Sal by Mick Kitson

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Engaging modern wilderness survival novel with heart: Sal by Mick Kitson

Sal is a touching and distinctive novel about two sisters trying to survive in rural Scotland. Sal prepared for a long time for her escape into the wilderness with her little sister Peppa: watching YouTube videos, reading the SAS survival handbook, and getting supplies and tools from Amazon using stolen cards. Robert, her mum’s abusive boyfriend, didn’t notice the missing cards. Now Sal must use her knowledge of building shelter and skinning rabbits to look after Peppa, now that she’s freed her sister from the dangers of Robert. Just as long as nobody works out where they are and wants to split them up.

The novel is written from Sal’s point of view and creates a vivid sense of her voice and thoughts. She is a character who shows the force of sibling love and protectiveness, but at the same time, Sal and Peppa aren’t cloying or annoying, but real siblings who tease each other and have different interests and strengths. The narrative is made up of the minutiae of their wilderness life as well as larger things that threaten to change it, and it provides a tense atmosphere at times, as it is clear it will be hard for them to go on as they are.

Sal has some similarities to Emma Donoghue’s Room though the premise is fairly opposite, as it uses a distinctive character voice to show a fraught situation become normal. Its writing style makes it easy to get invested in the sisters and it is certainly an enjoyable and gripping read, though a little slower at parts. It is deeply set in its Scottish location, both the wilderness and the scheme where Sal and Peppa escaped from, and is an exciting new novel with heart.

Quick book picks for February

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Escape the bleakness of February with some new books. Many of my choices are tackling some hard-hitting subjects in varied and interesting ways. Titles link to full reviews as usual.

  • The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara – A raw novel about LGBT life in NYC from the 1970s to the 1990s that weaves together characters whilst placing them firmly in real LGBT history (a good pick for February being UK LGBT History Month).
  • The Hoarder by Jess Kidd – The story of a woman who works as a carer for an eccentric old man and is drawn into the mystery surrounding him in his weird house.
  • Restless Souls by Dan Sheehan – A road trip tragicomedy about friends dealing with PTSD, war, and traumatic childhood events, which often feels like a specific kind of indie film.
  • Home by Amanda Berriman – This novel about the housing crisis and sexual assault told from the point of view of a four-year-old is a tough but also sweet look at life using a distinctive voice.
  • Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh – A quirky book about food and eating, with a style that won’t suit everyone but will appeal to Tandoh’s many Twitter fans.

Restless Souls by Dan Sheehan

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PTSD tragicomedy: Restless Souls by Dan Sheehan

Restless Souls is a novel that combines a road trip narrative, PTSD treatment, tough upbringings in Dublin, loss, and the hope of unlikely cures as longtime friends Karl, Baz, and Tom try and work through their pasts and present. Tom’s desire to be a war correspondent led him to Sarajevo, but when he returned, he came back haunted and suffering from PTSD. His old friends Karl and Baz aren’t sure what to do, but they’re willing to try out an experimental clinic halfway round the world in California, and so the three of them depart Ireland to see if they can find a desperate solution to help Tom.

The novel feels similar to a certain kind of comedy-drama film where friends must confront their past in a road trip type setting. However, what makes Sheehan’s version of the story distinctive is his focus upon PTSD and suicide through Tom and through their childhood friend Gabriel, which makes the characters’ journey a necessity rather than an indulgence (as can often be the case in a road trip drama narrative). Elements of the genre are apparent—arguments, revelations, a lack of belief in the point of their journey—but the novel also does not only focus on the journey, but what happens whilst there and what happened when Tom was in Bosnia. The narrative moves at quite a fast pace but slows down for Karl’s remembrances, a style that may make it less engaging for some but which tends to suit the story.

Restless Souls mixes hard-hitting moments with light banter and reminiscence in a way that doesn’t undercut its serious themes, but gives a kind of black comedy often found in life.

The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh

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The Wages of Sin is a historical mystery set in 1890s Edinburgh, about female medical students and murder in the city’s slums. Sarah Gilchrist left London, her family, and her scandal behind when she came to Scotland to study medicine, but a lot of people—including the male students and her own aunt and uncle—would prefer her to give up her studies and leave. When she finds the corpse of one of her patients on the dissecting table, Sarah is drawn into a world of brothels, opium, and danger, not even sure whether her own lecturers are connected to the death. At the same time, she is constantly battling the opinions of not only those who don’t think women should become doctors, but also her fellow female medical students who think her tarnished reputation might reflect badly on them.

This is an enjoyable gothic murder mystery that foregrounds the lives of female medical students and of prostitutes to show the troubles and dangers involved in being a Victorian woman. Sarah is a powerful protagonist, often flawed in her assumptions about situations but determined to follow her dream and to not let her past define her. Welsh writes a variety of characters and creates a vivid world, particularly in distinguishing the twelve female students and some of their stories in getting to be medical students. The narrative is tense and not just focused on solving the mystery of the death, but also on the life of Sarah and of many of the other characters in some way or another.

The Wages of Sin is a historical novel with a gothic vibe that has a blend of murder mystery, 1890s feminism, and varied characters. Its protagonist is allowed to be both flawed and likeable, and it won’t be surprising to see future novels about her and her exploits.

Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh

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Fresh food writing: Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh

Eat Up—subtitled ‘Food, Appetite, and Eating What You Want’—is a manifesto in favour of food that combines personal anecdote, discussions of topics such as comfort food, mental health, dietary requirements, and cultural eating differences, and a sprinkling of recipes. Ruby Tandoh is known for being a contestant on Bake Off and talking about food, particularly on Twitter. In this book, she describes a lot of relatable material for many people, including the phenomenon of eating each Creme Egg like it is your last of the year, and also gives short accounts and information about major topics connected to food and eating such as eating disorders and supermarket production.

The content is interesting and the style is charming and quirky. For people who enjoy books about food, this may be something a bit different in that Tandoh tries not to prescribe or pass too much judgement. The proliferation of descriptions of food can get a bit much, especially if you’re not hungry when you read it, but this is a book full of affection that seeks to combine a love of food and eating with discussion of some important things to consider (and a nice little selection of recipes relating to the content).

Don’t Go To Byron’s Birthday Party

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Seeing as it is Lord Byron’s birthday, I thought I’d do a Byron-related post, as someone who has definitely never ever dressed up as him. He’s a poet mostly known for his bear and his sex life (well, and being a dick, but if there’s anything you learn from an English degree, it’s that so were most writers). My favourite burn is from an old All Souls exam paper that I remember finding online: ‘was Byron as funny as he thought he was?’ (depends on the day, for both him and the reader in question).

This post isn’t to give his life story. For that, read Fiona MacCarthy’s brilliant biography Byron: Life and Legend. And also bear in mind that this is someone who lived for 36 years, did a lot of self-mythologising and being fictionalised by other people, and then two hundred years of people changing, adding, believing, and a whole lot more with these stories.

There’s not even really space to talk about his poetry, partly due to how long some of it is. Byron uses a lot of stupid rhymes, dramatic imagery, and frankly flimsily-veiled references to his life (the fourth and final canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a tour round Europe slash meditation on being a brooding Romantic figure, features Byron complaining people thought he was the titular pilgrim even though he’s sure he made it very certain that he’s not, not at all). Two of his short poems are famous and get in general anthologies (‘She Walks In Beauty’ and “So, We’ll Go No More A Roving”). His famous major works, the previously mentioned Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and the sprawling and more comic Don Juan, are long and not necessarily easy to get into.

The short ‘Darkness’ is fantastic: dramatic and unnerving. If you know anything about the Romantic period (or are willing to read a lot of notes to get the references) then read the dedication to Don Juan, which has some of the best use of terrible rhymes as comic insults (on Coleridge: “Explaining metaphysics to the nation— / I wish he would explain his Explanation”). As it is his birthday, read ‘On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year’ and remember he died three months later.

I could write many things about books relating to Byron/using him in a fictionalised way/referencing him for some reason or another, but I’ve already posted on here about Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon (and its similarity to Twilight) and this has become quite long already. Instead, here’s a video to enjoy, the amazingly weird ‘Dread Poets’ Society’, aka Benjamin Zephaniah accidentally meets the Romantic poets on a train (I would’ve also linked to the Horrible Histories Byron parody about him not being a vampire just a pretentious poet, but sadly I can’t find it on YouTube).

The poem that got me into liking Byron (and, in fact, probably Romantic poetry as a whole) was having to read Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in the holidays before we did the paper including the Romantics during my undergrad degree. Some of it is the way the poem sounds—the best lines are the ones you want to keep reciting aloud—and also just the way things are phrased and described was unlike what I’d seen before (“And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on”). The end of canto III has some of the most quotable bits all at once, so I’ll give a little bit to close on:

“I have loved not the world, nor the world me, — / But let us part fair foes”.

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

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The House of Impossible Beauties is a moving and raw novel about gay and trans life in New York City in the late 1970s to the early 90s. It follows Angel, Venus, Daniel, and Juanito in the underground ball scene of Harlem as they come together and form the city’s first all-Latino house. The AIDS crisis, sex work, rejection, love, drugs, and a lot more feature in this novel that blends real life locations and characters inspired by elements of real people with fictional stories that are full of heart and fight for life.

Cassara moves between characters’ narratives to weave their personal tales and histories together before they even meet, in a way that does well to keep the reader invested in all of the main characters, who are flawed and desperate in the city and have all fled from something. The novel is about resilience and love—finding a new family as well as sex and romance—but also highlights how these cannot always protect people from the harsher sides of life. The ending of the book is quite heartbreaking, though the way it is written makes it seem part of life too.

The House of Impossible Beauties blends important LGBT history with moving and vibrant characters to show the ups and downs of life, particularly for its two central characters from the start, both trans women with complicated families who look for new kinds of family. The book isn’t a particularly happy read, but it gives a real sense of the city and the trans and gay culture that underpins it.

Mayhem & Death by Helen McClory

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Unceasing atmosphere: Mayhem & Death by Helen McClory

Mayhem & Death is a collection filled with sea, mystery, birds, darkness, and hints of light. It is made up of short pieces—many only a couple of pages long—and also a fantastic closing novella, Powdered Milk, which is atmospheric and very fitting to close the collection. Other highlights amongst the lyrical writing include: ‘The Inciting Incident’, which feels like a lens to view telling stories and what you do and don’t say; ‘Folk Noir’, which gives snippets of a countryside noir that makes you want more; ‘A Voice Spoke To Me At Night’, which features a mystery voice and has a strangely relatable narrator; and ‘Take Care, I Love You’, which is a hauntingly good poem about loneliness.

McClory’s collection makes me want to use the term “damp gothic”: it is suffused with an eerie sense of water and nature, whilst also being very much about people and the modern day. A lot of the stories have a kind of looming mystery, even (or indeed especially) the very short ones, many of which make you want to immediately go back and read them again, to take in the phrases and the atmosphere. There is a lot of strangeness and hints of unpredictable, but also somehow these pieces of writing feel very fitting for the contemporary world.

Mayhem & Death is the kind of collection you’ll want to give to writer friends and people who love lyrical and strange books. The shorter pieces create tiny atmospheres and stories in concise and clever ways and the novella Powdered Milk is difficult to stop reading as you find yourself drawn into a claustrophobic world.

Home by Amanda Berriman

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A child’s view of the housing crisis: Home by Amanda Berriman

Home is a moving and hard-hitting novel about a little girl and her family. Jesika is four and lives with her mum and her baby brother Toby in a flat that her mum calls a dump. She’s not allowed to touch the broken window and the scary money man is threatening to evict them. When Toby and her mum’s coughs get worse, Jesika finds herself away from home. All she wants is to be back at home, but her new friend Paige has a secret that Jesika isn’t sure if she should tell.

Told from the point of view of Jesika, the novel immerses the reader in her world and in the stark realities of the housing crisis. It doesn’t take long to get into the book’s style and understand the quirks in the way that a four year old sees the world, including the serious issues that she can’t quite grasp. Berriman uses campaigns and support for Shelter and the NSPCC to highlight real problems, including homelessness and sexual abuse, mixing this with heart and with a memorable protagonist.

With similarities to Kit de Waal’s My Name Is Leon, Emma Donoghue’s Room, and Allie Rogers’ Little Gold, this is a heartbreaking novel that uses a distinctive style and voice to show what children do and don’t understand about their situation and to present the housing crisis in a memorable and real way.

The Hoarder by Jess Kidd

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Unexpected characters: The Hoarder by Jess Kidd

The Hoarder is an intriguing and mysterious novel about a psychic carer who ends up drawn into the life of a strange old man. Maud Drennan faces the difficult challenge of helping the cantankerous Cathal Flood in his huge, ram-packed home in West London. He has scared off all the carers who have come before and lives with a menagerie of cats, a fox, and a few ghosts of the past. Soon Maud finds herself trying to work out what happened in the house and what the secrets of the Floods are, aided only by her agoraphobic landlady Renata and a legion of unhelpful ghostly saints.

Kidd blends Catholicism, mystery, and runaway girls in a narrative that develops interesting characters as the protagonist tries to unravel past secrets. Maud is headstrong and determined, but with a past of her own, and her battles with Cathal form much of the book’s premise. Her landlady Renata, an agoraphobic trans woman with a stage show past, is great as she eggs on Maud to see murder and conspiracy everywhere, and then helps her answer the real questions posed by what Maud finds. The plot is tense, but it is the characters that make the novel, even down to the saint ghosts that only Maud can see and who are generally completely useless.

From the premise, I wasn’t sure how enjoyable the book would be, as it didn’t sound hugely exciting or new. However, Kidd’s skilful combination of tense mystery and varied characters meant that it was an easy read to devour, that leaves the reader guessing the answers and appreciating the detail.