May has been a busy month – SATs, my daughter’s birthday and a holiday to plan for (we are currently away as you read this so I am typing with habitual airport anxiety.) But here’s my reading for the month:
Letter From New York – Helene Hanff
A long time ago, I was a teenage girl with a hankering to go to New York and one of the writers that made me want to go there was Helene Hanff. So when I spotted a book of hers that I didn’t own in a remainder bookshop one day after school, I went back with cash at the weekend to buy it. The book was no longer on display so I channelled my inner Hanff and badgered the assistant to search their back room until she found it. Letter From New York is a collection of monthly essays that Hanff wrote for Woman’s Hour in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and each one had the knack of simultaneously showing you something about the city while also keeping it small and neighbourly and personal. It has just been reissued by Manderley Press with a brand new illustrated cover and an introduction from Hanff’s cousin Jean. It’s a beautiful edition in cloth bound yellow and came with a matching bookmark.
Idaho – Emily Ruskovich
This was the reading group choice this month and I wasn’t sure what it would be like – early reviews that I caught sight of complained of its style. But I rather enjoyed it. It’s not hugely plot-driven, which may come as a surprise when you find out more: Ann is married to Wade, she’s his second wife and she met him when teaching him to play piano. Wade has early onset dementia, and Ann is keen to try and pin down details from his life before he cannot tell her about them any more. However, Ann is Wade’s second wife and the details of his life before they married contain things few would want to speak of. (I won’t go into massive spoilers but half the book is about Ann and the other half surrounds Wade’s first wife and her life in prison.) It’s a more reflective book than I imagine many people were expecting, it’s set with people who have time to think and be introspective, and as such, they are perhaps more forgiving and less conflicted than you might imagine. Perhaps this was why some readers didn’t like it. You don’t get big answers, but by the end I wasn’t sure I needed them. The thing had happened and it was awful and we could all agree on that but there was less need for the why by then. It made me think of the Crawdads book but without the dreadful plot that felt shoehorned into that book – so imagine this is the anti-Crawdads, it had the best of that but not the worst. An interesting and beautifully written book.
Afterwards – Charlotte Leonard
Emma walks into her house one day to find dahlias in the fridge and her husband Jay having killed himself in the bedroom. The afterwards of this awful event is the main focus of the book – there was no note and she has no real idea of why Jay would do this. Until she finds his camera and some pictures on it that she doesn’t recognise. She decides to do some investigating and travels to Cornwall to find the pictures and see if they answer her questions. I wanted to like this more than I did. I understand grief is a paralysing force but having your main character stay in bed for weeks and not wash, while wailing about her dead husband doesn’t make an interesting book. So the better bits were when she was interacting with other people but she was still so self-absorbed. I know, I know, I ought to be more sympathetic, the woman just lost her husband, but it didn’t quite work for me. I think perhaps the book flitted between wanting to be a study of grief and to be a light social comedy-drama about communities coming together to help one another, and it fell a bit short.
Tin Man – Sarah Winman
My reread this month as Tin Man was the topic of discussion on Radio 4’s Bookclub programme this month. I’d forgotten much of it except that I’d found it quietly moving, and the re-read was very welcome. Like all her books, it is a quiet story, this time of love and loss and art. Split into two parts, between Ellis and Michael, Tin Man refers to Ellis who is a panel beater in an Oxford car factory. We know he was once married and that he was friends with someone called Michael. He is now alone, and busy trying to reconcile himself with all his memories, and with his father who was a violent drunkard. The Ellis section tells us something of what has happened, and the rest is filled in by the Michael section which is written in the first person diary entries. It’s not a huge plot filled book, but it is beautifully written and poignant and hopeful. We are reading Still Life for the reading group next month so this feels like nice prep for that.
Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret – Judy Blume
Another reread! This was such a favourite of mine when I was growing up so when I saw the film was coming out, I grabbed a copy and gave it to my daughter so she could enjoy it too. And then we watched the film together (see below). It’s funny what you remember from books you read years back – I remembered all the breast talk and none of the religion chat. But it’s as much a book about asking the big questions as it is about growing up and developing through puberty – it’s that keen period of time when you’re open to everything and want to understand it all. I still loved it. Such a good book to pass on to the next gen.
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett
I enjoyed Patchett’s book of essays These Precious Days so much that I’ve been seeking out her other writings. This is a collection of articles and addresses that she has given to universities and written for magazines. They cover a wide range of subjects – some of which I found more interesting than others. One of the most interesting was around the reaction of a few parents to one of her books being assigned reading at a university. When I say reaction, obviously I mean overreaction – but given the amount of book banning going on in the US these days, this was a topical story. These don’t have a common thread running through them in the same way as These Precious Days and while the essays demonstrated Patchett’s breadth, I didn’t warm to them as much as the other book. She’s good here, but less approachable.
No Paseran – ed Pete Ayrton
We’re on holiday in Madrid and I wanted to find out a bit more about the Spanish Civil War but if I’m honest, I’m not likely to get through the big historical tomes, as much as I might want to. This is a collection of writings from a range of writers, Spanish and international, and from all sides of the conflict. Many of these are reportage and short bursts of frontline ghastliness, and include writers such as Laurie Lee, Javier Cercas, Sartre, George Orwell and Manuel Rivas. It’s short snippets for each chapter and gives a flavour of the confusion and bother of the time.
The Fell – Sarah Moss
The Fell is Moss’s Covid book – though that may put you off. It’s about Kate, who has tested positive but who is climbing the walls and so decides to go for a walk, alone, over the fell one evening. She means to turn back but falls instead and the resulting novel features her, her son Matt waiting alone at home, their elderly neighbour Alice and the mountain rescue team. That’s pretty much the plot as Moss is an internal writer, there’s a lot of inner monologue and I do wonder if writing this was a way for Moss to get a load of thoughts out of her head and onto the page. Like all her books, this is well written, but it’s not her best so let’s call it 3/5.
Hotel Florida – Amanda Vaill
Another Spanish Civil War book, this time a chronological tale from the point of view of three non-Spanish couples, all writers or photographers – including Robert Capa, Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn – who covered the civil war. It reads as if they covered the war while all staying at Hotel Florida but in truth the hotel is rarely mentioned as they all travel around a lot in the time covered. It’s very confusing at times (reflecting the war itself), but told well and gives a compelling narrative in short chunks as they story flits back and forth between each couple.
Moments of Pleasure
Films! I watched Rye Lane on Disney+ which I found both fun and a bit gritty. I’ve seen some people comparing it to Richard Linklater’s pretentious Beyond Sunrise/ Sunset/ whatever trilogy but that’s doing it a disservice. It’s the story of two strangers in London who spend a day together telling their stories, getting back at their exes, faffing around and eventually falling for each other. There is a Vespa, Terence Trent D’Arby and some fiddling in a knicker drawer. Linklater wouldn’t know what to do with such content.
All the Gen X girls will tell you of their love for Judy Blume books and how they changed our lives. Now we’ve adapted them for film starting with my absolute favourite, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret. This is a really faithful adaptation, so I imagine the director was a fan of the book too – it’s got everything from the book in it. They develop the backstory – mainly of Margaret’s mum – to flesh her out as a character, but otherwise it’s all there, especially the famous bust enhancing exercises. The book and the film both take the dramas of pre-teen life seriously and don’t patronise and as such, it’s a gloriously authentic look at being eleven. I reviewed it for our local magazine – find it here.
Susan E Barsby 