Sarah Bailey's debut novel, The Dark Lake (2017), introduces Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock and a compelling new series of police procedural, crime thrillers.
Beautiful teacher Rosalind Ryan is found dead on the opening night of the school play she has directed. Her body lies in Smithson's lake, bright red roses strewn around her. Gemma and her partner Felix are assigned to investigate this shocking crime. But Gemma has a secret past with the victim, and a range of other matters she wishes to conceal, which threaten to come to the surface as the police dig deeper into the background of the dead woman and those around her.
I love unlikable protagonists. From the outset I admired Bailey's portrayal of Gemma as a deeply flawed mother, lover, daughter, friend and professional. She is complex and often makes bad decisions. As the novel progresses the two timelines - past and present - provides insight into the interwoven stories of victim and investigator.
This novel has everything I was looking for - an escape, a mystery, a distinctly Australian setting, and compelling characters. Sarah Bailey is part of a new wave of Aussie noir novelists like Jane Harper, Emily Maguire, Chris Hammer. I look forward to reading the next two novels in this series - Into the Night (2018) and Where the Dead Go (2019) - and seeing how Bailey's writing matures and learning what happens to Gemma Woodstock.
Goodreads has been running a summer reading challenge encouraging readers to explore new titles, genres and authors. Of course here in the Southern Hemisphere it has been winter, so while I haven't been out in the sunshine enjoying beach reads, I have had a number of afternoons curled up with a cup of a tea and a good book.
Here's what I read during my winter reading challenge:
Sisters Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner operate a millinery shop in a poor neighbourhood in New York City. They spend their days manning the shop, attending to the handful of customers, and making paper flowers and other adornments. Living in a small room at the back of the shop, the two sisters have a very small social circle and are well on their way to spinsterhood.
Ann Eliza purchases a lovely clock for her sister's birthday and, in doing so, the sisters befriend Mr Ramy, the clockmaker. Mr Ramy visits the sisters regularly and takes them on outings to Central Park and to visit in a friend of his in Hoboken. Ramy is not particularly attractive or charismatic, but he awakens in the sisters an awareness of how dull and monotonous their lives had become. As Ramy becomes closer to the sisters, a wedge is formed between the two women and their relationship changes irrevocably.
Written in 1892 (published 1916 in Xingu and Other Stories) Edith Wharton's novella showcases the lives of those at the poorer end of the social spectrum. Wharton evokes the era perfectly and is able to capture the desires of the women, especially the secret passions of Ann Eliza.
This is not a cheery, upbeat story. In fact it is downright depressing with these sisters living in poverty, squirrelling away their savings, trying to eke out a living in a basement shop in an undesirable location. What happens to them through their relationship with Ramy is so sad, but there is something about the resilience and determination in Ann Eliza that made this wonderful. Wharton's naturalistic style, the crispness of her prose and her understanding of female longing, come together to craft a brilliant, unforgettable novella.
Wharton's The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence are among my favourite novels of all time. Bunner Sisters has reminded me of how much I love Wharton, and encouraged me to (re)read more of her work.
Little is known of the inner life of Elizabeth Macarthur, one of the early settlers in Sydney NSW, who arrived in 1789 with her officer husband, John, and young son, Edward. The early days of the colony were recorded by men like Lieutenant Watkin Tench and the few women present barely rated a mention.
But imagine that Mrs Macarthur secretly wrote a memoir, and placed the manuscript in a tin, hidden away in the roof of her home at Elizabeth Farm. What stories would she tell about her six-month voyage from England, her life as a young woman in a remote penal colony, the challenges of her marriage to a volatile husband, and her role in establishing Australia as a leading exporter of merino wool? In A Room Made of Leaves (2020), Australian author Kate Grenville, has transcribed and published the secret memoir of Elizabeth Macarthur, giving voice to a remarkable woman.
Born Elizabeth Veale in Devon, her father died when she was only four years old. Her mother remarried and placed young Elizabeth in the care of her grandfather on his sheep farm where she learned how to count, breed and classify sheep. She married an ambitious soldier, John Macarthur, who sought to make a name for himself in the colonies. From the outset, the marriage was a challenge, as John was prone to an explosive rage whenever he felt slighted. Elizabeth had to use her wits to calm her husband and her charm to retain a decent social standing among the officers and colonists. A Room Made of Leaves takes the reader back to Devon, to explore her first encounters with John Macarthur, her travels to Australia and her experiences as an early settler.
Of course there was no secret memoir, but Grenville found inspiration in the real letters Elizabeth wrote to friends and relations back in England. She made scant reference to her husband in these letters, and Grenville used these gaps to hypothesise Elizabeth's thoughts and desires. Grenville's Elizabeth is a wise, quick-witted, passionate and industrious woman, seeking a home and a little corner, un petit coin, of her own.
I absolutely loved this book and was engrossed in the story from beginning to end. Grenville's writing is delightful, and I particularly enjoyed the way in which she described the landscape, Elizabeth's growing understanding of astronomy and botany, and her willingness to learn about indigenous language and customs. I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in Australian history.
I am now curious to learn more about this pioneering woman and will seek out Michelle Scott Tucker's Elizabeth Macarthur: a life at the edge of the world (2018), and will check out Grenville's The Lieutenant (2007) about William Dawes, astronomer of the First Fleet, who has an important role to play in A Room Made of Leaves.
This week the Longlist was announced for the 2020 Booker prize. The thirteen titles nominated include authors from America, Britain, Ethiopia, Ireland, Scotland and Zimbabwe.
The Booker Prize is always a strange collection of titles, but what I love about the Longlist is that it introduces me to many authors and books I do not know. From last year's Longlist I discovered I read and enjoyed winner Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer, and John Lanchester's The Wall.
I haven't read any of the books on this year's Longlist yet, so let's take a quick look at the nominees:
Diane Cook - The New Wilderness (USA)
Five year old Agnes lives in a heavily polluted city. Her mother, Bea, wants to save her daughter from the ravages of climate change so relocates to the Wilderness State. Here they live as nomadic hunter-gatherers, in a vast untouched expanse of nature. Agnes grows wilder while Bea cannot fully seperate from her urban upbringing and they grow further apart. This sounds like an intriguing dystopian novel - my favourite kind!
Tsitsi Dangarembga - This Mournable Body(Zimbabwe)
Tambu has left her dead-end job and is now living in an Harare youth hostel. She moves into a boarding house, run by a widow, and takes up work as a biology teacher. Each choice she has to make leads her further away form the future she imagined for herself. This is the third novel which features Tambu, having been the protagonist in Dangarembga's earlier novels Nervous Conditions (1988) and The Book of Not (2006).
Avni Doshi - Burnt Sugar(USA)
'I would be lying if I said my mother's misery has never given me pleasure' - with that opening line, Doshi sets the scene for a novel about a fraught mother-daughter relationship. Tara was a bit of a wild child, running away from her affluent family to pursue a life in a free-love ashram. She dragged her young daughter with her, ambivalent about her role as a parent. Now the daughter is grown and the two women have to reconcile their relationship. This is Avni Doshi's debut novel, and it was published in India as Girl in White Cotton.
Gabriel Krauze - Who They Was (UK)
Set in the public housing tower blocks of North West London, this autobiographical novel is about how to survive the violence of street gangs and drug dealers. It is about how you can escape the past but never truly leave it behind. Krauze was part of this world as a gang member in his early life, and has drawn on his personal experiences for his debut novel.
Hilary Mantel - The Mirror and The Light(UK)
Mantel completes her Thomas Cromwell trilogy with The Mirror and the Light, finishing what she began with Wolf Hall (2009) and continued with Bringing Up the Bodies (2012). The fact that the previous two volumes won the Booker Prize makes her the hottest contender for this year's award. Opening with the death of Anne Boleyn, we follow Cromwell in his final years, during a volatile period in England in the reign of Henry VIII.
Colum McCann - Apeirogon (Ireland/USA)
This novel explores an unlikely friendship between two men on the Israel-Palestine border who are brought together by their shared grief at the loss of their daughters. Israeli Rami's 13 year old daughter is killed by a suicide bomber. Palestinian Bassam's 10 year old daughter is shot by the border police. The novel is written in 1001 fragments of varying lengths which bring the story together like a mosaic.
Maaza Mengiste - The Shadow King (Ethiopia/USA)
Set in Ethiopia in 1935, this novel focuses on women soldiers at the start of World War 2. Young Hirut is adapting to her life as a maid in the household of an army officer. As Mussolini invades the country and Hirut finds herself caring for the wounded, frustrated that she cannot do more. She takes action and inspires women to take up arms against the Italians, and is forced to endure life as a prisoner of war.
Kiley Reid - Such a Fun Age (USA)
African-American babysitter Emira is asked to take a white toddler out so his mother Alix can work. At the local supermarket a security guard accuses the babysitter of kidnapping the child. Humiliated, Emira is furious at her treatment. When Alix steps in to make things right, messy complications arise. The novel explores class, racism, transactional relationships and the challenges of being young adults in the modern world.
Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain (Scotland/USA)
Glasgow, 1981. Agnes Bain wants more from life, but when her husband leaves her and their three children she is trapped and descends into alcoholic despair. Her children try to help her, but they must leave to save themselves. Her son Shuggie stays. Stuart's debut novel is a gritty portrayal of a dysfunctional family living rough in the bleak Thatcher era.
Brandon Taylor - Real Life(USA)
Set in an American midwest university town, a young man is studying for a degree in biochemistry. Black, queer, introverted, Wallace has left behind life and all he knows in Alabama. Self-preservation is key to his survival and he builds a wall behind which even his closest friends cannot penetrate. But at the end of summer, Wallace must confront the trauma of his past in order to determine his future. This is Brandon Taylor's debut novel.
Anne Tyler - Redhead by the Side of the Road (USA)
Baltimore, Maryland is the setting for many of Anne Tyler's novels (including the delightful Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant). Self-employed, mid-40 year old Micah is a creature of habit, leading a very structured life. His routine is disrupted when the woman he has been seeing faces eviction and a teenager shows up claiming to be his son. Tyler has a rare talent of capturing ordinary life with wit and empathy. She was previously shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2015 for her novel A Spool of Blue Thread.
Sophie Ward - Love and Other Thought Experiments(UK)
In this experimental novel, Ward was inspired by philosophical thought experiments. Eliza and Rachel are wanting to have a child and have planned out their future as a family. One night Rachel is convinced that an ant is stuck in her eye, but scientist Eliza dismisses this as impossible. Over ten interconnected chapters, each told from a different person's perspective and based on a different known thought experiment, the two women explore love and life.
C Pam Zhang - How Much of These Hills is Gold(USA)
In the dying days of the American gold rush, two siblings, aged 12 and 11, find themselves orphaned and alone. As Chinese-American immigrants, Lucy and Sam find themselves unwanted in a western mining town. They place their father's body on their backs and set off across the harsh landscape to find a spot to bury him and a place to call home. This is a debut novel by Chinese-American author Zhang.
Despite the over-abundance of American authors, I am really pleased with the diversity of this year's nominees in that more than half of the authors are writers of colour and nine are women. Of all these titles, the ones I am most interested in are the books by Mantel, Cook, Stuart and Ward. I must admit that I am extremely disappointed that Maggie O'Farrell was not nominated for her brilliant Hamnet. I also wish that there were a Canadian or Australian novel to make the cut. I wonder whether the judges will play it safe by choosing Mantel for the win, making it a trifecta for her Cromwell trilogy, or whether they will aim for something unexpected. We shall see.
Here's what the judges had to say about the longlist.
The Shortlist will be announced on 15 September 2020, with the Winner of the £50,000 revealed in November. Better get reading!
