The Midnight Watch, by David Dyer

Showing all posts about TBR list

The Midnight Watch, by David Dyer

30 September 2021

The tragic 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic has intrigued and fascinated me for as long as I can remember. At age ten or eleven I found a battered copy of the late Clive Cussler’s 1976 novel Raise the Titanic!, in a box of books left out on the street, and then a short time later saw the 1953 film of the vessel’s sinking, although all I recall of that now is its haunting ending.

While it’s been sometime since I watched or read anything Titanic related, The Midnight Watch (published by Penguin Books Australia, February 2017), by Sydney based Australian former ship’s officer, and lawyer, turned teacher and writer David Dyer, recently caught my eye. The story is a fictionalised recounting of events on board the SS Californian, one of the ships in the vicinity of the ill-fated Titanic as it was sinking.

While the captain and senior officers of the Californian were aware the Titanic was in distress – it fired numerous distress flares into the night – they chose to keep their distance, even though they were close enough to see the stricken vessel. Why the Californian stayed put is a question The Midnight Watch attempts to resolve, and it is difficult not to wonder how many lives might have been saved had it rendered assistance.

The Ghostlights, by Gráinne Murphy

29 September 2021

Life can become routine and monotonous. The day-in and the day-out. Often it happens gradually, creeps up from behind, you’re simply too busy to notice. You settle into a pattern, kid yourself you’re content, and believe it. It’s called getting into the zone; the comfort zone. And there you might stay, until something comes along and shakes you out of your self-induced stupor.

Ethel owns a guesthouse in rural Ireland, but leaves its management to Liv, one of her daughters, in The Ghostlights (published by Legend Press, September 2021), the second novel by Cork based Irish writer Gráinne Murphy. Meanwhile her other daughter, Marianne, who is disillusioned with life, returns from Dublin, for some time out. Her homecoming coincides with the arrival of a guest, a man named Fred.

A few days later, Fred is found drowned in a nearby pond, his death a suicide. The tragedy brings the local community together, but the demise of the elderly guest takes a toll on Ethel, Liv, and Marianne. While their neighbours mourn Fred’s passing, the three women find themselves pondering their relationships, their place in the scheme of things, some poor life decisions, and just where it is that they are going.

She Drives Me Crazy, by Kelly Quindlen

28 September 2021

American young adult author Kelly Quindlen knew she wanted to write from the age of six. In comparison, I was a late bloomer. My English teacher in my final year of high school told me he thought my essays were a notch or two above the rest of the class, and suggested I consider a career involving writing. Maybe you could call the Oblong Obsession project another step towards that aspiration.

Maybe then it’s apt I’m writing today about She Drives Me Crazy (published by Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan, April 2021). Quindlen’s third novel is framed around two high-schoolers, Scottie and Irene, who begin fake dating despite barely liking each other. But Scottie is desperate to get back at her toxic ex-girlfriend, Tally, and being seen at the beautiful Irene’s side is the perfect way to bring this about.

Meanwhile, the cash-strapped Irene is happy to take money from Scottie to go along with the charade. But as can happen when apparent polar opposites, with a disdain for each other, are pushed together, the pair begin to develop feelings for each other. But will that be enough? Can Scottie get over Tally? The road is never smooth though, as was the case for the rom-com stories of the 1980s and 90s, which She Drives Me Crazy pays homage to.

The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller

27 September 2021

The Paper Palace (published by Viking/Penguin Books Australia, July 2021), is the debut novel of American author Miranda Cowley Heller. Set in Cape Cod, at the ramshackle yet charming old holiday house where Elle has gathered with her family since she was a child, her late summer reverie is abruptly shattered by a spur of the moment fling with, Jonas, her childhood love.

Despite being happily married to Peter for decades, Elle has always carried a torch for Jonas, but over the next twenty-four hours must decide what she wants. Stay with Peter, her beloved husband, or run off with Jonas, whom she could have been with were it not for a tragic incident many years earlier. As Elle ponders her predicament, she finds herself recalling her childhood, and her parent’s far from happy marriage.

The past is riddled with secrets and transgressions, while the present is convoluted by mature adults still lacking in the ability to communicate clearly. The Paper Palace has polarised readers with depictions of rape, sexual assault, and incest, atrocities of which children are the victims, while manifesting the lifelong damage and impact of this abuse.

Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead

25 September 2021

Great Circle is an aviation term, and in the context of Los Angeles based American author Maggie Shipstead’s novel of the same name (published by Penguin Random House, 4 May 2021), refers to flying around the world, from say the North Pole to the South, and then back. This is what Marion Graves, the pilot at the heart of Shipstead’s third novel is attempting.

However Marion never makes it home during the 1950 flight. Sixty years later a filmmaker is adapting the story of Marion’s life and ill-fated flight to the big screen, and casts Hadley Baxter to portray Marion. Fearing she has become typecast by her part in a recent film franchise, Hadley is keen to take on a role that will cast her in a different light.

But as filming progresses, Hadley becomes drawn into Marion’s rich and varied life, and develops a fascination with her final flight. In learning what she can about Marion, it seems Hadley may have stumbled upon a clue as to the lost pilot’s ultimate fate. Weighing at six hundred pages though, you may want to clear a few other books from your to-be-read list, before beginning Great Circle.

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

24 September 2021

Bewilderment (published by Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin Random House, 21 September 2021), is the thirteenth novel by American author Richard Powers, and his second work to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It tells the story of the recently widowed Theo, an astrobiologist, and his nine-year-old son, Robin.

They live in a chaotic world, confronting climate change and animal extinction, in a country once on the brink of civil war. The administration of a populist president wants to cut scientific research budgets, something that could bring an end to Theo’s work, searching for extra-terrestrial life on other planets.

While Robin is intelligent and creative, he is also deeply troubled, and prone to aggressive outbursts. His school is threatening to expel him unless he is given medication to control his moods, but Theo is against the idea. He would prefer to try an experimental neurofeedback treatment, based on the recorded brain patterns of Robin’s late mother.

No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood

22 September 2021

Quite possibly you’re connected to, on, or in the portal, as you read these words. The simplest definition of the portal would be the internet, though most likely there’s a world of difference between the two. The portal could perhaps be regarded as a hard core social media experience, one that all but consumes those who enter its purview. Does this somehow sound familiar?

No One Is Talking About This (published by Bloomsbury Circus, 16 February 2021), is the debut novel of American poet and author Patricia Lockwood. It tells the story of an unnamed social media influencer who is so caught up in the seemingly inescapable domain of the portal, she appears to have lost sight of what is meant to be the real world. This abruptly changes though when she receives word of a family emergency, and is forced to bring herself back to the here and now.

No One Is Talking About This, which has been named on the shortlist of the 2021 Booker Prize, places the protagonist in two starkly different realms, to the point the novel feels like two novels. In doing so, might the suggestion be the portal and real life can, in some way, co-exist? I don’t know; does a choice even exist?

A Passage North, by Anuk Arudpragasam

21 September 2021

A Passage North, (published by Granta Books, 15 July 2021), is the second novel of Colombo, Sri Lanka, born novelist Anuk Arudpragasam, and was included on the Booker Prize shortlist last week. Set in the wake of the thirty year long civil war that devastated much of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, the story follows Krishan, a young Tamil man, as he makes his way from Colombo to the war ravaged north.

The death of Rana, his late grandmother’s former carer precipitates the long train journey. While travelling to Kilinochchi, Krishan contemplates an email from Anjum, his ex-girlfriend whom he met while living in Delhi, India. This message is the first contact with her in four years, after she ended the relationship to prioritise her activist interests.

Arudpragasam’s work is influenced by late Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, and this manifests itself in the long sentences and paragraphs that are replete throughout the novel. Dialogue is non-existent, as is a focus on story and setting, and it is this less than standard approach to writing that sets A Passage North apart from other works of literature.

The Promise, by Damon Galgut

20 September 2021

An unfulfilled, decades old promise divides an already dysfunctional South African family of five, in The Promise (published by Chatto & Windus/Penguin Random House, 17 June 2021), the ninth book by Cape Town based playwright and novelist Damon Galgut.

In her final days, family matriarch Rachel extracts an undertaking from her husband, Manie, to provide Salome, the well-off family’s long serving housekeeper, her own house on a block of land. Amor, a daughter of the Pretoria based farming family, overhears the conversation, and is determined the commitment be honoured. Her frustration grows though as the years pass, and the family fails to deliver.

The Promise, the third of Galgut’s books to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, switches its storytelling perspective between the troubled family members. The pledge to take care of Salome is an analogy of sorts for a hopeful South Africa emerging from the apartheid years, and the challenges confronting the country in moving away from its past.

The Fortune Men, by Nadifa Mohamed

17 September 2021

The Fortune Men (published by Viking/Penguin Random House, May 2021) is the third novel by London based author Nadifa Mohamed. The year is 1952, and Mahmood Mattan is a Somali sailor living in Tiger Bay, the docklands area of Cardiff, Wales. Married to Laura, with three children, he is something of a larrikin character and a small time criminal.

When a local shop owner is murdered one evening, and Mattan is named as a suspect, he isn’t too worried at first. He had no part in the atrocity, and is certain he would be cleared by the justice system should charges ever be laid. But when a customer present at the store at the time of the murder changes their statement, Mattan is convicted of the crime.

While later found to be a gross miscarriage of justice, from which he was posthumously exonerated, The Fortune Men is a fictionalised account of Matten’s trial and conviction. In being included in the short list of this year’s Booker Prize, Nadifa Mohamed becomes the first British Somali novelist to achieve the distinction.

« older posts

newer posts »