May Reading Guide | Page 5

FICTION STAFF REVIEW
FICTION STAFF REVIEW
SKYLARK Paula McLain
$ 34.99
In 2007 I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. The story is a gripping tale of the life of Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley in Paris during the heady days of the 1920s. Regarded as a companion to Hemingway’ s A Moveable Feast, the story focuses on Hadley’ s rather than Hemingway’ s life, hence giving it a very different slant. Her next book, Love and Ruin focuses on another of Hemingway’ s wives, Martha Gellhorn, a journalist he meets in Madrid where both were reporting on the Spanish Civil War. I enjoyed both books very much. Not only did they give a different perspective on the character of the literary hero, but they also painted a colourful picture of life in pre-war Europe. In her new book Skylark, McLain once again uses Paris as her backdrop, telling a rare story in the history of the City of Light. Skylark tells two tales set over 300 years apart, but beautifully intertwined by themes of courage and defiance. The first is about Alouette Voland working as a dyer at the famed Gobelins Tapestry Works in Paris during the 1660s. Alouette is skilled at her craft and determined to prove she is as good as the men who control the industry. Her boldness leads to her imprisonment in the infamous Salpêtrière asylum where thousands of women are treated appallingly. Along with Alouette’ s story, McLain runs a narrative set in 1939 which focuses on Kristof Larson, a young doctor working as a psychiatric resident in the same district of Paris once dominated by the tapestry works. He is determined to improve conditions for the patients living in the asylum. When the Germans occupy Paris he becomes the only hope for his Jewish neighbours’ survival, as he leads them through a maze of tunnels beneath the city. Skylark is a moving look at part of the history of Paris, little known by many of us.
REVIEW BY DIANA FROM MELBOURNE
THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY
Elizabeth Strout
$ 35.00
available may 5
Internationally bestselling and prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout’ s new novel tells the story of a chance incident in a man’ s life – a poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship, and free will in a capsizing world. With exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets. The Things We Never Say is a stunning new novel from one of our most acclaimed observers of the human heart.
CAPTURE Amanda Lohrey
$ 34.99
James Mather is a psychiatrist in his 60s. He is invited to take on a new group of patients. All he knows about them is that each one claims to have been abducted by aliens. There’ s Anthony, for instance, who was camping one night by the Aral Sea; or Mary, the owner of a beauty salon, confronted by a ball of light moving towards her in her bedroom. Capture is a strange philosophical fable about what we can believe in a post-truth world. It will beguile and baffle its readers. Amanda Lohrey is an extraordinary writer. Her novel might be full of crazy stuff, but who could deny its sanity?
MANTLE Romy Ash
$ 34.99
Nature has another evolution in store for us. Ursula is a self-possessed geologist. In her life on the mainland, she’ s a guardian of the timescale, dividing history into segments and reading the Earth’ s depths. It sounds like science fiction, but it’ s simply science. When her ailing mother is struck with a mystery illness she is called to the coastline of Lutruwita / Tasmania. What begins as an incurable rash evolves into something more dangerous. Deeply moving and utterly original, Mantle is a powerful novel that shows us our fate is intertwined with the people around us, and the fate of our world.
GOODBYE, MY LOVE
Yumna Kassab
$ 34.99
When she finally left, like properly totally completely left, it shouldn’ t have come as a surprise. The signs were there. Amina’ s marriage to Amin was supposed to be a new beginning, instead, it became an inescapable end. Even after the divorce, the shadow of their relationship clings to her, defining her life long after they part. Set within the intricate world of an Arab community, the story of these once-lovers explores the devastating impact of a failed marriage from its heady beginning to its bitter end. From the outset, it’ s clear this is a story of departure, yet Amina’ s physical leaving is only the very first step.
JOHN OF JOHN
Douglas Stuart
$ 34.99
available may 12
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella. John of John is the heartbreaking story of a young man’ s return home and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation. The stunning new novel from the Booker Prizewinning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo.
STAFF PICKS
THE CORRE- SPONDENT
Virginia Evans
$ 34.99
In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp. But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she’ s led becomes apparent. Fixing her difficult relationship with her children. Taking a final chance at romance. Atoning for an old legal case which has come back to haunt her. And finally, reckoning with a devastating loss that she has spent the last 30 years holding close to her chest.
STAFF PICK BY JENNIFER FROM MELBOURNE
THEY Helle Helle, Martin Aitken( trans.)
$ 29.95
They – a mother and her 16-yearold daughter – live in an apartment above a hairdresser’ s shop in a small island town. Each day is marked by routine and quiet intimacy. They are so enmeshed, so alike in their manners and opinions, it can be hard to tell them apart. Then the mother begins to feel unwell. They talk about anything but the diagnosis. They is an exquisite portrait of the fragile love between a mother and daughter.
STAFF PICK BY OLIVER FROM MELBOURNE
NO SUCH THING AS MONDAY
Sian Hughes
$ 34.99
Steffie spends her days working in a dry-cleaner’ s, trying to scrub the world clean one garment at a time. But no matter how spotless the clothes, she can’ t rid herself of the guilt and grime she feels inside. Haunted by what happened to her sister when they were children, Steffie is stuck in a loop of self-destruction, defiance, and shame. When her violent, bullying father dies suddenly, it sparks a reckoning that cracks open her past.
STAFF PICK BY BLYE FROM BALMAIN
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