Tag: fiction

Book review: The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

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Just the title of Sofia Segovia’s novel The Murmur of Bees brings to mind a low hum that evokes the vision of bees flitting around my orange tree blossom.

In life, only potential was free.

An infant is discovered abandoned under a bridge cloaked in a humming blanket of bees. The Morales family take him in and he grows up in the close proximity of his bees to have extraordinary insight. Simonopio never speaks because his cleft palate means no one (except his young brother) can understand his mumbling, but he can see the future and uses this knowledge to help his adopted family.

Without his bees, he could not see or hear beyond the hills. Without them, he could not see behind him or observe the world from above when he chose to do so. In their absence, Simonopio could not smell the exquisite aroma of the pollen, just as the bees did. Without the bees swarming around him, coming and going, the information he received from the world was linear; while with them, from the moment he had begun to feel sensation, he had grown accustomed to perceiving the world as it was: a sphere.

In one instance it is by feigning illness to draw attention to himself and save the Morales from the Spanish flu, in another a handful of orange blossom he presents as a gift save the families agricultural land. When danger comes, he calls on his bees to help him protect those he loves.

Sometimes the soul must be allowed to rest, kept away from the things that hurt it.

The Murmur of Bees, set around the city of Linares in Mexico and translated to English by Simon Bruni is steeped in magical realism. The story offers insight into the political and cultural history of Mexico and the impact of the Spanish flue.

There are class struggles, complex family relations, evil, tragedy, grief and redemption. It is a story to fall gently into and be immersed in Segovia’s beautiful prose and transported to Mexico in 1918

Book review: Toto Among the Murderers by Sally J Morgan

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Anyone who grew up in the 70s will relate to Toto Among the Murderers written by Welsh-New Zealand author Sally J Morgan. A group of young creatives live on the margins in the rough district of Leeds – smoking dope, hanging out in alternative pubs with anarchists, experimenting with relationships and hitching rides to get around.

My mother has dreams of an orderly daughter, and if I cut my hair that would splendidly realise it. I, however, draw the line at being shorn like a sheep for the sake of her delusions.

The novel opens as flame haired Toto and her friend Nel move into a dilapidated rental house opposite a brothel run by a violent pimp. Toto soon befriends one of the sex workers called Janice.

I laugh bitterly. ‘We think we’re living in some French film, but we’re not: we’re in bloody Sheffield.’

Toto is chaotic, wild and reckless. She hitches everywhere despite the news being filled with random attacks on women. She has a set of rules she rides by to keep herself safe. Her friend Nel is dating a guy called Simon who is beautiful but sometime nasty and violent.

Toto and Nel are at an age of experimentation their naivety gets them into trouble, and fear, grit and determination get them out of it.

They look at me blankly. I am the object of gossip in a provincial art school, I’m being held captive, without access to my boots, by a woman who is giving me the best sex ever, but whom I may not actually like.

The close, thoughtful friendships that run through the story sit within a general sense of foreboding that crescendo’s when Toto is hitchhiking in a remote area.

Why does the dark seem so complete tonight? I can’t stand lying next to Callie any more. Her arm trails out of the bed and she is snoring like something hard has stuck in her throat. The petals of my heart?

Toto Among the Murderers is a coming of age story with themes that will be remarkably familiar to women who grew up around the time the story is set. This beautifully written, edgy and moving novel won the 2022 Portico Prize.

Book review: Goyhood by Reuven Fenton

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As Emerson said, it’s about the journey – not the destination, and there’s something about a road trip that is transformative. They broaden and unwind the mind and soul, and like Australia, the USA is made for long driving adventures.

Reuven Fenton’s debut Goyhood, is a unique and unconventional take on the road trip story. Goyhood is a funny, heartfelt well crafted story that explores an existential crises bought on by the exposure of a family secret.

Marty and his twin brother David grew up poor with their single mother Ida Mae in Moab, Utah.

She also had a weakness for gin, amphetamines and men who smelled like motor oil.

At age 12 when Marty’s mother explained to the boys that they were Jewish after a visit from the local Rabai (Yossi), Marty (now called Mayer) began a journey to become a religious scholar. Soon he moved to New York and married the daughter of a famous Rabai. David pursued a more wayward life smoking dope and chasing women and get rich schemes that inevitably failed until one day he got lucky.

He quit cigarettes, but smoked more weed than Willie Nelson.

When Ida Mae took her own life, the now middle aged men, who have not seen each other for years, return to Moab for her funeral. Yossi hands the brothers a letter left by their mother in which she explains that they are not Jewish.

The thing is this: remember how I said I was Jewish? Don’t get me wrong, I’m Jewish in the sense that my husband was Jewish, all of my friends are Jews, my boss and best friend is a rabbi. I consider myself an honorary member of the tribe. But I know your mother’s got to be a Jew in order for you to be a Jew, and my mother? Not a Jew, Lord no. She hated Jews more than my dad. In fact her dad, Grampa Karl, was a Nazi of some kind. SS I think. Or Gestapo? Anyway, he and his family escaped to Argentina after “Der Krieg” before coming to the USA. Frau Abernathy would’ve flipped a biscuit if she ever found out I’d married a “Judensau.”

For Mayer this means his whole life has been a sham, he’s not Jewish nor is he married. He decides to try and cover up the issue by converting to Judaism so he can continue his life as it was. Yossi helps him and a date is set for the ceremony in a weeks time.

You and me, we’re all we’ve got left.

David suggests they go on a road trip for the intervening week. Mayer reluctantly agrees and the two men, along with their mother’s urn, begin a life changing adventure through the south of the USA to New York in a rented Charger. And in the vein of all good road trips it is transformative – but you’ll have to read the book to find out how.

Listen, see, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s when the going gets tough, the tough get in a car and drive.

Themes include sibling and family dynamics, identity, relationships to faith and religion, belonging, self discovery and search for meaning. Goyhood will be published by Simon and Schuster in May, order your copy now.

Thanks to Reuven for the advance copy, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Book review: Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor

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Historical fiction novel Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor is a fascinating tale about Iris Webber, a young woman from Glen Innes in NSW who grew up hunting rabbits out bush, then lived in Sydney in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Iris became known as ‘the most violent woman in Sydney’ having been charged with murder twice.

I was born in Bathurst in the Salvation Army Women’s Home. My mother Marge had been doing a stretch for larceny in Cooma Gaol. She was a servant for a publican, she would’ve known his family ’cause she was born in Adaminaby. They said she stole two rings and five pounds, Ma said they fitted her ’cause the publican’s wife was jealous. My mother was beautiful then she always said, with dark wavy hair that took one hundred strokes to brush, it was that thick and long. She would’ve got knocked up with me just before going inside. They let her out early for the birth.
She went up to Glen Innes after having me ’cause she wanted a fresh start

On arrival at Central Station, Iris is saved from the unwanted attentions of a man by a woman who masquerades as her aunt and offers her a place to stay. This becomes her introduction to a marginalised life of sex worker under the tutelage of Tilly Devine, petty crime, bar work, drug running and busking.

This is how life has always ensued, as a series of events determined by others that rides over her like a tram. All she can do is lie there.

Some of the language is challenging – words and phrases that are not in use now – rozzers, bungers, going Yarra, boree log, bidgee angie, just to name a few.

Detective Mallon started at Iris. She stares back. Powerful reek of pipe on the man, wrinkled suit, shiny face. One of those men who sweat all the time. Get them as a customer there isn’t much you can do, the sweat’s pouring out rank and sticky as soon as they’ve washed.

The story jumps back and forth between Iris’s time in prison for murder and the years leading up to that time. The violent tale and its language evoke Sydney’s underbelly and inhabitants in technicolour, never shying away from the hard life and discrimination dished out on some members of society.

Iris is a great read about a little known Australian character.

Book review: Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

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Have you ever naively read a book at random and come away thinking it was non-fiction, then to be told a friend it was fiction? I confess this is what happened to me when I red Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. I think it is probably a sign of a very well crafted novel.

It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us.

Lucy by the Sea is a sequel to a book called Oh William, that I have neither read, nor was aware of. Perhaps I was just in a general state of vagueness when I picked up Lucy by the Sea! Needless to say it holds up perfectly well as a stand alone novel.

We all live with people — and places — and things — that we have given great weight to. But we are weightless, in the end.

When the pandemic strikes, Lucy’s ex-husband, a scientist, sees what’s coming and takes charge. He rents a house on the coast of Maine and insists that Lucy goes there with him to wait it out for a few weeks. Lucy is grieving the death of her second husband and goes along with Williams demands in a state of detachment bewilderment. William also begs their daughters Becky and Chrissy to leave New York with their husbands – one does, and one doesn’t.

Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.

Lucy is a midlife writer and what follows is her account of the day to day and minute of what we all experienced through the pandemic. Working from home, cancelled events, people dying on ventilators, no funerals, face masks, surgical gloves and hoarding supplies. Lucy and Williams fill their days with walks along the cliffs, trying to work, and to manage familial relations from a distance. Lucy becomes frustrated with their circumstances, she hates Maine and at times cannot stand William. He is endlessly patient and as time passes, they become closer.

What is it like to be you? I need to say: This is the question that has made me a writer; always that deep desire to know what it feels like to be a different person.

Lucy by the Seas is a moving, meandering account of the pandemic that exquisitely captures the frustration, boredom and fears experienced across the globe during the pandemic before vaccines became available. It is an extraordinary story about the ordinary in extraordinary circumstances.

Book review: Cat Lady by Dawn O’Porter

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Everyone has heard of the archetype of the crazy cat lady…the sometimes humorous, sometimes affectionate, label for a cat hoarding spinster. Dawn O’Porter has taken the concept and blown it up large in her rom-com novel Cat Lady.

People who hate cats are like atheists, they cannot get through a conversation without telling you their views. There is such a righteousness that comes with it. You tell someone you have a cat, and they tell you, to your face, that they hate the thing you love. There are so few instances in life where this is acceptable.

Mia is a successful businesswoman in her forties working for a boutique jewellery designer. She is married to Tristan and step mother to his son from a previous marriage and goes out of her way to make sure their life runs like clockwork. Tristan and Mia retain separate bedrooms due to Mia’s devotion to her cat Pigeon and Tristan’s aversion to said cat. Tristan’s ex-wife, with whom he still attends regular counselling is a constant in their lives.

There is no such thing as ‘just’ a pet. They are family, our heart and soul. It’s not fair that their lives are so short, and even worse when their lives are cut shorter than they should be. I wrote this book because pet grief is real, and it deserves to be written about. Be there for your friends when this happens, they really need you.

Mia is complex in ways that unfold with the story. She joins a pet bereavement group, despite Pigeon being very much alive. The bereavement group becomes critical to Mia’s wellbeing as her life starts to fall apart after she catches her husband having sex with his ex-wife in their kitchen and she loses her job. Mia is forced to make decisions about how she really wants to live and we, the reader, get to go along for the hilarious, tragic ride.

If you can’t scratch your itchy bush in a doctor’s waiting room, then where can you scratch it?

I’m more of a dog person myself, but I found Cat Lady to be both amusing, tragically sad, and cringe worthily politically incorrect.

Book review: Thorn In My Side by C.J. Skuse

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I did that thing I wouldn’t normally do…I dove right into the middle of a series. I have never ready C.J. Skuse before, but found their darkly humorous thriller, Thorn In My Side, uncomfortably hilarious and enthralling. And best of all, it didn’t matter that I have not read the first three books.

Rhiannon Lewis is a serial killer trying to live a quiet life. She had to change her identity (now known as Ophelia) and move to San Diego to escape the law in England. She left her daughter behind in England and has one clandestine phone call per month with her sister for updates on her daughters wellbeing.

The old Penny D has been a boon for a serial killer in hiding. Stay-at-home orders. Forced distancing. No meaningless conversations on dog walks. Face masks. Little did I know when I had facial reconstruction surgery that I’d pen the next year and a half behind a fucking mask but there you go.

Ophelia lives with her South American fiancee Raf who has a talent for taming her fiery temper, and she hasn’t killed anyone for more than 800 days (yes, she’s counting). Everyday she still thinks about killing and writes a list of the type of people she would target.

Her restraint eventually fails when her soon-to-be sister in-law calls her for help with her abusive ex. Before long she finds herself with more bodies on her hands, but after all, like Dexter, she only kills bad people. Meanwhile, Rhiannon struggles with the fact that her man, who she adores, and his family do not truly know her (not even her real name) and she want’s to be seen. But how do you tell your sweetheart that you are a serial killer?

One old fart’s petunias won’t grow, he digs a bit too deep to check for tree roots and hits a femur. And suddenly my name is everywhere again. There are debates about me on morning TV. Sales of Rhiannon T-shirts spike again. Overly woke TikTokkers with no discernible qualifications perform monologues telling ‘the kids’ not to obsess about murderers and to always choose kindness.

The story ends on a cliffhanger…

I enjoyed reading a thriller told from the point of view of a villain who manages to make the reader sympathetic to such incredibly anti-social behaviour, to the point where you can see the value in the service she is providing…bwahaha!

Book review: The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell

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If you’re a middle aged feminist (or you love a middle aged feminist) who relates to the concept of being invisible and you are looking for a light summer read, The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell could be for you. It’s a cracker of a yarn, and perfect for curling up on the sofa with on a wet summer afternoon.

Be a good listener. Don’t join a conversation merely to wait for your turn to speak or to offer advice. Joint to listen (from La Lista).

Freycinet Barnes is a woman with an unusual past who has eked out an idyllic, ordered middle class life in Tasmania with her successful husband and three children. One day after dropping her popular, award winning dancer daughter at the Derwent Dance Academy, she goes for a walk and distractedly steps off a curb into the path of a Fiat 500 occupied by Kyrie and Rosanna, two members of the Moonah Women’s Choir.

Frey gets up and puts the kettle on, washes a few dishes, then says, ‘I got hit by a car at low speed last week.’
‘How’d you go with that?’ Roger briefly scans his daughter for signs of injury.
‘Not bad. I jumped. It was a Fiat 500.’

Little does Freycinet realise that soon after she catches her husband in the embrace of another woman, these women will change her life forever. The Moonah Women’s choir are a motley band who love to sing. Each is drawn with wonderful characterisation that develops to its full potential over the course of the novel as they come fully into themselves.

Home is one thing, but only when you step out of it and see other places and other worlds will you know that home is everything (from La Lista).

There is Italian Rosanna, mother and wife who has a terminal illness and writes a list for those she is leaving behind (items from La Lista are scattered through the novel); Bizzy, the choir director and lifetime advocate and protester for just causes; Eleanor who is learning to feel emotions; Avni, who came to Australia as a refugee and writes beautiful music; Irene who sees and speaks to her dead husband; Quin, reformed criminal pregnant with triplets; and more. The main character, Freycinet, is of course full of surprises, but you’ll have to read the novel to find out about her secrets.

There are two things you need to know about women and you’ll be all set,’ says Roger. They wait as he pauses for effect. ‘She can eat your chips, but you can’t eat hers. Also, mark in your diary when her hormones are on the rise and set down eggshells for yourself. Hormones are a great, powerful mystery and you’d do well to do the washing up for them.’

The Angry Women’s Choir is a story about friendship, about not letting middle age put you into a box, about finding your inner voice and holding your own space. The novel is funny and heartfelt and quintessentially Tasmanian.

Before you give your heart away to anyone, make sure they are kind to animals and think first are funny (from La Lista).

Book Review: The Philosopher’s Doll By Amanda Lohrey

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The Philosopher’s Doll by Amanda Lohrey is about domestic politics and conflict between the head and the heart. What happens when a woman’s biological clock is ticking and her partner is reluctant to commit to children?

I was fascinated by this novel, in part because I have never experienced the biological clock phenomenon, though I have been witness to it in friends. The Philosopher’s Doll delivers a deep three-dimensional dive into the inner thoughts of couples grappling with the issue.

Lindsay, a Melbourne philosophy academic and Kirsten, a counsellor are renovating their house. Their divergent priorities lead increasingly to arguments and perverse behaviours. He has other plans he wants to pursue, including completing the house renovations before committing to having children. He decides, without telling her, to buy Kirsten a puppy as a kind of substitute. Kirsten’s biological clock is getting louder, and after a drunken night of sex, she falls pregnant and finds herself with a conundrum. She is unable to tell Lindsay and unable to decide to terminate her pregnancy.

But now she is even more withdrawn from him, and has taken to compensating for her indecision with a series of ruthless fantasies. She will deliver an ultimatum and if he reacts badly, she will leave him. She will live somewhere in a small, light-filled apartment and it will just be the two of them, mother and child. The sperm has flown to the mark: the father has served his purpose and he can be dispensed with. These fantasies come to her like little jabs of false cognition, and then fade

As the story unfolds, Kristen and Lindsay reveal less and less of themselves to each other and more and more to the reader through their inner narratives. There is then an abrupt entrance of a third narrator some ten year later, Sonia, a student infatuated with Lindsay, who reveals what happened after the events, the decisions Lindsay and Kristen made, and who they became.

The Philosopher’s Doll is a rich, multi-layered dive into a very real life conundrum and how people grapple with very personal decisions when life throws them wildcards. Lohery is also author of The Labyrinth, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary award for fiction in 2021. Her writing is not light, but it is elegant and marked by profound characterisation and is beautifully meditative to listen to in audiobook form. Her work is born out of deep thought, clashing personal narratives, vexed choices, and meditations on the complexity of interpersonal relationships.

Book review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is an original, laugh out loud, keenly observant romp through through the world of sexism, discrimination and stereotypes of the late 50s and early 60s.

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun

The story opens in 1961 and is told (mostly) by the no-nonsense Elizabeth Zott, a quirky, self-assured pioneering chemist, feminist, cooking show host, mother of an illegitimate daughter, and a very intelligent and insightful dog.

I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.” “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?

Elizabeth Zott’s profession was as an unapologetically blunt and brilliant research chemist, but her career had been frustrated because a) she’s a woman b) she’s unapologetically independent c) she lives with the man she fell I love with (her soul mate) but refuses to marry him d) her lover dies and she bears his illegitimate child e) misogyny.

No surprise. Idiots make it into every company. They tend to interview well.

By an accident of fate she becomes the star host of television cooking show, Supper at Six, after the love of her life dies and she is fired from her job at the research institute. She decides to ignore the show’s producers and uses the platform to speak to millions of housewives about realising their own potential.

“I call this the ‘love at first sight’ bond because both parties are drawn to each other based solely on visual information: you like his smile, he likes your hair. But then you talk and discover he’s a closet Nazi and thinks women complain too much. Poof. Just like that the delicate bond is broken. That’s the hydrogen bond for you ladies — a chemical reminder that if things are too good to be true, they probably are.”

Lessons in Chemistry is brimming with idiosyncratic characters including Elizabeth’s soul mate, fellow scientist and Nobel-Prize nominated, grudge holding, orphaned, rower who doesn’t like rain, Calvin Evans; her highly inquisitive and intelligent daughter Mad Zott; their pooch, failed bomb disposal dog Six-Thirty; neighbour Harriet Sloane who hates her husband but holds out the hope of true love; and Walter Pine, TV producer and single father of Mad’s friend who steals her lunch.

Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change – and change is what we’re chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others’ opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future.

Garmus’s debut, Lessons in Chemistry covers serious themes with dark comedic grace and absurdity through a fresh lens. The novel won the Australian Book Industry Awards International book of the year. It was a joy to read and one of those rare books I couldn’t put down, and I love that Garmus was 65 when it was published – what an inspiration!