Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout (Jill)

Amy and Isabelle
By Elizabeth Strout
Completed March 14, 2009

Elizabeth Strout is a master at creating female characters that grow on you as you read the story. This was the case in the brilliant Olive Kitteridge - and the case in my latest read, Amy and Isabelle.

Isabelle Goodrow was a well-meaning but insecure woman who was raising her teenage daughter, Amy. Isabelle felt that she was doing a good job as a mother until she discovered Amy’s affair with her teacher. Isabelle was devastated. She was torn between reporting the teacher and keeping Amy’s secret in a gossip-ruled town in which Isabelle so desperately wanted acceptance. More importantly, Isabelle felt betrayed by her daughter and jealous of her sexual escapades. Amy became a daughter she didn’t know anymore.

Meanwhile, we learn about Amy – a beautiful but shy teenage girl who, like her mother, was unconfident and tried her best to fit in. Amy did not see her mother as an expert on life, mostly because Isabelle was so reserved, and easily fell into the arms of her knowledgeable teacher. Little did Amy know that she was living a life parallel to her mother’s teenage years.

I loved how Isabelle developed from a smug, self-righteous woman to an open-minded, accepting mother and friend. As I first started to read about Isabelle, I kept thinking that she needed to lighten up. However, I realized that her quiet reserve was a front because she was always worried what people thought about her. Amy was another interesting character – Strout offered up pieces about Amy, but I did not feel any resolution to her insecurities.

If you enjoy reading about mother-daughter relationships, then I highly recommend Amy and Isabelle to you. I can’t wait to read Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. ( )

Looking Ahead: 2009

Here is the schedule for announcements of award long lists, short lists and winners:

Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction & Award for New Writers 2009

17 December 2008
judging panels announced

18 March 2009
Orange Prize for Fiction longlist

7 April 2009
Orange Award for New Writers shortlist

21 April 2009
Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist

1 June 2009
Orange Award for New Writers shortlist event at the Southbank Centre, London

2 June 2009
Orange Prize for Fiction shortlisted writers' event at the Southbank Centre, London

3 June 2009
Awards Ceremony

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (Jill)

We Need To Talk About Kevin
By Lionel Shriver
Completed January 30, 2009

When I started We Need To Talk About Kevin, I did so with hesitation. Several readers commented how it was depressing, the characters were unlikable and the subject was uncomfortable. Admittedly, that’s exactly how I would summarize this book. I couldn’t wait for it to end. It was like approaching a car accident, rubbernecking to see what happened and then hurriedly speeding up to get past it.

It’s the story of Eva, written as letters to her estranged husband about their son, Kevin, who killed students and teachers at his high school. Eva is self-loathing, egocentric and probably not the best candidate to be a mother. Through Eva’s descriptions, we learn that her husband was overly optimistic, turning the other cheek at Kevin’s flaws. And Kevin is portrayed as angry and troubled. I am not sure if he had a happy moment in the book.

Like any parent, Eva dissected every moment of her child’s life to determine what went wrong. How did she make Kevin into this murderer? She chronicled her hesitancy to have children, her failures to breastfeed and her unattachment to her son. We learned a lot about her mistakes but little about any successes. Perhaps there were none to write about.

(As a side note, this book made me contemplate how our society scrutinizes parents so heavily when their child murders, but if a 25-year-old man committed the same act, the parents rarely come into question. Moreover, parents always scrutinize themselves, no matter the age of our children.)

We Need To Talk About Kevin didn’t move me like it did other readers. I preferred Jodi Picoult’s treatment of this subject in Nineteen Minutes. It was better rounded, giving you an overall view of the players involved in a school shooting. While I didn’t like the story, I did find Lionel Shriver’s writing to be superb and would read another book by her. We Need To Talk About Kevin just wasn’t my cup of tea. ( )

The Element of Water - Mandy's Review

They were of the future, not the past, she and Wolfi; young and modern. They could shake off the burdens that made the older generation crooked, stumbling forward whilst peering back over their shoulders, sly-eyed, hagridden, concealing their shames and stigmas. Each carried his secret like a suitcase, kidding himself that it was invisible to others. Superciliously, they dared you to demand, Open up that case. Let’s see what you’ve got in there. Renate. Karl. Mr Quantz even. Patterson. The Frauleins with their smut about Jews. Admirals. Issie and Wolfi, Wolfi and she, would live in a new world, free of all that. (p142)

When I signed up for this blog I was hugely excited to discover that Stevie Davies had made the Orange longlist in 2002 with The Element of Water. Not only is Stevie Davies one of my favourite contemporary authors, but The Element of Water was one of the few novels of hers I’d yet to read.

The events of the novel circle around Lake Plon, Germany, in 1945 and 1958. Once home to the retreating Third Reich, the area has now been turned into a school for British Army children. Our fresh-faced protagonist Isolde (Issie) arrives to take on a teaching job, eager to start a new life, but instead discovers a past that is difficult to shed. Objects are being retrieved from the bottom of the lake, everything from medals to a violin; and Issie discovers a disturbing connection between this Nazi memorabilia and her absent father.

The atrocities of World War II are juxtaposed with the institutionalised cruelty displayed at the school thirteen years later. We are shown an ingrained hostility, employed as much by the German and British staff as the students themselves. Issie attempts to stand up to what is going on but finds herself unable to bring upon change before tragedy occurs.

Davies bravely and deftly tackles the major themes of identity, guilt, forgiveness and complicity. Whew, sounds rather heavy doesn’t it? Yet the outlook is not entirely bleak. Those partial to a little romance can lose themselves in the lyrical portrayal of the developing love between Issie and Wolfi. Those of us concerned with the bigger picture should thank Stevie Davies for snatching the wool from our eyes, making us better equipped to quell similar brutality in our own times.

We Need to Talk about Kevin - Jackie's Review

We Need to Talk about Kevin won the Orange Prize for fiction in 2005.

It is an incredibly powerful book in which the narrator, Eva, describes the events in her life leading up to the day her son went on a killing spree at his high school.

The book deals with one of the few remaining taboos in our society: a mother, who doesn’t like her own child. She feels invaded by pregnancy, and before her son is even born she is scared of him:

….any woman who passes a clump of testosterone-drunk punks without picking up the pace, without avoiding eye contact that might connote challenge or invitation, without sighing inwardly with relief by the following block, is a zoological fool. A boy is a dangerous animal.

Once her son, Kevin, is born he is a difficult baby. He cries constantly and Eva becomes more and more alienated by him. He grows into a difficult toddler and Eva slowly loses control of him.

Having done much research on ’spirited’ children, I did, however, feel that some of Kevin’s behaviour was unrealistic. A single child would not have displayed the strange mixture of reactions that Kevin did.

Eva is also supposed to be a powerful, high flying business woman, who must be of reasonable intelligence, so I find it hard to believe that she would accept things the way they were, and make no attempt to find solutions to her problem. She is rich enough to be able to employ any number of psychologists, or even just read a few books on the subject. I don’t really understand why she failed to do this.

Despite these minor flaws, this book was a great read. It was very thought provoking, and would be perfect for a reading group, as there are so many discussions that arise from it. Are all children sweet, innocent things, or are some born evil?

I couldn’t see how anyone could claim to love children in the generic anymore than any one could credibly claim to love people in a sufficiently sweeping sense as to embrace Pol Pot, Don Rickles, and an upstairs neighbour who does 2,000 jumping jacks at three in the morning.

And how much of a child’s actions can the parent be held accountable for?

When you’re the parent, no matter what the accident, no matter how far away you were at the time and how seemingly powerless to avert it, a child’s misfortune feels like your fault.

This a very important book, especially for new parents. It will remain with me for a long time, and I will be encouraging all my friends to read it - just so I can talk about it!

Highly recommended. Especially for reading groups.



Originally reviewed here.

Fingersmith - Wendy's Review

We were all more or less thieves, at Lant Street. But we were that kind of thief that rather eased the dodgy deed along, than did it. - from Fingersmith, page 7 -

Sue Trinder has been raised among thieves - an orphan who has never met her mother. The woman who has cared for her is Mrs. Suksby who takes babies from their mothers for a fee. The house on Lant Street where they live teems with characters such as Dainty, a girl with her own questionable past and Mr. Ibbs who buys stolen goods. Then one dark, rainy night a man arrives with a proposition to make them all rich.

In the passage stood a man, dressed dark, wet through and dripping, and with a leather bag at his feet. The dim light showed his pale cheeks, his whiskers, but his eyes were quite hidden in the shadow of his hat. I should not have known him if he had not spoken. - from Fingersmith, page 19 -

The man - known as Gentleman - hatches a scheme to send Sue, disguised as a maid, to the home of Maud Lilly and befriend her. A large sum of money is at stake, and the plot to get it means tricking Maud into marrying Gentlemen and then confining her to a mental hospital. From this point forward, the novel moves steadily forward with unexpected twists and turns which kept me reading long into the night.

Sarah Waters has written a gothic novel filled with evil villains, betrayal, lies, love, debauchery and shocking revelations. Set first on the dirty backstreets of the London Borroughs, the novel then moves to the dark and eerie rooms of Briar - a dilapidated mansion where Maud is being raised by her cruel uncle. The writing is provocative and rich, creating the atmosphere of a period Gothic setting filled with suspense and things that creep in the night. The dialogue is pitch perfect, the characters convincingly wrought. But it is the plot - unnerving and constantly shifting - which reels the reader into the story and keeps the pages turning.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which uncovers the sinister underbelly of the human soul. Gentleman is the perfect villain - handsome, mysterious and evil. Just when the reader thinks she knows where the story is taking her, there is a twist and it goes in another direction. No one is as they seem.

Waters has written a book rich in period details and lush with complex characters. Ingeniously plotted and sexually charged, this is a novel you do not want to miss.

Highly recommended.

A Short of History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (Jill)

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
By Marina Lewycka
Completed January 24, 2009

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was indeed a history of tractors. However, this was also a story about the battles between parents and their children, manipulative romances and surviving the harshest of circumstances. This book with the clever name had many layers – some were good, some got old – but all fed into a delightful book.

At the surface, this book was about Nadia, her sister Vera and their aging father, who had fallen in love with a 36-year-old Ukrainian woman. Valentina clearly wanted to marry Nadia’s dad to ensure a British visa. Despite the daughters’ protests, the two married and shared a life of fighting, verbal abuse and general misery. Eventually, Dad (convinced by his daughters) wanted to divorce Valentina, but this became an enormous task. The ups and downs of their relationship hogged the story line, and after 100 pages, it became frustrating and burdensome. If it were not for the other themes in this book, I would have abandoned “Tractor History.”

Once I muddled (or ignored) the love/divorce story, I found layers that better fit my literary tastes. By spending time with her father and sister, Nadia discovered how her family immigrated to England from Ukraine after World War II. Nadia’s parents did not have an easy start to their marriage – either living in paranoia of Stalin’s purges or surviving a German work camp during the war. Through her family history, Nadia learned about the true meaning of survival, which made her father’s current drama seem so inconsequential.

I also enjoyed the short blurbs that were, in fact, a short history of tractors in Ukrainian. Nadia’s father was an engineer and an expert in tractors. Throughout the book, he shared snippets of his “short history.” These passages showed how technology, though intended to improve our lives, should not take over how we live.

Also, The "rights” of immigration were central to this book. Two sides of the immigration question emerged: people who emigrate to escape a tyranny and those who escape to better their lives financially. Nadia’s family was from the first camp, escaping Stalin, communists and Nazis. Valentina was from the second – trying to escape the financial chaos of Ukraine. Which one had the most “right” to settle into another country? Was one reason better than the other?

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was short-listed for the Orange Prize and became a bestseller around the world. I would recommend it to those who like to read about family relationships or Orange Prize books. For me, the love drama was a bit overdone, but overall, Marina Lewycka’s book is a good one. ( )