Heads of the Colored People, Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Thompson-Spires’ debut short story collection is darkly humourous and thought provoking. Some of the characters appear in multiple stories and there’s a good sense of cohesion and neat circularity. The opening story jolts you into the seriousness of the content with an innocent black man being shot by police. We then move on to petty office politics, the pitfalls of social media obsession, and competitive parents point scoring against each other. The subjects of the stories have wide appeal and relatability but the normality of the lives depicted make the painful truths that much more stark.

For the younger characters especially there’s a certain amount of conflict regarding their identity. They find themselves in predominantly white environments and some become conflicted, keeping different aspects of their lives separate, adjusting the way they speak or do their hair depending on who they’re spending time with. The book gives us an insight into the challenges facing black people in America today and the ways in which they navigate this.

Relationships are examined in almost all of the stories. We see a mother and daughter falling out over disagreements on YouTube content and the false perfect family image they show to the world. There’s teens struggling to find true connection in a world that never switches off and mothers struggling to look after their children, worn down by the tragedies they witness every day. This is a thoughtful collection that’s full of cutting observations on the modern world. The stories are engaging and sometimes shocking, with a host of characters that capture the imagination. A brilliant read.

Sight, Jessie Greengrass

Greengrass’ debut novel is unapologetically introspective as our narrator questions whether or not she should become a mother. Her decision is known from the start and so it is not that you wait to find out but instead experience all the self-doubt and moral questioning that went into the outcome. In some ways her reservations seem linked to the death of her own mother. The dependence and forced physical intimacy toward the end had a profound effect on her and the absence of a maternal figure that follows makes her question herself. Without a mother she forgets how to be a daughter, something she doesn’t notice until she receives the care of her partner’s mother.

Her relationship with her maternal grandmother has also impacted her deeply. Known only as Doctor K, she advocated for an examined life, sitting with the narrator as a child, teaching her to reflect on dreams and her internal life. She encouraged her own daughter similarly, resulting in the extinguishing of dreams, a fact the narrator has always found sad. The novel is interspersed with sections on historic figures. The most obvious parallels are with that of Sigmund and Anna Freud in which the father psychoanalyses his own daughter with seeming beneficial results. Many readers would question the moral reasoning behind a parent exposing their own child to their analysis, and the narrator finds connections to her own moral musings.

Many of the historic sections deal with consent or the lack thereof, and the narrator torments herself with the thought of bringing another person into being without the chance of them having given consent. She feels keenly the responsibility that in choosing to become a mother she must make herself the best than she can, a task she believes she has failed before her baby has even been born, putting her own comfort first. This guilt and self-doubt do not seem to fade with time. She notes that she is only truly able to love in absence – when she is with her daughter she craves time to herself yet when she gets it wishes she were with her. Many of the thoughts and behaviours she chastises herself for appear to be experiences common to parents.

A refreshing, honest look at motherhood in the modern world. In generations past it would be hard to imagine a book such as this being published, for it to be acknowledged that motherhood is not necessarily the obvious choice and that it is just that, a choice. Greengrass creates a sense of place with great skill and the tangents into the lives of real people are both interesting and add depth. An unsettling but thoughtful read that opens the way for considered conversation.

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Tartt’s much anticipated third novel throws the reader straight in to the action. We meet Theo Decker holed up in an Amsterdam hotel room, hiding from the police. It’ll take another seven hundred pages to show us how he got there. The second part of the opening involves a trip to the Met, an explosion that kills his mother, and the stealing of a precious painting. What follows is a heartfelt, sometimes bordering on the absurd, tale in which Theo finds himself under the care of a number of guardians as his grief and guilt slowly eat away at him.

The story is framed around the stolen painting and although you feel Theo’s anxiety about it being found, it's not ultimately the strain of the story you care about the most. Instead we are treated to a host of characters, all intriguing in their own way. From the wealthy Barbours who take him in initially who are kind but distant, missing the heart of his home with his mother, to Vegas with his perpetually absent father. Finally he finds himself back in New York with a benevolent guardian with links to that fateful day.

Tragedy seems to follow Theo and through this we see a variety of coping mechanisms. Theo’s guilt over the death of his mother and the complete absence of the emotional support needed to process such a traumatic experience makes him turn to drugs to see him through. You’ll often find yourself wishing desperately that someone will notice his pain and help him. In others we see avoidance and pretence in the face of their own tragedies, none of which seem to truly serve them well.

Some of the most moving passages revolve around his unflinching love of Pippa. Glimpsed only momentarily on the day of the explosion, they are reunited briefly before Pippa is whisked away to recover abroad. Much as Theo may try to hide his feelings it is abundantly clear to all who know him that his attachment to her goes beyond friendship. His feelings for her are uncomfortably tied to the death of the person closest to him and it is painful to see how utterly devoted he is to someone who is always just beyond his reach.

Beautiful written with entirely believable characters, your heart will break for Theo. At times a page turner, at others a thoughtful treatise on the value of art, the importance of relationships in all their forms, and the all-consuming nature of loss. Fans of Tartt will not be disappointed.

Crudo, Olivia Laing

Written over seven weeks in 2017, Crudo is a chaotic account of a tumultuous summer. The protagonist, Kathy, is getting married but thoughts of her upcoming nuptials fill her mind far less than the reporting of both the serious and the trivial on Twitter. The opening, ‘Kathy, by which I mean I, was getting married,’ immediately lets us know there’ll be an interplay between the lives of the author and Kathy and that this persona won’t be entirely reliable or trustworthy. We are told later that Kathy often lies and so we often approach the tale with wariness. Sadly, the politics which often seem absurd are all too real. ‘… they were like stupid boys at school except killing people and in government, it wasn’t a great moment in history, she still couldn’t quite grasp how it had all come about.’ We can relate to her disbelief at the apparent crumbling of the world as we know it.

Kathy is an interesting character for a number of reasons. Based partly on the life of Kathy Acker, the experimental author who died in 1997, and drawing on Laing’s own experiences, she is complex and compelling. The reader may be taken aback when in the same breath that she tells us she’s getting married we hear that she also has a boyfriend. As the novel progresses so does Kathy’s self-awareness on her attitude to relationships. She loves her husband but also requires solitude, realizing that she has previously chosen aloof and distant partners precisely because they afforded her the freedom she craves. Her feelings can sometimes come across as callous, ‘her husband’s sad eyes upset her but also infuriated her, she detested being responsible for anyone else’s happiness.’ yet at the same time it is refreshing to see such honesty in the difficult transition that requires more selflessness and compassion than she has previously been able to obtain. Perhaps these feelings are also rooted in a doubt in her own ability to provide what is needed by those made dependent on her in love.

Rarely is a book so completely rooted in time. The obsessive checking of social media to see the latest crisis unfold, the underlying desire to protect the environment with the sad lack of real action, and the general sense of unease and dread all ring true. Laing has spoken of her desire to record the chaos of the time that will be lost in historic narratives where a sense of logic and intelligibility will be imposed on a period that had none for those living through it. In many ways a painful read as events continue to hurtle toward as yet untold disasters. The juxtaposition of the wider concerns of the world with one woman’s own self-discovery makes this a captivating read.

We of the Never-Never, Jeannie Gunn

In 1902 Jeannie Gunn, a teacher from Melbourne, moved with her husband Aeneas to Elsey in the Northern Territory. We of the Never-Never is an account of her year there. Her friends at home tried to dissuade her from going and the locals were less than keen to have a woman there, but with time her expectations changed and she threw herself into bush life, making friends and earning the respect of the indigenous people that educated her on the ways of life in the bush.

The tale is not one of high adventure but everyday life in a harsh landscape. The postman visits eight times a year and Gunn is impressed by his endless good humour and punctuality despite the hardships of his job – his predecessor died on his route. The way in which humans are beholden to the land, becoming trapped by the Wet or Dry alternately, is made abundantly clear. The misunderstanding of life in the bush by those in the South is commented on. They wonder how bush-folk fill their time little understanding the challenges of survival and the beauty of life there. ‘Speed’s the thing,’ cries the world, and speeds on, gaining little but speed; and we bush-folk travel our sixty miles [in three days] and gain all that is worth gaining – except speed.’

Having been written at the start of the twentieth century some of the language used can be offensive to modern readers, but there is a glimmer of modernity in her comments on the hypocrisy of colonialists who criticize the violence of the indigenous people while taking their land by force, not to mention the way in which they treated the captives brought with them.

An enlightening read on a way of life so different to that of a city dweller. Gunn is honest in her tales, including moments where she is laughed at and being open about how unprepared she was. During her year in Elsey she comes to have great affection for the land and its people and although I can’t help wondering if the locals would really have agreed with her including herself in ‘us bush-folk’ having spent only one year there, it nonetheless aids in telling stories that would otherwise go untold.

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Circe, Madeline Miller

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In Madeline Miller’s latest reimagining she takes Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios, a character who fills only a few lines of Homer’s The Odyssey and puts her centre stage. An outcast among the gods for not being beautiful enough and the misfortune of having a mortal voice, she finds peace in her island of exile, Aiaia, but only when the gods allow it. Through her story we meet many famous characters – Scylla, Odysseus, Jason, and the minotaur birthed by her sister. Her story is in many ways a sad one but also one in which she proves her resilience and power.

Her separation from other divine beings gives her an appreciation of mortal values. She comments that they have to work hard to hone their skills but because gods are born with excellence they instead work on proving what they can destroy. They do not have empathy as mortals do, yet Circe does show some. Early on we witness the punishment of Prometheus, Circe alone takes pity on him. Penelope comments that Odysseus told her ‘that he had never met a god who enjoyed their divinity less.’ Her views on the division of mortals and gods is forged in her youth as she is rejected and abused by her kin, reinforced by her transformation of Glaucos from mortal to god and his simultaneous loss of love for her. At a number of points she seems to yearn for mortality. She envies the way mortal bodies have their history written on them, and that part of them doesn’t die but lives forever in the underworld, where she can never go. She shows us a different side to divinity and she is made to be more relatable to the reader.

The other main theme is that of the position of women. Even goddesses are seen as lesser beings. When nymphs are sent to Aiaia as punishment Circe reflects that having misbehaving daughters sent to her is preferable to sons, swiftly followed by the truth that it never would have been sons, as they are not punished. It is not merely moral expectation that is different but for females there is a very real risk of assault. Hermes jokes with her that nymphs always run screaming when he tries to take them to bed but that they are terrible at getting away. When sailors come to the island and realise she is alone, despite her power they try to rape her and hope to steal from her. This experience makes her more vengeful, turning dishonest men into pigs. In this way she takes back some control, although she acknowledges that she is always under the dominion of the gods.

Circe's story is told to us as a first person narrative and we experience the heartache and desire for control as her life goes through its many turmoils. At times it is hard to remember that the story unfurls over centuries, but unlike many of the other gods she seems develop emotionally over the years, making her a far more interesting protagonist. Not perhaps as gripping as I’d imagined it might be, nonetheless an interesting read that makes you think again about the mythology we’re taught in our youth.

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The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer

Mortimer takes the famous quote from L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between ‘The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there’ quite literally as he leads the reader through the fourteenth century in the form of a travel guide. His argument for this style in the introduction is convincing but the execution leaves something to be desired. When he gets into his flow it is entertaining and informative but in large parts he slips into a more traditional form of historical narrative. Within this it can feel awkward and sometimes confusing as to which period he’s referring to when he suddenly jumps back to addressing the reader like a visitor. Nonetheless, if you’re after an overview of life in the 1300s you could do worse than picking up this book.

He discusses the strict hierarchical nature of society in England at the time with even the clothes worn being determined by social status. To be at the bottom of the class system meant being under the control of your lord your entire life. It was not just work and earnings they controlled but for villeins even who they married was decided by their lord with punishments being imposed if they did not gain permission or went against the lord’s wishes. Men’s status was decided by their work, for women it was their marital status, and even at the top they remained subservient to men. In an age far more violent than the one we inhabit women were in very real danger of assault and in the case of an abusive marriage they had no means of escape. It is clear throughout that the lot of women was hard but Mortimer does point out some advantages to their lower status. For example, in the case of a criminal couple the man would be hanged for his crimes whereas the woman could be excused by claiming she was merely acting under her husband’s will. It is also interesting to note that as the century progressed men’s clothing became more sexually revealing whereas women’s fashion remained with loose fitting garments.

Climate change being firmly on the modern agenda it was interesting to gain an insight into the disastrous consequences of it six hundred years ago. Temperatures dropped by one degree leading to crop failures, some of which never recovered, abandonment of villages as the land became unworkable, and eventually the Great Famine due to heavy rainfall.

Mortimer discusses the often scant sources available to medieval historians and gives the reader a glimpse into how historic knowledge is pieced together. He succeeds in showing how different life was but also makes the people living through it feel much more relatable and not all that different after all.