Book Reviews (quickfire version)

There are thoughtful book reviews and then there are the fragmented thoughts and impressions you have months after reading something. This post will most definitely embrace the latter approach, in the interest of working through my little text file labelled ‘books read in 2015 – to blog’ before the end of the year.

First up: Kathleen MacMahon’s The Long, Hot Summer, her follow-up to the much-discussed This Is How It Ends, and once more set specifically at a point in our recent past, in this case the heatwave of 2013. Chapter by chapter each member of a media-darling family reveals themselves to the reader, as we witness presenters and politicians caught up in the aftermath of a horrific attack on one of their own, including a series of crises culminating in a family tragedy. The fact that we move from one character to the next and never return means that it does feel like a short story collection sometimes, but overall it’s a pleasing piece of smart commercial fiction.

Yvonne Cassidy’s How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? was published as an adult novel here, but features a teenage protagonist and feels very much like it could fit into the edgier end of YA, so it’s not too surprising that Flux in the US will be publishing it as such in 2016. In a pre-smartphone era, Rhea writes letters to her dead mother as she finds herself homeless on the streets of New York, inspired no doubt by Cassidy’s own work with the homeless there. Disabled – missing an arm following a childhood accident – and gay, on top of everything else, Rhea isn’t the kind of heroine we typically see in fiction, but her story is relatable and the unfolding of the events of her past throws up a few surprises.

Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years is not new by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still a novel that pulls you in – Delia, the woman who abandons her family and creates a new life for herself, is the kind of character that still exists today. I read this on holidays, along with another title from the vault, Ross Macdonald’s The Chill, which I remember mostly as seeming terribly modern despite a few problematic moments around the portrayal of women. (I know, I know. Classic crime novels not being great about the women? I’m shocked!)

Finally, Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? was one I missed out on during the initial buzz about it, but was recommended to me again and again, so ended up on the list. The scrapbook format, in which thirteen-year-old Bee compiles all the documents that might help explain her eccentric mother’s disappearance, provides both intrigue and humour. The turf wars between the suburban parents are hilarious, while news articles from further back reveal Bernadette’s past as an acclaimed architect, who hasn’t created anything new in twenty years. It’s a novel about motherhood and being an artist, and what happens when the two clash – but it’s also a funnier, more modern take on the subject than we often see.