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27th
September 2023
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FOOLS OF
FORTUNE by William Trevor (1983)
and
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE by Claire Keegan (2021) Nicki Myers
In a new
departure, we’ll be looking back-to-back at two novels, both by Irish authors
and set in Ireland in the 1920s and 1980s respectively. In William Trevor’s
book, an Anglo-Irish Protestant family pays a high price for its sympathy for
the cause of Irish independence from Britain in the War of Independence
(1919-21), with the reverberations of violence and trauma continuing down the
generations. Claire Keegan’s very short novel focuses on another tragic
legacy of Irish history, the continuing stranglehold of the Church on Irish
society. In her book, set in 1985, a coal merchant makes a chilling discovery
when making a delivery to a local convent and has to decide whether to risk
his own family’s security and happiness by confronting the complicit silence
of the local community in order to expose a cruel injustice.
William
Trevor, who died in 2016, won the Booker Prize 4 times, and Colm Toibin has described
Claire Keegan’s book as “the best novel I read this year”.
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25th
October
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JAZZ by Toni
Morrison (1992)
Barbara Adderley
This novel is the
second part of Morrison’s trilogy of African-American novels which begins
with the better- known Beloved. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, it tells
the story of the troubled marriage of Violet and Joe Trace. But it is also about jazz itself, and
Morrison tries to reflect its special character in the complex and jagged
style of writing. Barbara chose it above all because she loves jazz.
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29th
November
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THE BOOKSHOP by Penelope Fitzgerald
(1978/2010)
Caroline Archer
This short early novel by Fitzgerald (shortlisted
for the 1978 Booker Prize) deals with the tribulations of a newcomer to a
small East Anglian town in the 1950s who seeks to
open a bookshop in premises coveted by an influential insider. It takes a
humorous and satirical look at provincial life at
the time, but there is bleakness too. A Guardian critic in 2023 described
it as “a memorable tragicomedy of stifling,
small-town English cruelty”.
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20th December
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THE TURN
OF THE SCREW by Henry James (1898)
Jill Goldman
This short book
(with traits of the Gothic and horror novel and nods to Jane Eyre), is
narrated by a young governess, who is sent to care for a young boy and girl
on a remote estate by their absentee uncle and guardian, who gives her
explicit instructions not to bother him. The governess becomes increasingly
concerned that the grounds are haunted by the ghosts of a previous governess
and an estate employee with whom she had a relationship and that the couple
intend harm to the children. It is a highly ambiguous text and its meaning
has been much debated: is there truth in her fears, or are these the
fantasies of a lonely, neurotic young woman?
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31st January
2024
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BAD RELATIONS by Cressida Connolly (2022) Judith
Barnes
An historical
novel in 3 parts, tracing several generations of a single family from the
Crimean War of the 1850s, via a Cornish farm in the 1970s, to the present
day. Described by one critic as “an absorbing and affecting saga that uses
one family’s story to anatomise the
Different
stages of grief.”
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28th
February
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SLIPSTREAM: A
MEMOIR by Elizabeth Jane Howard (2002)
Jenny Keating
Raised in the
1930s and 40s in an upper-middle class family, Howard had little formal
education and in early adulthood had spells as a model and an actress. But
she moved in literary circles and achieved success in her own writing,
especially with the Cazalet Chronicles (a family saga) and was a regular
contributor to the TV series Upstairs and Downstairs. She was married three
times, the last time to the writer Kingsley Amis, and she nurtured and
encouraged the young Martin Amis. Her memoir gives a memorable view of the
British literary world in the second half of the twentieth century.
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27th
March
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MY NAME IS
LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout (2016)
Catherine Crisham
This short
novel, focusing on the relationship between a daughter and mother, is the
first in a series concerning Lucy Barton.
Recovering in
a hospital after an operation, Lucy wakes to find her estranged mother
sitting by her bedside. They have not seen each other since, years before,
Lucy put rural poverty and family dysfunction behind her to escape to the big
city where she has married, had children and begun to establish herself as a
writer. As her mother continues to visit, Lucy is forced to revise her
unreliable memories of the past and they reach a fragile accommodation.
We read
Strout’s Olive Kittering and Olive Again in the Book
Group a couple of years ago and they were well received. This new series is
very much up to standard. I particularly warm to her accessible and truthful
writing style.
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24th
April
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LOVE IN A COLD
CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford (1949)
Jane Dugdale
This is one of a
series of semi-autobiographical romantic novels drawing on Nancy Mitford’s
own family and acquaintances and depicting country house life between the
wars. It focuses on the love life of Polly Montdore, a beautiful and
strong-willed debutante, who rejects a number of suitors because of her love
for her uncle by marriage, whom she eventually marries herself. The novel is
notable for its relaxed attitude (for the period) to sexually ambiguous
characters, including the uncle.
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29th
May
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THE LAST SUPPER: A SUMMER IN ITALY by Rachel
Cusk (2009/2019)
Pauline Ford
In 2008 the writer Rachel Cusk and her husband
decided to sell up and escape to Italy for the summer with their young children.
This memoir recounts their peripatetic existence
in Tuscany, following the well-known art trail while living as frugally as
possible and encountering an eclectic number of other culture pilgrims. Pauline
chose this book because she has always hankered after a 3-month sabbatical in
Italy herself.
(The first edition of this book (2009) was pulped
following a libel suit. If anyone is able to get hold of it, and compare it
with the 2019 re-print, it would be interesting to reflect on who the
aggrieved person was.)
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26th
June
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LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie
Garmus (2022)
Deirdre Parkes
This light and quirky debut novel, set in the
early 1960s, concerns Elizabeth, a research chemist and single mother who,
after losing her job because of the suspicion and misogyny of her male
colleagues, takes up a new role presenting a TV cookery show for housewives. She
uses her show as a platform to initiate a quiet revolution, not just teaching
other women how to cook, but daring them to make changes in their own lives.
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31st July
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A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY BY JL CARR
(1980)
Catriona Grant
This Booker-shortlisted novel tells the story of
Tom Birkin who, near- destitute and still shaken by his experiences in WWI
and by the painful breakdown of his marriage, is assigned the task of
restoring a medieval mural hidden beneath whitewash on the wall of a village
church. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the
unchanging rhythms of village life, he experiences a sense of renewal. Now an
old man, he reflects on the passage of time and the power of art and finds in
his memories some consolation for all he has lost.
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