Val McDermid. THE SKELETON ROAD. HarperCollins, 2014.
A book loaned by writer friends, this is my fifth Val McDermid and I only discovered her last year. A Karen Pirie story set in Kirkaldy, Edinburgh, Oxford, and Dubrovnik, the plot returns to the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the ethical grappling with "war crimes" and the International Criminal Court. The skeleton initiates the quest for a killer seeking private justice.
David Whyte. ESSENTIALS. Many Rivers, 2020.
One of my finds at Arundel Books in Seattle. I never knew Whyte was located in Washington State. My promise to myself was that every new book I bought on the trip had to be read before being shelved. I started with this one. Inspirational. My copy looks like a porcupine, with all the post-its sticking out. A poem about Kevin and the blackbirds, from a friend of Seamus Heaney. Beautiful cover too.
Sarah Bernstein. STUDY FOR OBEDIENCE. Knopf, 2023.
Found this Giller winner at Village Books in Bellingham (along with a fancy Montaigne). My rule is that any new books have to be read by me before shelving. The final total included one Mary Oliver, Vol 2, New & Selected, and three David Whytes. Who knew he is from Washington State?)
The Bernstein is interesting as a female reaction against the traditional "tumescent" arc of the story as quest. One female POV, one setting in some unnamed foreign country where communication is difficult; the only other relationship, strained, is between the narrator and her brother.
This is a story I will have to read again. The first time through, I was just looking to see if anything happens.
Ian Williams. REPRODUCTION. Random, 2019. Giller Prize winner, 2019.
A family saga of sorts, three generations of unplanned
reproduction. Cultural differences within homes and families. Families in
various configurations. Obsessions and difficulties communicating. The
challenges of being a successful modern male, and of mothering, parenting. The
scramble to earn or deserve money complicates all.
This is the first novel I’ve read where STYLE is dominant.
Variety of style, with most of the plot communicated through dialogue. In
different voices, some with accents. Set in Brampton and Toronto. With a
soundtrack covering fifty years, from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
Only the last section started to leave me behind a bit. No
chapter breaks. The name Edgar degenerates every time, to a different spelling.
The video-obsessed child shifts from videoing masturbation, paint drying, to
adults dying.
I began by READING for PLEASURE, loving the style, sharing
examples with fellow writers:
Felicia meets her ex-lover she has not seen in 14 years: “He
had gained weight in the face so now he looked like three rectangles stacked on
each other: head, neck, the rest. His hair was between the colour of pennies
and loonies, but streaked throughout with dimes.”
The son, Army, finds weight-lifting equipment and imagines:
“By the end of the summer, most of the boys would have V-shaped torsos and tiny
legs, like martini glasses.”
“Heather’s breasts grazed his chest then she set them
firmly against him like the paddles of a defibrillator.”
Sorry, the newness of these comparisons just made me laugh
and then gasp at the writer’s mastery of word and image. STYLE
trumps story yet I hesitated to finish, not wanting to leave these people, this
family.
Louise Penny. The GREY WOLF. Minotaur, 2024 Borrowed from a friend who had borrowed it from the library. No due date, making reading it so...
