Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy Weekend, one and all.  And happy December, no less.  I'm feeling pretty proud of myself at the mo, because I've basically finished my Christmas shopping.  True, I wasn't buying for many, but it's nice to get it done and dusted, rather than trailing around Yeovil in the week before Christmas.  Yeovil is many things, but a horn o' plenty it is not.  I tell you what does keep giving and giving - and that's the Weekend Miscellany.  Enjoy!

1.) The book - I've tended to turn down review copies during 2012, as A Century of Books has restricted the (already limited) number of new books I wanted to read - but I was very tempted by A is for Angelica by Iain Broome, published by Legend Press.  Here's the info I was sent:

Set in a northern mining town, the novel deftly draws us into the secretive life of troubled Gordon Kingdom. Gordon struggles with the fate of his seriously ill wife and patiently observes the unusual goings-on of his neighbours in Cressingham Vale. The arrival of the enigmatic Angelica prompts Gordon to make difficult decisions, as well as to embark on a flurry of cake baking. The book elegantly weaves prosaic tragedy, dark comedy and Hitchcockian menace.

It all sounds like it might fit with my love of Edward Carey, Barbara Comyns etc.  I'll let you know when I get around to reading it!

2.) The blog post - I know I've been championing Claire's reading of A.A. Milne all year, but if you read only one review of an A.A. Milne book this year, make it her brilliant review of Peace With Honour.  It's definitely made me want to re-read it.

3.) The link - I've been getting into the sketch comedy of BriTANick on Youtube.  It's sometimes 'a little near the knuckle', as Our Vicar's Wife would say, but a lot of it is also very funny.  Here's their brilliant Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever Trailer (er, the screencap isn't very representative of the content):

A Writer's Wish List

Welcome to December. Here is your official welcome package: a snowflake, a large pine tree, a candle, a snifter of brandy. Whatever tradition you're gearing up for, it's likely you've got gifts on the brain, and a shopping list as long as your arm. Here are some hints as to what the writers in your circle of friends and family might be longing for this holiday season. Some are DIY, some are even free! Only one is purely mythological.

No matter the genre or publisher, these are guaranteed to make any author click its little heels together with glee while smiling ear to ear. You might even see a little tooth sparkle, along with a charming *TING* of holiday magic. And if that isn't an image to go on a greeting card, I don't know what is. In related news, I'd like to know who's stuffing all those cats into Santa hats.

Quit it.

10. Sales.

Authors love sales. So I know that you, being a good and virtuous family member or friend, have already bought the book. But now, you can buy your friends the book. Buy your kids' teachers the book. I remember at my book launch, several dear and marvelous friends actually said, "I'm doing my holiday shopping right now!" as they toted away an armful of copies. I have now erected large, permanent, ostentatious statues in their honor in my driveway. Yes, it's hard to get the car out, but these people need recognition.

Many authors are happy to mail you a signed bookplate, for even more palpable specialness.

9. Reviews

It is free to review your author friend's book on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LibraryThing. A thoughtful few sentences, a handful of stars, a couple of tags checked, a "Like" button clicked: these might seem insignificant to you, but they are beautiful gifts to an author.

8. Stories

Interrupt the novel, and I will destroy you.

A truth: Authors often chuckle to each other about how people come up to us saying, "I've got a great book idea for you. You write it, and we'll split the profits!"

Another truth: Most authors are walking around with 87 book ideas in their heads, and their only lament is not being able to crawl into a cave, dig a tiger moat at the entrance, and crouch over a laptop for the next six years, writing them all down. Did I mention the cave has wifi? And that someone occasionally tosses a turkey dinner across the tiger moat? Is this just my fantasy?

KIDS, STOP TALKING TO ME.

This one is tricky because not every story makes a good gift. Long ones usually don't. Ones involving the death of grandmothers, or adoptees finding birth parents, or really special, amazing animals... usually don't. What constitutes a literary treasure? Odd little snippets. Nuggets maybe. Sometimes whole book ideas emerge from tiny little bits of overheard conversation, or sometimes those little nuggets can fit into our books in weird ways.

Example: My friend Tina was chatting with me and some other people and casually mentioned she had a cousin or uncle or something who had escaped from prison by riding a cow through a river. I swear, it was as if the ceiling ripped open, a beam of light shone down on her face, and time slowed. I pulled up a chair and begged her to keep talking about this beautiful, magical cousin from god. Turns out he killed himself playing Russian roulette. WHAT? Was there NOTHING this cousin could not do? Turns out this backstory went like a puzzle piece directly into the past life of one of the minor characters in my WIP. It went in so perfectly, there was almost an audible click. Share your stories. Then get ready to read all about it.

 7. Social Media Love

Easy to Tweet: Hey, I read this book and it's awesome. If you loved Eat Pray Love, you'll want to get this one. It's like Eat Pray Love but IN SPACE!

Easy to share on Facebook: Hey, this book totally changed my mind about panthers. Turns out they're really lovable pets! Check it out. 

Post the cover on Pinterest. Microblog it on Tumblr. Pass the link around. Boost the signal.

6. Blog Posts.

If you have a blog, post a review or an interview! Relate the book to something personal to you, to give awesome content to your own readers while spreading the word for your author friends. If you don't have a blog, consider submitting a guest post to a blog you love. Starting a blog just to pimp out your friend's book is probably a bad idea, although I can see it working as a publicity stunt, if you were able to sustain it on a daily basis for several years. You can do that, right?

So many to choose from!

5. Booze. 

Note: This should also be on the wish lists for architects, bottle washers, chefs, dog walkers, educators, firefighters, grooms, hospital clerical workers, infographic makers, jewelers, kick boxers, loom weavers, magicians, nickel stampers, obstetricians, physicists, query critiquers, rocketry specialists, specialists of all kinds, truck drivers, unitarians, vets, white house interns, x-ray technicians, yak worshippers, and zebra inseminators.

What, my spell check doesn't like the word "inseminators"?

4. Encouragement. 

You can do it! Your book is freakin' fantastic! Are you kidding? Of course you can write another one just as good. Better, even. You are killing this author thing. 

As much as you feel like you've already stroked this needy author's ego quite enough, consider the fact that probably right now the soundtrack in their head is something along the lines of this: "That last book was a fluke. Nothing you say makes sense. You couldn't write your way out of a tiger moat. The things that are important to you aren't important to anyone else. That character's not likable. That idea makes you certifiable. Coffee is starting to taste bad, WHY? You're going to get a hole in your favorite sweater. The hole is coming. The groaning abyss that is your absence of talent will suck you down through that hole and annihilate you."

So you know, some cheery words are never amiss.

3. Time

If there's any way you can facilitate your author friend or family member getting more peaceful and uninterrupted time to write, this is a treasured, hallowed, beautiful thing. Loan your summer house. Babysit. When you're thinking of asking your author friend/family to volunteer for some lengthy, time-consuming activity, or get them involved in some really great idea for a project, or join you in a new hobby, reconsider. Think of someone else. Don't recommend new TV shows. Don't say, "You know, we should really go hiking on the beach once a week, for our health!"

Note to my personal friends: This is not a call for help. I have everything under control. Just send tigers. 

So, I was trying to think of what I would include for #2, and I told my husband what I was considering, he said, "What? That has nothing to do with gifts. Don't you want a gun/flyswatter? Or a robot that sharpens your pens?" It's true that I do want those things, but I feel a responsibility to be honest and deliver a true list, of real desires, and the list would not be complete without this:

2. Magical Plot Solutions. 

There's probably nothing you can really do here, and there's nothing to buy. But this is what authors really most want: plot solutions. We want to experience that sudden strange, unexpected brain-twist that results in a smooth, blissful unraveling of a huge plot-knot.

I want one really bad, this month. I'm praying and dreaming and hoping. I know it will come to me while driving, or while in the shower, or while reading someone else's book and thinking about something completely different, or while knitting, or while telling my dog to stop scratching his junk so luxuriously on the carpet -- I know it will come.

Like most writers, I'm an optimist. Even though we crank about the world and write books where everyone inexorably dies in despair, we all believe in magic, much like the kind that gets talked about in December. Writer magic comes in the middle of writing books. It comes when you're 16 chapters in and it's dismal and clanging and nothing works. It's like a special weapon that only becomes available when you've committed yourself to a battle you can't win. You can't predict or explain it, or make it happen, or find it by looking, but if you didn't think it was coming, you'd never start chapter 2. When it comes, it's the best, best thing ever. When you're waiting for it, the night can be long and dark.

I know I said it wasn't for sale, but if anyone's seen the devil, can you give him my mobile #? Thanks.

Note: My husband's next suggestion was "Sexy muse." But we all know what the #1 gift idea should be, right? It's not a brilliant cover or getting on year-end lists (although Book Pregnant authors have been killing it on that front, yo!). 

1. Sales

See #10.

Lydia Netzer is the author of Shine Shine Shine, which the New York Times Book Review just selected as one of 100 Notable Books for 2012. It was also chosen by Amazon as one of their Editor's Picks for the Top 100 Books of 2012, by Library Journal as one of five Top Women's Fiction Titles of 2012, and by Nancy Pearl in Publisher's Weekly as one of her ten favorite books of 2012. Written over ten years, two attempts at Nanowrimo, and many despairing moments, it's a novel about robots, motherhood, space travel, true love, and the perils of fitting in. Find her on her blog, Facebook, and Twitter. 

The Garrick Year - Margaret Drabble

I've bought up a few old Margaret Drabble titles over the years, all in slightly trippy old Penguin editions, but I've never actually got around to reading one of them before.  The one I really wanted to read was The Millstone, since I've heard complimentary comparisons to one of my favourite books, The L-Shaped Room, but it was 1964 that needed filling on A Century of Books, so I picked my second choice - The Garrick Year.  Cup-mark and all (not my doing.)

What drew me towards The Garrick Year was its theatrical setting.  As I've mentioned over the years, I am fascinated by the theatre and love reading about it in fact or fiction.  One of my Five From The Archive posts even covered the topic.  So I was keen to see how Emma and her actor husband David would get on when they move to Hereford for the opening of a new theatre.  And then it all went rather wrong.  No, not the plot, but my enjoyment of the novel.  Partly this was because of my reasons for reading it - I love to hear the theatre praised or teased, but treated always with affection, and even a little reverence.  Because that's how I feel about it, I suppose.  Emma, however, just mocks it completely.

For those who have never heard actors discuss their trade, I may say that there is nothing more painfully boring on earth.  I think it is their lack of accuracy, their frightful passion for generality that rob their discussions of interest.  They were talking, this time, about that ancient problem of whether one should, while acting, be more aware of the audience of the person or person with whom one is playing the scene: I must have heard this same argument once a fortnight over the last four years, and never has anyone got a step nearer to any kind of illumination, because instead of talking rationally they just wander round the morasses of their own personalities, producing their own weaknesses for examination as though they were interesting, objective facts about human nature.

I don't think I realised quite how much I do revere the theatre, until I bristled at this sort of blasphemy!  And, oh, what a cow Emma is.  I know some say it shouldn't matter how likeable a character is, but I always maintain (as others have said before me) that it does matter if the author clearly sets up a character to be likeable, and fails.  And, after all, I often like books because they have charming characters, so why shouldn't it work the other way around?

I have to confess, I had a problem with Emma as soon as she admitted preferring London to the countryside.  But things get worse than that.  Emma is one of those miserable people who moans all the time about everything, but does nothing to change her life.  She has no paid employment, and whines about looking after their two children - which would be fair enough, if she didn't have a full-time, live-in nanny.  Quite what she does with her day is unclear, but later she manages to fill the hours by thoughtlessly embarking on an affair with the producer of the theatre.  She appears to have no concern at all for her marriage vows, having declared earlier that the only reason she hadn't committed adultery was that she hadn't had the opportunity.

There isn't much plot or narrative drive in The Garrick Year.  It's mostly Emma's introspective, self-pitying waffle.  Thankfully it's at least well written, which is the only reason I persevered with what is, in fact, a slim novel.  Although Drabble isn't quite as good a writer as I'd expected - I'd argue she's not as good as Lynne Reid Banks - but it isn't clunky or cliche-ridden or anything like that, and she creates the background characters rather well: among them is Sofy, an ambitious young actress whose talents (if any) do not lie in the direction of acting, and I rather enjoyed any moment that Emma and David's young daughter was on the scene - she could be quite funny.  In terms of structure, Drabble went (I am sorry to say) for one of those last-minute-big-events which seem the last ditch effort of a novelist who knows their novel hasn't been very exciting yet - you know the sort?

Perhaps I'll enjoy Drabble more when her topic is different, or her character less selfish and awful. I wondered, while I was reading this, whether it might be her second novel - and, lo and behold, it was.  It has neither the inspiration of a first novel, nor the assured confidence of a later book - so hopefully I just picked up a dud, and there will be plenty more to try later.  I do recognise that she is a good writer, and I'm not giving up on her yet.  Any suggestions?

A Cheerful Readalong

I adore Julia Strachey's novel Cheerful Weather For the Wedding - more here - and I was very excited when I found out that a film was being made.  It was going to cinema, then straight to DVD, now I think it's back on for the cinema.  I was excited, but with some trepidation, as it struck me as the sort of book which might not translate well to screen.  It's so dryly, bitingly funny, and not at all serious.  But I'm impressed with this trailer, and think they might well have caught the tone...



I'll be re-reading it before the film comes out, and wondered if anybody fancied joining me for a bit of a group read in January?  All very informal - just post a review when you want to (in, say, the last week of January) and I'll have a discussion here.  It's very short and very good - although does divide people quite a lot, so should be interesting to discuss.

Let me know if you're interested!  A Persephone edition is available, indeed two Persephone editions are available, as it got the beautiful Persephone Classics reprint treatment.

Fun fun!

Book Baby Two

Baby Number Two, Or...  How to Survive a Difficult Pregnancy

In real life, my first two sons are fourteen months apart.  You would think after giving birth once, the next time would be easier.  You would be wrong.  My second son had the cord wrapped around his neck and was in distress.  The obstetrician had to take him quickly.  I did not have a Caesarian because he was almost born when he got into trouble.  The more he struggled to emerge from the womb, the tighter the cord pulled.  I remember being cut and feeling every snap of flesh before I passed out from the gas they were giving me.  When I woke up, three days later, my son still had blue lips and a purple face.  He was still in the incubator and I had to sign a paper giving permission to operate on his skull in case there was fluid on his brain.  Thankfully, he was fine.   But it took me a long time to recover from that traumatic experience.

I feel a little bit like that with my second book-baby.  I’m long overdue, and this time is not nearly as easy as the first.  Of course, being diagnosed with stage 3 uterine cancer last January did not help things.  First, I had a radical hysterectomy, followed by chemo and radiation treatments.  I had turned in the first draft of the book to my editor, who had many suggestions for improvement.  I was determined to get another draft for him, but it has taken eleven months so far.  I still have a month’s work to do, at the very least.  Luckily, he and my agent have been wonderfully understanding and patient.

I supposed chemo treatments might be compared to morning sickness.  There is nausea and extreme fatigue.  The brain doesn’t work as well as usual.  There is the constant fear that something will go wrong.  But, just like in pregnancy, there is not much you can do about those things.  All you can do is live through them.  Thankfully, working on book-baby 2 was good for my spirit, even though it was extremely difficult.

Book-baby 2’s are difficult for other reasons.  It’s very common for writers to have a weak second book; publishers refer to it as a ‘sophomore’ book.  There are several reasons for this.  The first book usually involved a deep passion for the project.  After all, there were no guarantees the book would find a publisher, no promises from an agent.  The book was written because the writer WANTED to write it.  Book 2 is a little different.  There is huge pressure to write a better book this go around.  If the first book was decent, the pressure is on for book 2 to be even better.  And, if the writer can’t produce a better book, she must face the chances of her career being over almost before it gets started.  Publishers and agents want writers who can produce on a regular basis, regardless of their insecurities. 

There is also pressure to produce a best-seller.  With mergers, indie-writers, ebooks and all the flux in the world of publishing, it seems more and more emphasis is being placed on book sales.  Where once there was a concern for the state of American letters and a dedication to producing books of quality even if they didn’t sell particularly well, now it’s the bottom line all the way.  It’s like expecting your newborn to be a genius from his very first cry.  That kind of pressure can’t be good for mother or book-baby.

So, for the past eleven months, I feel like I’ve wrestled my baby to the ground.  She is not like her big brother, not in the least.  But, as I prepare for the last month of pregnancy and I see her shaping up, I have discovered that I’m rather fond of her, after all.  No, she isn’t like my first baby because I’m not the same and neither is this little production.  Life happens, and it forms and changes us.  These changes are reflected in our writing, for better or worse.  I’m just happy to have book-baby 2 and I can’t wait to see her when she makes her way into this world.

Reading Presently: The Badge

I'm pleased to announce that the winning badge for my Reading Presently project is this lovely one by Agnieszka - isn't it nice?

I've scaled up my project - I'm now going to try to read 50 books, rather than 25, that have been given as gifts.  I'm excited about finding out about all these books which have been hidden on my shelves!  It probably isn't the most reader-friendly project, but I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing - and I intend to do A Century of Books again in 2014.

Do join in, and use the badge, if you'd like to!

Thanks again, Agnieszka - I'll get a bookish prize off to you!

My day in books - Cornflower strikes again!

I've been meaning to do Cornflower's My Day In Books - fill in the answers with books you've read this year.  It's tricky, and I seem to have moved to the coast, but always fun!  Do have a go yourself, and check out Karen's original post.  (Where I have reviewed the books, they get a link.)

I began the day by A View of the Harbour

before breakfasting on Brighton Rock

and admiring The World I Live In.

On my way to work I saw Art in Nature

and walked by The Sea, The Sea

to avoid The Wrong Place,

but I made sure to stop at The Other Garden.

In the office, my boss said Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,

and sent me to research More Women Than Men.

At lunch with Spinster of this Parish

I noticed Sweet William

in The Corner That Held Them

greatly enjoying Green Thoughts.

Then on the journey home, I contemplated All The Books of My Life

because I have Enthusiasms

and am drawn to The Uncommon Reader*.

Settling down for the evening, Back to Home and Duty,

I studied Elders and Betters

by I. Compton-Burnett

before saying goodnight to One Fine Day.

*This review is from 2007, but I re-read it earlier this year

A Debut Author Learns About Libraries

by Amy Sue Nathan

Learning to be an author in addition to being a writer is an interesting process. While in the midst of planning publicity, working on a new website, and sharing news both regularly and prudently (I think both are important), I’m very aware that yes, book sales are going to be an important factor if I don’t want to become a one-book wonder. (No intention of that, mind you, and WIP is coming along nicely, if I do say so myself. Which I do. Also have a tickling of a story for book 3!)

And then a few weeks ago I learned that THE GLASS WIVES will be published in hardcover for the library market. That means that libraries can purchase a copy (or ten, um, book clubs!) of my novel and it will be sturdier and last longer than the trade paperback edition.  Because libraries are book buyers, this is a good thing. Whether we all like it or not, not everyone can afford to buy every book. And some people can’t afford or choose not to buy any books.  And this doesn’t mean they’re not book lovers or voracious readers. It means that I want libraries to have copies of my book so that everyone who wants to read it has the opportunity to do so, no matter where they choose to obtain their [legal, I'm looking at you, book pirating sites] copy.

The point here is to garner the attention of readers any way possible. This is not lost on me.

So, after I was finished with a personal celebration, knowing that my editor and publisher have confidence that libraries will want to stock-up on THE GLASS WIVES, I printed out THE GLASS WIVES page from the St. Martin’s Griffin Spring catalog, the first three pages, and a copy of the cover. And I marched my debut author behind over to the library in my town.

Small town. Big new library.

I introduced myself to the adult services librarian, leading with “I live in Small Town and St. Martin’s Press is publishing my first novel in May.”  Yes, that is a way to get a librarian’s attention. She was lovely, and interested, and her smile stretched across her face. She asked if she could shake my hand (heartily, I might add) to congratulate me.  She asked questions about how long it took me to write it, the agent-process, and she made many correct assumptions about the excitement level in my brain and heart.  The librarian needed to pass along my information (complete with actual telephone number) to the person who purchases fiction for the library because of course she was at lunch when I showed up.

I’m fortunate to live in an educated, education-centric community. I’m in contact with the local book club that started in 1938 and boasts over 100 members. It’s also not lost on me that the fact that THE GLASS WIVES is set in a Chicago suburb and about a divorced mom, and that I LIVE in a Chicago suburb and am a divorced mom, may send 9200 locals scampering for the book in stores, online, in this very library, looking for something or someone familiar, looking for answers and insights to my real life, or—gasp—theirs. They won’t find it, but hey, I’m no dummy.

I just nod and say, “You’ll have to read the book.”

La Grande Thérèse - Hilary Spurling

La Grande Thérèse (1999) was one of those impulse purchases I sometimes make in Oxford's £2 bookshop - the Matisse painting on the cover; the fact that Hilary Spurling wrote it; the subtitle 'The Greatest Swindle of the Century'; its brevity.  I was sold.  And the book was sold.  To me.

La Grande Thérèse tells the true (amazingly!) story of Thérèse Daurignac, born into a fairly poor family, with no rich connections or impressive prospects, but who managed to become Madame Humbert, one of the most successful society women in fin-de-siècle Paris, with all the major players of the day visiting her home and paying her homage.  Three Frence presidents and at least five British prime ministers were amongst her friends.

How did she manage this?  By what talent or good fortune?

By lying.

Somehow, simply through deceit, 'her ingenuous air and her adorable lisp', and a ruthless selfishness, Thérèse elevated herself and her family to the highest ranks of society.  Spurling's short book tells the story of her rise - and, in 1902, her catastrophic fall.   She started with small fry - in Toulouse she managed to outwit dressmakers and hairdressers with promises of an inheritance soon to be given her.   This was just small scale for what she would eventually do.  Thérèse married Frédéric Humbert, a shy man with a sharp legal brain, and together the plot continued apace.  Wherever she went, Thérèse spoke of a legacy that would be hers - over the years it escalated, until it was in the millions.  A strongbox, purportedly containing the legal papers of this legacy, was kept in its own locked room, occasionally shown to an important visitor.  Thérèse expertly built up a mystique around her fortune - and on the back of it bought an enormous home on the avenue de la Grande Armée.  She rarely paid for anything at all, and her family (including a rather violent - possibly, Spurling suggests, murderously so - brother) wangled loans of staggering amounts from people up and down the country.  Such were their powers of persuasion.

All her life Thérèse treated money as an illusion: a confidence or conjuring trick that had to be mastered.

Spurling goes through Thérèse's family in a little more depth, exploring the characters of various siblings and children (and especially develops the nature of one relative by marriage, an avant-garde artist called... Henri Matisse!) but the outline is there - and, such is the brevity of La Grande Thérèse, that the outline isn't expanded a huge amount.  It is astonishing that this trickster got so far - but, of course, it couldn't last.  With hundreds of creditors wanting their money, it turned out to be a relatively minor court order (for the address of her mysterious American benefactor) which brought the whole house of cards down.  The family disappeared.  The nation was in outcry.  A lengthy trial eventually... but, no.  Although this is not a novel, I shall not spoil the ending.

The most curious thing about Spurling's book is that such a thing could happen without everybody knowing about to this day.  She discusses, in an epilogue, the various reasons why this scandal has been covered up - 'if the Dreyfus affair had knocked the stuffing out of the right wing and the army, the Humbert affair seemed likely to do the same for the Left and its civil administration' - but   it still seems extraordinary that such a shocking tale could be all but forgotten.  The second most curious thing about Spurling's book is the writing style she adopts.  From beginning to end, it is written almost as though it were a fairy tale.  Here is how it opens:

Thérèse Daurignac was born in 1856 in the far southwest of France in the province of the Languedoc, once celebrated for its troubadours and their romances.  Life for Thérèse in the little village of Aussonne, just outside Toulouse, was anything but romantic.  She was the eldest child in a poor family: a stocky, bright-eyed little girl, not particularly good-looking, with nothing special about her except the power of her imagination.  Thérèse told stories.  In an age without television, in a countryside where most people still could not read, she transformed the narrow, drab, familiar world of the village children into something rich and strange.

Our sympathies even seem to be nudged towards Thérèse and her family, admiring the audacity of her financial conjuring tricks.  In a fairy tale, perhaps she would be a heroine - because consequences in a fairy tale are not really consequences.  Yet her selfish ambition destroyed many, many lives - thousands of people were left ruined; a substantial number killed themselves.  They are not quite forgotten by Spurling, but this extraordinary tale could easily have been given a more tragic structure, rather than the they-do-it-with-mirrors account Spurling prioritises.

There are no footnotes in The Grande Thérèse, or even sourcing - no proper bibliography or indication where Spurling got individual facts and quotations from (although the illustrations are referenced properly.)  As I rather suspected, Spurling wrote The Grande Thérèse as a tangent while researching a book on Matisse, and perhaps she simply wanted a holiday from academic writing.  I was perfectly happy to be swept along by the bizarre facts Spurling presents - perhaps they suit this sort of storytelling, rather than a chunky, footnoted biography - but it does leave me with many unanswered questions, not least about Thérèse's psyche and conscience.  But those are questions for the novelist, not the writer of non-fiction and The Grande Thérèse is far more striking as non-fiction than it could be as fiction.  If you fancy being shocked and surprised, and don't mind being left a touch bewildered, then go and find this extraordinary little book.

Song for a Sunday

Love this song... that is all!  Over to Paolo Nutini and 'Candy'.  Let it wash over you, and forget that it's only one month til Christmas...

He went to the bookshelf and the bookshelf was bare (by the time he had finished buying all the books on it)

Before I take you through the picture below, do please keep answering the Agatha Christie questions from yesterday - I believe in you guys, I think we can get James loads of answers for his thesis!  Spread the word...

I went to London on Thursday, to hear the Persephone lecture and meet up with some online friends (all of which was wonderful) - whilst there, I managed to get a book or two... and I thought you might like to know what has entered my teetering towers of books!  It does include three gift books (my meet-up does a Secret Santa, as well as bringing lots of swaps) so they're on the pile for Reading Presently next year.

Mariana by Monica Dickens
I found two of those fancy Persephone new editions in a secondhand bookshop - so they came home with me!  I do have both in the original editions, but... these are so pretty.

Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
This only came out a few weeks ago, I think - I spotted it in The Times review pages last week, and was thinking about buying a copy, and then I found it in Oxfam.  Win!

The Crafty Art of Playmaking by Alan Ayckbourn
Don't worry, I have no intention of writing a play (except for my contribution to the Chiselborough Christmas Cracker) but my fascination with all things theatre could meet new levels here.

At The Pines by Mollie Panter-Downes
I don't know anything about this, but I wasn't about to leave a Mollie Panter-Downes behind, was I?

Adele and Co. by Dornford Yates
This was my gift in the Secret Santa - I've been meaning to try Dornford Yates for ages, since I know a few fans of his, and now I have the chance in this lovely edition.

Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
And another one!  Very excited about the film of this coming out next year - incidentally, check out Lisa's wonderful interview with the scriptwriter.

Money for Nothing by P.G. Wodehouse
In the swap pile at our meet-up - always happy to add more Wodehouse to my shelves, especially when it's a lovely old edition like this.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
More from the swap pile - my book group is reading this next year, so it was great to nab a copy gratis.

Darkness and Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Very pleased to pick up a tricky-to-find ICB novel in the lovely Slightly Foxed bookshop.

The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic
Anne Fadiman says that everyone has a shelf of books which don't quite match the rest of their taste - mine has popular psychology and neurology.  I don't understand everything I'm reading, but I find it fascinating.  As the title suggests, this is about synesthesia.

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
More Carter, please - and I love this fun cover.

Right, that's my haul!  Probably bought a few more than I ought to have done, so I think there's going to be a self-imposed ban for the rest of 2012...

An Agatha Christie Question

Hope you like the cartoon - I experimented with a strip format!  It's probably a case of click-to-enlarge or you might not be able to read it...

On with the show.  As I mentioned yesterday, I have a question (or three) to ask you about Agatha Christie!  This is only for people who have read some of her books, but I imagine that is most of us.  James Bernthal, who gave the paper on Agatha Christie which spurred me on to revisiting her, had some research questions about readers' experience with her novels - and who better to help him with his thesis, thought I, than my lovely readers?  Feel free to answer in the comments or, if you prefer, email your answers to jcb228[at]ex.ac.uk.  Over to James's questions!

Nearly everyone seems to have a definite opinion on Agatha Christie. As I’m writing my thesis on Christie’s place in popular culture, this fascinates me! If you have the time, and if you have heard of Agatha Christie at all, could you email me a couple of lines, which would inform a thesis chapter, about:

- How you first became aware of Agatha Christie (e.g. a film, heard a reference in a fish shop, attracted by the vibrant cover art)

- Your first impressions of Agatha Christie (e.g. cosy escape, Poirot, boring, ‘oooh, this is a grown-up book with no pictures’)

- What you think of Christie now (e.g. a guilty pleasure, a British institution, a cultural document, the name conjours up images of a moustachioed David Suchet)?

There's Nobody Quite Like Agatha

In 2000, or thereabouts, I read an awful lot of Agatha Christie novels - mostly Miss Marple, because my love of slightly eccentric old women started way back then - but since then, I've only read one or two.  In 2010 I read The Murder at the Vicarage, and thought it might issue in a new dawn of Christie reading.  Well, two years later that dawn has, er, dawned.  After hearing an interesting paper on Agatha Christie covers at a recent conference, I decided that a fun way to fill some gaps in A Century of Books would be to dip into my shelf of Christies, many unread.  Since she wrote one or two a year for most of the 20th century, she is an ideal candidate for this sort of gap-filling.

Before I go onto the two novels I read (pretty briefly), I'll start with what I love about Agatha Christie.  She is considered rather non-literary in some circles (although not quite as often as people often suggest) and it's true that her prose doesn't ripple with poetic imagery - but the same is true of respected writers such as George Orwell and Muriel Spark, who choose a straight-forward seeming prose style, albeit with their own unique quirks.  Leaving aside Christie's prose talents - and they are always better than I expect, and often funnier than I remember - she is most remarkable for her astonishing ability with plot.

For a lot of people, myself included, reading Agatha Christie is our first experience of detective fiction.  She sets the norms, and she sets the bar high.  Only after dipping my toe into books by Margery Allingham and Dorothy L. Sayers do I realise quite how vastly superior she is when it comes to plot.  It was once a truism of detective fiction that the author would be unfair, only revealing important clues at the last moment.  "What you didn't know was that the gardener was Lord Alfred's long-lost cousin!"  That sort of thing.  Dame Agatha never does that.  There are almost invariably surprises in the last few pages, but they are the sort of delightful, clever surprises which could have been worked out by the scrupulously careful reader.  Of course, none of us ever do fit all the clues together along the way - it would spoil the novel if we did - but Christie has a genius for leaving no loose ends, and revealing all the clues which have been hidden thus far.  Other detective novelists of the Golden Age still (from my reading) rely upon coincidence, implausibility, and secrets they kept concealed.

Reading a detective novel demands quite a different approach from most other novels.  Everything is pointed towards the structure.  There can be innumerable lovely details along the way, but structure determines every moment - all of it must lead to the denouement, and everything must adhere to that point.  Many of the novels we read (especially for someone like me, fond of modernist refusal of form - witness my recent review of The House in Paris) are deliberately open-ended, and the final paragraphs are structurally scarcely more significant than any arbitrarily chosen lines from anywhere in the novel.  With an Agatha Christie, the end determines my satisfaction. My chief reason for considering a detective novel successful or unsuccessful is whether it coheres when the truth is revealed.  Is the motive plausible?  Does the 'reveal' match the preceding narrative details?  Are there any unanswered questions?  That's a lot of pressure on Agatha Christie, and it is a sign of her extraordinary talent for plot that she not only never disappoints, but she casts all the other detective novelists I've tried into the shade.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

I'd never read Christie's very first novel, so it was serendipitous that 1920 was one of the few interwar blank spaces on my Century of Books.  I'm going to be very brief about these two novels, because I don't want to give anything away at all (a carefulness not exemplified by the blurbs of these novels, incidentally.)  Suffice to say that there is a murder in a locked bedroom - and a lot of motives among family and friends.

"Like a good detective story myself," remarked Miss Howard.  "Lots of nonsense written, though.  Criminal discovered in last chapter.  Every one dumbfounded.  Real crime - you'd know at once."

"There have been a great number of undiscovered crimes," I argued.

"Don't mean the police, but the people that are right in it.  The family.  You couldn't really hoodwink them.  They'd know."

I love it when Christie gets all meta.  In One, Two, Buckle My Shoe one character accuses another, "You're talking like a thriller by a lady novelist."  Heehee!  But the best strain of meta-ness (ahem) in The Mysterious Affair at Styles is adorable Captain Hastings.  He narrates, and he is not very bright.  He considers himself rather brilliant at detection, and is constantly sharing all manner of clues and suppositions with Poirot, only for Poirot to laugh kindly and disabuse him.  Hastings really is lovely - and doesn't seem to have suffered even a moment's psychological unease at having been invalided away from WW1.  Poirot, of course, is brilliant.  It's all rather Holmes/Watson, but it works.

You've probably read the famous moment where Poirot is first described, but it bears re-reading:

Poirot was an extraordinary-looking little man.  He was hardly more than five feet four inches, but carried himself with great dignity.  His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side.  His moustache was very stiff and military.  The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.  Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.  As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day.

Isn't that line about the bullet sublime?  (Although, again, demonstrates a remarkable lack of shellshock on Hastings' part.)  What I found ironic about this, the first Poirot novel, is that (with decades of detection ahead of him), Hastings thinks:

The idea crossed my mind, not for the first time, that poor old Poirot was growing old.  Privately I thought it lucky that he had associated with him someone of a more receptive type of mind.

Hastings is wrong, of course, but as a retired man, Poirot must enjoy one of the longest retirements on record.  As for the novel itself - Christie tries to do far too much in it, and the eventual explanation (though ingenious) is very complicated.  Colin tells me that Christie acknowledges the over-complication in her autobiography.  It's not surprising for a first novel, and it does nonetheless involve some rather sophisticated twists and turns.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)

Onto another Poirot novel!  For some reason I love the idea of titles being nursery rhymes or quotations, and Christie does this a lot.  And Then There Were None is my favourite of her books (that I have read), and I also think the twist in The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side is brilliant.  I hadn't read this one, and chose it over Sad Cypress for the 1940 selection.  Which turned out not to be very clever, as it is set at a dentist's, where I will probably have to go soon...

The plot of this one isn't amongst Christie's best, and does depend upon one minor implausibility, but it's still head and shoulders over other people's.  I realise I'm giving you nothing to go on, but I don't even want to give the identity of the victim (even though they're killed very early in the novel) because every step should be a surprise.  What I did like a lot about the novel was this moment about Poirot:

She paused, then, her agreeable, husky voice deepening, she said venomously: "I loathe the sight of you - you bloody little bourgeois detective!"

 

She swept away from him in a whirl of expensive model drapery.

 

Hercule Poirot remained, his eyes very wide open, his eyebrows raised and his hand thoughtfully caressing his moutaches.

 

The epithet bourgeois was, he admitted, well applied to him.  His outlook on life was essentially bourgeois, and always had been[.]

Having sat through an absurd talk recently, where the embittered speaker spat out 'bourgeois' about once a minute (and then, after lambasting his own bottom-of-the-pile education, revealed that he'd been to grammar school) this came as a breath of fresh air!  One of my few rules in life is "If someone uses the word 'bourgeois' instead of 'middle-class', they're probably not worth paying attention to, and they certainly won't pay attention to you.'  The other thing I loved was the morality Christie slipped into Poirot's denouement... but to give away more would be telling.

So, as you see, one of the other issues with detective fiction is that it rather defies the normal book review, but I've had fun exploring various questions which arise from reading Agatha Christie - and tomorrow I shall be putting a specific question to you!  But for today, please just comment with whatever you'd like to say about Christie or this post - and particularly which of her novels you think is especially clever in its revelation (giving away absolutely nothing, mind!)

Evolution of a Book Cover

by Sam Thomas


As other authors here have noted, the actual production of a book can be no less stressful than the writing. From choosing a font to finding blurbs, there are dozens of Is to be dotted and Ts to be crossed. 

But one of the most fascinating is the question of what kind of cover to put on the book. You want one that not only captures both the spirit of the book and the readers eye. It has to tie the book to others in its genre, while at the same time signaling its distinctiveness. It is also a decision that few authors can really control. (Check your contract!)

When I imagined the cover of The Midwife’s Tale, I wanted it to look like a seventeenth-century murder pamphlet like the one on the right. 

The pamphlet would both capture my setting and the central tension of the book, whether a woman would be burned at the stake. To add a little color, I imagined foil overlay in red and orange to make the flames really leap off the page. 

Nice, right?

Except that sometimes I'm not very bright, and I didn't tell anyone about my idea. So, lesson number one: if you want something, say so.

In any event over the summer - about seven months before my due-date -  my editor sent me this cover:

 I was utterly floored. I loved the interplay of darkness and light, the color scheme, the way the light played across the figure’s back… nearly everything about it.

The one concern my agent (not to mention fellow Book Pregnant authors!) had was that it seemed a bit too still. 

I had written a murder story, after all, and we thought it could use a bit more danger. I also suggested replacing the stalks of grain on the table with a mortar and pestle so the midwifery piece was more prominent.

This is where Minotaur came through for me the first time. By all rights, they could have said, “Nope, this is it.” But they didn’t. They came back with a modified cover.

If you look closely, we’ve got a mortar and pestle, and (even better) a knife, but now the scene is dominated by the cooking pot. 

We also now have the question of where the figure’s right arm is. Why isn’t the light that’s illuminating the pot, illuminating the arm?

So we tried again, and once again Minotaur came through gorgeously. We found an image we liked, and then the art department integrated it with the figure in a way that (I hope you'll agree) is nothing short of incredible.

We’ve got a knife (but now it's more menacing) a glass tipped on its side (which also fits with the plot), and even a right arm! I know all parents think their babies are beautiful, but mine really is.

I suppose the moral of the story is that you only get one cover (unless they give you a second one for your paperback!), and you need to find one that you love.

I can’t say enough good things about my agent (Josh Getzler) and editor (Charlie Spicer), as well as the artists at Minotaur/St. Martins,  who put up with my requests that we keep trying. I’m certainly happy, and I hope that they are as well. 

--------------------

Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery, which will be published by Minotaur/St. Martins on January 8, 2013. (You can preorder it from Amazon or Mac's Backs. Order from Mac's, and the book will be signed by the author.)

To learn more about the history of midwifery and the real-life midwife behind his protagonist, visit his website at: http://www.samthomasbooks.com. You can also find (and like) him on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/SThomasBooks

The House in Paris (in which we learn that Darlene is right, is garlanded with flowers &c. &c.)

A while ago the very lovely (but, it turns out, fiercely competitive) Darlene laid down a challenge.  She would read a book by my beloved Ivy Compton-Burnett, if I would give her beloved Elizabeth Bowen a second chance.  "Game on!" said I, always happy to give respected authors two or three tries - but she comfortably beat me with her fabulous review of Manservant and Maidservant in early September, which you can read here.  I took my time, but I've finally managed to keep up my end of the bargain, and on my trip to the Lake District I managed to finish The House in Paris (1935).

Well, Darlene, you were right.  I didn't enjoy The Last September at all, but The House in Paris is beautiful.  Cancel the book burning, Bowen is back in business.

The novel has a layered narrative.  The first and last quarters (called 'Present') take place in the Parisian house, belonging to Mme. and Miss Fisher, where young Henrietta is spending the day between one chaperone and another.  Coincidentally, Leopold is also there - nervously waiting to meet his biological mother for the first time in his life.  The middle half reverts to 'Past', and concerns Leopold's mother Karen, who knew Miss Fisher (Naomi) when they were ten years younger, and the affair which led to Leonard's conception.

It is the beginning and end of The House in Paris that I loved, and I half wish that Bowen hadn't left the house in Paris at all.  The scenes between Henrietta and Leopold are so perfectly judged that it seems impossible that writing can be so beautiful as well as so plausible - surely Bowen (one thinks) would have to sacrifice one to the other?  But no, every moment described is a new insight into the way children interact, and beautiful because true.  This is the first conversation they have while alone together:

He said: "Miss Fisher says you're here for the day."

"I'm just crossing Paris," Henrietta said with cosmopolitan ease.

"Is that your monkey?"

"Yes.  I've had him ever since I was born."

"Oh," said Leopold, looking at Charles vaguely.

"How old are you?" Henrietta enquired.

"Nine."

"Oh, I'm eleven."

"Miss Fisher's mother is very ill," said Leopold.  He sat down in an armchair with his knees crossed and, bending forward, studied a cut on one knee.  The four velvet armchairs, each pulled out a little way from a corner, faced in on the round table that reflected the window and had in its centre a tufted chenille mat.  He added, wrinkling his forehead: "So Mariette says, at least."

"Who is Mariette?"

"Their maid.  She wanted to help me dress."

"Do you think she is going to die?" said Henrietta.

"I don't expect so.  I shall be out, anyway."

"That would be awful," said Henrietta, shocked.

"I suppose it would.  But I don't know Mme. Fisher."

It is never natural for children to smile at each other: Henrietta and Leopold kept their natural formality.  She said: "You see, I'd been hoping Miss Fisher was going to take me out." 

Leopold, looking about the salon, said: "Yes, this must be a rather funny way to see Paris."  But he spoke with detachment; it did not matter to him.

In the first quarter of the novel, little takes place to propel the plot.  Henrietta meets Mme. Fisher (slowly, wryly, dying in a bedroom upstairs); Leopold snoops through Miss Fisher's letters, and finds letters from his adoptive mother and Henrietta's grandmother, and an empty envelope from his biological mother.  What makes this section so special is the gradual, engaging way Bowen builds up the relationship between the children - character is paramount.  Although they develop a fragile and fleeting friendship, they have the child's selfish indifference to each other's feelings - as Bowen expresses so strikingly:

With no banal reassuring grown-ups present, with grown-up intervention taken away, there is no limit to the terror strange children feel of each other, a terror life obscures but never ceases to justify.  There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone. 

This passage demonstrates one of the qualities of Bowen's writing that I most admired and liked - the way she moves from the specific to the general.  Authors are often told "show, don't tell", and Bowen finds an original way to follow this maxim while subtly evading it.  She never plays too heavy a narrative hand with the characters, letting their actions and words form their personalities, but then she steps back a pace or two, and draws general conclusions about children or lovers or parents or people in general.  She shows with the cast, and tells about the world.

As the first part closes, Leopold learns that: "Your mother is not coming; she cannot come."  Isn't that sentence delightfully Woolfean, with its balance and half-repetition?  No wonder people have often drawn comparison between Bowen and Woolf - including Byatt, in her excellent introduction (which, as always, ought to be read last - and pleasantly blends personal and critical aspects.)

actual houses in Paris wot I saw once

In the central section of the novel, we meet Leopold's mother Karen, and witness her relationship with Naomi's fiancee Max.  Although longer than the other sections put together, 'Past' felt less substantial to me.  It is, essentially, the very gradual and incremental development of the relationship between Karen and Max - from distrust to love, and... onwards.  But here I shall draw a veil over the ensuing plot for, although plot is hardly primary in Bowen, it cannot be called negligible, and I shall not spoil it.

And, finally, back to Henrietta and Leopold, as they make proclamations about their lives, in the midst of situations they cannot understand for more than a moment at a time - and eventually they part.  Without giving away too much, I shall remove one possibility - they do not end up living like brother and sister; they will probably never see each other again.  Their encounter has been fleeting, and wholly at the whim of the various adults (present and absent) whose decisions so heavily influence the children's lives.  As a conceit it is not entirely natural, but we can forgive Bowen that - it structures the narrative perfectly, and gives opportunity for so many other moments where the natural triumphs against the artificiality of fiction: time and again novelistic cliches and truisms have the carpet whipped from under their feet, and the reader thinks "Oh, of course, that is what would happen."

Above all, Bowen is a wordsmith.  She crafts sentences so perfectly.  They are not of the variety that can be read in a hurry - perhaps that is where I went wrong with The Last September - but, with careful attention and a willingness to dive into the world of words she creates - it is an effort which is very much repaid.  Darlene, thank you for refusing to let me declare Bowen done and dusted - she's now very much back in my good books.  You might have won this competition, but this is a case of everyone's-a-winner, right?


Others who got Stuck into it:

"From the very first page of The House in Paris when Henrietta is collected from the train station by Miss Fisher, both wearing cerise cockades so as to recognize one another, I adored this book.  Elizabeth Bowen's genius as a writer is staggering and to anyone who doesn't agree or simply does not get on with her...I could weep for you." - Darlene, Roses Over A Cottage Door

"The pages were awash with beautiful, sonorous language formed into exquisite sentences that swirled through my thoughts, leaving lingering, evocative images behind." - Rachel, Book Snob [Simon: this review is much better than mine!  Go and check it out if you haven't done already.]

"I wanted to love Elizabeth Bowen; one of my most respected history profs at university cited Bowen as her absolute favourite author and ever since then I've intended to read her. I liked this book, I even found some quotable passages which I delightedly copied out. But somehow it didn't coalesce into a Great Read, at least not for me." - Melwyk, The Indextrious Reader

A.A. Milne's first book

I seem to be having a little spate of reading author's first books (look out for Agatha Christie's coming up soon!) and I decided a good way to tackle one of the remaining years of A Century of Books would be a re-read of A.A. Milne's first - Lovers in London (1905).  I wrote a little about it back here, in January 2010, but that was mostly about the topic of print-on-demand books.  Lovers in London is one of the very few POD books I own, and it isn't very attractive - but it's impossible to find a non-POD edition anywhere, mostly because Milne disowned the book and bought back the copyright to prevent anyone reprinting it. 

That will probably make you assume that it is appalling, and it isn't at all.  It might only be for Milne completists, but it is nonetheless interesting to see where and how he started.  As you might expect, it is about young lovers - only at the beginning they haven't met.  Edward (or Teddy) is the narrator in the mould Milne wrote so well at the beginning of his career - the jovial, cricket-loving, occasionally-writing-for-Punch sort of upper-middle-class man; Amelia is his godfather's daughter, travelling to England from her native America.  We're early let into the obvious secret - that by chp.24 (and there are only 125 pages; these are not long chapters) Amelia and Edward will be betrothed.

It's all very cheery and insouciant and very AAM in his sketch-writing days.  If you've had the pleasure and privilege of reading The Day's Play, The Sunny Side, The Holiday Round or things like that (and if you haven't, you should) then you'll recognise the sort of fun they have:

As we went under the bridge to get to the elephant-house Amelia insisted on buying buns for the rhinoceros.
 
"But they don't eat buns," I objected.
 
"He will if I offer it to him," said Amelia confidently.
 
"My dear Amelia," I said, "it is a matter of common knowledge that the rhinoceros, belonging as it does to the odd-toed set of ungulates, has a gnarled skin, thickened so as to form massive plates, which are united by thinner portions forming flexible joints.  Further, the animal in question, though fierce and savage when roused, is a vegetable feeder.  In fact, he may be said to be herbivorous."
 
"I don't care," said Amelia defiantly; "all animals in the Zoo eat buns."
 
"I can tell you three that don't."
 
"I bet a shilling you can't - not straight off."

 I instanced the electric eel, the ceciopian silk moth, and the coconut crab.  So Amelia paid for our teas.  But in the elephant-house the rhinoceros took his bun with verve - not to say aplomb.

The most successful sections are such as these - when Amelia and Teddy wander around and indulge in frivolous conversation.  It's witty - not the structured, repeatable sort of wit we meet in Wilde, but the variety that puts a happy smile on one's face.

Some chapters were less well done, to my mind, and these tended to be where Milne's imagination got the better of him - particularly one where action wandered (in Teddy's mind) to a desert island.  A little too fanciful, and a little too silly.  But for the most part, it is all very entertaining and jolly.  What Teddy writes about himself could equally be said of Milne:

I am a harmless, mild-mannered person.  There is nothing "strong" about my work; nothing that calls for any violent display of emotion on the part of my puppets.  I doubt if there could be an illegitimate canary (even) in my stories...

I can't see quite why Milne took so against Lovers in London.  If it is not up to the standard of his next few books, it isn't so far behind them as to make it embarrassing.  If it were available in bookshops across the land, I wouldn't hesitate in telling you to get a copy to enjoy on a rainy Sunday afternoon - as it is, in pricey POD editions, you'd be much better off hunting for the much cheaper, much more attractive editions of slightly later books by AAM.