Bookclub Reads

History of Violence by Édouard Louis

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History of Violence

Raw, honest and brave about rape

One of the extraordinary things about Édouard Louis’ debut novel, The End of Eddy, was the complete absence of judgment and bitterness on behalf of the protagonist. Louis’ second novel, History of Violence, shares this quality and, again, it’s a story from Louis’ own life. On the way home from Christmas dinner, Louis meets a stranger whom he invites home for a drink. They share their life stories and have passionate sex. But as the stranger prepares to leave the next morning, things turn ugly. Louis’ skill as a storyteller, intelligent observation of his own and other people’s reactions and ability to draw connections between the personal and the collective proves what an extraordinary talent he is.

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Charlotte by David Foenkinos

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Charlotte

A punch of a book

Charlotte by David Foenkinos is a novel based on the true story of artist Charlotte Salomon, a German Jew growing up in Berlin in the late 1930s.  From a family ravaged by mental illness and suicides, Charlotte grows up in the shadow of death and depression but also with a huge creative talent. David Foenkinos’ all consuming passion for his subject matter shines through in this intense little book which, as its first page will tell you, ends in tragedy.

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Less

Playful Pulitzer Prize winner

Arthur Less is having a massive mid-life crisis. His last book proposal has been turned down, his boyfriend Freddy of eight years has dumped him only to announce he will marry his new beau instead. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the big five-O is lurking on the horizon. What to do? Escape seems the sensible option. Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which won the Pulitzer Prize last week, gets off to a bit of a slow start but picks up once Arthur hits the shores of Europe. A perfectly pitched comic portrayal of other cultures through the eyes of an American. I grew fond of anti-hero Arthur, his insecurities and fumbling efforts to rebuild his life. A heart-warming, funny and original read.

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Pachinko

Faltering family saga

Han Kang’s quirky Booker Prize winning The Vegetarian opened my, and I suspect many other’s, eyes to South Korean literature. I was curious, then, when Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a Korean-American, came out to rave reviews. Especially, as I have a soft spot for epic family sagas, the kind that sucks you in and makes you cry when you finish as you feel you’ve become a part of the family. However, Pachinko has turned out to be a tricky book to write about. It has many strong points but almost as many faults. I learned about the immigrant experience, Japanese racism towards Koreans, but missed some more historical context. There were characters in this book I really felt I got to know while others remained like card-board cut-outs. All in all, an uneven reading experience but one which still, somehow, managed to keep me going.

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On Chesil Beach

A nightmare of a wedding night

Edward and Florence are about to consummate their marriage, Edward has been waiting for this moment since he first laid eyes on her, Florence has been dreading it. Few authors can slow down time to a snail’s pace and still make gripping writing quite like Ian McEwan. His several pages long description of a disastrous kiss in On Chesil Beach will have you glued. Sexual mores of the early 1960s, class, failure of communication and deep love mix in a testing cocktail in McEwan’s book. Read it now, before it comes out as a film in May.

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Go, Went, Gone

A hauntingly beautiful novel about one of the most important issues of our time

This is a book that offers an intelligent fictionalised response to the refugee crisis by distilling the unimaginable scale and horror of a worldwide problem to the personal stories of a few people, played out in today’s Berlin. Full of generosity and humanity, it manages to be wide‐ranging and universal and yet astonishingly simple.

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The Only Story

Endless love?

It’s the 1960s, 19-year-old university student Paul is home on summer holiday. Bored and fed up of by his parents’ suburban conventionality Paul reluctantly goes along when his mum suggests he joins the tennis club to meet a ‘Caroline’. Instead, he meets Susan Macleod, 48-year-old unhappily married mum of two. A beautiful and harrowing love story ensues, one that will dominate the rest of Paul’s life. Julian Barnes fans will want to read The Only Story, if I were new to Barnes, though, I’m not sure this is where I would start.

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Sisters

Torn apart by jealousy

Our unnamed narrator, the second wife of a successful Wall Street bond trader, is consumed with jealously for the first wife – ‘she’ – in this short novel, where the classic direction of jealousy is reversed. She is composed, blonde, tall and ‘lovely’, a talented musician with two exceptionally bright kids. ‘I’ is everything she’s not. A stirring portrayal of jealousy, emotional neglect and obsession, easily read in one sitting.

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Lullaby

A psychological thriller about the Mary Poppins from hell

‘The baby is dead. It only took a few seconds.’ The chilling opening line of this hugely hyped thriller about a killer nanny leaves you in no doubt about its horrific ending. And this horrible premise certainly doesn’t make for an easy read. Touted as the next Gone Girl, the first of Leila Slimani’s novels to be translated into English and winner of the prestigious French literary prize, The Prix Goncourt, does Lullaby (American title – The Perfect Nanny) deserve the hype?

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Mrs Osmond

A worthy sequel to Henry James's great classic

Some books just scream out for sequels. None more so than Henry James’s 19th century classic The Portrait of Lady which ends with heroine Isabel Archer facing the choice between going back to her adulterous, deceiving husband or scandalising society by leaving him. Brave is the author who picks up James’s pen and continues his masterpiece, but John Banville does it and, somehow, manages to pull it off.

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