"When he met Peggy, he'd thought his homosexuality might be a great big cosmic typo"

I picked up  copy of Mislaid at the library at home in Thame a few weekend's back. I hadn't gone in looking for anything in particular but I was seduced by this cute cover and the fact that I'd enjoyed Nell Zink's other novel; The Wallcreeper. Truth be told I'd suggested in my review of The Wallcreeper that I'd be rushing out to pick up a copy of Mislaid straight way so I'm sorry for the delay!

Mislaid begins with a really interesting set up. Lee Fleming is a celebrated gay writer who retreats to a cushy academic role at a small college for women in Virginia where he teaches with minimum effort and fails to pick up a pen again. Nell Zink expertly writes these troubled and idiosyncratic characters and perfectly captures Lee's upper middle class condescension; "He envied straight men's lives of duty and gaiety, their world bounded by pregnancy and the clap".

Zink's portrays the college as a back-water second, or third, tier institution more well known for lesbianism than anything else yet it is here that Lee uncharacteristically starts a relationship, and ultimately marries, Peggy a student and wannabe play-write; "The existential angst served to mask her fear of Lee". This first part of the story brilliant charts the relationship and the awkward response from Lee's landed Virginia family. I'm a real fan of these campus set stories and Mislaid really delivers in the early chapters.

The story soon flips to Lee and Peggy's grown up children Byrd and Mireille who essentially live out the anxieties and fears of their parents in a similarly contained academic microcosm. Bryd is the handsome Ivy league sports hero struggling with his gay father and Mireille is a young girl who more comfortable recognises herself as African American. Zink always avoids the ordinary.

In any case Nell Zink is hugely comfortable writing dysfunctional family drama. The trouble is that the story doesn't really build on the great beginning. All the characters are literally thrown up into the area and don't really ever land again. For me this is forgivable as, narrative short-comings aside, Zink's characterisation is brilliant and I prefer my fiction slightly left-field.

I read this novel in hardback mostly on the train into Marylebone

Mislaid by Nell Zink published by Fourth Estate, 261 pages.      

3 of the best: Contemporary Japanese Fiction

  

The Gun by Fuminori Nakamura 

A brilliant debut novel about an isolated young student who comes across a gun on the banks of a river. This is a story about obsession, empowerment and ultimately violence and is set in a starkly noirish rendering of Japan. Nakamura's prose is succinct and functional yet deeply resonates. I've read a lot of Japanese fiction but The Gun was my first by Fuminori Nakamura, it won't be my last.

290 pages, published by Soho Crime

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

The central plot of this neat story is Tsukuru's search to understand why his four closest school friends suddenly, and without warning, give up all communication. Cue themes of rejection, loneliness and solitary reflection which run through so much Japanese fiction.

What's different here are the Murakami motifs which recur over and over; the soundtrack (in this case Liszt's 'Le Mal du Pays'), surreal dream sequences and characters with profoundly deep emotions. This is the perfect blend of the mundane and the mystical, the everyday and the enigmatic. 

338 pages, published by Vintage

The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami

The Nagano Thrift Shop is a story about a young woman, Hitomi, who starts to work behind the counter in a traditional neighbourhood second-hand shop owned by the enigmatic Mr Nakano. The narrative is very much Hitomi's but the novel is structured with myriad characters who come and go along with the curios in the shop, each chapter is in fact named after a particular item on sale in the shop e.g. 'Bowl'.

I read the shop itself as a metaphor for an alternative Japan - this is a home for drifters and aesthetes rather than career men or women. The shop itself is in a residential neighbourhood, rather than a downtown business area like Shinjuku, which is interesting for readers of the translated version. 

256 pages, published by Portobello Books

"So I officially joined the Life Assistance Agency, that's if financial promise for unspecified services to an unsecured case scrawled across the back of a sports shop flyer was legally binding"

The Life Assistance Agency is the debut novel from Thomas Hocknell and is published by Urbane Publicaions who, in my view, are brilliant champions for new writers who don't necessarily fit the mould. Take this novel for instance which could just as easily be marketed as mystery, road trip or historical fiction so diverse and wildly off-beat is the story!

The novel leads on protagonist Ben Fergusson Cripps, part successful novelist and blogger who finds himself making ends meet by working for the bizarre Life Assistance Agency as a private detective of sorts. In the course of investigating a missing academic in Mortlake Ben finds himself on a road trip across Europe with the 16th Century diary of Jane Dee wife of the alchemist, mathematician and astrologer Dr John Dee.

Hocknall's writing style is pacy, accessible and packed with pithy humour; "It felt like being in a Bentley Showroom with a Boot's advantage card". The narrative moves from clue to clue and city to city with sometimes not quite enough time in each place (I could have read much more about the abandoned police station inside Marble Arch). For me some of the historical diary extracts could have been edited slightly to allow more room for the story proper.

All in all this is an ambitious debut novel that explores some pretty heavy and esoteric stuff through the eyes of a contemporary and irreverent protagonist - certainly a cut above the usual fiction on the grab shelves in WH Smith's at the station! Hocknall's voice is unique and though the novel is not perfect it hints and some exciting work to come.

I read this novel on Kindle mostly on the train into Marylebone

The Life Assistance Agency by Thomas Hocknell published by Urbane Publications, 320 pages.      

"He reflected that the starlight has travelled unimaginable distances to appear there before him, in an abandoned fjord on the most northerly coast of Iceland"

Rupture is the fourth novel in the Dark Iceland series which has established Ragnar Jonasson as a key protagonist in a particularly Icelandic branch of the Nordic Noir genre. Jonasson writes consistently arresting crime fiction set in increasingly remote parts of Northern Iceland. Added to each scenario is an almost supernatural element, a snow storm or volcanic blackout for example, which adds to to the suffocation and claustrophobia. In Rupture Dark Iceland just got darker when there is an outbreak of a deadly virus in the remote town of Siglufjordur, a child is kidnapped in broad daylight, and family secrets begin to unravel in the isolated and uninhabited Hedinsfjordur.

Jonasson's detective Ari Thor remains at the heart of the novel but this time we see more of investigative journalist Isrun, their relationship neatly builds in each novel which widens the Dark Iceland mythology. Isrun reflects;"Little Iceland was becoming more dangerous almost by the day", but thanks to Jonasson there's plenty for both Isrun and Thor to investigate.

For me Jonasson writes fiction that is at once contemporary and an innate descendant of the Icelandic Sagas that were passed down through the generations. Ari Thor cuts an iconically heroic figure in a World where "folk tales had had such a tenacious grip on the minds of Icelanders through the ages" yet his life is full of the challenges, his on and off relationship with Kristin and the paternity test that looms following a one night stand, facing men today.

Rupture's separate narrative strands come together expertly as Thor has the time to reinvestigate an incident from fifty years ago whilst his home town as its people "had become laboratory rats - locked away securely in glass case that nobody was even remotely tempted to open." This is crime fiction as its most exciting and storytelling at its most authentic. 

Quentin Bates translation is supported this time by a useful guide to Icelandic names. "Icelandic words are pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable" we are told in a prologue that confidet=nty proves that Icelandic Noir and Ari Thor are here to stay. We all need to know how to correctly pronounce Siglufjordur - just watch the literary pilgrims start to stray further than Reykjavik. Ragnar Jonasson is a cultural ambassador and Icelandic Tourism magnet of the future.

Credit is also due to Kid-Ethic for the book cover design which captures the abstract and off centre feel of Jonasson's Iceland perfectly. The Dark Iceland series is fast becoming a book shelf collection classic, complete your set now!

Check out my earlier reviews of Ragnar Jonasson's work here.

I read this novel in paper back mostly in front of a wood burning stove at home in Oxfordshire

Rupture by Ragnar Jonasson (translated by Quentin Bates) published by Orenda Books, 253 pages.      

"Every glimpse heightened the sense of unreality of living with the woman he loved, but living with her in name only"

Miss Christie Regrets is the second in Guy Fraser-Sampson's 'Hampstead Murders' series which sees  a team of detectives solving a local murder which harks right back to the golden age of crime fiction. In this case the team investigate the murder, by a blow from a police man's truncheon no less, of a respected archivist and historian in his office at Burgh House. As the investigation continues the team are drawn into a link with an earlier crime at modernist icon the Isokon Building which was home, for a time, for Agatha Christie.

At times I struggled to remember that this is a contemporary set novel given that it has all the literary hallmarks of 1930s fiction but this is exactly what makes the novel so unique. Guy Fraser-Sampson builds a believable and thoroughly likeable set of characters especially in the case of the courteous love triangle between DCI Bob, Psychologist Peter and DCS Karen whose hips appeared to 'pivot around a plane of infinite geometrical smoothness', who effortlessly inhabit this idiosyncratic little world.

As the police procedure continues the narrative does, at times, jar with its mentions of Oyster cards, smart phones and the internet which seems at odds with the tweed wearing folk of Hampstead village but the pace is steady and the story unfolds with well honed timing.  For me, the novel could have focused more on the Walter Gropius inspired Isokon flats which are so iconic that they would make a striking book cover. As a Hampstead symbol the flats on Lawn Road are more a bit player than the lead role they deserve to play.

That said, Miss Christie Regrets is an expertly written and structured story which I read as an homage to crime writers such as Queen Agatha Christie herself. This is middle class, Sunday night TV, fare which lacks the physicality of much contemporary crime fiction yet makes up for it with buckets full of politeness and good manners. Guy Fraser-Sampson not only adroitly understands mid century crime fiction but in the 'Hampstead Murders' is actually adding to the literary canon.

I read this novel in paper back mostly on the train into Marylebone (not far from Hampstead!)

Miss Christie Regrets by Guy Fraser-Sampson published by Urbane Publications, 263 pages.      

"egoistic. This might sound pompous, but it happens to be the truth. People who live their lives watching what goes on around them...are not going to be able to do creative work"

I don't often read or review non-fiction but I make an exception here for Mr Murakami. Absolutely on Music is essentially a transcript of a number of meetings between Haruki Murakami and his friend, the celebrated conductor Seiji Ozawa. Both share their thoughts on classical music and jazz and on the creative process as a whole.

In short this is a conversation between two of the most influential Japanese creatives of the last 50 years - a unique insight into two idiosyncratic minds. "You mean you have to dig down to something deeper than superficial Japanese emotionalism to understand and internalise it?", asks Murakami.

The text is bursting with detailed references to music from Brahms and Beethoven to Duke Ellington. You can literally imagine the two men sitting surrounded by Murakami's legendary record collection each taking turns to play each other their favourite tracks. Their passion and knowledge pours out of ever sentence; "He's like an old master of classical rakugo storytelling, just going along with his instincts".

So this is not a typical Murakami novel by any stretch but for fans of his fiction Absolutely on Music its a great way to better understand Murakami as a creative and as a man influenced by the World around him.

I read this novel in hard back mostly in Preston, Lancashire

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami and Seji Azawa (translated by Jay Rubin) published by Vintage,  352 pages.      

"The future was like a newborn wild beast, which their talk domesticated"

I first picked this novel up in November, just before a business trip to Japan excited about the imminent release of the Tom Ford film adaptation, but I've only just got around to finishing it. Truth is that this is one of those books that I've been dipping in and out of for some time, around lots of others on my bedside stack, which was probably not the best way to immerse myself in the story.

Nocturnal Animals, or Tony and Susan as it was originally named prior to the film version was first published in the early 90s and is regarded by some as a bit of a forgotten modern classic. The fact that Austin Wright's novel caught the attention of Tom Ford was enough for me. I'm a huge fan of his adaptation of A Single Man and the original source novel by the brilliant Christopher Isherwood.

In Nocturnal Animals we meet Susan; a mother and wife who 'reads to take her mind off herself' and the daily grind of raising kids, paying bills, being a good wife to Arnold - you get the picture. Unexpectedly into the frame lands an unedited manuscript copy of a novel Nocturnal Animals written by her ex, Edward. The novel is essentially made up of Susan reading the manuscript in 3 sittings. Like a 3 act play the book within a book unfolds for Susan and for us as reader.

At is best the story makes neat parallels between the manuscript and Susan's own relationship, in retrospect, with Edward. As she reads more she begins to re-evaluate her own relationships through the novel. Moreover the arrival of the manuscript actually disrupts Susan's day to day routine and forces her to challenge her own reality, 'Every night before descending into her mind, Susan Morrow performs rituals. Dog walk, kitty kitty, lock doors. Three children safe with a night life, make love sometimes. Roll away from Arnold to the right, puff the pillow up, wait'.

The trouble is that the bulk of the novel is made up of the manuscript itself which is simply a first draft and is seriously flawed in places. Compelling and gripping scenes are followed by long sections where very little really goes on. The book within the book actually lets to the book itself down.

I've still not seen the film but I have a feeling that Mr Ford will be able to make more sense of this - at any rate it will look fabulous.

I read this novel on Kindle mostly in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

Nocturnal Animals: Film tie-in originally published as Tony and Susan by Austin Wright published by Atlantic Books,  352 pages.      

Here's the film trailer

"Perfect devices: doctors, ghosts and crows. We can do things others can't, like eat sorrow, un-birth secrets and have theatrical battles with language and God"

I picked this novella up after having been completely seduced by the window at Waterstones Canterbury earlier this year - great effort guys!

So the Christmas break finally gave me chance to work through my bookshelf as its literally creaking under the weight of a fiction addiction. Luckily for me Max Porter's novella is a masterclass is brevity and unputdownable gotta-read-in-one-sittingness.

"Once upon a time there was a crow who wanted nothing more than to care for a pair of motherless children...."

Grief is the Thing with Feathers is part fiction and part poetry - Porter takes us on an intimate journey into the life of a small family dealing with the loss of their wife/mother. Dad is working on a book about Ted Hughes (the origin of the Crow in the title) when his wife dies leaving him to deal with his own loss and that of his two young sons.

Porter's prose is beautiful, moving and deeply personal - unlike anything I've read before. The narrative is made up of short little scenes and snap shots that are almost like flash fiction in places. Its the images that Porter beautifully paints that will leave an impression over the plot.

With the novel winning the International Dylan Thomas Price 2016 and being shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Guardian First Book Award what more convincing do you need? Read this book now, you'll never forget it.

A couple of times this book made me think of Simon and Garfunkel's I Am A Rock; "I have my books and poetry to protect me", I love that song.

I read this novel in paperback over the Christmas holiday in Thame, Oxfordshire.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter published by Faber and Faber,  129 pages.      

"You only live twice: Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face"

Arguably the best 50p I've spent recently was on a 1964 copy of Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, book 11 in the James Bond series. I've bought a couple of these 1960s paper backs before; the cover designs and bold 'James Bond' type are irresistibly collectable, but You Only Live Twice really jumped out to me when I remembered from the movie adaptation that this was James Bond in Japan. 

You Only Live Twice was the first novel published after Ian Fleming's death and can be seen as a step change in the series. Bond fans generally will read in this particular novel the end of the Blofeld trilogy and a specific cycle of books when many of the classic Bond tropes has been established but You Only Live Twice is a fascinating read whichever way you look at it. Movie fans will notice the fresh nuances Fleming introduces in this novel that was published once several Sean Connery/EON films had been released. M's eulogy at the end of the book even goes as far as to suggest that Bond himself has Scottish ancestry which demonstrates that Fleming himself was accepting a kind of Connery/Bond blend.

For me this novel is all about the setting in Japan which Fleming writes with both an awareness of post war Japanese modernity and simultaneous deep roots in the mystic Orient. Fleming himself had been commissioned to write a travel piece about his own trip to Japan and this novel is essentially an extension. The novel is far less about shoot outs, car chases and fist fights and more about Bond's search for a zen like recuperation after the loss of his wife Tracey in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Fleming weaves into the narrative a number of key Japanese cultural themes; isolation and suicide, strict societal formality, US cultural imperialism etc which simply didn't make Roald Dahl's subsequent screenplay adaptation. 

Alongside the contemporary references Fleming can't resist scenes set at a Ninja training camp and the Russian roulette experience of eating poisonous fugu fish which are more a reflection of 'exotic' Japan through Western eyes. There is a tendency today to think of Japan in these hyper modern yet deeply traditional terms but Fleming's writing shines a light on just how other Wordly Japan was to the eyes of the sixties Briton.

The story is fun, arch enemy Blofeld poses as a famous horticulturalist in a volcano hideaway which Bond must infiltrate as a favour to the Japanese secret service in exchange for documents needed by M, but the real thrill of the novel is Bond's conversations with the characters he meets along the way. The train ride to the South Islands with Tiger Tanaka and deep sea diving with Kissy Suzuki are moments where the novels always deliver something that the films ignore.

Personally, the scene where Bond drinks post dinner sake from a small tumbler whilst watching the lights along the coast at Yokohama is pure Bond.   

I read this novel in paperback not long after a business trip to Yokohama.

You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming published by Pan,  228 pages.      

 

"As for Helsinki...its innocent smell was like an old cardigan left out in the freezing cold, spattered with salty seawater, fresh pine needles caught in its threads "

 

The Mine is the new release from ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ Antti Tuomainen who may not be as well known (yet) as other writers in the Nordic Noir canon but has been praised as a highly distinctive writer and been shortlisted for the coveted Scandinavian Glass Key Award.

Antti Tuomainen’s premise in The Mine is a master-class in genre construct. Following a tip off, investigative journalist Janne Vuori sets out to uncover the truth about a mysterious mine in a remote area of Northern Finland. In the dead of winter, Executives from the firm begin to die in a string of accidents and the mine begins to release its secrets. In a second, and initially unconnected, narrative strand a lone and elderly hitman looks back on his life and work. This is classic Noir from the outset!

I’m reviewing this book as part of Orenda Books Finnish Invasion blog tour which celebrates the best of crime fiction coming out of Finland. Earlier this week I posted by review of fellow Finnish Author Kati Hiekkapelto’s TheExiled.

Tuomainen’s story telling is gripping, the pace is fast and succinct with the whole narrative structured around 3 parts; Nickel, Lead and Gold. Some chapters are a single powerful paragraph whilst others adopt a more pensive prose style that opens up the characters one by one; “He had continued reading over the years, sometimes voraciously, finding new books and new authors, but still the memory of the books he had read all those years ago exceeded everything that has come before”.

Although the drama of the story is strong it is the character development which really sets this novel apart. Janne’s meeting with his estranged father is brilliantly written; “He could see from the man’s eyes that he recognised him, at least on some level, before he fully understood who he was looking at”. Likewise his bitterly failing relationship with his wife unravels in a single paragraph; “The entirety of the conversation after which I lost my family for good...”.

The other highlight of the novel for me is Helsinki itself which Tuomainen brings to life by combining descriptive fact, “Pirjo’s Tavern, a legendary watering hole at the Pirkkolantie intersection”, with unique prose “the bourgeois sleep sound” and vivid detail “It was so quiet that he could almost hear his breath steaming up the windows. This is high quality writing for the thriller genre with a clear and distinct sense of place.

The Mine is an ecological conspiracy drama with all the darkness , secrets and murder we’ve come to love from the Nordic Noir genre but what really sets this novel, and Tuomainen’s writing apart, is the character driven family sub plot which underpins the entire story. The Mine itself is a wonderful metaphor for the hidden secrets and lies that are buried deep within the psyche of man.

I read this novel in paperback (thank you Karen for the advance copy), on a flight between London and Tokyo which took me directly over Northern Finland.

The Mine by Antti Tuomainen and translated by David Hackston, published by Orenda Books,  300 pages.      

"Dear child. This is a different world from the one you're used to. There are some situations to which the normal rules don't apply. Thank God, you don't know anything about this kind of place"

'The Exiled' marks the third outing for Finnish detective Anna Fekete, Heikkapelto's hugely popular literary lead who is coming to define a particular strand of Nordic Noir coming out of Finland.

This time Anna returns to her childhood home in The Balkans with the intention of taking a relaxing holiday. Typically for this genre the holiday is seriously cut short when Anna's handbag is stolen at a party and the body of the thief is later found washed up on the banks of the river. Anna is immediately drawn into the investigation which ultimately brings her face to face with the circumstances surrounding the death of her own father years before.

I'm reviewing this book as part of Orenda Books Finnish Invasion blog tour which celebrates the best of crime fiction coming out of Finland including not only Kati Hiekkapelto but also Antti Tuomainen whose novel The Mine I'm reviewing later this week.  This blog is packed full of Nordic Noir reviews from Ragnar Jonasson to Arne Dahl but to my knowledge this is the first time I've read a translated novel from Finland. 

'The Exiled' is a well written slice of crime fiction with all the chilling tension and dark secrets we've come to expect from the genre; "Anna had the impression that their mother had already accepted that her grand children might not be her own flesh and blood".  The locations perfectly capture the pressure of the investigation and the characters that inhabit Heikkapelto's landscapes; "The Sun was like an enormous, glowing eye looking down omnisciently on the Jaras"

Heikkapelto expertly weaves contemporary themes into the story by setting the drama at the heart of the Eastern European refugee crisis. Anna Fekete is the perfect protaganist here as she herself is a outsider with the strength of mind and sheer independence to dig deeper into places others would fear to tread. As such, Anna is the star of the novel and a character that you want to read so much more about.

At times the story slows down and gets bogged down in detail that does little to drive the story forward but at other times the pace is faster and more compelling. Heikkapelto's writing style is immersive and distinct but for me I would have liked a little more Finland so I will be checking out the first two of the Anna Fekete novels, The Hummingbird and The Defenceless. 

Credit must also be given to translator David Hackston who surely must have one of the most difficult jobs in fiction translating from such a unique language.

I read this novel on paperback (thank you Karen for the advance copy), mostly on the train in and out of Marylebone

The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto and translated by David Hackston, published by Orenda Books, 300 pages