White Noise – Don DeLillo

Jack Gladney is an American academic who has carved out his own personal niche at Blacksmith’s College-on-the-Hill as head of the unique Department of Hitler Studies, a set-up that rather sets the tone for the novel.

Blacksmith is a bit of a backwater and Jack bobs along comfortably with his blended family (fourth wife Babette and four children, of various mothers) discussing the issues of the day with them and with his colleague, Murray Jay Siskind. He’s a visiting lecturer in ‘living icons’ and has an opinion, a theory or an answer for everything.

The first part of the book treats the reader to some wry observations on (what was in the mid 1980’s) present day American life, with the recurrent themes of information overload and a low level but persistent fear of death. Then an ‘airborne toxic event’ occurs, requiring the temporary evacuation of Blacksmith and jacking up Jack’s anxiety over his mortality. In the final section a stronger narrative develops as Jack takes action to face his fears and resolve some issues, leading to an unexpected and eventful climax.

The book grew on me as it moved through its phases. Initially it provided an interesting, but academic, insight into the mid 80’s psyche, well written with a mixture of grim humour and plausible philosophy. Then as the characters’ uncertainties brought out their humanity I began to care more for their welfare, and by the end of the book I realised I had thoroughly enjoyed it.

Black Water Rising – Attica Locke

Jay Porter, black civil rights activist of the 1970's, has become ten years on, a qualified attorney and family man with a wife expecting their first child any day soon. After the deaths of King, Malcolm X, and a couple of Kennedy's, and the rise and fall of the Black Power movement, there are now equal rights, but in Houston Texas that does not mean there is equality.

But Jay keeps his head down and works hard at his one-man practice, eking out a meagre living from clients often without the means to pay, from whom he accepts goods and services in lieu. And it is one of these – a birthday boat trip for his wife – that sets off a train of events that will dredge up past feelings and test his current, head below the parapet, resolve.

Rescuing a woman from the river that night involves him unwittingly in a murder case that he can’t or won’t extricate himself from. At the same time he’s dragged back into the fringes of politics; pressed to open up an old connection with the current City Mayor to get her to intervene in a labour dispute, over equal opportunities for black dock workers, which threatens to spill over into the all-important oil industry.

The latter opens up old wounds and re-kindles some of his latent anger at injustice; the former makes him a target for mysterious forces that are trying to suppress the case. And somewhere behind it all is a bigger picture he can’t quite fathom.

The narrative follows Jay throughout with the tense current action interspersed with more reflective episodes from his past. The multiple layers and themes are well handled, interweaving seamlessly, and the prose is stylish and atmospheric, carrying the book easily through its 400+ pages.

By the end I had a quibble or two with elements of the plot and its resolution, but these were minor and did not detract from a good thriller set against an unusual and interesting backdrop of race, oil and power in 1980’s Texas.

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey.

Set in what is now part of Nigeria in the back half of the nineteenth century; this short novel tells the story of Okwonko, a man of substance in his village and in the wider Umuofia clan.

Life is not easy in sub-Saharan Africa, what with rains and droughts, but from a difficult start in life Okwonko has made good. But change is on the way as the first white missionaries establish themselves close by and cultural conflict looms. The old ways, revered by Okwonko, are already weakening, and the white man’s challenge to the ancestral gods could threaten the unity and solidarity of the clan.

The life in the village before white intervention is well described, as from an insider rather than an external observer – the reader is left to intuit much of this alien world. Indeed this could be a science fiction or fantasy land so strange does it seem with its taboos, hierarchies and accepted violence.

The intrusion of the missionaries is related even-handedly; they are not portrayed as evil or grasping, just different and rather persuasive with their acceptance of those persecuted or rejected by the clan, for example twin babies abandoned (as abominations) in the forest by the natives or those harshly punished for other transgressions.

Through it all, Okwonko battles with his own demons, a fear that he has inherited his father’s weakness and failure, and a temper that is backed up with his strong physical prowess. These undermine his good intentions and hard work so it is not only the clan that is in danger of falling apart.

It is a short and fascinating read deserving of its reputation as ‘one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim’. Sometimes that kind of praise can be off-putting, but don’t be - this is just a good book.

The Likes of Us – Stan Barstow

This book has the subtitle ‘stories of five decades’ combining, as it does three previous collections, first published in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, with a couple of more recent stories.

The Desperadoes collection (published 1961) has stories from the late 50’s and early 60’s with post-war austerity and emerging youth culture ,set in the industrial north, providing the context for his tales of everyday working-class men and women.

A Season With Eros (published 1971) and The Glad Eye (published 1986) show how times have changed for these folk with many materially better off and enjoying the freedoms (moral and material) on offer – nice houses, foreign holidays, semi-detached relationships – but against a contrasting background of 3 million unemployed.

For me Barstow is a master of the short story. Usually a punchy opening line hooks the reader in and then the tale unfolds in uncomplicated prose, exploring whatever facet of human nature he has chosen to expose. The dialogue is convincing (any dialect remains readable) and the denouements are satisfying.

The location, characters and situations are reminiscent of Barstow’s classic A Kind of Loving trilogy (one of my favourite reads that similarly had volumes published over an extended period and so reflected social change, as well as Vic Brown’s personal development) and there can be no finer recommendation from me.

A word of caution to the Kindle edition; the page numbering is hard to credit as the 251 pages cannot possibly contain the 41 stories that originally made up three separate books. I timed my reading of the last “12” pages at 40 minutes, so either the printed version is in a miniscule font or the real length is more like 500 pages – which makes the purchase (it was a 99p deal of the day) even better value.

Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup was of slave stock but was born a free man in the state of New York where he lived, worked, married and started a family, enjoying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness promised by the constitution.

This however is 1841 when in the southern ‘slave’ states such niceties did not apply to those still in bondage; so when Solomon visits Washington DC to work he takes the precaution of securing papers authenticating his status. However this is no protection against kidnap, imprisonment and transportation to Louisiana where he is sold into slavery.

His protestations to be a free man earn him only a savage beating, leaving him resigned to using his wits and education to survive the hard labour and pitiless whippings that comprise his new life as he awaits an opportunity to reassert his freedom.

It is no giveaway that this takes a dozen years, in the prime of his life, to achieve and his harrowing testimony is all the more affecting for the lack of hyperbole. Told in a voice to which I mentally attached Lenny Henry in his serious but Caribbean mode, it has truth and humility as it intersperses the narrative of pivotal events with informative sections on the day to day life of a slave in the American south.

There is action and tension (although we know he gets get through it) but it is the matter of fact delivery that makes for the compulsive reading. Several times it is necessary to remind oneself that this is fact not fiction, and that such a set-up was ever thought, by anyone, as defensible.

An uncomfortable but strangely life-affirming read.

Mr Golightly’s Holiday – Sally Vickers

Read as part V of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

Potentially the least worst of the three authors on offer and intrigued by the blurb’s claim that she is ‘a word of mouth best seller’.

The Review

Mr Golightly arrives at his rented cottage in a Dartmoor village with a view to taking a break from running his (unspecified) business and using the time off to update and adapt a book he wrote some time previously into a modern day soap opera script.

If it was peace and seclusion he was after then he is soon disappointed as the various residents of Great Calne soon latch onto him as a potential new audience, ally or confidante. So instead of writing a soap opera he finds himself living in one.

At this point the characters come thick and fast, and it takes a while (and for me a list) for them to become familiar. Eventually they do, just in time for a couple of more substantial plot lines to emerge – a prisoner escaping from the nearby prison, and Mr Golightly receiving a series of enigmatic e-mails.

These carry forward well the second half of the book and effectively distract the reader from a third, developing, theme that only burst into my consciousness about 30 pages from the end (others may be more perceptive and pick up earlier clues).

The prose is easy on the eye, if prone to the odd flight of fancy, and the main characters soon develop from their stereotypical stock into more complex individuals. The structure, leading to its final reveal, is clever, subtle and rewarding; to me rendering the Afterword superfluous.

This book definitely gets a ‘word of mouth’ recommendation from me.

Read another?

I would be tempted, not by the style but by the inventiveness of the concept and the skill in delivery, which may or may not be replicated in her other works.

The Geneva Trap – Stella Rimington

Liz Carlyle is a high ranking agent with MI5 working to counter the threats to the UK of subversion, espionage and terrorism; but when a Russian spy based in Geneva demands to speak with her (and no-one else) she is drawn into a joint operation with the sister service working abroad, MI6.

As it happens the information received relates to an internal threat by an unknown nation so she is soon stuck into the task of uncovering a mole in a top secret project. As the investigation unfolds liaison is needed with the CIA (the project is joint with the US), with the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (who have had an agent killed by the Russians), and with the French DGSE (as the action moves to Marseilles).

The contributions made by the various agents are related and there is some ongoing personal stuff between Liz and her French connection, Martin Seurat. These two also get involved in a bit of moonlighting to assist a family friend threatened by some undesirable Frenchmen, who may or may not be part of the main case.

It all moves along briskly; the intelligence business has a ring of authenticity (to be expected from an author who herself was D-G of MI5); and tension is introduced through a few cliff-hanging moments, though these feel a bit contrived. Rimington’s writing style retains the echo of a civil service tone that suits the procedural stuff rather than the adventurous episodes – Liz is more George Smiley than James Bond.

This is the seventh book in the Liz Carlyle series but the first I have read. Jumping into the middle of the series is not a problem although references to past events do crop up from time to time.

This volume was diverting enough but I’m not tempted to delve into the back catalogue; rather I may look out for the author’s “Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5” which may better suit her writing style.