20 Books of Summer #20BOS26 – Nugent, Tonks, Braithwaite & a DNF

To nearly close out my reviews for Twenty Books of Summer (one more left after these), here are shorter write-ups…

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

‘Put me out with the bins,’ he said, regularly. ‘When I die, put me out with the bins. I’ll be dead, so I won’t know any different. You’ll be crying your eyes out,’ and he would laugh and I’d laugh too because we both knew that I wouldn’t be crying my eyes out. I never cry.

When the time came, on Wednesday 29th November 2017, I followed his instructions. He was small and frail and eighty-two years old by then, so it was easy to get him into one large garden waste bag.

Some opening!

Nugent is great at openings. Previously I’ve read her first and third novels, Unravelling Oliver and Lying in Wait. Both were fine psychological dramas. Her fifth is slightly different: it’s certainly full of drama, but at it’s heart is a very human story, as Sally Diamond explores her own past. Learning about past traumas that have given her a neurodivergent person’s view of the world, and easing her into living her own fulfilled life – a belated coming of age if you like. I’m not going to say more, but it gets very dark. Fans of Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine will enjoy this novel a lot – actually it’s way better. I loved it.

Source: Own copy. Penguin paperback, (2023) 364 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Braithwaite’s follow-up to her stunning debut from 2019, My Sister. the Serial Killer, is quite different. Although told with a great sense of humour, particularly about the novel’s zeitgeist, It’s not a dark comedy like the first. We follow the lives of three women across two generations of the Falodun family, whose women are subject to a curse which says that all their relationships are doomed to failure.

The short prologue begins with Monife who is drowning, and trying not to think of the man she loved, who she called Golden Boy. “She didn’t want her last thoughts to be of him.”

We then change PoVs to Monife’s cousin, Ebun in 2000, and then Ebun’s daughter Eniiyi in 2024, who resembles Monife very closely; her grandmother believes she is the reincarnation of her dead aunt. Eniiyi will go on to rescue a boy from drowning, falling for him. Can she break the family curse?

Braithwaite is brilliant at capturing the generational differences – the old traditions of the grandmother, then Monife and Ebun who go their own ways ending in tragedy for Monife, then Eniiyi who will break free of Lagos and its ties. This is also a story about tribal class, for Monife’s family are Yoruba, the Golden Boy’s mother doesn’t approve. Mrs Kenosi is styled as the Wicked Witch of the West! Braithewaite jumps back and forth between the three, building in back stories for the grandmothers too.

Cursed Daughters was a deeply satisfying read, cleverly structured, but also a real page-turner. It left me longing for more by this talented author, let’s hope it doesn’t take 6 years this time. It also adds Nigeria to my list of African authors read this year.

Source: Own copy. Atlantic hardbacl (2025) 341 pages. BUY in paperback at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.

The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks

With this 1968 novella, Vintage rediscovered Rosemary Tonks, going on to republish several more of her novels.

The Bloater belongs to that 1960s brand of absurdist comedies of manners, and who better to introduce the novel than superb absurdist comedian Stewart Lee, who writes a whole essay to introduce the book and its author to us. Worth reading for the introduction alone. But to the book!

It follows the exploits of Min, who works for the BBC in the novel’s equivalent of the Radiophonic Workshop. Most of the novella though is set at home, where Min entertains various callers, who are all vying for her attention – but most of all – the ‘Bloater’ – a corpulent opera singer who pursues her with much ardour – and she plays hard to get while loving it. You should know that Min is married to George – whom we never actually meet properly.

I can’t say that I really warmed to Min – she’s flighty, gouty, and an absolute flirt – but the situations she engineers are hilarious, making this a truly bonkers and very British read. I’ll give you some quotes.

Doing her exercises:
Brahms is good for exercising, if you’re not in love; if you are in love of course, you will simply swoon off after the first knees bend.

At work:
‘Hullo, Ron. How are you?’
‘Oh, sexually frustrated as usual.’

While bedridden with gout:
…in the meantime I decide to stick it out as a grande horizontale and ask Fritz to bring Claudi up to talk to me.

Jenny asked about her foot:
‘My old foot? It’s like your burn, it depends entirely on the doctors. At the oment I’ve been down to a horribly expensive one who only examined my chest.’
‘That’s a promising start. Is he French?’
‘Nearly. I feel the word “suppositoire” is only just round the corner. ‘

Source: Own copy. Vintage paperback, 142 pages. BUY in paperback at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.

Watch Us Dance by Leïla Slimani – DNF

I enjoyed Morrocan author Slimani’s English-language debut, Lullaby, and the follow-up Adèle, but hadn’t kept up with her output until I acquired this novel. It’s another intergenerational story set in 1968. We follow French-born Mathilde and her Moroccan husband Amine, a self-made man amongst the French colonials who still dominated Morrocan society then. But it’s time for political change – how will this affect Mathilde’s family on their productive rural farm? As it begins, Amine is building Mathilde her long-wanted swimming pool – but to make a point, she must sacrifice her rose garden for it…

Unfortunately, I was bored by page 126 of 320, so my last read for #WITMonth was a fail, in spite of being translated by one of my favourites, Sam Taylor.

Source: Own copy. Faber hardback, (2023) 320 pages. BUY in paperback at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.