My reading this months began with an interesting collection of connected stories, BLOODLETTING & MIRACULOUS CURES, by Canadian writer Vincent Lam. The author is a heart surgeon in his other life and the stories present different times in the career of a group of doctors, from trying to get into medical school to dealing with difficult patients and horrible emergencies. Some of the stories leave one feeling a little queasy, deliberately so, but they’re compulsive. The book won one of Canada’s major literary awards, the Giller Prize, in 2007.
I’m a fan of Kate Aktkinson’s fiction and her new novel, WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, is her third to feature the former policeman Jackson Brodie. The opening chapter contains a scene of quite horrific violence and I found myself utterly gripped by the narrative that followed. There’s a lot happening in this book, characters are all inter-connected without quite realising it, and the story builds to a highly charged and dramatic climax. A terrific book.
An American crime novel, CITY OF THE SUN by David Levien came next, followed by the latest anthology of David Sedaris’ comic memoirs WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES. I’ve read all of Sedaris’ books and they never fail to make me laugh out loud. He has an unerring talent for combining humour with pathos, making all the curious characters he has come across in his life utterly real. Highlights in this book include his horrific elderly New York neighbour, Helen, whose hateful characteristics are utterly humanised by what appears to be the tragedy of her life.
Next up was the new novel by the prolific English novelist Robert Edric, IN ZODIAC LIGHT. I’ve been an admirer of Edric’s ever since his elegiac novel a couple of years ago, GATHERING THE WATER, and this new book is a thoughful meditation on the influence of war on the creative mind. Set in an asylum in the years immediately following the First World War, the novel, narrated as it is by the doctor of a recovering soldier with exceptional artistic gifts, recalls Pat Barker’s REGENERATION, which I read last month, but it’s an equally rewarding read from one of the most underestimated of writers.
Next was another book by a doctor-writer, Ethan Canin’s AMERICA AMERICA. A political thriller told in flashbacks to the early 1970s, it boasts a rather self-important title but I must confess to finding it not quite the sum of its parts. While clearly striving to be a ‘Big American Novel’, the story at its heart is a rather flimsy one and is populated by stock characters. There’s an awful lot of sentences that start with When I was a boy… which doesn’t help matters much either.
Finally, a debut novel by an Irish writer, THE FIRST VERSE by Barry McCrea. A literary thriller, rather in the vein of Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY, this is an exceptional debut, rivetting, compelling and brilliantly written. The narrator, Niall, whose descent into a sort of literary-cult driven madness is charted through the novel is one of the best characters I have read this year. The events at the centre of the book are, in a way, rather implausible and it’s McCrea’s skill that makes them nevertheless entirely believable. I simply couldn’t put this book down. Absolutely fantastic.
Book of the Month: THE FIRST VERSE, by Barry McCrea
Following the Irish and UK premieres of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS in early September, the international premiere will take place at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, out of competition.
