The Missing

Dame Susan Hill is best known for her gothic ghost story The Woman in Black (1983) which has also been adapted as a long-running stage play and film. In 2004 she launched a series of crime novels centred on an enigmatic detective, Simon Serrailler. Not familiar with the Serrailler series*, I started at the beginning with The Various Haunts of Men. 

In the picturesque English town of Lafferton, a middle aged woman disappears without a trace while jogging on The Hill. After some routine enquiries, the local police figure she has wandered off, perhaps with a new beau, and fail to dig deeper. Detective Freya Graffham, who has recently transferred from The Met in London, suspects there is more to the mystery and continues an investigation with the help of DC Nathan Coates. Her boss, Serrailler, suggests they drop the case until a second woman goes missing. What has happened to these seemingly unconnected women? 

For the most part I enjoyed this novel. It has all the elements to make a good mystery. Hill creates a strong sense of place, with a stunning Cathedral at the heart of the town, the misty parkland of The Hill, and the wee shops and pub frequented by locals. There are some interesting characters too - Dr Cat Deerbon, a compassionate soul committed to her patients; philanthropic Mrs Serrailler; elderly Iris Chater, mourning the loss of her dear husband; and the compelling, intelligent Freya Graffham. 

But there is a lot going on in this novel, perhaps too many characters, strange red herrings and it is certainly too long. Hill writes with a lot of detail, but this can sometimes slow the pace, frustrating the reader. The interspersed chapters featuring tape recordings of the killer didn't feel necessary to me. I also found it strange that this was the start of a Serrailler series, when he doesn't make that much of an impression on anyone except Graffham.  I would have preferred the series followed Freya's career as she is a much more well-rounded and interesting character. 

All in all, I liked but didn't love this novel. But I am prepared to give the second novel in the series a go to see if Serrailler himself grows on me. 

*As at 2021 there are eleven novels in the Serrailler series.

I Will Always Love You

 Singer, songwriter, humanitarian, philanthropist, icon.  I love Dolly Parton! 

As a child I would watch with wide-eyed wonder at Dolly Parton singing on television. I clearly remember her appearances with The Muppets, and adored her sparkle and style.  In my early twenties, I went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee to see her birthplace and Dollywood theme park. As an adult I grew to admire Parton for her advocacy and philanthropy - her support of HIV/AIDS charities, her Imagination Library literacy program, her campaigns against animal cruelty, and more recently her donations to support COVID vaccination research.

Some people dismiss Dolly Parton as a 'dumb blonde'. They can't see past her petite frame, blonde hair, ample bosom and her down-home, aw-shucks country voice. But she is a force to be reckoned with. She is a smart, savvy, tough and an incredibly gifted and prolific artist. 

Parton has published a wonderful coffee-table book called Songteller - My Life in Lyrics (2020). It is part memoir and part career catalogue, spanning sixty years of country music. It features song lyrics from over 150 of her songs, along with the stories behind them. Throughout the glossy pages are photographs of Dolly, her co-stars and collaborators, and artefacts and ephemera from her career. 

After my first read through, I downloaded the audiobook in which Dolly tells her story with clips from many songs. This really brought the book to life. The audiobook amplified her charisma, talents and wit, and gave the reader an enhanced, immersive experience. Plus, it reminded me of how many wonderful songs she had written.

Through her life and lyrics in Songteller, we learn of Dolly's impoverished upbringing in Pigeon Forge, her family hardship, her love for her husband of 50+ years, her business acumen, and the challenges she endured throughout her personal and professional life. She talks about the inspirations behind her most famous songs, her experiences in the film industry and her difficult creative partnership with Porter Wagonner. 

As a songwriter, Dolly doesn't shy away from writing about difficult topics - addiction, domestic violence, poverty, infidelity - with empathy and understanding. She knows how to reach the hearts of listeners with a memorable melody and meaningful lyrics.  

I really enjoyed Songteller and am thankful for the re-introduction to so many Parton songs. It is a big, beautiful book to have and flick through and I strongly recommend the audiobook* as an accompaniment. While Dolly Parton fans will get a lot out of it (and come away loving her even more!), I think it would be of benefit to young writers and musicians of all kinds to gain an understanding of the highs and lows of creative professions.  

Will leave you with this... Dolly Parton on a date with Kermit the Frog from an episode of The Dolly Show (1987-1988). Delightful!

P.S. A huge thank you to my brother for giving me Songteller - you know me so well!

*Note - the audiobook is not a word-for-word reading of the book. It seems more like a podcast or interview with Dolly Parton, but it greatly enhances the experience. 

Nobel Prize for Literature 2021

The Nobel Prize for Literature was announced this week, recognising Abdulrazak Gurnah 'for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.'

To my great embarrassment, I was not aware of this writer and so I have embarked on an exploration to learn more about him and his work.

Born in Zanzibar in 1948, Abdulrazak Gurnah fled at the age of 18 to escape persecution of Arab citizens during the Zanzibar Revolution. He arrived in the UK in the 1960s as a refugee, where he resides today.  He earned a PhD from the University of Kent and was an English professor there until his retirement. 

He is the author of short stories, essays and ten novels. He has been in the running for the Booker prize twice. Gurnah is the first black author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature since Toni Morrison was recognised in 1993. East Africa is the setting for much of Gurnah's fiction with his characters often experiencing the alienation and loneliness of migration, the sense of being between two worlds. 

Let's take a look at his novels.

Memory of Departure (1987) - Gurnah's debut novel is set in a post colonial East African county. Narrator Hassan is a teenage boy, raised in poverty. He family life is marred by violence and squalor. His mother sends him off to Nairobi to stay with her brother. His uncle is a wealthy businessman, and Hassan is exposed to a lifestyle he has never experienced. As Hassan's horizons are broadened and he can see alternative futures for himself, he learns that his uncle's success is built on corruption. The novel addresses themes of poverty, oppression and post-colonial identity.

Pilgrims Way (1988) - Daud is an emigrant from Tanzania to England in the 1970s. He works as a hospital orderly, writes letters and enjoys cricket. He cannot go home as he would be persecuted as a Muslim, but struggles to make a new home where he is unwanted and experiences racism daily. Daud is saved from bitterness by his sense of humour, as he reconciles his past and tries to come to terms with his pilgrimage.

Dottie (1990) - The story of a young woman discovering her family and cultural history. Dottie is seventeen when she takes responsibility for her brother and sister - desperate to keep her family together.  Unlike Gurnah's previous novels, the protagonist Dottie is born in Britain. But Dottie realises that England does not embrace women of colour and endeavours to explore her family's past and learn more about her African heritage. 

Paradise (1994) - Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this historical novel follows Yusef, a twelve year old boy who has been given to a merchant as an indentured servant to pay off his father's debt. Set in East Africa before World War I, Yusef joins the merchant's caravan as they journey to the interior of Africa and the Congo Basin. Here they experience the wildness of nature, animals and the hostility of locals. Paradise is about the change coming to Africa, bringing about freedoms and loss. 

Admiring Silence (1996) - In this novel a man emigrates from Zanzibar to England. Here he meets and falls in love with an English woman and tells her stories of his past. He becomes a teacher in a London school. When it is eventually safe for him to return to his homeland, he journeys back to see what has happened to the family he left behind. He finds that it is not as he remembered and is able to see his current life with new perspective.

By the Sea (2001) - Longlisted for the Booker Prize, this novel is a story of migration and the plight of refugees. Saleh Omar attempts to enter the UK on a fake passport, using a stolen identity. The son of the person whose identity was stolen also attempts to get to the UK but via a different route. Their interwoven stories come together to paint a picture of life in exile and the experiences of racism and imperialism.

Desertion (2005) - This novel begins in 1899 when a British adventurer, Martin Pearce, stumbles into an East African village having been abandoned by his guides. A local shopkeeper takes him in and he is nursed by the shopkeeper's beautiful sister, Rehana. Despite the clash of cultures, romance blooms. Their story is told decades later by Rashid, an academic teaching in England. Their forbidden love is mirrored in the affair Rashid's brother is engaged in with Rehana's granddaughter. Desertion brings to life the personal and political consequences of colonialism.

The Last Gift (2011) - Abbas is an East African immigrant living in England. He has a stroke and begins to reflect on his past. Abbas has never spoken about his past before - his life as a sailor, the time before he met his wife and had children. Now, his stroke has left him unable to tell these stories, but he still seeks to share his secrets with his wife and adult children. This is a story of identity, displacement and the intergenerational impact of migration.

Gravel Heart (2017) - A young child in Zanzibar when his family breaks up, Salim does not understand what has happened. He lives with his mother and uncle and has an estranged relationship with his father. Salim turns inwards and concentrates on his school work where his success paves the way to England to take up business studies. He arrives in London bearing the weight of his family's expectations.  He befriends other immigrant students and then needs to decide whether or not to return home.

Afterlives (2020) - From the 1880s until World War I, East Africa was colonised by Germany. This historical novel follows the lives of three locals in the early 20th century. Ilyas and Hamza become part of the German colonial infantry. When these friends return home from war they find that Ilyas' parents have gone and his sister Afiya has been given away. Afterlives is a story of love, friendship and kinship, against the backdrop or a larger consideration of the generational impacts of war and colonialism.

Learning about Abdulrazak Gurnah and his novels has encouraged me to reflect on the diversity of my reading. While I have endeavoured to introduce new voices into my reading, I need to broaden my horizons even further. I am really interested in tracking down a couple of his novels (Afterlives and Paradise are my first picks) and then branching out further to read more authors from diverse cultures, writers in translation and explore worlds beyond my own.

Cat and Mouse

British author John Fowles' first published novel The Collector (1963) is a creepy tale of a man who kidnaps a young woman and holds her hostage in a basement. Told initially from the perspective of the kidnapper, and then in the form of a journal kept by his victim, this thriller leads readers to understand the motivations of both characters, all the while wondering how the story will unfold.

Frederick Clegg collects butterflies in jars so he can admire their beauty. He is a loner, unable to socialise with others. He forms a deep fascination with art student, Miranda Grey, but realises he cannot talk to her. He thinks that if she got to know him, she would surely come to love him. She would be the prize of his collection.

Clegg purchases an isolated house in the English countryside and converts the basement into a soundproof locked room, filled with art books, clothing and other items he believes Miranda will appreciate. After tracking her for weeks, an opportunity presents itself to acquire her. He grabs her on her way home, ties her up in his van and takes her home. She awakens from a chloroformed haze in Clegg's prison. 

Over the coming days and weeks of her confinement, Clegg believes he is the perfect host - he buys Miranda whatever she wants, he takes her upstairs to have proper baths, he prepares nice meals for her. Miranda cannot figure Clegg out - as he has not physically harmed her. She baits him, acts like a friend, mocks him mercilessly, stops talking and goes on a hunger strike - all the while plotting an escape. Will she break free? Will she be found? Will he grant her freedom?

Fowles creates a claustrophobic cage in which these two characters interact. The first part is narrated by Clegg. He is a terrifying character in that he is clearly a psychopath, but seems more misunderstood than menacing. That Fowles can make a reader empathise with Clegg is a testament to his writing. Miranda's diary reveal her to be shallow, elitist and slowly going mad inside her cell. Through the perspectives of the two narrators we learn that they each suspect the other of lying but play along with the deceptions in the hopes of gaining some advantage. Perhaps neither narration is true, and the reader needs to ascertain what lies in the space between their accounts. 

For the most part I enjoyed The Collector. Clegg was fascinating and I wanted to know what he would do next. But I found Miranda's diary too long and meandering, with ramblings about her friends and family that took away from the immediacy of the situation, thereby slowing the pace. I would have edited the bulk of Miranda's part down or left it out entirely.  But overall, I thought it was a really interesting novel.

The Collector was adapted as a film (1965) directed by William Wyler and starring Terrance Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The film poster describes it as 'almost a love story' so I will be interested to track the film down and see if they romanticised the story. I hope not.

I would also imagine The Collector has inspired other writers as you can see elements in Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs (1988) and in plenty of film and television series.  This novel is also on the list of 1001 books to read before you die.