Review: The Twins by Saskia Sarginson

The Twins
by Saskia Sarginson
Published by Piatkus Books
ISBN 9780749958671

As seen on the Booksellers NZ blog

The debut novel from British author Saskia Sarginson simply called The Twins, is anything but simple: it’s a beautifully layered novel about childhood, the haunting nature of secrets and the unbreakable bond of twins.

Isolte and Viola are leading vastly different lives. One lies emaciated in a hospital bed, ravaged by an eating disorder: the other is a fashion writer with all the trappings of hedonistic 80’s success – arty boyfriend, nice apartment, the right clothes. It’s hard to believe these twin girls were once unspeakably close, living in a kind of hippy Arcadia with their unconventional but loving mum in the Suffolk countryside. But a series of events, beginning with the chance meeting and befriending of a pair of local red headed twin boys, leads to a chain reaction of tragedies that tears at the seams of the girl’s twinness. Over the course of the novel, Isolte and Viola delve back into the terrible events of that heartbreaking summer, to a restless past that threatens their future.

There are many clever things about this novel. The first one that struck me was how carefully crafted the story is, but not in a heavy or obvious way. Sarginson is able to conjure up fresh, deceptively simple but quite stunning ways of describing the everyday and she does it time and time again. Let me give you an example:

“Water dribbles through the ceiling in their bedroom. It seeps around the light fixing, spreading like a shadow, and drips into a bowl that Isolte put under it. It smells like moss and wet wood. It’s been raining for days. Sudden squalls splatter loudly against the windows. The land outside the garden runs like a river, pebbles carried off in the flood and the sand darkened and sopping. There are puddles everywhere. Nobody comes.”

Another clever trick to the novel is the shifting narrative: the voice changes between Isolte and Viola and back again, and it did take a little getting used to. I admit occasionally I got caught out and had to back track and re-read as I was coming from the wrong twin’s perspective. But this shifting of narrator also gives a strong sense of the sameness and difference between the twins, both as children and especially as adults.

The story also shifts through time and place: from the grown up twins in mid 80s London, back to their 70s Suffolk childhood. This technique allows the two time threads to be gently teased out and the novel is a slow building, criss-crossing reveal to the tragic events that irrevocably change the course of their lives.

The chance for redemption for the girls, when it finally comes, leaves this sometimes dark and tense novel with an uncertain but hopeful ending – one that a little part of me wishes could have had a few pages more and a slightly more certain path for Isolte and Viola.

The Twins is a compelling slow burn of a story with evocative writing. It’s an accomplished first novel by Saskia Sarginson and it was with genuine pleasure I read she’s already at work on her next novel – which I will definitely be adding to my wish list.

Thanks to Hachette for the review copy :)


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Authors are my rock stars...

Fan girl squeeeeeeeeeeeeee.......

Generous. That's the perfect word to describe the wonderful Kate De Goldi who I was so lucky to meet at a NZ Book Month event in March. Kate was so generous with her time (she spoke for almost 90 minutes!), with her knowledge, her enthusiasm and her passion for writing and children's literature and she shared many hilarious and fascinating anecdotes and tips as well.  She totally inspired me and made me want to swallow down the crippling fear I have and attempt to write (confession: I still haven't).  She's such an amazing talent and a very deserved finalist in this year's NZ Post Children's Book Awards for "The ACB With Honora Lee" which I adored. (She's my pick to win just quietly which is a big call since I LOVE the other nominees especially David Hill and Rachael King).

It's funny how connected I feel to Kate's books, how much they speak to my own life experiences. Dementia, the main theme in The ACB With Honora Lee, is a subject very close to me after losing my Nana to it over a decade.  And before that, Frankie in The 10pm Question was reminiscent of my childhood nightly terrors. 

Review - The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project
by Graeme Simsion
Published by Text Publishing

It’s one of the first books in 2013 to garner loads of industry and reviewer buzz and the author is a Kiwi!

Auckland born now Melbourne based, author Graeme Simsion’s debut novel, The Rosie Project, is a sweet, hilarious and utterly unique take on the age old quest to find true love. His hero is undiagnosed Aspergers sufferer and professor of genetics Don Tillman, a man who is more than a touch unconventional. For instance he lives his life by a carefully created life and meal schedule timed to the minute – meaning he loathes change or uncertainly – but is without doubt, intellectually brilliant and socially awkward in equal measure.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, Don is more than a little unlucky in love but hits upon an idea to find his ideal wife – a questionnaire (which stretches to 16 pages no less!) to weed out women who don’t meet his extensive perfect match criteria. No “time wasters, the disorganised, the ice cream discriminators, the visual harassment complainers, the crystal gazers, the horoscope readers, the fashion obsessives, the religious fanatics, the vegans, the sport watchers, the creationists, the smokers, the scientifically illiterate, the homoeopaths, leaving, ideally, the perfect partner…”

Phew!

Of course the one person Don does fall for, Rosie Jarman, would never get a pass mark on “The Wife Project” survey but through a series of misunderstandings, this woman with her many imperfections – and a quest of her own- turns out to be absolutely perfect for Don. If only he could put aside science to see it.

This feel good comedic novel was originally written as a screenplay by Simsion and picked up the Australian writers Guilt/Inception Award for Best Romantic Comedy. After adapting it into a novel, Simsion then picked up another prestigious award with his unlikely love story, the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literacy Award for an unpublished manuscript. The rights for the novel have been sold in over 30 countries worldwide and have netted the business-consultant-turned-full-time-writer a six figure advance.

So is The Rosie Project worth several million dollars and hundreds of column inches of glowing reviews?

Yes indeed.

The wonderful thing about The Rosie Project is the characters. Professor Don Tillman is a truly original voice. I loved the insight into how his Aspergers mind works, how detailed and literal his brain is and all the little tricks he’s learned to decipher and react to what often seems to him to be unfathomable human behaviour. In Rosie, we have a fresh, feisty and straight talking love interest with a huge heart and an intriguing story line of her own; a quest to find her biological father harnessing Don’s superior genetics knowledge and skills. Meanwhile straight-laced Don’s sex mad friend and colleague Gene provides a perfect comedic foil as well as an interesting marriage survival subplot.

Oozing warmth, fun and just a little bit of oddness, The Rosie Project is a cleverly written, funny and entertaining debut novel well deserving of the huge acclaim it has enjoyed – and I’m delighted to be able to add my own two cents worth of praise to it too.

Wot I read: How To Be A Good Wife (a mini review)

I think there's something wrong with me.

I just finished How To Be A Good Wife by Emma J Chapman (read the plot summary here) today which reviewers have been falling over themselves to slather with praise and I was...well, a little disappointed. I kept waiting for a big twist at the end or at least some clarity but there was neither. I think it's one of those endings you're supposed to be left purposely dangling so as to keep you thinking about the characters and I personally have always hated those kind of books. Give me firm resolutions I say!

I also got a little frustrated with the main character Marta, that she didn't come right out and bluntly state her fears to her son, instead easily allowing herself to be moved away from the topic (and go to bed!). I guess years of forced submission will do that to you but oh how I wish she could find the strength she needed to be heard! I guess (semi spoiler alert) she ends up finding that strength in another way...

But the suspense, especially at the beginning of the novel is excellent. Gripping and intense and as someone who doesn't often read books in this genre, damn freaky for me too.  And I LOVED the snippets of good wifely advice that give the novel it's name - so quaintly antiquated now as to be truly comical. (I was given something similar on a tea towel for a wedding present :P).

But yeah, mostly still wanting that firm resolution :P

                                                                      

The astute of you will note this isn't my usual first post for January - rather I normally do a wrap up of fav books from the year just been and other wee highlights. It's coming, I promise!

Life After Death - Damien Echols. A review.

Title: Life After Death

Author: Damien Echols

It’s hard not to bristle with impotent ire at the injustices meted out to Damien Echols. As the so called ringleader of the “West Memphis Three”, he withered in an Arkansas death row cell for 18 years for the supposedly satanic killing of three eight-year-old boys: a crime he did not commit, of which there was not a scrap of evidence linking him or his co-accused to and for which he was blatantly set up for by corrupt police.

What happened next almost reads like a soap opera storyline, but it was real life – Damien’s real life.  A determined woman named Lorri Davis became first his pen pal, then tireless freedom crusader, then wife. She gave up her New York life to move near him for visits of just three hours a week – all the while working relentlessly to clear his name, pulling in global superstars like Sir Peter Jackson, Johnny Deep and Eddie Vedder to her campaign and in August 2011, securing his release.

“Life After Death: the shocking true story of an innocent man on death row,” Damien Echols’ own words, is a beautiful chameleon. At times his writing takes on a lyrical quality as he explores his deep nostalgia for winter, his favourite time of year, the comfort and strength he finds in meditation and prayer or the soul destroying despair that often threatens to envelope him. He writes:

“It used to be that a certain wrongness danced across the ocean’s surface, crackling like chain lightening. Now the despair is more subtle, sinking silently beneath the waves and coming to rest in dark and poisonous places. The surface becomes pallid and exudes a sick, gray, greasy feeling that eventually drives you mad. It’s an endless cycle that breeds a never-ending supply of frustration. Its heartache in the color of lead, and nothing in the world can heal it.”

At other times he is a masterful (possibly unintended) comedian, lifting the tragic circumstances of his imprisonment with comical descriptions of the madder inmates he shares death row with and their bizarre rituals and behaviours.  Still again, his story is also a gritty and unrelenting expose into the American Penitentiary and the violence and hatred that is dished out daily and unchecked by prison guards in a system that breeds dehumanization.  As Echols chillingly writes:

“In the end…if you rolled all the deprivations into one thing, it would be this: I miss being treated like a human being.”

Whatever he writes about, Echols is unflinchingly candid. He describes his “white trash” childhood which included a stint living in a ramshackle hut in the middle of a corn field with no running water or electricity and that was regularly aerially dusted with pesticides.  He details his unreliable parents, whose love and attentions were at best hit and miss, and the solace he found through his difficult teenage years in exploring different religions, dressing in “goth” style and his love of death metal – unremarkable teenage activities that would later be used to paint him as the embodiment of evil to a frenzied public baying for vengeance.  

While Echols doesn’t delve into the details of the tainted evidence or false courtroom testimony at his trial (so ably explored in first the Paradise Lost documentaries and more recently in West of Memphis, co-produced by our own Peter Jackson as well as Echols) he does explore the circumstances of his wrongful arrest and the vendetta against him by local law enforcement officials. Their relentless and unwarranted pursuit of him, all of which were the catalyst for what unfolded in the courtroom, makes for shocking reading, as does that no one – not his family nor his lawyers – stepped up to help him when he so desperately needed it and couldn’t help himself. 

Echols’ eventual release from prison, so hard fought for by Lorri and his supporters, came at a terrible cost - financially, physically, emotionally.  And though now a free man, he ends his story needing closure:

“Ultimately, I know that freedom isn’t enough. I’m a young man, and the only way all three of us will be able to live the rest of our lives is being exonerated.  I need the person or persons who murdered those three children, and who put me on Death Row for eighteen years, found and brought to justice.”

If anyone deserves justice, it’s those six innocent West Memphis boys: the three young murder victims and the three wrongly accused and imprisoned.

The deplorable facts of his case, the lack of nurturing and love in his childhood, the bleak reality he faced for 18 years in death row – all of this could have made “Life After Death” a dark and disturbing read, and at times it is.  But it is also a beautifully written, intensely compelling read that doesn’t veer into the morose or self pitying - a testament to the strength of Damien Echols’ character, the substantive power of his spirituality and the unwavering love of his amazing wife Lorri. 

My thanks to Text Publishing for the review copy.

Children of Liberty - a review

Title: Children of Liberty

Author: Paullina Simons

Year: 2012

Prequels to beloved series are tricky things: they come weighted with so many expectations from fans it can be difficult for the story to live up to them. Could Children of Liberty, Paullina Simons’ new novel and prequel to the epic historical romance trilogy The Bronze Horseman, overcome this and shine as a story in its own right?

The book centres on the early life of the parents of The Bronze Horseman hero Alexander.  Harry Barrington comes from a world of Boston privilege, education and wealth.  He couldn’t be more different from young Gina Attaviano, the spirited, enterprising and beautiful 14-year-old Sicilian immigrant who first captures his best friend Ben’s heart. But Gina only has eyes for Harry, even though her initial school girl crush goes unrequited.

Skip five years on and Gina – now known as the more Americanised Jane - is a refined beauty and Radcliffe educated woman with a gaggle of male admirers. Harry meanwhile is engaged to his long-time sweetheart, the exceedingly forgiving Alice, and planning their wedding – billed as Boston’s society event of the year. He’s struggling to complete his doctorate at Harvard and advance his stymied academic teaching career while under pressure to join the family business – or at the very least make a decent career for himself and his soon-to-be bride.  But a chance meeting with Jane changes everything and the two embark on a tumultuous secret affair that will forever change the course of both their lives.

The ending, which to be honest leaves the future looking pretty bleak for the two fated lovers, clearly paves the way for another prequel - which thankfully Simons is already writing. It will be titled Bellagrand and along with it she plans to write a Great Depression trilogy which also predates The Bronze Horseman.

So, did Children of Liberty meet this fan girl’s prequel expectations? The answer is yes and no.

For me, the big stumbling block was Harry – he just wasn't all that likeable and at times I wondered what the delightful Gina or the very patient Alice saw in him. Forced into action only through complete inaction, he came across as weak, indecisive and not really worthy of Gina's long burning passion. I did however adore the initial slow, smouldering build up of her crush on him and I could completely relate to it.  This is what Paullina Simons does best – writing romantic tension that squeezes your own heart with the same fierce longing that fuels her characters desires.

And it’s not hard to see why Harry falls for Gina: she is a complete breath of fresh air to his stuffy, staid life.  In many ways she reminded me of a young Tatiana from The Bronze Horseman, with her charming naivety, steely determination and sunny optimism. I loved how she almost single-handedly propels her family towards success while pulling herself up from humble Italian immigrant to respectable, educated and worldly woman.

Then there is the clever weaving of historical fact into the narrative: Simons has clearly done her homework and there were many nods to important people, events and political movements of the times without bogging the story down. 

So for me, the novel does suffer from comparisons to the beautiful Bronze Horseman it predates. It’s not the same intensely passionate saga but nonetheless, it is an absorbing read in it’s own right about turn-of-the-century America, overcoming social divides and the consequences, both terrific and tragic, of following your heart. 

And in case you were wondering, yes I will be reading the next instalment of Harry and Jane’s lives: I look forward to learning all that comes next in their story including that seemingly unfathomable decision to turn their back on the United States for Communist Russia.

My thanks to Harper CollinsNew Zealand via Booksellers NZ for the review copy.

My top 3 reading distractions...

Fact: I love reading (duh).

Also fact: the universe loves throwing distractions at me when I'm reading - doubly so when there's a review pending.

Here's the top three things that (regularly) get between me and my book:

1. The Internet

Oh sweet interwebs, how I love thee but you are the biggest time suck ever - and I'm looking right at you Twitter.  Okay, and Facebook too. And emails. And news websites. And Google Reader.  

It's like I'm scared to miss out on something so every time I finish a chapter, I find myself skimming the net to see what's been happening in the world in the last 10 minutes since the previous chapter ended. Sigh. It's a dependency I know - and it's only got worse since I bought my beloved tabby as now I don't even have to move off the couch/out of bed to do my browsing.

2. The Anipals

I love my furbabies beyond words but I swear they know when I'm up to a critical point in the story (maybe I have a fiercely concentrating face they recognise?) and choose that *exact* moment to annoy me, destroy something or beg for food. 

But then paradoxically I can have had one of those rare moments (see below) when I hit my groove and have been reading uninterrupted for hours, escaping completely into the story and forgetting everything around me, when I am jolted by the sickening realisation it's been *too* long since the furchildren bothered me.  And then that's usually when I find the cushion on the couch has been shredded into tiny pieces of foam and material and flung all over the lounge.  Or the stereo cables have been severed by sharp little teeth. Or the meat defrosting on the bench for dinner is now in the belly of a happily-licking-his-mouth cat.

Either way, they are far too adorable to stay mad at for long - lucky for them :P

 3. Bed

Reading may be my one true love but sleep comes a close second. And because I'm old, the two usually come close together.  Bed is my favourite place to read (so warm and comfy!) but those same things I love about it, I also loathe for they bring on the sleepies - that all powerful urge to put my head on the pillow....for just a minute...and then I wake up three hours later...usually because of the Anipals.

(Being old and needing my beloved sleep also means that long gone are the days when I could stay up til 3am finishing that must-read-til-the-end-immediately-or-I-shall-perish book, get up with the alarm and still be bright eyed and bushy tailed at work. I miss those days).

4. Honourable Mention

Food - if I was a breed of dog I'd be a Labrador: obedient, easily excitable, do anything for food.  If there's something particularly tasty in the house (and by tasty I of course mean from the "eat once in a blue moon" section of the food pyramid) I cannot stop thinking about it until I've consumed Every. Last. Bite.  I'd love to know what the Dukan Diet guy would think of that. (No wait, I wouldn't).

So what about you?  What comes between you and your book? Or are you one of those people I admire (okay and envy quite a bit too) who can shut out the world any time, any place when you're reading?  <- If this is you, please share your secret!