In an effort to clear the decks a little so I can concentrate on my year-end posts, here a three shorter reviews for you today.
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
This is a short story published as a single little hardback, fully illustrated by Victoria Sawdon. The story itself is about 50 pages, of which many are illustrations, and the text itself is double spaced and larger font size, so you’re not getting many words for your tenner (although I get two extra by getting the signed edition). However, you are getting a beautifully produced little book, with copper foiling on the cover, and a more concentrated nine page afterword by Clarke. In the afterword, which I found more interesting than the story itself, she explains how The Wood at Midwinter was inspired by Kate Bush amongst other things, and takes us through some of the key parts to the story.
The snow is there because it is a Christmas story, but also because snow always seems to me to signal a quietening of the spirit, a different sort of consciousness. And then obviously I added a pig, because there ought to be more pigs in books.
I do like Clarke’s sense of humour. Set in the universe of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Merowdis Scot is out in the carriage with her sister Ysolde (and dogs and pig), who stops the carriage so Merowdis can spend time in the wood, while she carries on to visit friends. The woods are Merowdis’ happy place, and she can talk to animals and trees. She and the animals encounter other animals, and as the light goes, Merowdis sees a strange figure in the wood, and this vision will change her life forever. It’s a bittersweet tale, more Hans Christian Andersen than happy every after.An ideal stocking filler if you still need one.
Source: Own copy. Bloomsbury hardback. BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK via affiliate links.
The Disappeared by Amy Lord
This is the first book I’ve read by indie SRL Publishing, who are unique in having a climate positive business model which you can read about on their website here. When perusing their recent releases, I was immediately drawn to The Disappeared – it’s a dystopia, with book-banning as a major element – so a double tick!
Britain is now run by the First General and his army. All independent thoughts and ideas can be dangerous to share. Clara Winter is a teacher of English Literature, who sees the titles she is allowed to teach from gradually decreasing. Her boyfriend, Simon, a History teacher sees history being rewritten as the regime gets tougher and tougher too. As a child, Clara’s father, Matthew was one of the disappeared, taken away by the ‘Authorisation Bureau’ for teaching banned books to his students. It broke her mother Lucia and Clara is haunted by it too.
An officer from the Authorisation Bureau took an interest in Lucia, married her and they had a son. Now a Major, he is shunned by Lucia, who drowns herself in booze. Despite, the Major’s job giving them advantages, Clara hates her stepfather of course. She is ready to rebel, and start teaching banned texts to a carefully selected group of students – she still has some of the battered paperbacks of banned books her father left behind, including 1984 (natch!). At first Simon is dubious about this, but soon he’s on board and their extra classes are going well. You know it can’t continue of course, the classes will become victims of their own success, someone, somewhere, will let the secret out.
At this point Lord changes narrator to the Major – and we find out that it was him who arrested and arranged the torture of Matthew. Thereafter, we chop and change between Clara and the Major. At first, the novel had a slight feel of Eilish’s predicament in Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, but whereas that story kept us in the dark about what happened to her husband, by giving us Major Jackson’s pov, The Disappeared doesn’t hide what happened to Matthew, and it’s not nice; although not for the most part described fully we get to see the effects of his torture. While not glorifying the terrible things the Major does at all, we do get a sense of his dilemma though, having built an obsession with this family, to begin to get information that his step-daughter is possibly going the same way as her father, he’s not totally inhuman – just mostly! A good, if for me, slightly predictable read.
Source: Review copy – thank you SRL Publishing paperback Sep 2024, (Unbound, hbk, 2019) 324 pages.
BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK via affiliate links.
Such Vicious Minds by Daniel Klein (Elvis Mysteries #4)
It’s a delight to be able to join in with Liz’s Dean Street December 24. This publisher is devoted to reprints, and more often than not they’re middlebrow women’s fiction and memoirs from the mid-20th century. Occasionally, though, they have dipped their toes into some more contemporary writing – including Daniel Klein’s four ‘Elvis Mysteries’ set in the early 1960s, written in the early 2000s. With this one, I have read the set – and can honestly say I loved them all, but especially the first two – Kill Me Tender & Blue Suede Clues which I reviewed for Shiny, followed by Viva Las Vengeance.
The Elvis that Klein depicts is a lovely young man, Godfearing and good-mannered, with a strong sense of morals. He has yet to become the jaded addict of later years. Elvis has the common touch and demonstrates this ability to put people at their ease. He’s returned from Germany and is now making films, with Colonel Tom popping up all the time to get in the way.
In Such Vicious Minds, it’s now 1965, and Elvis is suddenly finding himself being accused of being a sexual predator of young women. Two separate cases come to light where older teenagers are sure they’ve been with Elvis – their fathers are demanding weddings and/or money. Elvis, athough not whiter than white in the affairs department, is not the perpetrator, despite the photographic evidence of someone who looks like him having it off with a girl on what looks to be the bonnet of his pink caddy. Colonel Tom would pay them off, but Elvis is determined to get to the bottom of this, and heads off to these small upstate towns – and ends up in hospital having been driven off the road by an angry father. He discovers that he’s gotten himself into a crazy world of Elvis impersonators, and a renegade fan club called SWEPT – Sleep With Elvis Presley Tonight! It has a seedy journalist/photographer writing their newsletters and both accusing girls were members.
It turns out that the best of the impersonators is actually a) not guilty and b) is a woman! Miss Sarah aka Elvisetta, comes to see him in hospital and will help Elvis find the man who’s defiling these young women and clear the real Elvis’ name. Elvis has a great sidekick in this particular novel. Obsessed with watching Dr Strangelove, Elvis had invited its director Terry Southern for talks about a film for himself, and Terry goes along for the ride – finding real life stranger than fiction in the mad world of Elvis.
Again, this was such fun – if a little convoluted this time. Klein keeps it taut and moving at 201 pages and he has done Elvis proud in all four of these novels. I wish he’d written just a couple more – maybe he couldn’t think of any more punning titles, I must admit, I’ve struggled to come up with any!
Source: Own copy. Dean Street Press paperback 201 pages.
BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK via affiliate links.
I’m putting together a review for the Susanna Clarke right now, but I agree that there’s a feel of Andersen there, though perhaps with a touch more weirdness than even he indulges in! The future dystopian Britain title from Lord sounds good, but I have to admit I’m not so much in the mood for such imaginings right now.
I also couldn’t help but thing of Merricat from Shirley Jackson’s They Have Always Lived in the Castle – with her propensity for animals, woods and naming similarities. I’ll look forward to your analysis!
Don’t despise me, Annabel, I still haven’t picked up a copy of the Jackson, though I know I should! Anyway, I plan to schedule my thoughts on the Clarke story in a couple of days – appropriately at the winter solstice. 😀
The Clarke is very slight. I’ve noticed a few publishers recently publishing short stories as if they were novels (the recent Keegan for example), and this is slight, but I think the art really helps and it’s a beautiful little book. Almost closer though to a graphic novel than straight fiction.
Well done on getting the two extra words!
Give me a whole book of short stories, and I struggle – but a single one and I’m there. Although the story was slight, I’d read anything Clarke writes, and her afterword was really interesting. I’m building a collection of Christmas singles, with the Renard Press ones and various others I own!
Elvis as a detective!! That is a bold and innovative premise! Susanna Clarke is one of those writers I keep meaning to read and failing to. I’d like to read Piranesi but then I draw back, fearing that it’s hard work. I’ve got so lazy with my reading!
Surprisingly it works brilliantly as in all he is essentially working to clear his own name! I’ve loved all 4 books. Piranesi is not hard work at all – it is strange at first but her imagination is wonderful and humorous in parts – and not a long novel. You should give it a go, I’d love to see what you think of it. J Strange & Mr Norrell is more of a challenge.