Coming Home

Over a decade ago, I read and adored Colm Toibin's Brooklyn (2009). The story of a young woman, Eilis Lacey, who leaves her home in County Wexford, Ireland to travel to America is a delightful novel. In Brooklyn she meets an Italian-American plumber, Tony, and Eilis has to decide if she will stay with him or return home to her family. She makes a short trip home and is wooed by Jim, so now has to decide whether to settle down in Ireland, or go back to Tony in America. In 2015 a wonderful film was made of Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan in the lead role.

When I heard that Toibin was releasing a sequel, I preordered Long Island (2024) and read it over a weekend. Set in 1976, Eilis has been married to Tony for twenty years and has two teenage children. She is deeply entrenched in the tight-knit Fiorello family, who live together in neighbouring houses.  In the opening chapter Eilis' contentment is disrupted when a man comes to the door announcing his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that he intends to leave the child with her when it is born. Eilis is stunned by the news of her husband's infidelity and is determined not to raise this child, while Tony's family see the unborn child as one of theirs, pressuring Eilis to change her mind. With the family closing ranks, Eilis needs time and space to consider her options, so she journeys home to Enniscorthy for her mother's eightieth birthday.

In Ireland the novel switches perspective to focus on Eilis and two other key characters. Eilis' childhood best friend Nancy stayed behind in their hometown, married and had children. Now widowed, Nancy runs a chip shop and has grown close with Jim, Eilis' old flame. When Eilis returns home she disrupts the rhythm of this sleepy town, and causes Jim and Nancy to behave in ways they would not have without her return. It is clear that Jim has never gotten over his love for Eilis, presenting Eilis with the potential of the life she could have chosen all those years ago.  Eilis also has to deal with her mother, who has been distant and seems to resent her daughter's choices.

What I loved about this sequel is how it captured these characters in their forties, older and wiser, with more complexities to consider when making decisions. Eilis is no longer the passive girl she once was - she now has a steely determination. Eilis is also a stranger in her home town - seen as having been Americanised - while she is also not wholly part of her new country. Having emigrated myself, I understand that feeling of being in between two hometowns, not wholly belonging. I also appreciated how Toibin kicked off this novel with the conundrum, front loading the crisis, unlike the slow burn of the previous book and he leaves plenty of room for things unsaid. 

Do you need to read Brooklyn to enjoy Long Island? No. I loaned both to a friend and she read the novels in reverse order and loved them. So you can read Long Island as a standalone book, but I think you will get more out of it if you read Brooklyn first. My review of Brooklyn can also be found on this blog.

It was great to be back in Toibin's Ireland, and Long Island reminded me of what a talented writer he is. I have other books of his on my shelf, which I will move higher up on my to-be-read pile.

The Human Stain

Can you love art, but dislike the artist? In the past few years so many artists have fallen from grace, been exposed for their ill deeds, or expressed contemptible views. For fans of their work, it can be difficult to know what to do when something they love is tainted by the actions of the person who created it.

Take, for example, JK Rowling. I love Harry Potter and the Cormoran Strike series, but I am deeply troubled by her hateful views against the transgendered community. For someone who created a world in which misfits found safe haven, I cannot reconcile this with her anti-trans campaign. So, can I still enjoy her books or by reading them am I condoning the author's views? As writer Claire Dederer poses in Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma (2023), 'How do we seperate the maker from the made?'.

Dederer's roll call of problematic artists includes Roman Polanski, Bill Crosby, Woody Allen, Pablo Picasso, Sid Vicious, Norman Mailer, Miles Davis, Johnny Depp, Caravaggio, Ernest Hemingway, Michael Jackson, Phil Spector, and more. To this you can add Will Smith, Kevin Spacey and on and on. These artists have been convicted of crimes, accused of heinous acts, are misogynists or racists, or are garden variety creepers. Are some of the artists geniuses precisely because of their ill behaviour? Perhaps. 

In her book Dederer shows how she is trying to experiment with different ways of looking at art. As a cultural critic, she cannot view art in the same way as her male colleagues. In one chapter she looks at Woody Allen's acclaimed film Manhattan in which Allen's character dates a high school student. For Dederer this is problematic, made more so by Allen's later real-life actions of leaving his partner for his teenage step-daughter and allegations of abuse by his adopted daughter. Dederer's male colleagues say she should ignore this, and just appreciate the film as a work of art. But can she? Should we?

Dederer also looks at Virginia Woolf, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Willa Cather - authors who made anti-semitic or racist comments in their work - and Doris Lessing who abandoned her children to have a career. I found the chapter on female monsters fascinating, as it always boils down to women failing as mothers when putting their art above their family - which many male artists do but is not viewed as irregular.

What I liked about Dederer's book is that she is working out loud. She is grappling with the concerns of consuming art with or without a moral lens. She asks whether some artists can be given a pass, or whether the failings of artists should be seen in the context of their time. She also points out that in modern times we know more about the artists behind the work than in previous generations where their work can be enjoyed in isolation. I also liked that Dederer didn't solve the problem. She is against cancel culture. She calls for consumers of art to be wise and to challenge their own assumptions. Dederer challenges her reader to think and be open to wallowing in the messiness. Whether you agree with Dederer or not, this is a thought-provoking book. 

Love and Loss on the Western Front

Sometimes a novel will grab its reader and not let them go. Alice Winn's In Memoriam (2023) gripped me tightly and I could not stop reading. When I was away from the novel I kept thinking about the characters and wondering how they were faring. And now that I am done, I am saddened that I will never get to read it again for the first time.

Two teenage boys attend an elite English boarding school, Preshute. It is 1914 and their school newsletter, The Preshutian, publishes lists of their colleagues and alumni who have been killed or injured in war. On the streets young women hand out white feathers to men of fighting age to shame them in to enlisting. Prefect Sidney Ellwood is obsessed with poetry, Tennyson in particular. His best friend Henry Gaunt is a scholar of Ancient Greek. The two are in love with one another, but cannot admit their feelings even to themselves. Despite his youth, Gaunt enlists in the Royal Kennet Fusiliers and is off to France. It does not take long for Ellwood to join him. Here at the front they are able to act on their feelings, even if they cannot express themselves in words, knowing that what happens here cannot continue when they return home. The sense that any day can be their last makes their love more urgent. 

At Ypres, Loos and Somme, the battle rages. The boys are separated and become shadows of themselves through the trauma they endured. All the soldiers and officers experience such loss, injured physically and mentally, forever scarred. 

At its heart, this is a queer love story. The novel presents a realistic portrait of forbidden romance at a time when homosexuality was illegal. There is such tenderness and beauty in the way this relationship is portrayed. Beyond this is a heartbreaking tale of war, when so many young lives were lost. Winn does not shy away from the brutalities of battle - the barbed wire, the gas, the trench warfare. She also showcases the way social class was observed at the front, where merit did not determine rank. Despite the darkness, there is much humour and lightness. The interactions between all the men, and the harebrained schemes of POWs attempting escape, provide a counter balance to the war. 

What makes the novel so good is Alice Winn's writing. She has a beautiful, thoughtful way of crafting sentences and pacing the story. Her ability to create realistic characters who are transformed by war shows a maturity that makes one forget that this is her debut novel.

In Memoriam is so good. It is like a perfectly written combination of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Timothy Findley's The Wars, and Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong.  This is definitely a contender for my favourite book of the year. 

Prime Minister's Literary Award 2024 Shortlist

The Prime Minister's Literary Awards Shortlist for 2024 has been announced. These awards have a significant prize pool ($600K) and serve to recognise 'established and emerging Australia writers, illustrators, poets and historians'. 

Here are the 2024 shortlisted titles in the categories I have most interest in.

Fiction

• Andre Dao - Anam
• Kate Grenville - Restless Dolly Maunder
• Melissa Lucashenko - Edenglassie
• Catherine McNamara - The Carnal Fugues
• Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional

I have read and adored the novels by Grenville and Wood. I started the Lucashenko when it was longlisted for the Stella Prize, but got waylaid and will need to return to it. Dao was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.  I had not heard of McNamara but her nominated collection of short stories sounds quite interesting. 

Non-Fiction

• 
  Daniel Browning - Close to the Subject: Selected Works
• Sarah Firth - Eventually Everything Connects
• Maggie McKellar - Graft: Motherhood, Failure and a Year on the Land
• Alex Miller - A Kind of Confession
• Harry Saddler - A Clear Flowing Yarra

I have read none of these shortlisted titles. Maggie McKeller was longlisted for the Stella Prize so I have heard of her book. I am familiar with Alex Miller's fiction so I am intrigued by his look at his writing life. Bundjalung and Kullilli journalist Browning's essays sound interesting as well. Nature writer Saddler's exploration of the Yarra River is not my cup of tea. I have just purchased Sara Firth's illustrated essays. I heard Firth speak at the 2022 Sydney Writers Festival, when she was pulling this collection together and it is one of the first books published by Nakkiah Lui's publishing house Joan. 

Australian History

• 
  Ryan Cropp - Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country
• Rose Ellis - Bee Miles
• Kate Fullagar - Benelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled
• David Marr - Killing for Country: A Family Story
• Alecia Simmonds - Courting: An Intimate History of Love and the Law

I love David Marr and I am interested in his book about his own family's history as part of Australia's frontier wars. My mother has just finished it and thought it was exceptional. I am interested in Alecia Simmonds book about how jilted lovers could seek legal redress and have just ordered a copy. The other book that is of interest is Rose Ellis' look at Bee Miles, a bohemian character who did not conform to societal expectations. 

The PM Literary awards also cover Children's Literature, Young Adult Literature and Poetry. For information on these categories and on all the nominated titles, see the Creative Australia website. The winners will be announced on 12 September 2024.

Booker Prize Longlist 2024

This week the Longlist was announced for the 2024 Booker Prize. After being disappointed by the Booker  in the past few years, the 2024 Longlist is really exciting.  I have already read and loved two of the titles and there are many more on my wish list. A few days ago I released my predictions of who might make the list and I managed to correctly guess (Huzzah!) four of the titles - marked with an asterix.

So let's take a quick look at the nominees:

Colin Barrett - Wild Houses   (Ireland)
This debut novel by Irish author Colin Barrett is set in Country Mayo, in a town called Ballina. Gabe and Stretch are small-time crooks who abduct Doll English in an effort to retrieve a drug debt. Doll's girlfriend Nicky just wants to find Doll and escape this town. The judges write: 'Wild Houses is a propulsive, darkly comic and superlatively written account of frustration and misadventure in a small Irish town.' While this is Barrett's first novel, he is an acclaimed short story writer, best known for his collection Homesickness (2022).

Rita Bullwinkel - Headshot (USA)
Eight teenage girls compete in a boxing championship in Nevada. In a rundown warehouse they face off against one another, each with their own reasons for getting in the ring. The judges describe Headshot as 'A gripping and gutsy depiction of a young women’s boxing tournament in Nevada. In a compelling series of interconnected snapshots, Bullwinkel weaves a tapestry around several diverse, steely characters, each with their own unique back stories, motivations and perspectives.' Bullwinkel is the author of the short story collection Belly Up (2022). Headshot is her first novel.

Percival Everett - James *  (USA)
If James was not on the Longlist, I would have given up on the Booker forever. I loved this novel and it is my favourite to win every available prize. James is a satirical retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who travels along the Mississippi River with the young rascal Huck. The judges describe this as 'a captivating response to Mark Twain's classic that is a bold exploration of a dark chapter in history and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit'. Everett was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2022 for his brilliant novel The Trees.

Samantha Harvey - Orbital  * (UK)
Six astronauts float high above the Earth at a space station where they conduct experiments on an extended mission. As they orbit the Earth, Harvey shares information about each astronaut showcasing their different pasts and their common present. The judges write 'Orbital offers us a love letter to our planet as well as a deeply moving acknowledgement of the individual and collective value of every human life.' Harvey was previously longlisted for the Booker in 2009 for The Wilderness.

Rachel Kushner - Creation Lake   (USA)
Undercover agent Sadie Smith is sent to infiltrate a commune of eco-activists in France. She meets the communes charismatic leader Bruno Lacombe. The judges write 'what’s so electrifying about this novel is the way it knits contemporary politics and power with a deep counter-history of human civilisation. We found the prose thrilling, the ideas exciting, the book as a whole a profound and irresistible page-turner.’ Kushner's novel The Mars Room was shortlisted or the Booker in 2018.

Hisham Matar - My Friends *  (UK/Libya)
Two Libyan teens meet at university in Edinburgh. They travel to London to participate in an anti-Qaddafi demonstration outside the Libyan embassy where both are wounded. The novel follows the relationship of the friends into adulthood, forever changed by what happened in London and their homeland. The judges write 'My Friends is both a complex and unsentimental meditation on what friendship means and a searingly moving exploration of how exile impacts those who are forced to live in this state of loss. It is a book that we loved for its spareness of language and its deeply affecting storytelling.’ Matar was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2006 for In the Country of Men. I have heard such great things about this novel, I really want to read it.

Claire Messud - This Strange Eventful History  * (UK)
In June 1940 Paris falls to the Germans. In Salonica, naval attache Gaston Cassar has sent his wife and children to Algeria to be safe. Instead of being welcomed home, the family find themselves unwanted by relatives. Over the next seventy years, Messud follows generations of Cassar's family as they scatter across the globe. The judges write 'epic in its scale, while intimately rooted in each character’s internal landscape, the novel reminds us how literature can be expansive and timeless.'  Messud was previously longlisted for the Booker in 2006 for The Emperor's Children.

Anne Michaels - Held   (Canada)
Spanning four generations, Held travels back and forth from a French battlefield in 1917 to 1930 in Yorkshire, and on through the ages. The judges write that Michaels is 'writing about war, trauma, science, faith and above all love and human connection; her canvas is a century of busy history, but she connects the fragments of her story through theme and image rather than character and chronology, intense moments surrounded by great gaps of space and time.' Michael is a Canadian poet and novelist who is best known for her 2020 novel Fugitive Pieces. 

Tommy Orange - Wandering Stars   (USA)
In this follow up to his acclaimed debut There There, Tommy Orange follows the descendants of the1864 Sand Creek massacre. Spanning centuries of Native American experience, Orange shows the intergenerational trauma of colonisation, addiction and loss. The judges write 'through well-crafted prose and deftly drawn perspectives, Tommy Orange paints a vivid portrait of the Native American experience – both the pain of displacement and the resilience of those who continue ancestral traditions.' 

Sarah Perry - Enlightenment   (UK)
In a small Baptist community in Aldleigh, Essex, Thomas Hart is a fifty-something bachelor who writes a column for the local paper and yearns to see the world. Teenage Grace Macaulay is also restless, but tethered to the church. The two form an unlikely friendship. The judges write 'the novel takes its main characters – a middle-aged novelist and reporter for a local paper and the 17-year-old daughter of the local pastor – and weaves a novel of great ambition. This is a book of deep pleasures, full of passion for the life of ideas, richly and satisfyingly written.' Perry is best known for her novels Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood.

Richard Powers - Playground   (USA)
On the French Polynesian island of Makatea, a group plan to send floating, autonomous cities into the open sea. The ocean is the last place we have yet to colonise. The judges write 'this is a characterful, capacious and engaging novel, distilling subjects as diverse as oceanography, climate change, the legacies of colonialism and the arc of a lifelong friendship into an exhilaratingly entangled narrative in which Powers’ unparalleled gifts for revealing the magic and mystery of the natural world are on full display.' Powers is no stranger to the Booker Prize. He was longlisted in 2014 for Orfeo, and shortlisted twice - in 2018 for The Overstory and 2021 for Bewilderment.

 

Yale van der Wouden - The Safekeep (Netherlands)
Fifteen years after the end of World War II, the Netherlands is quiet and has been reconstructed. In a rural Dutch province, Isabel lives a peaceful life in her late mother's country home. When her brother Louis and his girlfriend Eva show up for an extended stay, Isabel's life is disrupted.  The judges said that they 'loved this debut novel for its remarkable inhabitation of obsession. It navigates an emotional landscape of loss and return in an unforgettable way.' Dutch author van der Wouden is a lecturer in literature and creative writing. 

Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional   (Australia)
I squealed with joy to learn Wood was longlisted for Stone Yard Devotional - a captivating novel by one of my favourite writers. The judges said 'a woman settles into a monastery in rural Australia and discovers that no shelter is impermeable. This novel thrilled and chilled the judges.' I loved this novel about a woman searching for solitude and is unnerved by three disruptive incursions. It has been many years since an Australian author made the Longlist. I had hoped Wood would have been recognised for her amazing novel The Natural Way of Things (2015), but I am I so pleased she has been longlisted and more people will be introduced to this gifted writer.

The Booker Prize Longlist is often a mixed bag of novels, but what I love about the Longlist is that it introduces me to many authors and books I do not know. Last year's Longlist didn't thrill me, but I am delighted by the 2024 list. Debut authors and Booker favourites mingle. This is also the first year in many where I have read some of the titles before the Longlist is announced. 

Of all the titles, the ones I am interested in are those by Kushner, Matar, Messud, van der Wouden, and Harvey. If I could vote for a winner though, I would choose Everett's James!

The Shortlist will be announced on shortlist on 16 September 2024 and the winner on 12 November 2024. Better get reading!

The Australian List

A few weeks ago I wrote about The New York Times' list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. While the list contained some incredible titles, what was missing was any books by Australian authors. Fortunately, Australian bookstore Readings responded with a list of the 30 Best Australian Books of the 21st Century.  Here's what they came up with*:

• 30. MJ Hyland - How the Light Gets In
  
• 29. Peter Temple - The Broken Shore
• 28. Gillian Mears - Foal's Bread
• 27. Jane Harper - The Dry
• 26. Jennifer Down - Bodies of Light
• 25. Pip Williams - The Dictionary of Lost Words
• 24. Tara June Winch - The Yield
• 23. Bruce Pascoe - Dark Emu
• 22. Laura Jean McKay -  The Animals in That Country
• 21. Helen Garner - Joe Cinque's Consolation 
• 20. Geraldine Brooks - Year of Wonders
• 19. Tony Birch - The White Girl
• 18. Craig Silver - Jasper Jones
• 17. Heather Rose - The Museum of Modern Love
• 16. Melissa Lucashenko - Too Much Lip
• 15. Helen Garner - How to End a Story: Diaries 1995-1998
• 14. Anna Funder - Stasiland
• 13. Trent Dalton - Boy Swallows Universe
• 
  12. Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang
• 11. Nam Le - The Boat
• 10. Evelyn Arleen - Dropbear
• 9. Chloe Hooper - The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
• 8. Jessica Au - Cold Enough for Snow
• 7. Kate Grenville - The Secret River
• 6. Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North
• 5. Robbie Arnott - Limberlost
• 4. Tim Winton - Breath
• 3. Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
• 2. Markus Zusak - The Book Thief
• 1. Christos Tsiolkas - The Slap

I love this list! Many of my favourite authors and most beloved titles are on this list, along with many books on my teetering 'to be read' pile. The list is a timely reminder that I haven't read some of the most highly regarded Australian books of the past 25 years and I had best turn my attention to catching up!

* Bold = Read, Link is to my review

Miles Franklin Award Winner 2024

The winner of the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's most prestigious literary award, was announced on 1 August 2024. This year the award and its $60,000 prize went to Alexis Wright for her novel, Praiseworthy.

Praiseworthy is the name of a fictional town in northern Australia, a remote Aboriginal community. Praiseworthy is covered in a red haze which is stifling the area. A local man, Cause Man Steel, has a plan to help his people by creating an Aboriginal-owned carbon neutral transport company using feral donkeys. 

The judges said "Wright's literary technique is a superb mash-up of different languages, ancient and modern, and displays an exceptional mastery of craft. The novel is imbued with astonishing emotional range, deploying Wright's signature humour despite its powerful sense of the tragic. Through its sheer ambition, astringency and audacity, Praiseworthy redraws the map of Australian literature and expands the possibilities of fiction.”

Author Alexis Wright is a Waanyi author best known for her novel Caprentaria which won the Miles Franklin in 2007. 

I have not read Praiseworthy, but I am intrigued. It won the Stella Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.