Here are some very short (one-paragraph) unpublished reviews of works of fiction I have enjoyed and would recommend for at least some readers. In the reverse order in which I read them, not of publication, so most recent reads first.
Since the death of Alice Munro, whose work I didn’t know, I’ve been trying to catch up on what makes this chronicler of small-town Canada so compelling. There seems to be no one place to start, so I’m undertaking a meandering tour of her many short stories in much the same way as she describes herself, her brother and her traveling salesman father making a tour of the rural Ontario countryside in “Walker Brothers Cowboy”, the first story in the collection A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories, 1968-1994. As some perceptive critic (I don’t remember who) pointed out, you don’t remember her sentences but you do remember her scenes. And her moods, I would add, and the perplexity everyone feels when the world doesn’t answer you in the way you’ve come to expect. The second story in the collection, “Dance of the Happy Shades”, is a delicious example of this: it starts with small-town gossip and backbiting and ends in quite unexpected epiphany. Others I’ve admired, and been bewitched by, include “The Beggar Maid”, in the same collection, “In Sight of the Lake”, in the collection Dear Life, and the well-known but nevertheless magnificent “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”, in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. The last two are particularly absorbing, and scary, for those of us with elderly relatives or nearing old age ourselves.
The Winding Stair, by Jesse Norman:
A gripping historical novel set at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and the beginning of the reign of King James I. It charts the rise and rivalry of Francis Bacon and Edward Coke, and along the way makes subtle points about how different visions of the law serve conflicting political and religious agendas. Stylistically owes much to Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, but still develops a recognisable voice of its own. An intellectually demanding read, but it keeps the story flowing and is never dull.
Columba’s Bones, by David Greig:
A disturbing tale of a community of monks on the Island on Iona, off the West coast of Scotland, in the year 825. They suffer a brutal attack from Viking raiders, in the aftermath of which a handful of survivors try to rebuild their lives on this lonely outpost. Violent but also surprisingly lyrical at moments. Spare prose, with vivid images.
Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke:
One of the most haunting novels I have read in years. Set in a fantastic dilapidated palace whose origin is never specified but whose relationship to the everyday world is radically reassessed as the story advances. Unlike anything else I know. A masterpiece.