Sara Foster's Blog, page 13

BOOK LOVE AND GIVEAWAY: If I Should Lose You by Natasha Lester

Addie is three years old, and desperately needs a new liver. Her mother, Camille, is used to dealing with the relatives of organ donors through her work at the hospital, but this is something altogether different. Caught in the nightmare of a critically ill child, Camille’s emotions begin to splinter, her marriage is tested to the point of fracture, and in her desperation to save Addie she is forced to question where the boundaries of her own morality lie.

One of the only distractions for Camille is the opportunity to curate a retrospective of her father’s sculptures. But as she compiles the notes for this exhibition, she is also drawn back into the lives of her parents, who both died when Camille was young. Her mother Alix had been one of the first female heart surgeons in Australia, but the details of her death have always been indistinct to Camille. As she learns more about her mother and father’s relationship, Addie’s condition continues to worsen, and the family begin a heart-wrenching wait to see if a donor will be found in time.

I was a big fan of Natasha’s first book What is Left Over, After, which won the TAG Hungerford prize, and I have been looking forward to reading If I Should Lose You for quite some time. In this poignant story, one person’s death might offer the chance of life for another. With tremendous emotional acuity, Natasha explores the complex contradictions of what this means in a world that is at once wretched, beautiful, agonising and sublime. The narrative deals with the many responses to loss, and the meanings we ascribe to our bodies, which both represent and hinder the essence of us. It is a book that draws you in on so many levels, and will leave you questioning, What if the unthinkable happened to our family? How would I react, and who might I become?

You can find out more about Natasha’s writing at www.natashalester.com.au

GIVEAWAY!: I have a copy of If I Should Lose You to give away to an Australian reader when I return from my holiday at the end of September. Just leave a comment on this review on my website for a chance to win!

 

Why I’m attending the Save Japan Dolphin protest today

It took me months to pluck up the courage to watch The Cove. During the time I hesitated I couldn’t help but hear of it – this place where each year hundreds of dolphins are rounded up, pushed into a small inlet and butchered with long poles, the sea turning crimson around them. This was a real horror movie, and I don’t even like the ones that are made up.

I’m not sure why I eventually sat down and switched it on. It may have been the urging from other conservationists to ‘be informed’. It may have been because I felt uncomfortable about looking away. Or that I shouldn’t speak out if I didn’t know what I was talking about. But when I did look it was just as terrible as I feared. I cried for much of the movie.

Since then, it is one of the issues I cannot turn away from. I want to write about it, and talk about it. At the end of last year I visited Taiji. I spent the morning watching the fishermen go out on their daily hunt, returning empty handed. Later I was taken to visit the ‘training pools’ – small roped-off squares where dolphins are trained to become captive performers. They are starved unless they do tricks. They swallow the detritus in the pool and have hands plunged into their stomachs to pull it out. Sometimes they go mad or waste away – those dolphins disappear overnight.  They have all witnessed the deaths of their pod members – who are their families, bonded from birth. Dolphins do not suffer silently, and their noises of distress and pain are much like our own.

These dolphins are all destined for the entertainment industry – to be ogled, and petted, and ‘loved’. Some go to other parts of Japan, and all over the world – if you have been to a dolphin show, you may have unknowingly seen dolphins who have been through the tragedy of the Cove.

There is a difference between witnessing distress and experiencing helplessness. I looked away at a time when I felt powerless to do anything – but now I don’t believe anyone is powerless, especially when they join forces and stand together as they do on Japan Dolphin Day. I want to use the anger and pain at what I witnessed to galvanise efforts to work for compassionate, lasting change – whether that’s through writing, supporting a cause, signing petitions, or making donations. I am learning to withstand my fears and take a closer look at things that trouble me. Already, life seems much more rewarding that way.

Over the next few days there are peaceful protests about Taiji in 93 different cities. The one in Perth is at 1pm outside the Consulate General of Japan, 111 Colin Street, please join us if you are able. You can view the events in other cities here: https://www.facebook.com/Savemistythedolphin/events

1st September is the first day of the dolphin hunting season, which runs through to March.

Support Indigenous Literacy Day 2012

If you buy Beneath the Shadows or Come Back to Me from this website over the next week, $5 for every book sold will go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, to support Indigenous Literacy Day 2012. (Australia only). Check out the bookstore, where you can buy the books separately or as a bundle. Many thanks for your support.

BOOK LOVE: The Alphabet of the Human Heart by Matthew Johnstone & James Kerr

A handbook for the happy, and a bible for the broken-hearted, The Alphabet of the Human Heart is an enchanting and enriching journey through the upside and the downside of what it means to be human…

I love this little gem. It shows that a few words can pack enormous meaning. It’s a beautiful book when you’re feeling up, and a comforting one when you’re down. The illustrations are superb, and it would make a great gift for someone going through a tough time.

SHALLOW BREATH … 3 months to go

Here’s a sneak preview of the cover of my new book, Shallow Breath, and the back blurb. The book will be out in the shops in Australia in December…

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How far would you go to save someone you love?

Two years ago, Desi Priest made a horrific mistake and destroyed her family.

Now, she is coming home to make amends: to her daughter Maya, who’s nurturing her own dangerous plan; to her brother Jackson, who blames himself; and to her close friend Pete, who has spent years shielding her from a devastating truth.

But as Desi returns to her beloved house by the ocean, there is a stranger waiting for her. Someone who needs her help. Someone whose arrival will reveal a chain of secrets hidden for over twenty years.

And one by one the family will be forced to confront the possibility that they have somehow got things terribly, tragically wrong …

Set across five continents, Shallow Breath is a compelling novel of dashed dreams and second chances. But most of all it is a story about love, and what it really means to be free.

BOOK LOVE: Ferney by James Long

When Mike and Gally Martin move to a cottage in Somerset, it’s to make a new start. But the relationship comes under strain when Gally forms an increasingly close attachment to an old countryman, Ferney, who seems to know everything about her. What is it that draws them together? Reluctantly at first, then with more urgency as he feels time slipping away, Ferney compels Gally to understand their connection – and to face an inexplicable truth about their shared past.

It is great to see Ferney being re-released in the UK. HarperCollins published this book not long before I began working there back in 2000, and I know the publisher felt that it should have had more attention than it got. I read it over ten years ago, and the ending is still particularly vivid. The love story is absolutely original – a forerunner to The Time Traveller’s Wife – with a beautiful English countryside setting. I won’t give any more away, but if you can find it, read it!

NB: There’s also a sequel, called The Lives She Left Behind, which I’ll be looking out for. Check out details for both books, and Sarah Broadhurst’s review, on the lovereading website.

 

BOOK LOVE: Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Nothing can break the bond between sisters …When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she boards the first flight home to London. But as she learns about the circumstances surrounding her sister’s disappearance, she is stunned to discover how little she actually knows of her sister’s life – and unprepared for the terrifying truths she must now face. The police, Beatrice’s fiance and even their mother accept they have lost Tess but Beatrice refuses to give up on her. So she embarks on a dangerous journey to discover the truth, no matter the cost.

I was on my sickbed when I read this book, and it completely distracted me from the fact that the rest of the family had gone whale watching without me! This Not only does this book have an absorbing mystery, with fascinating character dynamics, but it’s also got one of those rare finishes – a brilliant twist.

BOOK LOVE: Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into  the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.

Jasper takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it’s here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper’s horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu. 

And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and  why white lies creep like a curse. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.

I read Jasper Jones last year, and it instantly became one of my all-time favourite books. It has everything. The central dilemma is brilliant and the characters spring immediately to life – Jeffrey Lu and his family’s stoic endurance of terrible (superbly understated) prejudice have remained incredibly vivid to me twelve months down the line. Furthermore, the dialogue and description are so incisive that I want to take one page at a time and try to break down exactly how Silvey does it. His writing runs like water – racing and eddying and bubbling and dancing, while Silvey masterfully manipulates its flow and charts its course. If you haven’t read Jasper Jones, and you only have time to read one book for the rest of the year, I strongly suggest that you make it this one.

An evening with Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

It’s safe to say I am a HUGE Jodi Picoult fan. Her writing style appears effortless, but that is the trick of a master: to move a plot at entertaining speed while still capturing those compelling intricacies found in small moments. What’s more, her subject choices are always gritty and compelling, and her characters complex and real. So it was a real thrill to be in the audience last night when Jodi and her daughter Samantha visited Perth to talk about their new book.

Between the Lines was conceived by Samantha, who had the idea of a fairytale character with a life beyond the book’s pages, and a lonesome teenage girl who wishes this prince was real. Both Jodi and Samantha read excerpts from the book, and talked about what a great time they had writing it together – spending eight hours a day working on it line by line, speaking the story out loud to one another, and aiming for a certain number of pages a session.

In the Q&A afterwards, Jodi named Second Glance as the favourite of her books (because she had a great time researching it, and felt she nailed its complexity). Samantha spoke of her disconcertion as she watched readers devour their book in a few days, after she and Jodi had spent three years working on it. (I remember a similar feeling when Come Back to Me came out – I couldn’t believe people could move on so fast when I’d been absorbed in the story for such a long time!) And Jodi gave her verdict on writer’s block as a writer having too much time on their hands. Just write, she urged. You can edit a bad page but you can’t edit a blank page.

I love this photo! It looks like I just ran in with a cheesy grin while Jodi and Samantha were having their picture taken.

Afterwards it was well worth waiting in the very long line to get my battered old copy of My Sister’s Keeper signed by Jodi, and my brand-new copy of Between the Lines signed by Samantha. Most of all, it was a real buzz to be able to say to Jodi directly, in the few brief moments I was in front of her, that she has been a true inspiration to me. Reading a Picoult book always re-energises me, and makes me aim higher in my own work.

NB: The first book I read by Jodi Picoult was, like many others, My Sister’s Keeper. It was fascinating to find out what she thought of the film, particularly the different ending. I found a blog link where Jodi answers a similar question, and you can read it here: http://filmvsbook.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/jodi-picoult-on-my-sisters-keeper.html

BOOK LOVE: The Hunger Games trilogy

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games,” a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.

This mega-selling trilogy is down as YA fiction (as is Lauren Oliver’s Delirium, another of my Book Loves), but I definitely want to read more if this is where YA is at these days. I refrained from this series for a while as I thought the premise sounded pretty macabre. And it is, but after a few recommendations from trusted reader friends, I shook off my reservations and I’m glad I did. From the first chapter, I was completely absorbed in Katniss Everdeen’s journey. I’ve obviously got a thing for dystopian fiction – I love their vivid re-imagined worlds, the fast-paced action, and the exploration of control and subversion. I’m obviously not alone. Why do these stories appeal to so many people, and teenagers in particular? Perhaps it is because there is obvious and terrible injustice in the real world as to how powerful people control and manipulate others, and in these books there is an opportunity of redress by an everyday, ordinary person. The story of Katniss Everdeen might belong to a fantastical world, but I found one of its strongest themes was that there is hope to be found even in the most powerless, grotesque and overwhelming situations.