Theresa Smith's Blog, page 137
April 23, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse
About the Book:
Bringing sixteenth-century Languedoc vividly to life, Kate Mosse’s The Burning Chambers is a gripping story of love and betrayal, mysteries and secrets; of war and adventure, conspiracies and divided loyalties…
Carcassonne 1562: Nineteen-year-old Minou Joubert receives an anonymous letter at her father’s bookshop. Sealed with a distinctive family crest, it contains just five words: SHE KNOWS THAT YOU LIVE.
But before Minou can decipher the mysterious message, a chance encounter with a young Huguenot convert, Piet Reydon, changes her destiny forever. For Piet has a dangerous mission of his own, and he will need Minou’s help if he is to get out of La Cité alive.
Toulouse: As the religious divide deepens in the Midi, and old friends become enemies, Minou and Piet both find themselves trapped in Toulouse, facing new dangers as sectarian tensions ignite across the city, the battle-lines are drawn in blood and the conspiracy darkens further.
Meanwhile, as a long-hidden document threatens to resurface, the mistress of Puivert is obsessed with uncovering its secret and strengthening her power…
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My Thoughts:
The first book in a new series of novels by Kate Mosse, The Burning Chambers is sublime historical fiction. It is set in France, in the year 1562, when the Wars of Religion were beginning to take hold. These were a sequence of eight civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots and the loss and destruction was profound, with several million people dead or displaced over the 36 years these wars raged on for. Such a very long time; what madness.
The Burning Chambers contains an impressive amount of historical detail woven into a story that is highly accessible and vividly engaging. I was instantly swept up into the suspense and richly detailed lives of the characters. It’s a huge book, but the pages just flew by for me, I really couldn’t put it down. Even my sleep was bookended with it, reading late into the night and waking up to read more over breakfast.
These brutal religious wars were just so terrible, and Mosse does an incredible job of bringing this dark history to life. The corruption threaded through society was rife, and each individual had to keep their wits about them at all times. You literally had no idea who you could trust. And yet, within this environment, neighbours would band together to protect their own against the forces that sought to crush them. Community was still rich and evident, albeit, a little more cautious though.
Against this volatile background is a mystery involving Minou’s heritage and a woman who thinks she hears the voice of God, a truly frightening woman who is pursuing Minou and will stop at nothing to achieve her end game.
The drama is high, the suspense even more so. There’s romance, crime, mystery, war, gothic themes, and history. The pages that head each part are adorned with photos that compliment the setting of the next section, a nice touch that firmly gives the reader a sense of time and place. The Burning Chambers is a novel that will appeal to a wide range of readers and it really is Kate Mosse at her very best.
Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of The Burning Chambers for review.
About the Author:
[image error]Kate Mosse is an international bestselling author with sales of more than five million copies. Her books have been translated into 38 languages and published in more than 40 countries around the world.
Kate is the Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and sits on the Executive Committee of Women of the World. In June 2013, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature and women. She is currently the Deputy Chair of the National Theatre in London and divides her time between Chichester in West Sussex and Carcassonne in the Southwest of France.
April 22, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Art of Friendship by Lisa Ireland
About the Book:
We all expect our friendships from childhood to last forever…
Libby and Kit have been best friends ever since the day 11-year-old Kit bounded up to Libby’s bedroom window. They’ve seen each other through first kisses, bad break-ups and everything in-between. It’s almost 20 years since Libby moved to Sydney, but they’ve remained close, despite the distance and the different paths their lives have taken.
So when Libby announces she’s moving back to Melbourne, Kit is overjoyed. They’re best friends – practically family – so it doesn’t matter that she and Libby now have different…well, different everything, actually, or so it seems when they’re finally living in the same city again.
Or does it?
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My Thoughts:
What an incredible novel this turned out to be! In Lisa Ireland’s latest, she examines the intricacies of friendship and asks the question: do lifelong friendships have a use by date? But friendship isn’t the only issue to come under the microscope. Lisa also takes a look at parenting, self-confidence, the lengths people will go to fit in with their chosen crowd, the tendency to unfairly judge others, relationships and domestic violence. It’s a smorgasbord of social issues but just like a puzzle, all of these pieces fit neatly together, forming a picture of contemporary Australian life that many will be able to relate to.
Libby and Kit have been friends since they were eleven. Now forty, they’ve spent the majority of the last twenty years navigating their friendship by distance. When the two finally live in the same city again, they’re initially thrilled, but very rapidly their friendship begins to stretch under the strain of differing views and lifestyles. Now, I’m just going to cut right to the heart of it here: I really did not like Libby. Not in the beginning, not in the middle, and not at the end. She was obsessed with perceived social status to the point of making herself sick. She was insufferably hovering over her son to the point of stifling him. Her low confidence in herself made her short-change her husband over and over. She was a wanna-be even though she didn’t even want to be. Judgemental people with a low self-esteem can be incredible toxic, and I saw shades of many people I have known throughout my life in Libby. Kit, on the other hand, I adored. Was this Lisa Ireland’s intention? Maybe, maybe not, but her skill as a writer was entirely on display as Libby repeatedly misjudged Kit. You didn’t have to like Libby to love this story. Through Libby’s toxic behaviour towards Kit, Lisa demonstrated the minefield that friendship can sometimes be. Kit reached a point where obligation began to outweigh affection, and what an interesting question this is. We can all probably cite an example of a friendship we’ve had that has been imbalanced. You’re the one who always calls or turns up, etc. At what point do we just pack it in and demote the friendship to an acquaintance?
As well as being thought provoking, this is a highly entertaining read. The ‘Arcadia-wives’ cracked me up with their superficiality. I really liked Kit’s blossoming relationship and her grand gesture towards the end. But what I really loved about this novel, what made it really perfect for me, was the reality check. Not everything pans out perfectly at the end, tied up with a neat bow. Some things are resolved, but others just continue as they are, much like life itself. Lisa shows us the importance of not taking things at face value. There is more to any person you meet beyond the facade they present to the world. Whether you want to wipe them or dig deeper is on you. The Art of Friendship is Lisa Ireland at the top of her game. It’s a smart and entertaining novel guided by a very big moral compass. Women of all ages will enjoy this story and I highly recommend it as a book club title. Perfect timing for Mother’s Day too!
Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy The Art of Friendship for review.
About the Author:
[image error]Lisa Ireland lives on the Victorian coast with her husband and three sons. After working for many years as a primary school teacher, Lisa is a now a full-time writer. When she’s not writing, she can be found drinking coffee with friends or wandering along the beach with her extremely disobedient but totally loveable dog, Lulu.
April 21, 2018
Thoughts on a Bookish Film Duo: Paddington and Paddington 2
Paddington:
After a deadly earthquake destroys his home in Peruvian rainforest, a young bear (Ben Whishaw) makes his way to England in search of a new home. The bear, dubbed “Paddington” for the london train station, finds shelter with the family of Henry (Hugh Bonneville) and Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins). Although Paddington’s amazement at urban living soon endears him to the Browns, someone else has her eye on him: Taxidermist Millicent Clyde (Nicole Kidman) has designs on the rare bear and his hide.
Paddington 2:
Settled in with the Brown family, Paddington the bear is a popular member of the community who spreads joy and marmalade wherever he goes. One fine day, he spots a pop-up book in an antique shop — the perfect present for his beloved aunt’s 100th birthday. When a thief steals the prized book, Paddington embarks on an epic quest to unmask the culprit before Aunt Lucy’s big celebration.
My Thoughts:
What a pair of utterly delightful films these are! I have been meaning to watch Paddington for a very long time now so when I saw it on a special offer with the newly released to DVD Paddington 2, I thought I would take advantage and grab them both. My daughter and I enjoyed Paddington so much that we watched Paddington 2 the very next night.
For a start, he’s just such a cute bear. Even when he is doing the ‘hard stare’. He gets into all manner of mischief and nothing ever is straightforward for Paddington, but it all just works so well. It’s always funny, particularly Hugh Bonneville who plays Mr. Brown, with his overt risk avoidance (near on impossible with Paddington around) and his deadpan sarcasm. Mrs. Brown is just so lovely and big hearted and the children are like chalk and cheese but each compliment the other perfectly. And Judy, who learns languages with such proficiency that she masters ‘bear’ in no time at all. Very lucky for later in the movie as you will find out!
Right from the moment Paddington stands in Paddington Station waiting to find a home, it just completely cracked me up that he was a bear and no one was taking any notice! There were so many scenarios throughout both films where this was played on in such a clever way and it never failed to amuse me. This is definitely a film that has been made for adults to enjoy as well as children. And teenagers too, if my daughter is anything to go by!
I probably liked the first one a teensy bit more than the second, but truly, they’re both worth watching. Nicole Kidman is utterly terrific as the villian in the first one, the taxidermist intent on stuffing Paddington. I haven’t seen a villian in a children’s film played quite so well since Glenn Close played Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmations. But in the second film, our villian is played by Hugh Grant, and he is nothing short of sensational. I’ve always been a Hugh Grant fan but he seems to me to be improving with age. And then the second film also has Paddington dressed in prison stripes and again, how cute is this bear?!
It’s so nice to watch a true family film that has something in it for all ages. No swearing, nothing inappropriate, just a good story that is well cast and a very adorable bear. If you’re going to watch the first, you might as well watch the second because they’re a wonderful timeless pair. Highly recommended for all ages.
Now, if I could only remember which storage bag my son’s Paddington might be in…
April 20, 2018
Bingo! The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton
It’s bingo Saturday once again – that rolled around fast! The square I’ve filled for this entry is:
A Book Written by an Australian Man
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The Shepherd’s Hut is the latest release by Tim Winton and it more than lives up to its highly anticipated release.
This is a brutal novel, make no mistake, the depravity of humans unmasked and hung out to dry. The vastness of the Australian outback is depicted with a harsh reality and a sense of knowing that this is a place that people can easily disappear into. Jaxie’s voice is so completely authentic; he is one of Winton’s finest characters to date.
Read my full review here.
This year I’m playing book bingo with Mrs B’s Book Reviews. On the first and third Saturday of each month, we’ll post our latest entry. We’re not telling each other in advance what we’re currently reading or what square we’ll be filling next; any coincidences are exactly that – and just add to the fun!
Follow our card below if you’d like to join in, and please let us know if you do so we can check out what you’re reading.
Now I’m off to check out what square Mrs B has marked off for this round. See you over there!
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April 19, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Film Tie-In by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
About the Book:
A celebration of literature, love, and the power of the human spirit, this warm, funny, tender, and thoroughly entertaining novel is the story of an English author living in the shadow of World War II and the writing project that will dramatically change her life. An international bestseller.
‘I can’t remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one. Treat yourself to this book, please–I can’t recommend it highly enough.’
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
The beloved, life-affirming international bestseller–now a major film coming in April 2018, starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Courtenay and Penelope Wilton.
It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey–a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book–she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books–and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.
Gloriously honest, enchanting and funny, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is sure to win your heart.
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My Thoughts:
This is a novel that I have been meaning to read for YEARS! It’s been recommended to me countless times by friends and I even bought the e-book a few years ago, but it seemed to disappear in my long library list and as time went on, I forgot I hadn’t read it. A few weeks ago, the movie trailer popped up in my Facebook feed – I have a lot of friends who are fans of the novel – and of course I watched it, and then promptly decided I needed to read the book asap. And then I didn’t. Until this lovely edition of the film tie-in landed in my letter box, courtesy of Allen and Unwin, upon which I picked it up without delay – and actually read it this time.
And I loved it. Really enjoyed it immensely. You wouldn’t think that a whole novel could play out through the medium of letters, but this one does, and it’s astonishingly good too. It actually took me back to the days before email and social media. After I moved interstate, my friends and I used to write the most luxuriously long letters to each other. Sometimes it would take days to complete one because you would keep returning to it, adding more stories before finally sending it before the last mail run of the week. And stamps were only 30 cents, so it was affordable, even to a poor teenager. I enjoyed the nostalgia this novel afforded me, of settling down to read a good, long letter.
The personalities of each character emerged from their letters vividly, with all of the dots joining up nicely as stories were swapped and expanded upon. I thought it was just so lovely how Dawsey wrote to Juliet, a complete stranger whose details he found in a second hand book, and from there, the floodgates were thrown open, culminating in Juliet travelling to the island and writing a book about Guernsey’s WWII occupation by the German forces. The connectedness of these characters was so heartfelt, the fondness that grew via the page, so that when they finally all met Juliet, she fit right in straight away. As did Sidney when it was his turn to visit the island. And it all started with a book, not only Juliet’s friendship with the society, but for each of the members as well. Another aspect of this story that I adored. The act of reading bringing people together and cementing lifelong friendships. It really is the ultimate novel about a bookclub.
At the heart of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a story of suffering and endurance. I am quite certain that I was aware before reading this novel of the German occupation of the English Channel islands, but only in a passing sense. I knew it had happened, but nothing more than that. The history of this little island’s occupation is richly detailed throughout the novel with such honesty and poignancy. There is a matter-of-fact tone about the correspondence that will have you laughing out loud one moment and then wiping your tears in another. Guernsey’s experiences during the war just highlight how far reaching the horror was; and how it ruined people’s lives on so many levels down through generations. The hope attached to banding together as a community, the demonstration of creating small joys within the darkest of times, and the resistance measured in the comforting timelessness of literature; and above all, friendship, sometimes found in the most unlikely of places. So much is conveyed through the letters that make up this novel, and it all comes together with seamless perfection, resulting in the most memorable story. It really is a literary triumph.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Film Tie-In for review.
About the Authors:
Mary Ann Shaffer was born in 1934 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. She worked as an editor, a librarian and in bookshops. She became interested in Guernsey while visiting London in 1976. On a whim, she decided to fly to Guernsey but became stranded there as a heavy fog descended and no boats or planes were permitted to leave the island. Many years later, in her seventies, when goaded by her own literary club to write a book, Mary Ann naturally thought of Guernsey. She died in 2008, just before her book was published.
Annie Barrows, Mary Ann’s niece, completed the novel’s revisions after Mary Ann fell ill. She was an editor at Chronicle Books before becoming a full time writer and is the author of the highly acclaimed children’s series Ivy and Bean and The Magic Half. Annie lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Movie Trailer:
April 18, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Honey Farm by Harriet Alida Lye
About the Book:
After a long drought, Cynthia’s isolated honey farm has suffered in the heat. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But she has a plan: offer the farm as an artists’ colony with free board and ‘life experience’ in exchange for a summer of hard labour. For Silvia, a recent graduate and would-be poet, the chance to test her independence proves irresistible – as does Ibrahim, a passionate painter she meets there.
But the honey farm isn’t all it seems. The idyllic summer is soon plagued by ominous events: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. The constant drone of bees begins to build like thunder in the air.
One by one the other residents leave, until only Silvia and Ibrahim remain – perilously in love under Cynthia’s watchful eye. And as summer shifts into autumn, Silvia becomes increasingly paranoid that they are in danger. What are the shadowy secrets that Cynthia is hiding? And if Silvia and Ibrahim have overstayed their welcome, what happens when they want to leave?
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My Thoughts:
The Honey Farm is quite an interesting story. It’s very creepy, in the sense that there is a great deal of foreboding present throughout. The narrative is beautifully lyrical, particularly when describing elements of nature within the northern Ontario lanscape and the changing of the seasons. Every single word about the bees was sublime. I so enjoyed the meticulous detailing of beekeeping, the relationship of bees to the environment, and the bee handling; some of these scenes were so engrossing and informative. Bees are rather brutal creatures though, and the author used this to its full advantage when creating that sense of foreboding I previously mentioned, along with other normal farming day to day situations; with a sleight of hand, the author managed to effectively create an altered universe where the reader was never quite sure of the situation unfolding before them.
Where this novel shines is in the clever characterisation and foreshadowing. Cynthia, the owner of the bee farm, is clearly intense, yet I veered from thinking she was up to something to thinking she was simply acting normal for a farmer who is used to living alone. Her farm assistant, Hartford, was as loyal as they come, yet at times, I felt as though he was tentatively warning the others, watching Cynthia closely, and bracing himself for something untoward. Ibrahim was incredibly weak, easily flattered and consequently misguided. I became disappointed in Ibrahim part way through the novel and this never eased, merely intensified.
Sylvia, who I’d like to think of as our main character, was crafted to perfection. Escaping the confines of a strict religious upbringing, coming to the Honey Farm was the first decision she had made on her own. She signed up as a means of finding herself, telling everyone she was a poet, yet she never wrote a single thing. Cynthia is immediately drawn to Sylvia because she strongly resembles her previous partner, a woman named Hilary who left her, taking their daughter with her. The reasons for this are left undisclosed but as the novel progressed, there were enough hints, combined with Cynthia’s bizarre behaviour, to enable me to put two and two together. Sylvia becomes an unwitting pawn in Cynthia’s game, and as the inevitable occurs, things just go from bad to worse. Incidentally, Sylvia’s predicament draws attention to one of the more problematic aspects of organised religion: the manifestation of guilt and how easily this can be used to manipulate a young person who has lost their way. Cynthia saw this in Sylvia very early on and used it to her full advantage. Had Sylvia perhaps been more worldly and less steeped in religious induced guilt, then she might have been safe from Cynthia’s machinations.
There are many biblical references throughout which tie in neatly with Sylvia’s religious upbringing and present day beliefs. I thought this aspect of the story was very well drawn out and when combined with the behaviour of the migrating bees, a powerful Armageddon style day of doom element began to play out. I think, in all honesty, that Cynthia was poisoning Sylvia with some sort of hallucinogenic substance, increasing it over time. There was a confusion to Sylvia’s scenes as the novel progressed that was reminiscent of that movie starring Natalie Porter, Black Swan. Sylvia increasingly was set up to be an unreliable narrator, a technique the author executed with skill. I am only hypothesising about the poison because we never find out what really was going on. Which brings me to my problem with this novel.
It just finishes. Now, I have no problem with stories that just fade off, curtain dropped, that’s the end. I don’t necessarily need to have everything tied up in a neat little bow with no loose ends. But I kid you not when I say that I was closely examining my copy of this book for missing pages. Sadly, I quickly realised that my inspection of the spine for gaps was futile as the last page was numbered 326 and the acknowledgement began on page 327. Not only is there no resolution with this story, but I truly was left with this sense of having no idea about what had just happened. It’s almost like the author simply tired of writing about these characters and gave up. This spoilt the novel for me and also ticked me off quite a bit. Not only do I not know if all of my guess work was right, I also feel as though I wasted several hours reading this novel, enjoying it, puzzling over it, being unsettled by it, only to have it taken away from me at the last, and very crucial moment. I was, and still am, rather disappointed, which is such a shame because all that came before this was incredibly good.
A quick perusal of other early reviews shows a lot of consensus with my view on the ending. A few reviewers made a great mention of how they didn’t need more resolution at the end because they knew exactly what was going on and weren’t left wondering at all. The fact they mentioned all of this tells me otherwise. Why mention it if it didn’t unsettle you? Do I recommend this novel? I don’t know. Up until page 326, I was enjoying it immensely, utterly engrossed in the miniature of life on the honey farm. Turns out I do like a proper ending though. If you don’t, then this might be a novel you will enjoy. But don’t come back at the end and say I didn’t warn you!
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Honey Farm for review.
About the Author:
[image error]Harriet Alida Lye is a writer from Richmond Hill, Ontario. She studied Philosophy and English at the University of King’s College and lived in Paris for the better part of eight years, where she worked as a bookseller at Shakespeare & Company, an English teacher for the children of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, a storytelling researcher for Google, a painter’s model, and various other jobs that kept her from completely starving as an artist. She founded and edited Her Royal Majesty, a literary arts magazine that ran for six years and 13 issues and published James Franco, Robert Hass, and the first-ever short story by Alice Munro. Her fiction, essays and reporting have been published by VICE, Hazlitt, Happy Reader, The Guardian, The National Post, and more. Harriet now lives in Toronto, and works at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
April 17, 2018
New Release Book Review: LADY BIRD & THE FOX by Kim Kelly
About the Book:
It’s 1868 and the gold rush sprawls across the wild west of New South Wales, bringing with it a new breed of colonial rogue – bushrangers. A world far removed from hardworking farm girl, Annie Bird, and her sleepy village on the outskirts of Sydney.
But when a cruel stroke of fortune sees Annie orphaned and outcast, she is forced to head for the goldfields in search of her grandfather, a legendary Wiradjuri tracker. Determined and dangerously naive, she sets off with only her swag – and is promptly robbed of it on the road.
Her cries for help attract another sort of rogue: Jem Fox, the waster son of a wealthy silversmith. He’s already in trouble with the law – up to his neatly trimmed eyebrows in gambling debts. And now he does something much worse. He ‘borrows’ a horse and rides after the thieves, throwing Annie over the saddle as he goes.
What follows is a breakneck gallop through the Australian bush, a tale of mistaken identity and blind bigotry, of two headstrong opposites tossed together by fate, their lives entwined by a quest to get back home – and the irresistible forces of love.
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My Thoughts:
Lady Bird & The Fox would have to be my most anticipated read for 2018. In part, this can be attributed to having been ‘in the know’ about this novel for quite some time. Fortunately for me, I was able to read it in advance of publication. The other side to my anticipation is quite straight forward: it’s a new novel by Kim Kelly and I love every single thing she writes, from novels through to blog posts and even simple social media updates. If Kim writes it, I’ll read it. My expectations were high, but there was never any doubt that they were going to be met. Lady Bird & The Fox is brilliant. Thought provoking, funny – as in, actually laugh out loud funny – historically accurate, meticulously researched, and crafted with impeccable inference. This is a novel that I will buy more than once, because there are heaps of people in my life who will either enjoy it, or benefit greatly from being exposed to its content; either way, I will get satisfaction out of gifting it far and wide.
Kim wrote a blog post on Lady Bird & The Fox in February and I encourage anyone with an interest in this novel to read it as it provides great background context to the story and history retold within its pages. It also opens with a fantastic character summary, which I’m going to include here as it pretty much says exactly what I want to say but in ‘Kim speak’, which is a whole lot more articulate than anything I would come up with.
“Annie Bird is a part Mulgoa, part English woman searching for her Wiradjuri grandfather. She’s Aboriginal in both her understanding of herself, and in the way others treat her; but she’s been robbed of the vast majority of her culture, her Aboriginal inheritances, and especially mourns the loss of her mother’s language. At the same time, she is both intellectually and conscientiously Christian.”
“Jem Fox, on the other hand, is part Polish, part French, and although educated in London, in the English public school system, with all its oppressive Christianity and class snobbery, he is inescapably culturally Jewish. As a result of these clashes and confusions, he’s rejected religion, and any convention, pretty much entirely.”
So that’s Annie and Jem in a nutshell. When they meet, attraction is imminent and sparks begin to fly left right and centre as they set out for a life changing adventure.
Kim is known for writing intelligent romantic historical fiction underpinned with political themes. In Lady Bird & The Fox, she examines racism within colonial Australia, offering an entirely unique perspective to the history we have all taken for granted. Annie has been sheltered by her father for her whole life, protected in her little corner of the universe, and while she has experienced racism to a certain degree, this is nothing to prepare her for what she meets on the road. To witness her shame through Jem’s eyes was particularly powerful, as a member of a minority group himself, his reactions of outrage reinforced exactly how outrageous it was. To be always viewed with mistrust, ostracised, ignored, stripped of basic rights; my heart was bursting with sorrow for Annie, and consequently, for all Aboriginal people who have had to endure this from the beginning of colonisation. And yet, instead of acknowledging this, our history has obliterated it from record. There’s something really awful about a stolen history that one could reflect on in depth, but for the purposes of this review, I’ll leave it here and move on. Suffice to say, Kim has done an incredibly wonderful thing here in writing Lady Bird & The Fox, giving life to an extinguished history and providing modern Australians with a text to rejoice in. Here, at last, is an author who is not afraid to rewrite history back to what it should have always been.
The heart of Lady Bird & The Fox beats with love: a search for family, a search for one’s own true identity, and the search for a free life lived well surrounded by loved ones. The path for Jem and Annie is rough from the start, but filled with adventure and mayhem. One disaster after another besieges the pair, and it’s often hilarious, how much goes wrong, especially when viewed from Jem’s sarcastic perspective. But as hilarious as the wrong stuff is, once things turn around and begin to go right, they go right in the very best of ways. There is a serendipitous feel to the way things go right for Jem and Annie in the end, as against the odds as their romance might have been, Kim shows us that sometimes everyday Angels exist, in the most unlikely of forms, and when they spread their heavenly magic, it’s with a lasting impression. Lady Bird & The Fox is told in the tradition of a great yarn, a novel you almost feel obligated to read out loud while sitting around a camp fire with a cup of Billy tea amongst a gathering of like-minded people. As usual, Kim has managed to inform as well as entertain, a unique, yet highly sought after talent. I loved Lady Bird & The Fox, and chances are, if you’ve read a Kim Kelly novel before, you’ll love it too. And if you’ve never read a Kim Kelly novel before, then this a cracking good one to start with.
Thanks is extended to Kim Kelly for providing me with a copy of Lady Bird & The Fox for review.
About the Author:
[image error]Kim Kelly is the author of seven novels that explore Australian history, including the bestselling The Blue Mile, the acclaimed Wild Chicory, and UK Pigeonhole favourite, Paper Daisies.
Her stories shine a bright light on some forgotten corners of our past, leading readers with warmth, wit and lyrical charm into difficult terrain, through themes of bigotry, class conflict, disadvantage and violence in our shared history – issues that resonate today.
A widely respected book editor by trade, stories fill her every day, and it’s love that fuels her intellectual engine. In fact, she takes love so seriously she once donated a kidney to her husband to prove it, and also to save his life.
Originally from Sydney, Kim now lives on a small property near the tiny gold-rush village of Millthorpe, where the ghosts are mostly friendly and her grown sons regularly come home to graze.
April 16, 2018
Behind the Pen with Kim Kelly
On the eve of the release of her latest novel, Lady Bird and The Fox, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Kim Kelly to Behind the Pen. Today we’ve left the regular questions at the door and instead we’re digging deep, so pull up a comfy chair and a drink of your choice because Kim loves a chat as much as I do.
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Should novelists avoid threading issues of racism into their works of fiction? Should these issues be restricted to works of non-fiction? What do you think when readers say writers shouldn’t write about racism unless they’ve experienced it?
Yeah, let’s start with an easy bunch of questions, Theresa!
Probably the first issue that needs to be laid out plainly here is that Australia has a systemic and stubborn problem with racism. It’s been with us since the planting of the Union Jack. If you’re going to write Australian historical fiction, you’re going to come face to face with it in your research – from wars and massacres to hidden slavery, from theft of lands and children to outright lies told about the character of people whose skin is not white.
To leave all of this out of our fictional stories of Australia is to softly step away from confronting it. Personally, I can’t do that. All of my stories carry an acknowledgement in some shape or form of the bigotries and the moral and actual crimes borne of them that are as much a part of where we are today as the sunnier stories of triumph over adversity and the courage of immigrants – forced and free – stepping into the unknown.
When it comes to telling deeper truths of the effects of racism – for example, relating the stories of the Stolen Generations or intergenerational trauma or any other lived experience – yes, there is much greater power in reading or hearing these histories from the people affected, or their descendants. In much the same way that Holocaust memoir and history is so much more powerful when it’s told by a Jewish person, so is Aboriginal history.
I don’t think there’s ever a place for restricting who can write this or that (unless they are going to incite hatred with their words), but there’s a yearning for truth and healing in firsthand accounts, or descendant explorations, that’s always more enlightening and moving – because history doesn’t only exist in facts, but in feelings that ripple through time, through families and communities.
Fiction is quite a different realm, though. We write about all kinds of things we haven’t personally experienced – things we can only try to imagine. It’s kind of the point. For me, I think it’s important to be careful not to present my work as history. Yes, I do shedloads of research, and for Lady Bird & The Fox, I made sure my work was read by people culturally qualified to pull me up on any errors, but my stories are just stories. Hopefully ones that inspire readers to want to go and find out more.
The personal motivations behind the story were your search for your own Jewish heritage, as well as the heritage of your closest Aboriginal friends, and a quest to understand the Aboriginal history of New South Wales more deeply. Do you think the best stories spring from personal journeys such as these? Is that the case for you in terms of bringing this novel out into world compared to your previous works?
For me, personal connections and curiosities that spring direct from my heart really drive all I write. All of my stories in some way emerge from either a snippet of family lore, or end up becoming explorations of my own history – often both!
My first novel, Black Diamonds, delves into my Irish and German heritage, during the WWI, which affected my family’s identity deeply. This Red Earth, my next novel, depicts the Sydney suburb of Coogee my parents grew up in during WWII, and represents my own journey as a writer when, in real life, I headed west for love. The Blue Mile, set in 1930s Sydney, explores the dire poverty of my Irish maternal grandfather and the fashion flair of both my grandmothers. Paper Daisies, set in 1901 just prior to the coming of the Women’s Vote, is a heavily coded allegory of the effect of domestic violence on me – one I wish wasn’t real at all. Wild Chicory is an unashamed love song to my Irish grandmother and pretty much charts the course of my own writing life. Jewel Sea, a story of a shipwreck off the coast of Western Australia in 1912, which I thought had absolutely nothing to do with me, really explores my own devastation at the loss of my mother – even the pearls that play such a part in the story are hers.
That’s a very potted history of all the personal history in my stories – but you get the idea.
Lady Bird & The Fox is, in a way, just another shift in the kaleidoscope view – pieces of me I had to explore. But in a strange way, although Annie Bird and Jem Fox, the heroes of the tale, are more different from me than any of my other characters, in religion and culture especially, they feel the most like friends. All my characters are crazily real to me, but Annie and Jem, they seemed to arrive fully formed and ready to tell me what to write. Maybe that only happens when we write from a place of love, when we’re not just writing, but listening and searching as we go – writing from a place of needing to know.
I love my Jewish heritage and I love my Aboriginal friends; I love my Jewish friends too. It’s natural for me to want to know them. These two lines of love were always going to emerge in some way – and no-one is more surprised than me that they emerged together. I’m still scratching my head at that. But it really was like I didn’t have much of a say in the matter.
While it’s true that I haven’t been on the receiving end of racial or cultural prejudice myself, people I love and people in my family history have. I carry the hurt of my Irish Catholic grandmother, as a little girl, having rocks thrown at her and called a dirty Sinn Feiner; rocks thrown through the windows of German immigrants in Sydney, too, forcing my family to change their name from Schwebel to Swivel. And I witness the effects up close too regularly: a few months ago, an acquaintance made a casual racist quip about my soon to be daughter-in-law; and only a couple of weeks ago a girlfriend, who is Aboriginal, told me over a glass of wine that she’d had to listen to a couple of white men being openly racist at a bus stop – and was annoyed with herself that she’d been too exhausted to give them a piece of her mind. None of these people were or are writers; but I am.
At the same time, I carry with me the unbeatable education I received at La Perouse Public School, where Aboriginal heritage and culture is respected and simply part of every day, and where very few of us fitted neatly into the white bread square of what an Australian is supposed to look like or be. As much as racism and bigotry disgust me, diversity and togetherness I know firsthand make a place where the best of us exists, and I want to celebrate that in my writing too.
You have written in the past about how you donated a kidney to your husband, the ultimate act of love! As funny as it sounds when you say it was a case of, ‘What do I want to be caught writing if I die?’ the gravity must have been there. Did writing Lady Bird and The Fox become more urgent for you at this time?
For most of us, probably, writing is a means of not only trying to understand shit but of trying to keep our shit together. I know I’d have completely lost my shit long ago if I didn’t have the ropeway of writing keep me from tumbling into the abyss.
So yes, when my husband and muse de bloke Deano was deathly ill with sudden and catastrophic kidney failure, the shit level was extreme. Utterly overwhelming. I never doubted for a moment my decision to give him one of mine – the most terrifying aspect of that was going through all the testing, dreading some news that my misspent youth had ruined my own health (and I still don’t know how that didn’t happen). But it’s hard to describe the nerve-jangled state of hypomania I was in at the time, especially in the months leading up to the surgery.
That’s when Annie and Jem decided to start talking to me, though. And that’s when I laughed the loudest that I was apparently writing a rollicking goldrush romance whose lovers were a mouthy, piously Christian Aboriginal farmgirl and an overprivileged, irresponsible, spoilt-rotten, Jewish rake. I mean, what the? And that was when I asked myself: ‘Well, what do you want to be caught writing if you die?’ It was this story – only this story.
Annie and Jem not only kept me joyful and full of wonder, but I poured into them all my determination to overcome this shit hand my real-life lover and I had been dealt.
NB: Of course we all got our happy ending.
What are your hopes for Lady Bird and The Fox in terms of instilling awareness about hidden Australian history?
I hope all my stories, in some small way, inspire interest in Australian history generally. We’re a lucky country, no doubt, and with our good fortune comes complacency. We don’t engage much with our own history – we’re too often taught it’s boring or that there’s not much to it – and because most of us have nice lives, we don’t have to care much about it. But we should care about it. For those who aren’t so fortunate, it’s history that usually gives us the clues as to why, and holds the truths that soothe most wounds; it also tells us where all our good fortune has come from.
The land I live on today is Wiradjuri country. A war was fought over it, but no treaty was ever signed to settle the conflict, and few people know it happened at all. Today, it’s rich agricultural land, peppered with quaint goldrush villages, full of overpriced antiques, boutiques and shiny four-wheel drives – how did that happen? One of the towns out here, Wellington, used to be a sheep station called Montefiores, named after a prominent Jewish banker – how did that happen?
History offers every life lesson we’ll ever need, and my stories are just my own tiny, thread-like quests for understanding inside it all. I hope these stories are somehow as useful as they are entertaining, and that they’re understood as expressions of love – because I love living here, in this big beautiful bundle of contradictions called Australia.
To end on a lighter note, I know you love your frocks, we share that fashion preference! Annie wears a particularly beautiful creation towards the end of the story. Was this gown inspired by any that you had seen before, either in pictures or a fashion museum, or was it entirely a wish gown straight from your imagination?
Do we love a frock or what? I have to admit, though, I had a little difficulty finding Annie’s dress. The further back in time we go, the harder it becomes to find the clothes of ordinary people. I could find Annie’s work clothes easily enough, but a pretty day dress? I couldn’t see her in the puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves or the lace and frills and ridiculously wide crinolines that were haute couture in the late 1860s. Annie is timelessly elegant – she’s also very modest. And I didn’t know where to begin in finding the frock that was just right for her.
Luckily, one of my sons had just begun his career in film and TV costume design, so we combined our research skills, and Annie was very pleased with our work. It’s so sweet, when I think of her in that dress, I see the way Jem looks at her. It’s not so much a Cinderella moment as an absolute point of no return in his love for her. There we have the power of the frock.
One last thing! Can you share with us the recipe for Raspberry Vinegar, Annie’s chosen drink, or is it one of those drinks we can only try when we visit you?
Well, I must say, I’ve tweaked the recipe considerably over several tastings, increasing the splash of vodka each time. Annie would be appalled at the addition of hard liquor, no doubt, and I’m not sure what she’d make of the mint sprigs I’ve added to the cocktail, but the basic recipe for her raspberry vinegar is: one cup each of sugar, cider vinegar and raspberries; combine with two cups of water, and bring all to the boil, simmering until raspberries disintegrate. Strain the liquid (sludge enjoyed by chooks), et voila, you have a tasty, if slightly weird cordial that was popular from Victorian times up to the early twentieth century.
Use it just as you would any cordial. But with a little fizzy water and ice, and the vodka and mint, you have raspberry vinegar as we enjoy it here at The Bend – where I live, on a ridgetop above the wide rolling Central West hills of New South Wales that bears a striking resemblance to the very place where Lady Bird & The Fox ends.
Chin, chin!
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It’s 1868 and the gold rush sprawls across the wild west of New South Wales, bringing with it a new breed of colonial rogue – bushrangers. A world far removed from hardworking farm girl, Annie Bird, and her sleepy village on the outskirts of Sydney.
But when a cruel stroke of fortune sees Annie orphaned and outcast, she is forced to head for the goldfields in search of her grandfather, a legendary Wiradjuri tracker. Determined and dangerously naive, she sets off with only her swag – and is promptly robbed of it on the road.
Her cries for help attract another sort of rogue: Jem Fox, the waster son of a wealthy silversmith. He’s already in trouble with the law – up to his neatly trimmed eyebrows in gambling debts. And now he does something much worse. He ‘borrows’ a horse and rides after the thieves, throwing Annie over the saddle as he goes.
What follows is a breakneck gallop through the Australian bush, a tale of mistaken identity and blind bigotry, of two headstrong opposites tossed together by fate, their lives entwined by a quest to get back home – and the irresistible forces of love.
April 15, 2018
New Release Book Review: Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey
About the Book:
Jen’s 15-year-old daughter goes missing for four agonizing days. When Lana is found, unharmed, in the middle of the desolate countryside, everyone thinks the worst is over. But Lana refuses to tell anyone what happened, and the police draw a blank. The once-happy, loving family return to London, where things start to fall apart. Lana begins acting strangely: refusing to go to school, and sleeping with the light on.
As Lana stays stubbornly silent, Jen desperately tries to reach out to a daughter who has become a stranger.
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My Thoughts:
I have so much love for this novel; it’s one of those ‘everyone NEEDS to read this’ kind of deals for me. I’m sure being a parent forms a large part on why I connected so strongly with Whistle In The Dark, but truly, Emma Healey is just out of this world fabulous with words. Honestly, for this to be only her second novel; she has so much talent. I need to read Elizabeth Is Missing now, which was her debut, because I feel certain it will be a novel that I’m going to love as well.
Now, onto Whistle In The Dark and why I loved it so much. The story is narrated by Jen, mother of the missing teen Lana. Jen was a character I instantly connected with. I liked her a lot. She was by no means perfect, and that suited me just fine because she was the real deal. This novel grounds itself in the connections between it’s characters. Jen and her husband Hugh, Jen and her mother Lily, Jen and her friend Grace, Jen and her eldest daughter Meg, and of course, Jen with her youngest daughter, Lana. Each of these people got a different bit of Jen, but Lana was the one sucking her dry. I didn’t like Lana. Even accounting for her depression and the affect that has on a person, I thought she was quite a mean girl, deliberately uncaring towards her mother and dismissive of her sister. Her grandmother’s friend had labelled her as an attention seeker, and I have to admit, I could see where she was coming from. There were times when she was just so harsh towards Jen, openly criticising her and doing exaggerated impressions of her mother purely as a means of putting her down. Lana also did some strange things that resulted in her driving Jen a little crazy. So all in all, I wasn’t impressed with Lana.
But that’s the thing with this novel. It’s so honest and real, and you’re sitting there hating on a teenager who is seriously depressed, feeling so much sympathy for her mother. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to have a daughter who is so depressed that you can’t leave painkillers in the house for fear she’ll try and swallow them all; you have to buy a safe for all of the knives and forks and scissors because if they’re left lying around, she’ll use them to cut herself. You can’t even ask her questions because you risk overwhelming her. I could feel Jen’s worry, her frustration, her fear. And then there’s this, when Lana gives Jen some insight into what she’s feeling:
“‘I did that thing that Dr Greenbaum said to do,’ Lana said. ‘I found a picture and I wrote about it.’
‘That was quick.’
Lana nodded and showed Jen her phone. A photograph from a museum lit the screen: a glass case full of songbirds, all posed at different angles, as if they were landing or taking off from a painted tree.
‘And I wrote about how it relates to me.’
She handed Jen a piece of blue-lined paper, covered in biroed words which had been written with such pressure that they’d left raised patterns on the other side of the page, like a form of Braille.
My body feels like it’s made up of a thousand tiny birds flapping their wings inside my skin: a blue tit at my elbow, a sparrow along my thigh, a pigeon jabbing me in the belly button. I can hardly walk, I can hardly hold myself up, without the exhausting tickling of their feathers. The ticklishness is what makes me scratch at myself, with fingernails and pens and scalpels.
Sometimes, when I see a bird in the garden or a park, I expect it to fly right into me, so I’d rather not go outside.
Sometimes, I don’t dare move my head, or speak out loud, in case I cause a whirlwind of wings and claws inside me.
Sometimes, questions flutter from their beaks: What is the point, they say, how long will this go on? Can you stand it for many more years, or months, or days? Where can you escape to? When will it all end?
Sometimes, I think of ways to get rid of the birds, to poison them, to fall from a great height and feel them rush out of me.
Sometimes, I wish someone would crush them out of me.”
The agony of reading this, as a mother. And then I felt really bad for hating Lana, although, she certainly continued to test me throughout the novel. Lana is a classic example of a person who hurts the one they love the most, over and over. I think she was sure, deep down, that her mother was the one she could always count on, no matter what.
Jen and Hugh as a team were fantastic. I really enjoyed bearing witness to their marriage and watching them parent both of their daughters, even though Meg was 26 and not living at home. We were privy to a lot of everyday interaction between them and as well as being entertaining, this had the valuable effect of portraying Jen and Hugh as normal parents in a normal relationship. There was no dysfunction within their household, which brings the real issue to the fore: normal parents can have kids with mental health issues. In other words, it can happen to anyone. Hugh was such a support to Jen, who really was bearing the brunt of this latest crisis with Lana. He always listened to what Jen had to say, and sometimes he’d agree, but often times he would provide some perspective, such as in this passage:
“‘It’s one of the photos from the album in the dining room,’ Jen said. ‘She must have scanned or photographed it specially. And it says: hashtag Happy Mother’s Day, and a hashtag proud daughter and Words can’t express how important the bond between mother and daughter is.’
‘You seem annoyed,” Hugh said, not looking up from his book, though he hadn’t turned the page in a while.
‘Well, it’s all just lies.’
‘Lies?’
‘She posts these pictures, these sentiments, as if she’s living them, as if they mean something, but in reality she couldn’t care less about any of it. She wants her friends to think she’s done something for Mother’s Day, but not her own mother.’
‘Or,’ Hugh rubbed his hands across his face – ‘that’s what’s going on in her head, and she can put it on social media but doesn’t know how to express it to you directly.’”
Theirs was a great relationship, one of the best I’ve read in recent memory.
All throughout this story, Jen is seeking the truth. Where did Lana go for four days? What happened to her while she was missing? Lana refuses to say, claiming that she can’t remember, yet inconsistencies in her story over time indicate that she is just deliberately not telling. Jen becomes consumed with knowing, but Hugh is less concerned, figuring they’ll find out one day and why not just focus on Lana in the here and now? Meg is convinced her sister is lying, but she’s got things going on in her own life that concern her more and theirs is not a close relationship, with 11 years between them. What Meg does do though, is provide a lot of support to Jen, so their relationship has an entirely different tone to it compared to Jen and Lana. This is valuable for Jen who constantly questions herself as a mother each time Lana does something else newly concerning. Communication is a barrier between Jen and Lana. Lana would make a habit of not answering Jen, almost like a toddler having a tantrum. It was interesting to finally get some perspective on why Lana always did this:
“Jen felt herself start to pant. ‘But I want to talk to you.’
‘You say that Mum, but you don’t want to listen.’
‘Yes, I do. I’ve asked you so many times to tell me what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what’s happened.’
‘Ugh. That’s what I mean. You don’t listen. You just want me to answer a bunch of questions. And maybe I don’t want to answer your questions, maybe your questions hurt and make me feel bad, maybe I want to talk about something else.’”
In the end, Jen does find out the full story of where Lana was and what happened to her, but not from Lana herself – of course! It’s difficult and heartbreaking and again, so authentic. Jen has to pick herself up and go back to being a mother, because in the midst of finding out the truth about her youngest daughter, her eldest one needs her. Such is the stuff of parenting when you have more than one child. This is such a powerful novel, a true testament of the love a parent has for their offspring, the elasticity of family connections and how, in the midst of darkness, as parents, we hold on tight even during the times we want to let go.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of Whistle In The Dark for review.
About the Author:
[image error]Emma Healey grew up in London. She has spent most of her working life in libraries, bookshops and galleries. She completed the MA in Creative Writing: Prose at UEA in 2011. Elizabeth Is Missing, her first novel, was a Sunday Times bestseller, won the Costa First Novel Award 2014 and was shortlisted for the National Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. Whistle in the Dark is her second novel.
April 14, 2018
Thoughts on a Bookish TV Show: Word of Mouth TV
There’s a brand new show on You Tube and it’s all about books, food, and friendship – how utterly perfect is that?!
It’s called Word of Mouth TV and it’s an author interview show with a twist. Here is the description:
Word of Mouth TV is the first series to combine food, books and wine. Your hosts, Kate Forsyth and Sarah Mills will be interviewing and cooking with top authors from Australia and around the world.
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The first episode aired Friday evening. The running time was about 10 minutes, which I find ideal. A nice little ‘bite’ sized show to watch with a cup of tea at the end of a busy week.
While the show is not a cooking show per se, Kate did cook on air and talk us through what she was making and what ingredients were required and what to do with it all, so if you like what’s being served up, there’s an option there for you to mimic the menu for your own get together.
Sarah and Kate are friends themselves and this shines through on the screen, creating a warm and authentic atmosphere. There was a natural fluidity to their banter and the show had a smooth unscripted, yet totally polished vibe about it. And while Sarah tried her best to get out of the cooking by reading the book in preparation for the dinner chat, Kate was having nothing of that and knowing Sarah as well as she does, she set up a nice little enticement as a means of getting Sarah out of the reading chair and into the kitchen!
I enjoyed the whole concept of the ‘dinner interview’. It’s a fresh idea and with the current enduring popularity of cooking shows, not to mention the lack of bookish shows, these ladies are onto a good thing, in my opinion, combining food with bookish chat. Who doesn’t like a catch up over food with friends? It’s certainly my preferred way of socialising.
You can find out more about the show, subscribe to the newsletter, follow the social media links, and read book reviews over at the Word of Mouth TV website.
Here’s the first episode, featuring guests Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist. Enjoy!
