Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The book-packing journey visits Japan, which has to mean Murakami and Norwegian Wood.

The narrator, Toru Watanabe, hears the strains of the Beatles hit, Norwegian Wood, and his mind is transported back 18 years to 1969 when he was a student in Tokyo. He was a bit of a misfit, scarred by the suicide of his close schoolfriend Kizuki.

At college he befriends Nagasawa, a party animal and insatiable womaniser, despite having a perfectly lovely girlfriend. Over the course of the academic year, Watanabe acts as his wingman, picking up his leavings, but also meets three other, more interesting, young women.

Naoko is his dead friend’s girlfriend (ex now!). She and Watanabe wander the streets of Tokyo seeking meaning in the absence of their common soulmate. Hatsumi is Nagasawa’s girlfriend, who tolerates his misbehaviour. This mystifies Watanabe, who sympathises with her and would like to offer a better option. Midori is a student on one of his modules. She, too, has her own boyfriend, but likes hanging out with Watanabe.

Stuff happens as Watanabe ricochets between the three girls. They mainly talk about relationships and feelings, but as they get closer, things develop. Watanabe is not shy when it comes to describing the sex, such as it is. The clinical fashion of such description may be a cultural thing, or a translation problem, though the otherwise the prose is easy on the eye.

Things get serious, so it is not a tale of fun, games, and student high jinks. The opposite in fact, and a narrative hook is how bad can things get before they get better. The other hook is will Watanabe be able to find a happy ending.

The Tokyo and wider Japan background, while not intrusive, provides glimpses of local colour. But this is all about Watanabe, and his inner monologue.

The Loney – Andrew Michael Hurley

The Loney is a stretch of the Lancashire coast, sparsely populated, where strangers stand out. It is Easter weekend, and a group of visitors descend on The Moorings, an old, neglected house available for let. The group have been here before, it is a regular event, the faithful of St Jude’s church on a pilgrimage of sorts that will take in a visit to a local shrine.

It is not exactly Lourdes, but Mary Smith holds out hope for a cure to her teenage son’s mutism. Her faith is not shared by her other son, the unnamed narrator of the tale, who finds himself the de facto minder of his brother. And for this trip, there is a new vicar, Father Bernard, the old one, Father Wilfred, having recently died a death no-one talks about.

This main strand of the narrative is told in retrospect, the boy now a man in a time when a news item causes him to look back with concern. His recollections go back to this fateful weekend, and beyond to earlier times when he and Andrew were even younger, and Father Wilfred ruled the vicarage.

Things happen. Strange things happen, incompletely explained, but believable, nevertheless. The atmospheric setting clings to the page, and the interplay between the genteel but warring pilgrims is delicious. More sinister are the few residents of the Loney who slip in and out of the mist, by turns threatening and friendly. Are they intent on harm or good? And if good, at what price?

Where, how, and why each strand of the story will pan out keeps the pages turning right to the end.

Summerwater – Sarah Moss

Midsummer’s day, the longest of the year, stretches ahead for the holidaymakers at Summerwater, a small collection of lodges and caravans in the forest beside the loch. Idyllic? Less so in the gentle but incessant Scottish rain.

What to do on such a day? As it progresses, we sample the thoughts of those in temporary residence. Justine sneaks out for an early run, leaving Steve snoring. Retired couple David and Mary, regulars at the camp, share space but little else during their rainy-day routine of drive, teashop, return. Josh and Milly, young lovers still in bed, give not a jot for the weather as they strive for simultaneous orgasm, though Milly’s mind wanders. Children Lola and Jack are persuaded outdoors by their mum, to splash in puddles and throw stones into the lake. Teenagers Becky and Alex are too old for such distractions, squabbling works for Becky but Alex heads off with his kayak, defiant of the poor conditions on the lake. Claire keeps a close eye on her two toddlers, obsessively cleaning the caravan, and even when husband Jon offers to take them off for an hour, she cannot relax.

The holidaymakers watch each other through condensation clouded windows, speculating on each other’s lives while examining and comparing their own.

But there is one more caravan. The noisy one with visitors, loud music, and drinking. Foreigners. Romanians, thinks Jon; Bulgarians, is Steve’s guess; Ukrainians, says Becky, and at least she has spoken to them. As night finally draws in, and the party starts again, more than one of the natives think enough is enough, and head over to have a word.

The tight, insightful prose draws in the reader. There is fascination in the minutiae of the relationships and the inferences they generate. The changing perspectives are handled well and provide a slow burning fuse to a worthy denouement.

The Last House on Needless Street – Catriona Ward

Let’s start with the occupants of the eponymous dwelling: Ted Bannerman, his cat Olivia, and sporadically his daughter Lauren. Apparently, that is, as from quite early on it is clear that nothing can be taken at face value with these unreliable narrators, that include the cat.

More reliable, you would think, is the woman who comes to rent the house next door, presumably the penultimate house on Needless Street. It is from Dee’s third person perspective that we learn of events at the nearby lake many years ago, when her sister Lulu went missing never to be found, dead or alive, since. Dee reckons Ted Bannerman is responsible, and she is out to prove it. As her narratives progress, further details of Lulu’s disappearance are revealed, along with Dee’s efforts to find her.

As for Ted, Olivia, and Lauren, clues as to their involvement can be inferred (rightly or wrongly). More importantly, clues to their relationships are not so much revealed as scattered around for the reader to make of what they can. What is for sure is that the trio don’t get on well.

The psychological tension is built up, but the drive to turn the pages is not so much to do with the prose or the narrative as to finally rationalise the weirdness of the book and move on. To be fair, the denouement has its merits in terms of plotting, and just about justifies the effort in getting there.