Transcription – Kate Atkinson

The book starts in 1981 with the end; Juliet Armstrong, aged 60, knocked down by a car and lying in a London street.  The part of her life that flashes back to her is the last time she was in England in 1950 working for the BBC producing schools programmes for the radio.

That has its challenges, particularly for a woman, but Julia is good at her job and usually gets her way.  But she is troubled when Godfrey Toby, a colleague from her job ten years previous, blanks her in the street.  Then other strange things happen that causes her to reflect back on those times.

That was in 1940, the early days of the war, when as a nineteen year old she volunteered and like many young educated women was recruited as a clerk in the intelligence service.  Godfrey Toby was a double agent running a ring of Nazi sympathisers in London; and when they met to talk sedition in his flat their conversations were recorded next door by Cyril the technician and transcribed by Juliet the clerk typist.  When Juliet is given the opportunity to participate in some low risk field work she jumps at the chance and does well, discovering a talent for dissimulation and lies.  But even low risk operations and transcribing have potential for cock-ups and danger.

And still in 1950, as well as the day job at the Beeb, Juliet is pressed into a favour from time to time by her old bosses.  She is no longer a teenage ingénue, but when a minor op again goes awry danger of a different sort raises its head.

The narrative is light, the plot arc deceptively simple and the time shifts, for once, are straightforward.  That leaves plenty reader attention available to be paid to the period nostalgia and the charming interplay between Juliet and the (mainly male) hierarchy in the secret service and the BBC.

But how much of all that is a front; and what is it hiding?  

The Kind Worth Killing – Peter Swanson

Ted Severson meets Lily in an airport bar, shares a drink; then more, as the flight is delayed.  He also shares his recently discovered marital problems, finding Lily sympathetic to his position and surprisingly supportive of a solution he is considering – to kill the cheating bitch.

In alternate chapters Lily’s back story and Ted’s preparations are revealed in unhurried chilling detail.  It takes nearly half the book before the first twist upends the reader; then more follow in an accelerating spiral to the end.

It is cleverly plotted with interesting main characters who narrate their own intersecting contributions to the unfolding drama.  For those who like their thrillers dark and twisting this is definitely one of the kind worth reading.

Fall of Giants – Ken Follett

This gigantic book, and it is just volume one of a trilogy, aims to whizz the reader through a dozen pivotal years of the early twentieth century that encompasses the First World War.  Follett uses a relatively small cast of main characters, spread geographically and sociologically to make this manageable.  As a result these few representatives of the millions caught up in the maelstrom have experiences and encounters to rival those of Forrest Gump.

Lord ‘Fitz’ Fitzherbert is landed gentry; his land included coal mines in South Wales and a big manor house there.  He sits in the Lords so has the inside track on British war preparations, and his wife is a Russian Princess so he has aristocratic connections there; but he is not above slumming it with his local chambermaid.  Once the war starts he takes up his role as commander in chief of the local regiment and sees service in France and (oddly) Russia.

Lady Maud Fitzherbert, sister of Fitz and of independent mind, is a keen suffragist and political activist not shy of bending the ear of her brother’s influential houseguests.  Pre-war these include young diplomats from the US and Germany, and inconveniently she falls for one of the wrong nationality.

Billy Williams is a young collier in Fitz’s mine, then a young soldier in his regiment; a thorn in the side of the bosses in both cases.  His sister Ethel is a bright-eyed and capable chambermaid at the big house before being shipped out of harm’s way in London.  There she teams up with Lady Maud to promote the suffrage cause.

Gus Dewar and Walter von Ulrich are the junior diplomats from USA and Germany who attend the pre-war unofficial gathering at Fitz’s house.  They may be young and junior but they both have important connections.  Gus is aide to President Wilson and Walter’s father is high up in the German military.  Back in the US, Gus is engaged to Olga Vyalov, daughter of a Russian émigré businessman/gangster.  Walter, having met Maud is keeping his matrimonial powder dry.

Over in Russia the revolution is brewing.  That means trouble for Fitz’s brother-in-law Prince Andrei.  At the other end of the spectrum, it hints at the end of oppression for the likes of Gregori Peshkov, a metal worker who gets active in the soviets that are starting to exert influence.  His brother, Lev, is more interested in getting to America, which he achieves via South Wales (and a brush with Billy).  Once in the USA he gets work as a chauffeur with the Vyalovs and unwisely takes a shine to Olga.  Meanwhile as war and revolution take hold in Russia, Gregori rises high enough to get involved with Lenin and Trotsky.

As the war spreads, characters share meeting rooms in London, battlefields in France, and political manoeuvring in Russia.  Confusing? Not really; it is pretty well put together and the broad sweep is well enough known.  Suspend disbelief in the coincidental nature of the characters’ inter-connectivity and enjoy the insiders’ view of the cataclysmic early years of the century.

And there is more to come for those who need to know how the next generation fare.

The Sellout – Paul Beatty

Where to start?  With the narrator; black, educated – home educated by a social scientist father with his own take on race and street educated by dint of living in the city suburb of Dickens, albeit on an urban smallholding.  Or with Dickens itself; a ghetto community on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, whose twinning overtures are turned down by Juarez who see it as too violent, Chernobyl as too polluted, and Kinshasa as too black.  Or with the alleged crime: violation of the thirteenth amendment through the ownership of a slave.

It matters not as once the machine gun prose of Paul Beatty starts everything gets shot at as the narrator seeks to explain how he ended up in front of the Supreme Court despite his well-meaning efforts to recreate the self-respect and community spirit of Dickens.  OK, his methods were unconventional and counter-intuitive, not to mention often hilarious.

With each paragraph packed with meaning (and peppered with expletives) it is not a quick read, but in the main it is a fun read.  Sure, serious points are made but more in exasperation than anger.

Readers not black nor American (like me) may miss some of the jokes and references but that still leaves plenty to laugh at and think about.

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein

Enzo knows how to race in the rain, motor racing that is, despite being a dog.  He has learnt it all from Denny, with whom he lives.  Denny is a man, an amateur racing driver, who puts the sport on TV all the time: movies like Grand Prix and Senna; Formula One and NASCAR races; and even driver-view videos of the great racetracks.  Enzo knows when trouble hits the track, like rain, the best drivers respond positively, embracing the conditions, keeping the car on the road until things improve.

Enzo has learnt much more from watching daytime TV documentaries while Denny is at work.  One of these aired the Mongolian belief that good dogs reincarnate as humans.  He decides to prepare himself for that by careful study of mankind, which enables him to narrate the novel from his canine point of view intelligently and articulately.

He adapts when Denny’s girlfriend Eve moves in and is protective when their daughter Zoe is born.  But happy families can be a short game.  When tragedy, conspiracy, injustice and rank bad luck hit Denny he must, with Enzo’s help, apply the art of racing in the rain to keep his life on the track.

Accept the premise and the book flows well enough.  The slings and arrows that rain down are predictable but nonetheless affecting; ditto the conclusion.  Affinity with dogs and/or motor racing no doubt adds to the enjoyment but is not a prerequisite.

For me it was reminiscent of the inevitably superior ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ but with simpler prose; after all this one is narrated by a dog not a philosophy lecturer.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

At least that I what she tells her social worker, her only visitor as she keeps herself to herself.  She lives alone, kept company by cheap bottles of vodka that help her through weekly conversations with her apparently institutionalised mother.  At work she keeps her head down and gets the job done.

Her life changes when she wins tickets to a music gig and is stricken by the lead singer of the support act.  It is love at first sight, for Eleanor at least; Johnnie Lomand is oblivious to her existence.

Eleanor realises that alterations are necessary to woo Johnnie – hair, clothes, social skills all need an upgrade – and stepping into the unknown to achieve them leads her into a whole new world of social interaction, including social media.  For help with her computing needs she seeks help from friendly but unprepossessing IT geek Raymond; her social pointers come from streetwise hairdresser Laura.

All the while hints emerge of the darkness in her past that has left her scarred (physically and emotionally).  And as the book progresses into the second half Eleanor’s life becomes a tug of war between the draw of her new life and the anchor of her past.

                                                                           

It is well written with plenty of humour in Eleanor’s discovery, not to mention dismay, of the modern world.  The portrayal of her older, darker, life that clings to her is equally well done.  Which will gain the upper hand?  By the end the reader fervently hopes that indeed Eleanor Oliphant will be completely fine.

Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale

The eponymous exhibition is of paintings and ephemera of artist Rachel Kelly, recently deceased; and the notes that accompany each item form chapter headings that introduce aspects of her world.  The chapters slowly build a picture of her life and family, but the chronology is sliced and diced to tease and keep the reader engaged to the end, though the reveals confirm rather than confound expectations.

Rachel Kelly’s portfolio is broad with portraits, landscapes and abstract works on show; and Gale follows suit.  He sets many a scene with loving descriptions of the Cornwall landscapes.  He portrays an artist at work, a mother less than perfect, and a family as dysfunctional as most, bringing out emotional turmoil every bit as effectively as Kelly’s non-representative art.

It is well enough put together but as the family’s dramas are exposed those relating to the survivors – husband Anthony, sons Garfield and Hedley, and wayward daughter Morwenna – turn out to be low key and rather uninteresting.  It is left to those of the dead – Rachel and son Petroc who died young – to provide the mystery and spice in the tale.