Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

To start at the end is only sensible, for this is the imagined back story of Antoinette, the mad wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

Before then she is the attractive stepdaughter of a Mr Mason, with a large dowry designed to get her off his hands.  Edward Rochester takes the bait but soon regrets it as Antoinette comes with a lot of baggage: a Jamaican estate denuded due to the emancipation of the slaves; a handful of house servants, some faithful, some resentful; an absent mother reputed to be crazy; and mixed race relatives that date back to the indiscriminate philandering of her dead father, ‘old’ Cosway’.

The Caribbean climate is oppressive, as is the poisonous social sphere where complexities of race, nationality, class and wealth conspire to confound both characters and the reader.

We know how it ends, and Jane Eyre fans will probably enjoy this spin-off telling how it started.  The general reader less so?

Review of 2018 Reading Year

A good year’s reading saw 30 books read and reviewed with a high proportion (80%) by ‘new to me’ authors.  The standard was variable with a new random element introduced by joining a reading group at the local independent bookshop.  However this diverted resources away from the ‘bookpacking’ reading journey leaving it becalmed somewhere in South America; no matter, onward to Africa in 2019.

Five ‘new to me’ authors, a reading group choice and a familiar favourite all feature in my seven best books of the year, which are as follows. (Full review month in brackets.)

A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan: An eccentric cast of characters pop in and out of a disconnected but entertaining and invigorating narrative. (January)

Sixteen Trees of the Somme – Lars Mytting: Great locations, deeply involved plot, and engaging characters make this a richly satisfying tale of intrigue and self-discovery. (April)

Educated – Tara Westover: Jaw-dropping autobiography of a girl who self-educates herself out of the backwoods of Idaho and her isolationist patriarchal family. (June)

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep – Joanna Cannon: Set in the oppressive heat of the summer of ’76 this multi-layered mystery tale is rich in period detail and has a young main narrator whose simplicity of telling provides great insight. (June)

Transcription – Kate Atkinson: Told over three short periods, decades apart, the deceptively light tone hides dark deeds, violence and betrayals first in WW2 London then post war in the BBC. (November)

The Kind Worth Killing – Peter Swanson: A cleverly plotted and unusually structured thriller that starts with a chance encounter at an airport and ends up in mayhem. (November)

I Let You Go – Clare Mackintosh: Another cleverly plotted and unusually structured thriller, this one starts with a tragedy and ends in a headlong rush to avert another. (December)