It’s been a busy week, and I’m behind on my reviewing, however, I’m relieved that both of these titles made the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize, as I’d hoped they would. You can read my previous post on the Riley & Harrison here – and contrary to my expectations, Harrison made the shorlist too.
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
This is the first Strout novel I’ve read properly and fully. I couldn’t get into Olive Kitteridge back in the day when it was first published in paperback, and I never went back to Strout’s milieu until this one which is a standalone set away from her others. I was persuaded by several friends reading and loving it (including Harriet’s Shiny review here). I’m glad I did read it; for although the critics’ consensus is that it’s not quite her best, I loved it – and I hope it inspires me to read more by her. (I did find the 4-part TV adaptation of Olive Kitteridge from a few years ago, starring Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins, compelling viewing recently – it’s on NOW TV).
This novel is the story of Artie Dam, a high school history teacher, married for three decades to Evie. They live on Massachusetts Bay where Artie takes his sailboat out at weekends. They have one child, a son, married to a concert pianist, they’re hoping for grandchildren one day… All should be fine, but Artie is masking loneliness, questioning whether life is worth living. His state of mind is echoed by the political situation in the USA at the time, when a certain person was running for President again, the thought of which depresses Artie even further.
ARTIE’S SECRET WAS THIS: For more than two months, he had been thinking how to kill himself without his wife or son (or students) knowing that he had done so. It was a great deal more complicated than he had originally though. And this frightened him, to think that it could not be done swiftly.
Then two things happen to change Artie’s life. The first one is that he has a sailing accident and very nearly drowns. He could have let go, but he didn’t, he chose to live and survived after being rescued. The second involves his son, their relationship hadn’t been the closest, but I’m not going to explain more, except to say that it throws everything Artie thought he knew about his family up in the air.
This is a fine novel about existential angst, secrets and the lies of omission, how secrets can make you lonely, and Artie is a wonderful character (and a great teacher). I do hope Strout will return to him. It’s domestic setting sets it apart from the other shortlisted titles, and maybe its cosiness will deny it the prize. Some have said that Artie worrying about the presidential election felt a bit bolted on, but to be honest I didn’t mind it and it gave an added contrast to the relationship Artie builds with Ken, who saved him from drowning, as Ken is a Republican, but they manage to become good friends.
Source: Own copy. Penguin Viking hardback, 201 pages. BUY at Waterstones or Amazon UK via my affiliate links.
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
This novel has already won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and is something very fresh and innovative handling the two linked timelines. We begin in the present, and our narrator has got a new contract…
I have been deciphering archives and curating semi-permanent scenes (domestics, culinary and otherwise) in medieval buildings for the past twenty-two years. When you see a replica feast scene in the great hall of an old building, I am the person who placed the pomegranates beside the pie, and for a ery good reason. When you come upon a room, cordoned off with red rope, behond which you see an open books on a desk, a chunk of bread picked hollow, and a quill in an ink pot that is empty of ink, I am telling you something about the person who lives in that room. The ink may be purple, and even though no one can see it in the straight-forward sense, one in a thousand people will sense it. Ultimately, I want my work to communicate with everyone, but it is those people I really hold in my mind.
The stately home where she will work was home to an obscure medieval king and his queen. They want her to set up six rooms including a feast scene for the house’s big anniversary. The next chapter was an absolute delight – she discusses the tricks of her trade in setting feast scenes – telling us all about the catalogue of replica foodstuffs you can buy; which are so good you can almost taste them, and which are a joke – like the beef tomato, which ‘may as well be a squeezy ketchup bottle.’ She tells us how she bonds with the house’s archivist who helps her research the house’s history. She finds her ‘King’ – an obscure monarch who merited but a page in the ledgers, but had a story to tell…
Part Two shifts the narrative to said King. The first few sections chronicle the dying of the reigning monarch, the second of three brothers. When he dies, the third brother becomes king…
He anticipated none of this. How is that possible? He is furious with himself.
He is a reluctant king, and refuses to engage with his advisors who want him to go to war. He just wants to tend his garden. The situation escalates until something happens, and it is this event that the curator takes as her inspiration for her tableaux, which we return to in part three of the novel.
I’ve deliberately stayed away from saying more about this marvellous story to avoid spoiling things for you. The novel engaged me right from the start. The way the curator bonded with her King was handled brilliantly and the way she understands how history can be brought to life for a modern audience is clear. She’s a spiky character, although she got on well with the archivist, but we know, without going into any detail, that she was glad to take this job to escape her own personal life and this echoes throughout. I loved Perry’s snappy paragraphs – little vignettes – reminding me of Jenny Offill’s novellas Dept of Speculation and Weather in style. I loved the evocative chapter headings too ‘The King is dead, long live My King’ and ‘Truly Pathetic’ being just two examples.
May We Feed the King is my favourite of the four longlisted titles I’ve read so far. Having read half of the shortlist now, with Switzy from the longlist on my shelves, I have no real desire to read the Stuart or James, but have now ordered Kennard’s Black Bag.
Source: Own copy. Penguin Viking hardback, 201 pages. BUY at Waterstones or Amazon UK via my affiliate links.
