After not having read much for a couple of weeks (work has been hell), I once again found myself in a place with terrible internet connectivity and a pile of books. Worse things have happened, particularly because the books I ended up selecting all turned out to be pretty dang good.
1979 (Val McDermid) ****
Allie Burns is a woman in a man’s world. An Oxbridge graduate, she works as a journalist for a small Scottish newspaper. She hopes to make it big but so far, her editor has mostly delegated her to ‘women’s issues’ or sent her on wild goose chases. Then, her colleague Danny asks for her help as he’s trying to chase down a lead in a fraud case. Together they set out out to investigate what is going on, but Danny soon finds himself in the crosshairs of his own family. Against the backdrop of railway strikes and dirty, wet snow, Allie tries to navigate her way through the treacherous landscape.
I liked this book because it avoids a couple of pitfalls. It’s tempting to make a grand feminist gesture by having your main character outsmart everyone when in reality, that is not how these things went, nor is it very satisfying to read about an omnipotent main character. McDermid mostly avoids these pitfalls; Ally is good at what she does, but she makes mistakes (and learns from them). Her relationship with Danny is at first a little uneven, but they find their way. The plot itself never went the way I thought it would go, though at times it felt like the central mystery is somewhat pushed aside in favour of relationship dynamics. There’s also a plot twist halfway through that is fairly obvious, yet I managed to miss it completely, and it rather takes control of the story in a way that seems a little unnecessary. Nevertheless, it’s a solid read, and the author’s personal experience as a reporter in that same place and time shines through.
The Survivors (Jane Harper) ****
Kieran Elliot grew up in a small town in Tasmania. When he was a teenager, a stupid, careless mistake on his part cost him his brother’s life, and though Kieran has managed to move on – he’s a successful physiotherapist with a loving girlfriend and a baby daughter – it hangs over him when he returns to help his mother and father move into a care facility. And then the unthinkable happens: a young woman is found dead on the beach, and the closed community of Evelyn Bay once again closes ranks and casts its eye inward.
2024 will forever be the year in which I discovered Jane Harper. It’s rare to find an author whose books seem to be almost tailored to your personal preferences. I love the pensive nature of her books, the way she eschews cheap twists and overarching drama to focus on family and relationship dynamics, or the way she uses Australia’s beautiful but occasionally extreme nature to her advantage (the true villain in The Lost Man is the Outback, really). Her characters are neither flawless nor evil; they are good people who occasionally do bad things. This one wasn’t my favourite of hers; Kieran, as a character, isn’t particularly interesting and the ending is strangely abrupt and feels unfinished. Ultimately, though, Jane Harper at her worst is still miles ahead of everyone else. This was the last book of hers that I hadn’t yet read and I hope it doesn’t take her much longer to write a new one.
De Metsiers (Hugo Claus) ****
In a small town in Flanders during World War II, a family of outcasts live together. There is The Mother, only ever referred to as such), who has murdered her husband with help of her live-in lover Mon; her daughter Ana, whose fiancé has gotten her pregnant and has told her to terminate the pregnancy and that he wants nothing more to do with her; son Bennie, who has severe mental disabilities and is in an incestuous relationship with his sister; and farmhand Jules, a recent convert to some unnamed eschatological doomsday branch of Christianity. Shenanigans ensue. Everyone is deeply unhappy.
It’s telling that this book takes place during World War II and even though there’s not a single Nazi in sight, everyone is deeply unhappy.
Claus – not that well known outside of his home turf, but one of Belgium’s most famous writers – wrote this short novel when he was only nineteen; an astonishingly young age for a book that shows great psychological insight. The novel has all the hallmarks of Dutch-Flemish literature (sex, war traumas, small town narrow-mindedness). It’s a classic and a precursor of the longer, more layered The Sorrow of Belgium. As a debut, though, it’s a solid effort that shows the disturbing dynamics of a family of social outcasts. Hella depressing, though.
Normal People (Sally Rooney) ****
Connell and Marianne both live in the small County Sligo town in Ireland, and they go to school together. Though they move in different circles. Connell is social well-adjusted and popular, though it is unclear to Connell what he has done to deserve that status. Marianne is an outcast, a weirdo, a loner. They strike up a tentative relationship, and feel a connection they don’t feel with other people.
A year later, they meet again, this time at Dublin’s Trinity College where it’s Marianne who seems to be on the inside and Connell who is floundering. Over the years, they meet and break up again and again, each of them unhappy in their own ways, facing their own demons, yet they cannot fully seem to let go of each other.
This is the sort of novel I liked more when I let it sink in for a while. The first few chapters that take place in a school feel a bit YA-ish, decidedly NOT my genre. As Connell and Marianne mature, the tone of the novel changes too.
The main characters themselves are reasonably interesting. It’s hard not to like Connell, though it’s also hard to forget how he treats people around him sometimes. Marianne made less of an impact for me; I found it hard to relate to her. Still, they linger, they feel real and it’s hard not to root for them. It’s also hard not be be annoyed at their relationship dynamics; it’s one of those books where you want to sit both main characters down and explain to them that if they’d just learn to communicate, they wouldn’t be in this mess. And yet, that is life. Communication is hard, and watching the ensuring panic that follows is frustrating yet fascinating.
