name a few. However the main emphasis is on nature and the environment including the effects of climate change and what needs to be done to save the environment. At times the book can be very dark, at times there is humour. Being a book set in America guns feature more than they probably would in another setting.

 A Children's Bible: a novel is on the shortlist for the James Tait Black Award and consequently is one of the books studied in the Future Learn How to Read a Novel course for 2021. I suspect that the plot will create much general discussion.

Some interviews with author and reviews

 The Climate Gospel According to Novelist Lydia Millet LA Times 5 May 2020

The Author of A Children's Bible talks to Kristen Iversen Literary Hub 11 May 2020

A Children's Bible - Publishers Weekly May 2020

There will be flood - Book Forum Summer 2020

Murmur

Murmur by Will Eaves was one of the finalists for the James Tait Black Award for 2019. This fortunately short book is a challenging read. 

The work of fiction is loosely based on the final years of the life of Alan Turing, the famous code breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. The main character is Alec Pryor who struggles to cope after having endured regular chemical treatment plus counselling to cure him of homosexual tendencies that were definitely not tolerated in England in the early 1950s.

Much of the book describes halluciations experienced by Alec as he moves into an unreal world recreating scenes from the past as well as incorporating current fears wildly affected by his treatment. Many of the events are viewed through distorted mirrors in his mind. Interspersed is correspondendence between Alec and his friend June as they try to decipher what is happening to him. When the treatment ends the murmurs begin to recede but do not entirely go away.

Sight

Sight by Jessie Greengrass was one of the finalists in the novel category for the 2019 James Tait Black Prize. 

In the novel an unnamed woman about to give birth to a second child recounts events and fears that occurred during her first pregnancy. She also remembers how the death of her mother affected her some years earlier and the relationship that she had with her grandmother. Interwoven with these memories are accounts of significant events in medical history - Willhelm Rontgen's discovery of the X-ray, Sigmund Freud's development of psychoanalysis and John Hunter's work with his brother William and the artist Jan van Rymsdk in investigating the anatomy of pregnancy.

The different themes of the book are skilfully interwoven and portrayed in three main sections resulting in conveying the protagonist's fears of impending parenthood and her ability to cope as a mother. It is a moving account of the experiences of many approaching motherhood.

Ducks, Newburyport

Ducks, Newburyport was the winner the fiction section of the James Tait Black Award for a book published in 2019. Lucy Ellman has written a substantial novel numbering 998 pages and I must admit that I did not read the book in its entirety. 

For the most part the book is written in one sentence. There are commas but where full stops should be used the author inserts the words 'the fact that'. The story is narrated by a housewife from Ohio and from this stream of conciousness we gradually learn about her family and her thoughts about the state of the world, particularly the USA, in the twenty-first century. Interspersed throughout the work is another story about a mountain lion who hunts for her cubs when they are taken away in a car. This second story is told in twenty-six short segments and normal puntuaction is used.

Themes throughout the book include motherhood, flashbacks to the narrator's early life including relationships with her parents and other family members, climate change and the environment, the USA in the time of President Trump, firearms, illness and death, her cooking and animals. References are frequently made to films and actors, authors and music. There are frequent references to books (for example the series by Laura Ingles Wilder and also the books of L M Montgomery) plus many quotations from a variety of sources. The title of the book is derived from an incident when her mother, as a child, almost drowned.

Once I was prepared to forget about the lack of fullstops and paragraphs and put the words 'the fact that' into the background I found that I became immersed in the writing and the jumping from one topic to another. I read 100 pages and dipped into other sections but, even in a pandemic, decided that I had other things to do.

Girl

Irish author, Edna O'Brien, has been witing for more than sixty years. Her latest novel, Girl, has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black award for a book published in 2019.

This is the story of Maryam, a young girl who with her classmates is abducted from the village school by members of the Boko Haram. The men had been looking for boys to turn into soldiers but when they only found girls the plans changed and the young students were taken as sex slaves.

Graphic descriptions are provided of the life of these young girls who were regularly raped and mistreated. Then Maryam married one of the soldiers and had a child. When the village was attacked one night Maryam escaped with the baby but her challenges were only beginning. She and another student, Buki, struggled to remain alive as they sought safety, but who can they trust? When Mayam was eventually reunited with her family she discovered that her problems were not over.

This is a moving story of the plight of many young women in Nigeria, persecuted because of religious rivalries and the strict structures in society which females are expected to adhere to. It is a story that needed to be told and is told well.

The novel was inspired after the abduction of a group of school girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014. In notes at the end of the book, the author writes briefly of research undertaken before writing the novel.

Girl by Edna O'Brien review - a masterclass of storytelling -  The Guardian 6 September 2019

276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram six years ago - where are they now? - National Geographic March 2020.

Travellers

Travellers by American author, Helon Habila, has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black prize awarded for a book published in 2019.

The novel recounts experiences of those attempting to migrate to Europe from Africa.

The unnamed male protagonist, originally from Nigeria, spends time in Berlin while his African American wife completes an art asignment. He is meant to be completing his thesis but increasingly becomes involved in meeting and listening to the stories of other Africans attempting to make a new life in Europe.

We therefore learn not only of the danger and challenges of making the trip from Africa to Europe plus the struggle of trying to make a new life in a new country very different from the one left behind, but also of the experiences in the home country causing the new arrivals to make the decision to leave.

The author provides the reader with a greater understanding of lives of new migrants and asylum seekers as they attempt to create a new existence in a strange land. The book is divided into six sections with each section telling a different story. There are often connections between the stories, usually provided by the narrator.

 

The characters in his novel are individuals coming from different parts of Africa and encountering different experiences. They also have different levels of command of English or other Europen languages. The book also illustrates horrific situations occurring in some countries forcing people to flee their homeland. 

 

It would be hard for a reader not to be moved by the experiences faced by the characters in this book as it encourages them to reconsider their ideas about asylum seekers.

Crudo

Kathy is about to be married. She is 40 and her future husband is 69. This short novel covers three months of the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2017 when uncertainty reigned with Brexit, Trump, threat of nuclear war with North Korea, rise of Fascism, climate change debates .... Kathy's hopes, fears and insecurities are interspersed with  reports of world and local events constantly being reported on social media of all kinds.

Olivia Laing has created aspects of Kathy based on herown  life experiences but also on the experiences of the punk writer Kathy Acker (1947-1997). Sometimes the book is written in the first person or in the third person, often making the reader uncertain of which aspect of the character, Kathy, is currently involved. The book is largely written as a stream of consciousness. Sections of the book read fluently however other sections are confusing (in my opinion). I suspect that more than one reading of the book would be required to fully appreciate it. Crudo means 'raw' in Italian (often referring to raw fish) which explains the picture on the cover of the edition of the book that I read. Raw adequately describes Kathy's feelings about contemporary life and love in this book.

Crudo won the James Tait Black prize in 2019.

Olivia Laing splits James Tait Black prize win with fellow short listees - The Guardian 19 August 2019

Crudo by Olvia Laing review - a shimmering experimental novel - Guardian 18 June 2018

Kathy Acker - Britannica.com