BOOK REVIEWS
DAVID GUTERSON has a fantastic story and he tells it with mechanically-precise plotting, endless detail and breathless narrative drive.
A middle-aged man gets his English au pair — Diane — pregnant at his Seattle home in the 1960s. The teenager skips town, bribes him to pay her generous monthly child support and then abandons the child.
This little Moses is left in a basket, and a well-to-do family rears him as their own without telling him he is adopted.
So the story goes, principally following the lives of Ed King and his mother, Diane. It’s a tricky book to review without giving the plot away, as the plot is almost everything in the book. Page for page, Guterson’s writing is rich in period detail, as for instance a character’s movement from childhood to adolescence is mapped in a single paragraph by name-checking the evolution of computer games.
The social fabric of where people live is queasily well-observed, not least the smug and well-heeled world of privilege Diane marries into in the 1970s after her life as a high-priced escort.
Ed, on the other hand, becomes a trail-blazer in his personal and professional life with a prodigious sexual appetite and a Steve Jobs-type sense of what the computer industry can become.
Ed’s biological father is an actuary and the book makes much of chance and probabilities, particularly as the plot relies on coincidences of colossal proportions. There is such a sense of foreboding and inevitability about the central coincidence that it casts a shadow over much of the book.
Guterson (author of Snow Falling on Cedars) is so conscious of this himself that, as the high noon of this enormous collision of plot lines approaches, he deliberately prolongs the wait by parachuting a drugs heist thriller into the story just to keep us satisfied while waiting.
Guterson even interrupts the narrative voice at the beginning of the final quarter for a ‘Dear reader’ moment, when he writes: “Okay. Now we approach the part of the story a reader can’t be blamed for having skipped forward to …”
Undoubtedly, he gives us a compelling story and he tells it persuasively, even when the DNA technology he needs for the story requires a final trip into the near future.
What Guterson is less interested in giving us is any time for lingering reflections on the interior worlds of the characters.
After key events, one craves a long stream of consciousness from Diane or Ed, but the novelist is having none of it in his desire to tell us What Katie Did Next.
But for a driving and captivating story with an almost tactile sense of its own realities, Guterson delivers.
Colin Falconer Atlantic Books, €17.15, Kindle £5.10
Review: Roddy Brooks
JOSSERAN Sarazini is a Knight Templar who undertakes a journey to the end of the world in a vain bid to form an alliance that can save the far outposts of the Christian Empire from the Saracens.
In Colin Falconer’s epic tale, Josseran and his companion, William, a Dominican friar in search of his own place in history, travel to the famed Xanadu of Khubilai Khan to bargain with the Mongol horde.
An entertaining and exciting story, Silk Road takes the companions on a journey that is as much a trek to discover their own souls as an attempt to keep Palestine from the clutches of the Saracens. Falconer is a former TV, radio and freelance journalist, whose books have been translated into 17 languages over the last 25 years. His story will appeal to readers of all ages.
With several twists to keep the reader engaged, Silk Road is for lovers of a thrilling tale.
Ellen FeldmanPicador, €17.15; Kindle, £6.29
Review: Stephanie Murray
THIS offering from Ellen Feldman follows her Orange Prize-nominated Scottsboro. It traces the lives of Babe, Grace and Millie; three friends in small-town America at the outbreak of the Second World War, as they cope with the upheaval and emotional turbulence caused by the war.
The young women must watch their men leave for Europe, not knowing if they will return. Then come the dreaded telegrams from the War Department, while the women whose men do return are heartbroken to find them changed by the horrors they have witnessed.
Feldman’s saga paints a vivid picture of the war’s effects on women, their relationships and sense of self. It also touches on wider issues such as sexism, racism and anti-Semitism. It is beautifully written in poetic language, and populated with ‘ real’ characters.
Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, €16.99; Kindle, £15.50
Review: Robert Dex
THIS doorstop of a book comes in at almost 800 pages and has a pretty hefty price tag as well, but then again, what price can you put on a life’s work?
It was put together after Christopher Hitchens was told he had inoperable cancer and reflects his abiding interests.
He takes in his adopted home in the United States, international politics, poetry and the pain of being annoyed by waiters who come between him and his wine — all in fiercely-argued and entertaining fashion.
Hitchens does not just build his opinions on top of other reporters’ facts either — he has been on the ground in Afghanistan and Iran and sees the stories for himself before making up his mind.
This collection will be treasured by his fans, who are well aware it may be the last book published under his name in his lifetime.
Carola Hicks, Chatto & Windus, €20.20; Kindle £7.43
Review: David McLoughlin
A PICTURE paints a thousand words. And this is certainly true when looking at The Arnolfini Portrait, an enchanting and curious 15th century painting from the Netherlands, and one of the most important works of art in Western cultural history.
The medieval couple featured in the painting seem to be conveying a message, but historians have long argued its enigmatic meaning.
Art historian Carola Hicks has been fascinated by the painting for many years and her book does full justice to both the mystery and the history behind its creation, and its meandering path to its current home in the National Gallery in London.
Hicks has a mastery of this kind of forensic storytelling, and doesn’t disappoint the reader as she brings to life the people and the times of the painting’s creation and then the equally fascinating history of the painting’s subsequent journeys.
Inviting and gripping — and thoroughly recommended.
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