I have two shorter reviews for you today. One short because it is a cracking and direct sequel, so I can’t say a lot about it, and the second because I was disappointed into not having a lot to say.
Paperboy by Callum McSorley
McSorley’s debut, Squeaky Clean, was an hilarious, yet gritty Glasgow crime novel, which I loved. It featured ‘Glasgow’s least popular detective’ DI Allison ‘Ally’ McQuoist, on the trail of gang boss Paulo McGuinn, who was running his business from a car wash. In trying to help one of McGuinn’s men escape to a better life, she ended up getting her hands dirty too, but McGuinn ended up dead and she got a promotion.
Paperboy follows on directly from the end of the first book, and DCI McQuoist is having to deal with the fall-out from McGuinn’s demise. There’s McGuinn’s wife, who is as hard as nails, and there is McGuinn’s number two who is as mean as they come, plus a corrupt solicitor. And then there is Simply Shred! What a name for a confidential shredding service – this provides the running joke through the book… Chuck arrives at the solicitor’s office:
“Hiya, hen, am here fae Simply Shred.”
“Ye must be Mick Hucknall then?”
Chuck ran a hand over what was left of his ginger hair. “Aye, the years huv no bin kind, music’s a fickle industry!”
“Yer tellin me, son, a used tae be Marti Pellow.”
The dialogue is full of Glasgow dialect as you can see, but it’s very readable. The novel is again hilarious and gritty and builds up to a great climax. I loved it too. However, this is one where you must read the previous book first really, but it’s a fine sequel. A word of warning though – there is one really ultra-violent nasty scene,,,
What will happen next for the DCI? Will her past catch up with her? Will she blunder through yet another investigation? I do hope McSorley gives us more.
Source: Own copy Pushkin Vertigo hardback, 380 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
Translated by Asa Yoneda
This was the novel on the International Booker Prize longlist, and now shortlisted, that I most wanted to read. I’ve enjoyed two of Kawakami’s previous novels, The Nakano Thrift Shop which I loved, and The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino, which was very good (one of the Shiny lost posts sadly). This novel although displaying Kawakami’s typical quirkiness, goes into different territory though, being essentially Spec Fiction / SF. A real rarity for a genre novel to feature on any literature shortlist, and I’m always interested to see established authors’ tackle SF tropes.
Big Bird as I’ll abbreviate the title to, is about the beginning of the end for our species as we know it. Kawakami tells the story of how humans try to keep the species alive and ensure enough diversity for the future. Two scientists, Ian and Jakob devise a plan to enable this. The few mens’ job is to procreate, but there’s large-scale cloning, and GM – adding animal or plant genes to humans to strengthen the genome in a different direction.
Jakob’s plan was a last resort: an option that had, by then, ceased to be a choice.
Communities of humans would be separated into a number of regions and isolated from one another completely. Watchers would be placed in each region to maintain continuous observation over the population. All reproductive taboos would be lifted, while mechanisms of competition would be managed carefully in order to mitigate the effects of survival of the fittest and preserve as much genetic diversity as possible.
Then there is a group of ‘Mothers’ – AI-embedded humans, who look after the children who are not part of families, or those who cannot live with their families, including some beginning to show unusual psychic abilities for instance.
Each chapter is told by a different person, be it the scientists, a psychic child, a Mother, parents, watchers, etc. The timeline jumps backwards and forwards from an age where there are still fossil fuel buses to the distant future. Due to the amount of cloning etc. we’re never quite sure which generation we’re with in each chapter. It’s effectively a story cycle in non-linear time.
I can see why Kawakami compiled the stories like this – wanting to show the breadth of what could happen, but for me, this meant that the big ideas introduced in some of the chapters – like the animal adaptations – were left hanging, not developed in further chapters. I also found the non-linearity irritating – there was no sense of impending doom for the most part – although the last chapter does address what we’ve done to ourselves. Many of the chapters’ narrators are living out their, to them, ordinary lives in this new order and while most seemed happy, there wasn’t a lot of laughter, I found it a bit humorless. As a result, the novel just burbles along at its own leisurely pace, compiling all the human experiences into a hazy portrait of a species on the brink.
See also what Marina Sofia and Stu thought about it.
Source: Own copy. Granta hardback, 278 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Ah, well, this is a good reminder that, although we may like many of the same books, we can’t possibly like all of the same books. I really liked this one and was disappointed it didn’t make the shortlist. But I can see what you mean about some ideas not being fully developed, yes, I’d have liked to see more of that.
It did make the shortlist – didn’t it? I obviously wanted it to be more than it was, I think.
Um. Always difficult when we have expectations and the books don’t live up to them. I think I might have struggled with the Kawakami too!
It was virtually plotless, although there was an arc behind the stories which was largely lost in the mixing up of generations. That and the lack of development of some of the big ideas did for me!
I’m glad you have gone over the second one as you have as I was wondering whether to try to give it a go – and I don’t think I will. Thank you!
Paperboy was very much more of the same, turned up a notch! So I can understand if you decide not to read it.