Mourning Ruby – Helen Dunmore

It’s a bit of a jigsaw of a novel, centred on Rebecca, who generally narrates but not strictly chronologically, some key episodes in her life so far (she is about forty?)

To begin with: a baby in a shoebox, she is left outside the kitchen of an Italian restaurant to be adopted and brought up in full knowledge of her abandoned status. Later, a young adult, she shares a flat with Joe with whom she forms a strong but platonic bond. He introduces her to Adam, a doctor, who she marries and with whom she has a baby girl, Ruby. No spoiler, Ruby dies young; Rebecca struggles to cope.

While that is going on, Joe is writing a masterpiece about Stalin, or more accurately his wife, and relates much of it to Rebecca. Later, Joe moves on to writing a novel set in the first world war, in which the lead characters (William and Florence) seem to mirror him and Rebecca. Joe sends Rebecca chunks of manuscript, reproduced at length.

Somewhere in between is the life story of Rebecca’s employer, Mr Damiano, hotel proprietor and one time circus performer and creator of a ‘Dreamworld’ attraction.

Confusing? Not really. Each segment makes for pleasant enough reading, but with only Rebecca linking it all, there is no real cohesion. It might even have worked better as four short stories. I struggled to see how Rebecca’s life was impacted in any way by Stalin’s wife, Mr Damiano’s circus, or Joe’s unfinished war novel.

But maybe I missed something?

Lucy by the Sea – Elizabeth Strout

In this novel Elizabeth Strout returns to one of her oft-visited characters, Lucy Barton, and follows her through the Covid19 pandemic.

At the outbreak, or just before, she is living alone in her New York City apartment – alone as her second husband, David, has not long since died. She remains on friendly terms with her first husband, William, and it is he, a scientist, who alerts her to the imminent danger and by force of personality whisks her off to a coastal property that he has rented in Maine.

Over the course of the pandemic, with its isolating and disinfecting protocols, social distancing, and paranoia (justifiable as friends and acquaintances succumb to the virus), her relationship with William and daughters Chrissy and Becka change. While contact with William is necessarily close, her previous close contact with the girls now becomes unavoidably remote. We see through her eyes, and her anxieties, changes for William (who discovers a half-sister) and the girls (whose domestic relationships are put under pressure).

Lucy narrates throughout, in a somewhat quirky style, more conversational than written, that treats the reader as a close confident. It engenders a genuine buy-in to the outcomes. The setting of coastal Maine is vivid, and the pandemic context is now a quaint but potent reminder of those strange times.

Pre-knowledge (I had none) of the earlier Lucy Barton novels does not hinder enjoyment. The occasional references back are slotted in seamlessly with scant but sufficient detail that, if anything, entices the reader to go back for more. Which I will do, having thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Small Pleasures – Clare Chambers

It is June 1957 and for Jean Swinney, features editor, columnist, and general dogsbody at a provincial newspaper, it seems a day like any other. However, a letter from a reader will lead to far reaching consequences.

The letter refers to a mention in the paper of a scientific study of parthenogenesis (the ability of females to reproduce without the involvement of a male) in some lower order animals. The correspondent, Gretchen Tilbury, claims it happened to her some ten years ago. Jean is despatched to investigate the potential ‘virgin birth’ story.

Naturally and professionally sceptical, Jean nevertheless is drawn to Gretchen and her family: daughter Margaret who is the spit of her mother; and husband Howard, an older man who met and took on the single mother soon after the birth. The family are delightful and accommodate Jean’s attention, which gives her a welcome respite from her spinsterish home life restricted by the needs of her infirm and determinedly dependent mother.

The narrative unfolds unhurriedly as Jean investigates the claim, becomes increasingly embraced by the Tilburys, and struggles with her mother’s demands. Though easy paced, it is always engrossing due to the punchy writing style (from Jean’s point of view throughout) and authentic period detail.

Slowly, cracks appear in the smooth running, ordinary lives of Jean’s and the Tilburys. Things happen, pasts emerge, characters fill out, and tension grows to a fine climax.

This is an excellent novel, refreshingly free from graphic crime and violence, yet full of jeopardy, mystery, moral dilemma, and pitch perfect prose. A delight.

Mythos – Stephen Fry

In this precursor (in both senses) of Heroes, Stephen Fry starts right at the beginning of the Greek mythology with the creation out of Chaos of primordial deities, such as Gaia and Ouranos, and with clarity moves through the early orders of Titans to arrive at the more familiar Olympians. These are the six offspring of Kronos and Rhea – Zeus, the eldest, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hades, and Hestia.

Zeus, having overthrown the Titans decides that six Olympians are not enough so he co-opts Aphrodite and goes about fathering another five – Ares and Hephaestus by Hera, twins Artemis and Apollo by the nymph Leto, and Hermes who actually springs from his cleaved head (immediately healed). As you might imagine, Fry has great fun relating all this.

However the mischief really starts when Zeus finds Olympus has become boring and decides to create a diversion in the form of humans. The rest, literally, is history.

But the exploits of men and women are mainly for the Heroes volume. Here it is the interaction of the gods that take centre stage. And fill it with wonder and chaos, rivalry and revenge, trickery and treachery, using humans as disposable proxies in their attempts at one-upmanship. Fry relates it all with gusto, humour, and erudition. Scholarship and etymological links are provided in copious footnotes that reward perseverance with the small print.

A wonderful laying out of Greek mythology made relevant by a modern viewpoint and a highly entertaining narrator.

Pity – Andrew McMillan

For brothers Brian and Alex, born and bred in Barnsley, career choices were few and like their father they went down the pit. Until there weren’t any pits anymore.

Nowadays the jobs on offer to the next generation – Alex’s son Simon, and his boyfriend Ryan – are different, reflecting the new economy. Ryan is a security officer at the main shopping mall. Simon works at a call centre while pursuing supplementary careers as a drag queen and provider of pay-to-view on-line gay porn (some of which is graphically shared with the reader).

This short novel delivers three connected narratives. In the here and now, Simon and Ryan’s relationship is examined along with attitudes towards it from the locals. At the same time, but with flashbacks to the past, Brian is participating in a study project conducted by some university academics keen to assess the town’s collective memory of its mining past. They may be keen, but Brian and the other locals are lukewarm but appreciative of the tea and biscuits. The third strand goes back another generation and uses repetition and evocative prose to give a taste of the miner’s daily grind.

The mix of styles – novelistic, academic, poetic – each expertly crafted, and the use of short chapters, ensure interest is maintained to the end with each strand having a resolution of sorts.

Verity – Colleen Hoover

Lowen is a struggling author, behind on her rent and facing eviction, when an opportunity presents itself. A famous, successful, and wealthy writer, Verity Crawford, has been badly injured in a car accident and is unable to continue a hugely popular and remunerative series of novels. The publishers and Mr Crawford need a reliable and discreet ghostwriter to pick up the threads, decipher Verity’s notes, and finish the books.

 Lowen is dubious but two things propel her to at least take a look at the job. First, she is homeless and there is a residential element, at least initially, to the task. Second, Jeremy Crawford is handsome and seems to find her attractive too. She moves in to find the household includes a young son and a daytime nurse/housekeeper. She also discovers that two earlier twin daughters have died in separate tragic circumstances and that Verity is not just injured, she is bedridden and unable to communicate – the lights are on, but nobody is at home.

 Where does this leave Jeremy Crawford? Two daughters dead and a wife as good as. Surely in need of comfort, if Lowen can overcome her scruples and the overshadowing presence of Verity upstairs.

 Things happen to spook Lowen, cause her to suspect Verity’s incapacity. She discovers a draft autobiography that reveals uncomfortable details of her and Jeremy’s marital (and detailed sexual) relations and of the daughters’ demises. It gives her all sorts of moral dilemmas to resolve against a background of increased attraction between her and Verity’s husband.

 The present tense, first person narrative gives a fine urgency to proceedings. Jeopardy and tension abound. How far can the reader rely on Lowen’s self-serving narrative, or on the husband’s version of events, or on the son’s occasional curve ball revelations, or for that matter on Verity’s written testimony? Whose is the truth, where, so to speak, is the verity?

It is a promising set-up. The wife upstairs enables Hoover to generate a Du Maurier’s Rebecca-like atmosphere, but that is swiftly overridden by the rather prurient autobiography and antics of Lowen and Jeremy that seem increasingly unlikely and turn the novel more into a bonkbuster than a blockbuster.

The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins

Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins sets about religion with relish in this polemic destruction job. He is convinced, and seeks to convince, that religion, all religion, is a delusion – a persistent false belief held in the face of contradictory evidence.

He first deals with God, dismantling all ‘proofs’ offered by apologists. While conceding the notion of using the term for the creative force that set the universe in motion (‘Einstein’s God’), he dismisses any notion of a supernatural being continuing to run things on a daily basis, answering prayers, rewarding the good (or faithful) with heaven, and the bad (or disbelievers) with damnation.

Having disposed of God, religion, as set out in scriptures, is an easy target, rife as they are with immorality, contradiction, and poor role models. Of particular resonance is the section on how morality has changed over time, diverging from the word of God which is set (sometimes literally) in stone.

All jolly stuff, but Dawkins gets serious, pointing out the harm caused by according religion a privileged place in society, protected from challenge by ‘good taste’ or the law of blasphemy. This allows it to freely foment division, discord, hostility, terrorism, and war. As for religious education in schools (or families) - in his view that constitutes child abuse, harming the mind and critical faculties of the young.

For me he is preaching tom the choir, so I found it both great fun and reaffirming a devout atheism. For agnostics, it may tip them over to the light side. As for those bound by religion, with faith being based on belief not reason, it is more likely to antagonise than convert.