Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally

Oskar Schindler is a bit of an enigma and remains so even after this biography in the form of a novel.  As Keneally says, such a medium seems suited to tell the story of such an elusive and ambiguous character.

The facts at least, are known – how a German businessman, to all appearances one of many looking to maximise their war profits on the back of military contracts and interned Jewish labour, contrived to keep safe over a thousand workers first in his factory in Krakow before then transporting them wholesale to a new location in Czechoslovakia as the Russian army crossed into Poland.

The motivation is more difficult to fathom.  Readers are left to draw their own conclusions from the narrative pieced together from information gleaned from the survivors and their personal recollections and testimonies.  It is clear that Schindler is no saint; he was a womaniser who liked the good life and knew how to grease the palms of the powerful.  But what drove him to use his charm, money and influence to save the lives of strangers rather than exploit them to enhance his fortune?  Was it a dislike of the Nazi mind-set and its thuggish proponents or an anti-establishment streak in his entrepreneurial soul that drove him to undermine, frustrate and ultimately defy the powers that be?

Keneally provides the evidence – clearly and largely unemotionally - leaving the verdict to the reader.

Fascinating, tragic and uplifting by turns, the book provides a rare microcosmic insight into the darkest times in modern European history.

The Wrong Boy – Willy Russell

This book, though no travelogue, describes two journeys made by young Raymond Marks.

The first is simple in conception and purpose as he tries to get from Failsworth in Manchester to Grimsby to start a job on a building site organised for him by his uncle.  But it is anything but straightforward in execution as his efforts to hitch-hike there fall foul of bad luck, poor decisions and a sketchy grasp of geography.  Happily for the reader it is also extremely funny.

It is all recorded in real time by Raymond in his ‘lyrics book’ in the form of letters written (never to be sent) to his musical hero, Morrissey.  But his letters go further than his current misadventures as he takes the opportunity to share his longer, troubled, journey from boyhood to adolescence.  That has been neither simple nor amusing, though there is plenty of black humour there.  Rather it is engrossing and moving as the reader roots for Raymond as he battles against fate, hostile adults, the system and his own inherent ‘differentness’.

No spoilers here; the unfolding journeys need to be into the unknown, though Russell plants seeds and bait along the way to tempt progress and add a sense of foreboding.  The five hundred pages are full of text but the prose is easy to read having a deceptive simplicity that manages to sound both authentically ‘young’ and articulately clever - believably so as Raymond is clearly a born writer.

As is, of course, Willy Russell.  If further proof was needed it is here in this carefully plotted, well revealed, funny, tragic and thought-provoking book.

A Question of Blood – Ian Rankin

Three dead bodies at a public school in South Queensferry on the edge of Edinburgh – two pupils (and a third wounded) and an ex-SAS serviceman.  Add a fourth body, this one an ex-con, killed in a suspicious house fire in the inner city.

The two crimes are unrelated, apart from their respective connections to DI John Rebus.  One of the dead school kids is the son of his cousin; the ex-con had been threatening Rebus’s protégée DS Siobhan Clarke and now he is charred to a crisp and Rebus has burns to his hands serious enough to warrant bandages that severely impair elements of his lifestyle – such as holding pint glasses and lighting cigarettes.

He cannot drive either, so when he is called in to give his own ex-SAS (failed) insight into the school shooting he enlists DS Clarke as his driver and factotum.

The two cases unfold in tandem, or maybe that should be entwine, as neither is as straightforward as they first seem.  As is the tendency in these later Rebus books, Siobhan Clarke gets at least an equal share of the action, which does no harm by giving some relief from the curmudgeonly DI.

It is no spoiler to confirm that Rebus gets to the bottom of it all in due course, despite the fact he is officially barred from both investigations, as a near relative of the victim in one and a prime suspect in the other.

Well up to standard for the series.

The Sewing Machine – Natalie Fergie

1911, Clydebank in Scotland, and Jean Ferrier and Donald Cameron are working in the burgeoning Singer sewing machine factory; but not for long.  Union man Donald falls foul of management, loses his job and becomes a marked man in Glasgow necessitating a move across to Edinburgh to work in the Leith shipyards.  Jean goes with him but as she leaves she secretes a message in the last sewing machine she works on.

1954, Edinburgh, and Connie Baxter helps her mother, Kathleen, thread the needle of her old sewing machine and teases her for the notebooks she compiles detailing all the jobs she undertakes on the old Singer, whether for profit or pleasure.

2016, Edinburgh, and thirty-six year old Fred Morrison takes possession of his recently deceased grandfather’s flat.  He also inherits several cupboards full of junk, including an old sewing machine.  He is out of work and out of a relationship so with time to spare he tries his hand at sewing.

Their three stories are told in alternating episodes, the sewing machine providing a common thread; but it is not the only one.  Family histories unfold; a patchwork of relationships builds up; long held but little understood mysteries begin to be unpicked.  Enough of the sewing metaphors - although with the book itself brimming with them they are hard to avoid.

Those who like family sagas or sewing are most likely to enjoy the book.  I count myself as neither of these but still found it a good read with a satisfying resolution.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford

The eponymous establishment is the Panama Hotel in Seattle, located at the juncture of the old Chinatown and Japantown areas of the city.  For Henry Lee, Chinese American, fifty-six and still grieving his wife’s recent death, it is a familiar landmark from his childhood, but it has been boarded up for decades.

Now, in 1986, new owners have moved in and are renovating.  They have made a discovery in the basement – suitcases and boxes of belongings stored there by families of Japanese heritage who were shipped out of town and interned in the post-Pearl Harbour panic of 1942.  For Henry it both brings back memories and holds out the prospect of finding a long lost treasure.

Cue the flashback to 1942 where twelve year old Henry Lee is the only Chinese kid in a white middle class school.  There is one more outsider there, a Japanese American girl.  Henry knows (his father tells him every day) that China and Japan are implacable enemies at war on the other side of the Pacific; but here at school Keiko is his only ally, and soon a friend.

The novel twin tracks Henry’s 1986 search for his hidden treasure and his 1942 cross cultural experiences, though the latter increasingly take prominence.  Both trajectories are a little predictable and the characters rather one-dimensional, but the historical context is interesting and informative.

It is an easy read, quicker than its 450 pages threaten, and it provides the reader with the promised mix of bitter and sweet.  But it is bitterness and sweetness rather than tragedy and passion, so all a bit restrained; which is maybe as it should be to reflect the culture of the protagonists.

By Night the Mountain Burns – Juan Thomas Avila Laurel

Read as leg 8 (Equatorial Guinea) of the Bookpacking reading journey as it makes landfall in Africa.  Or not quite; as this book is set on a remote Atlantic Ocean island off the continent’s west coast.

It is a story told of a boy’s experiences growing up there.  And told is the key word as it is reads as a monologue from skilled storyteller with the rhythms and repetitions that give that style its distinctiveness.

What happens matters less than how it is told and the various events within the narrative intertwine and are frequently, if temporarily, abandoned whenever a tangential happening or thought interrupts the storyteller’s mind to distract him.  But he returns to them all eventually and loose ends are tied up by the end.

The culture of the Atlantic Ocean island and its inhabitants suffuse the narrative giving a richness that draws the reader in.  There are no chapters and precious few breaks in the text, but that matters not as the narrator’s voice is beguiling.  He is in the room with you and to walk away almost seems impolite.

A different and memorable reading experience.

Beartown – Fredrik Backman

Beartown: a Scandinavian town slowly dying in the northern forest, its industry in decline and the glory days of its ice hockey A-team well past.  The one bright spot is the youth team, spearheaded by a rare talent, backed by teammates willing to put their bodies on the line, coached by an ex-player with an unquenchable thirst to win, supported by intimidating fans, and financed by the few local businessmen still making money.

Then there is general manager, Peter Andersson; another ex-player who made good, getting into the NHL in Canada before injury and a personal tragedy brought him back to take charge of the club he loves.  He has to respond to all those competing interests; keep the lid on the pressure cooker; balance current needs with past loyalties and future prospects.  Quite a task, but he is not the only one with such choices.

The book starts slowly; there is no need to rush in Beartown, unless you have your skates on.  So we meet a large cast of characters, but it is done at a steady pace and with such skill as to enable easy assimilation.  Each has distinctiveness and depth.  We come to understand the players and their roles on and off the ice; the coaches, parents, friends and teachers who, push them on or pull them back; the movers and shakers in the boardroom with their manoeuvring and plotting; and others on the fringes, resentful at their exclusion from, or dismissive of the folly of, the town’s obsession.

But these undercurrents are suddenly brought to the surface when a shocking incident polarises opinion.  Compromise and accommodation goes out of the window as sides are taken and violence threatens to spread from the rink to the streets and the forest.

It is atmospheric and absorbing, told mainly with the immediacy of the present tense with the odd flashback and occasional foreboding future reference.  By the end the reader knows Beartown as well as anyone living there, and cares just as much as anyone about the fate of the town and the prospects of its residents.