The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

I'm a sucker for a big American novel. Not Moby Dick though - think Maine by Courtney Sullivan or American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Stories which follow characters from childhood to adulthood, set in interesting and beautiful American places, that are emotionally rich and thoughtfully detailed. Meg Wolitzer's latest ticks all those boxes and more.

It follows the lives of six of "The Interestings", a group of seventies teenagers who meet at a very liberal arts-focused summer camp. The central focus is Jules Jacobson, an initial outsider looking into the gilded world of Ash and Goodman Wolf. Joining her in the group are Ethan Figman, a very talented cartoonist, Jonah Bay, a folksinger's son who is beautiful and shy, and Cathy Kiplinger, a gifted dancer whose body is outgrowing her ambitions. Jules herself is a passable actress whose skill lies in comedy.

The novel follows the group as their lives change and separate. A shocking incident provides the first fracture, financial success the second and a secret the third. Jules remains to some extent the outsider, although her close friendship with Ash pulls her to the centre of the group.

Wolitzer is good on atmosphere: the seventies hippies and eighties yuppies feel real. She's even better on feelings: Jules cannot lose her jealousy of her friends,  even as it threatens her relationship as an adult. And the central idea of the book seemed to be about talent,  asking us is talent everything? Or is money really what opens doors? Is it enought to be good and ordinary,  or do we need to stand out to feel alive?

This is a big, thoughtful novel with an involving plot. I read it in 2 days and would thoroughly recommend it.

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The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

Sophie Hannah's The Orphan Choir is the latest instalment from the excellent new Hammer imprint, which has already published Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat,  Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate and Julie Myerson's The Quickening (also reviewed on RichTapestryReads). I'm happy to report that, like its Hammer stablemates, it does a sterling job of spooking the reader.

I joined in an interesting conversation with Sophie Hannah on Twitter recently on the nature of fictional ghosts and the recent trend for ambiguity as to their veracity or otherwise. I have to say that I agree with Hannah that the most satisfying spook is an unambiguously real presence, rather than a figment of a disturbed narrator's consciousness. While The Little Stranger is an honourable exception,  as I've written before on this blog, I much prefer ghosts in the style of MR James and Susan Hill.

So it is with pleasure that I report that The Orphan Choir is a satisfyingly traditional chiller which nonetheless plays with the reader's perception of its narrator. Set in Cambridge, where Hannah lives, the story follows Louise, whose only son Joseph has been selected for a prestigious choral scholarship which requires him to board. Louise misses him more than her husband feels is normal; lonely and miserable at home, she spends her time daydreaming about his return and wishing he was with her.

Louise also has a bad relationship with her neighbour in Cambridge, an anti-social individual whose loud parties seem calculated to disturb her. She complains;  the relationship sours further; she involves the council. Then, to her horror, she begins to hear the sound of a children's choir in her house and is convinced that her neighbour is tormenting her further, needling her about her son's absence. Louise in her waking and sleeping hours is edgy, exhausted and irrational. This section of the book gradually increases the reader's unease, whilst also evoking powerfully the frustration and impotence Louise feels.

Desperate to escape,  Louise sets her heart on a rural second home in an idyllic development in order to spend more time with Joseph. But the music follows her there and gradually her equilibrium is destroyed. This section is the most explicitly frightening of the book; the supposedly perfect setting contrasts chillingly with Louise's mental strain. Always on edge, she can never enjoy anything  - and the music is becoming even more real to her...

The Orphan Choir is an enjoyably creepy read with the psychological depth that Sophie Hannah is known for. Reading it late at night, I had to put the book aside during one of the most frightening sequences for fear of being too spooked to sleep - and that's exactly what I want from a ghost story.

The Orphan Choir will be published on 9 may. I am very grateful to Sophie Hannah, who arranged for me to have a review copy of this novel.

The Orphan Choir is published on 9 may 2013

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Dear Thing by Julie Cohen

Claire has it all: a beautiful home, a loving husband, a fulfilling job as a music teacher.  Except one thing - a baby.

Romily is her husband's best friend from university,  a single mum working as a scientist and living in a 2 bedroom flat. So why would she offer to act as a surrogate for Claire and Ben, carrying a baby that's genetically hers and Ben's?

Answer: because she is in love with Ben,  and always has been. Partly to please him, partly to live out a long-held dream, she volunteers to do what Claire has never been able to despite years of fertility treatment: have Ben's baby.

From this intriguing concept, Julie Cohen has created a satisfying and compelling novel which follows and encourages us to empathise with both Claire and Romily. From the opening, where Claire goes through the agonising experience of thinking her IVF treatment has been successful,  through Romily's growing doubts about the wisdom of her plan,  the reader is taken inside the characters' minds and sees things from their perspective.

The novel is a page turner too; the ongoing narrative of both Romily's pregnancy and Claire's growing jealousy provides a narrative drive which will keep you turning the pages long into the night.

The title is clever, too: Romily writes letters to her unborn child, addressed to "Dear Thing". We know how much Claire wants this baby, and how much Romily wants Ben to want her. Julie Cohen has created believable, rounded characters grappling with an unusual and difficult situation. I was interested to see in the notes to the book that Cohen had researched infertility through friends and through the internet;  I was impressed by the realism with which she tackled Claire's horrible situation.

Dear Thing is high quality women's fiction, enjoyable for a range of readers. It's a thoughtful and imaginative novel which gets to the heart of the characters. You'll feel you know Claire and Romily by the end of the novel, and be rooting for them to achieve their respective redemptive endings.

I must thank Transworld publishers,  who provided me with a review copy via Net Galley.  Dear Thing was published on 11 April. 

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The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

Bobby Mahon is waiting for Frank, his father, to die. Frank is grimly, resentfully hanging on to life in a dark cottage on the outskirts of a small town in Ireland. Bobby has more problems; recently laid off as foreman for a grasping local builder, it turns out that his contributions haven't been made and he isn't entitled to anything more than state unemployment. Out of work, sad and angry, Bobby stands for post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, in its despair and darkness.

Donal Ryan, like Anne Enright in The Gathering, paints a bleak portrait of a country let down by the promise of an economic boom. Outside the town a 'ghost estate' lurks, full of incomplete houses. Only two unfortunates live there, lured by the dream of a new community but lost in the reality of emptiness and unfinished homes.

Ryan's novel, more so than Enright's, captures the hopelessness of the Irish recession. His townspeople feel powerless; in one moving chapter a man known for his sunny disposition confesses to overwhelming depression,  that he dreams of walking into the local lake. Here we have victims of broken promises and futile dreams. Yet the novel contains black humour and moving glimpses of love; both the title and the last lines suggest that Ryan's interest lies in the impact of Ireland's economic woes on the bonds of kinship and love in the country's communities.

The Spinning Heart's powerful originality comes not just from the subject matter but from the mode of telling. Each chapter is from a different narrative perspective; stories thread through them, and, while no teller is returned to, characters recur in each others' stories, reflecting, I suppose, the tapestry of connections in a small town in the Irish countryside. Each teller has a distinctive voice and Ryan creates sympathy for virtually all of his creations,  even the seemingly irredeemable Frank. It is Bobby who tells the first story and seems to be the centre of all the connected tales. The Spinning Heart does have a narrative drive which propels the reader through the novel. There is a subplot about an abducted child which works less well than the main thread about Bobby;  this does, however,  add an urgency to the plot which the novel might otherwise lack.

The Spinning Heart was published in Ireland in October 2012 and won the Irish Book Of The Year award, voted for by the public. It's also been included in the 2013 Waterstone's Eleven, which I truly hope will bring it to a wide audience in the UK. Ryan's sad, lyrical, bleak and occasionally funny novel deserves these accolades and more. It's a novel which feels modern and classic at once, recalling both Roddy Doyle and WB Yeats and introducing a unique voice in contemporary fiction. I can't recommend it highly enough.

My thanks to the publishers,  who provided me with a review copy via Net Galley. The Spinning Heart will be published in the UK by Doubleday Ireland on 27 Jun 2013.

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Honour by Elif Sharak

Pembe and Jamila are twins,  born in Turkey as the eighth and ninth daughters of an exhausted mother. Time divides them; while Jamila stays by the banks of the Euphrates, Pembe travels to London with her husband Adem in search of a new life. But London is not entirely what she expected; living in a small flat, Pembe feels alienated from her husband and her beloved son Iskender.

Honour opens with Pembe's daughter collecting Iskender from jail; he's served a sentence for killing his mother. In lesser hands, this early shock could have detracted from the rest of the novel. However, Sharak's skill is such that our knowledge of Pembe's eventual fate lends urgency to the story. This is a richly detailed novel about London's overlooked outsiders: the family that live next to you,  or the girl that serves you in the newsagents.

What sets Honour apart from similar novels is the evident sympathy and warmth Sharak feels for her characters. The novel explores the constrictive and corrosive effect of a strict code of honour on both men and women. Sad stories of lives destroyed by an obsession with honour and shame are at the heart of the book - Pembe's husband Adem is haunted by the spectre of his father, obsessed by his mother's "shameful" reputation and her son Iskender becomes a bully and a killer in a desperate attempt to maintain his own and his family's honour - but we do not condemn the characters,  rather perceive them all as victims.

The novel has much to enjoy as well as provoke: rich descriptions of rural Turkey, comedy in Pembe's job at the hairdressers,  romance in her discovery of a kindred spirit and an unexpected twist at the end. This is thoughtful and engrossing fiction which treats serious issues with a warm touch. I see from the blurb that Sharak is a feted author in her native Turkey; Honour deserves to win her acclaim and readers here too.

I bought this novel and did not receive a review copy. Honour is published by Penguin and is available now.

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Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley

I must begin this review with a confession - I am really, really biased. I think Alexandra Heminsley is great. Not in a creepy stalkerish way, I hasten to add. I follow her on Twitter and I love her warm book recommendations and funny style. So when she started tweeting about a book she'd written about running, I knew I'd want to read it.

Running Like A Girl is that book. As a person who has completed some 10ks before (not a runner, I don't think, really), the subject matter was obviously interesting for me. The first thing I'll say is that I really wish I'd had this book before I did my first ever run, which was a horrific experience I undertook with a hangover the day after my 21st birthday out of some vague impulse towards purging myself. I purged myself so much I had to sit down on a park bench after five minutes to stop myself from throwing up everywhere. Had I read Running Like A Girl,  I definitely wouldn't have gone out with a hangover and I wouldn't have expected an unrealistically zen experience from my first run.

This book is perfect for the novice runner. Alexandra's warm, chatty and funny voice eases you through your worries and reassures you that these worries are both normal and nothing to worry about in reality. The second half of the book contains very useful practical tips about running and about buying kit which again I would have loved to have read before starting to run. It would have saved my toenails for a start which, like Alexandra's,  fell off because my first pair of running shoes were far too small.

The first half or so of the book is almost like a running autobiography.  Alexandra tells the story of her own path to becoming a runner, from the first painful run to her marathon highs and lows. It's like hearing your best friend tell you their story - her voice is a reassuring guide through the challenges of running and its rewards. It seemed like she wanted everyone to know that running isn't easy,  but it's achievable. And it'll make you feel better about yourself.

I found the first hald of the book particularly moving. Alexandra begins with the story of an emotionally draining half marathon and then takes us through her journey to achieving success as a runner. In that journey she learns so much about herself, her family and her friends. It isn't easy - there are challenges and setbacks on the way, but she keeps going. In fact, as she says, she learns that the secret to surviving a run, as well as lots of the things life throws at you, is to just keep going.

The test of the power of this book is that it made me feel simultaneously guilty that I hadn't been running in ages and keen to get my trainers out again. It's a well-informed, personal guide to running that is also a funny and inspiring true story.  I'd recommend it to all runners, novice and experienced.

Running Like A Girl is published on 4 April. I received a review copy of this book via Net Galley. 

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The Quickening by Julie Myerson

Rachel and Dan have just got married. Expecting their first child, they set off for an impromptu luxury honeymoon in Antigua, leaving behind them the wife of Dan's best friend Rufus, recently killed in a car crash. As soon as they set foot on Antigua,  however, things start to go awry.
Rachel begins to see a mysterious figure on the fringes of their idyllic resort: a shambling, bedraggled man whose presence she alone registers and whose thoughts begin to merge with her own. As soon as she is alone, he appears to her, lying at the bottom of their swimming pool or trailing across the beach as she sunbathes.  Her relationship with Dan begins to deteriorate too; she no longer trusts her new husband, and retreats into an inner world where the movement of her unborn baby (the "quickening" of the title) is the only thing that can bring her comfort.

This is the latest in a series of supernatural novellas published under the Hammer imprint by Random House. (Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat and Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate have previously been published - thanks to Fanny Blake on Twitter for pointing this out to me). And like its forebears, The Quickening is a genuinely creepy tale from a very skilled author. The notes to the book mention Julie Myerson's fondness for ghost stories and, as a ghost story obsessive,  I could see the spirit of MR James hanging over this disturbing and occasionally violent chiller. The presentation of the mysterious figure recalls "Lost Hearts" in its grotesqueness, and the abrupt and shocking ending has hints of "O Whistle And I'll Come To You".

I joined in an interesting conversation with the great Sophie Hannah on twitter recently about ambiguity in modern ghost stories. She questioned whether it's become a cliché in modern ghost stories for ambiguity about the presence of the ghost or otherwise to signify a questionmark over the central character's sanity. Is it real, or is he/she simply disturbed? Lots of readers agreed that this has become a bit overdone and wished for the return of straightforwardly malevolent spirits (the prime modern example of which is, of course Susan Hill's terrifying Jennet Humfrye). Rachel's haunter in The Quickening is ambiguous in a more complex way than those which Hannah describes; whilst it's certainly true that he is real, where he ends and Rachel begins is not always clear. Has her obsession with him taken her over, or is he controlling her in a different way? (Sophie Hannah's The Orphan Choir is the next to be published under the Hammer imprint,  and I am eagerly anticipating it.)

Like all good supernatural tales, The Quickening has the right balance between a growing sense of unease for the reader and the characters and some shocking moments. The ending, too, seems both inevitable and awful at the same time. And the title combines both the beginnings of life in the baby Rachel is carrying and the stirrings of something horrible in a seemingly perfect paradise.

A review copy of  this novel was provided via Net Galley. The Quickening is published by Random House on 28 March.

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