18 Books Under 180 Pages

I had big plans for 2020. Get this blog going again. Make a decent start on my next book. Read some great big bricks that I've been putting off for years. Chew through any others that are released along the way. Now, I sit at my desk staring at my TBR shelf, physically repulsed by the spines of Charlie Kaufman's Antkind, Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckeim's Homecoming, David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue and Alex Pheby's Mordew. Holy shit I want to read them. Especially the Pheby. But the brain fog brought on by the pandemic and all the crappiness associated with it has laid waste to my (admittedly optimistic) plans. And so, like many others, I have been reading short books. Lots of them. Not that I'm complaining.

There's been a lot of chatter on the socials about which novellas people should be reading. Lithub put out a great list. And I loved Caustic Cover Critic's 50 Short Excellent Books You Can Read in One Hit in Isolation. So, jumping on the bandwagon, here's a bunch of novellas I love. I've tried to mostly stick to books that have flown under the radar. Also, I'll probably make a series of these. My novella shelf is jam packed and double stacked!

EAT HIM IF YOU LIKE by JEAN TEULE
Based on a true story, Eat Him If You Like is a deliciously savage rumination on political unrest, mob rule and collective guilt. The deputy mayor of a small French village goes to market to buy a pig for his poor neighbour. But when one villager mistakenly "hears" him make a pro-Prussian comment, the villagers are enraged. Swept up in a frenzy, they kill and eat the hapless poli. Needless to say, it's not hard to find contemporary parallels.

THE GRAVEYARD by MAREK HŁASKO
A crushing portrait of life in Communist Poland, The Graveyard tells of a hapless factory worker systematically destroyed by the faceless powers that be after he drunkenly abuses a policeman.

DOPPELGÄNGER by DAŠA DRNDIĆ
Drndić called Doppelgänger her "ugly little book" and, while she may be right, it also distills everything that was great about her into two strangely-linked stories. It starts with two old people masturbating one another through their adult diapers on a park bench and ends with a man suiciding by slamming his head against the steel doors of a rhino enclosure. In between, we get all the ugliness of 20th century European history. A perfect, sickening gem.

THE TIDINGS OF THE TREES by WOLFGANG HILBIG
In the ashes of what was once a forest, a failed writer encounters inhabitants called Garbagemen who are sorting through the detritus of a destroyed civilisation and arranging discarded mannequins into obtuse poses. This is horror at its most existential.

BESIDE THE SEA by VERONIQUE OLMI
Rendered in a voice so convincing, so maudlin, so devoid of hope, Beside The Sea is the confession of a young mother who has taken her two young sons to a seaside town in order to kill them. There are no fancy tricks here, just the crushingly pained words of a woman who has been failed by the system and sees no alternative but to snuff out their little lives. The single most devastating book I've ever read.

TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by BOHUMIL HRABAL
I can relate to no character in modern literature more than Hanta, the tragic wastepaper compacter who narrates this novel. Although his job is to collect and crush discarded books, he is also a saviour of greater works, pulling them from the trash piles and stuffing them in his bag to take home. His little house is crumbling under the weight of all the books, but his love for literature far exceeds his sense of self-preservation. One of my favourite books about the love of books.

CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO BRUSSELS by DIMITRI VERHULST
The whole city goes into conniptions when word leaks out that Jesus is back and he's coming to Brussels. Verhulst's book is an hilarious excoriation of our celebrity/religion/consumer obsessed society.

COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY by HANS KEILSON
A "righteous gentile" is bitterly disappointed when the Jew he is hiding in the attic dies, meaning that he will not be able to reap the glory. Plus there's the small issue of disposing of the body. A sharp satire on the limits of altruism.

THE FISH GIRL by MIRANDI RIWOE
A gorgeous novella that makes high art of Somerset Maugham's scraps, The Fish Girl will draw you in gently before plunging a thousand daggers into your soul. A hugely deserving winner of the wonderful Viva La Novella prize a few years ago.

KLAUS KLUMP: A MAN by GONÇALO M. TAVARES
The third book in the consistently brilliant "Kingdom" trilogy of linked novellas, Klaus Klump tells the story of a man devoid of values bumbling his way through a bleakly amoral world. Cold, exististential brilliance. I also recommend Tavares's Neighborhood cycle as an intidote - it's bloody hilarious and absurd.

A WHOLE LIFE by ROBERT SEETHALER
Rare is the book that can so profoundly move me in so few pages. A Whole Life is the story of a very ordinary man, a cripple carving out an unremarkable existence in the Austrian Alps, who is swept up as a bit player in historical moments of the 20th century. I really can't speak highly enough of its subtle, radiant beauty.

PINK MIST by OWEN SHEARS
Ok, I'm sort of cheating here. Pink Mist is a novella, but it's in the form of a prose poem. Still, as a searing indictment on the sheer horror and futility of war I can think of few equals. I think I cried multiple times. Absolutely magnificent.

THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE by MARCEL SCHWOB
Children leave their homes en masse to find the Holy Land, but are instead tricked and sold to slave traders. Those familiar with this medieval legend will somehow still find themselves horrified by Schwob's masterful, dreamlike retelling. Reads like a fable forced through a mincer. I mean that as a compliment.

A DEVIL COMES TO TOWN by PAULO MAURENSIG
The devil, posing as a publisher, turns up in a town full of aspiring writers. Nastiness, petty jealousy and all-round hilarity follow. A pitch perfect fable that is eminently relatable while maintaining that other-worldliness that is the hallmark of the form. Every writer should read this.

THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP by JACHYM TOPOL
The narrator is mistakenly identified by a weird Belarussian cabal, as the man who 'saved' Terezin and made it a popular destination for Holocaust tourists. Hoping to build a monument of their own, they kidnap him and set him on the task of popularising The Devil's Workshop, the 'ultimate' house of horrors. A short, absurdist fairytale, Topol's book hilariously lampoons its subject while giving pause for serious thought about the boundaries of respectable commemoration.

THE A26 by PASCAL GARNIER
Crime fiction doesn't get much better than this masterpiece of amorality. Having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Bernard finds himself free from society's shackles. What follows can only be described as a rampage of depravity.

MAD SHADOWS by MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
What was it that Tolstoy said about families? Well the one at the centre of Mad Shadows must be the most singularly miserable, unlikeable family of all time. A thoroughly nasty, unpleasant, misanthropic delight. I loved it!

LATE SONATA by BRYAN WALPERT
Beautifully-crafted, thoughtful, and elegiac, this gorgeous novella has big and profound things to say about ageing, creativity and the nature of love through time that greatly belies its brevity. Another Viva La Novella prize triumph.

Reading In a Time of COVID19 (Part 2)

BUT WHERE WAS THE STAND???

Ok, ok. I heard you. And yes, I know how many people see Stephen King's mega-brick as the pinnacle of pandemic literature. Not to mention the BIG BOOK to end all BIG BOOKs. But would you believe that it took me a few minutes to remember whether or not I'd actually read it? And then about ten seconds more to find my review? So without further ado, and with the caveat that I'm actually quite a fan of King's, here's what I wrote back in February, 2013:

Allow me to distill this monster epic to its essence. A moderately scary guy picked up from the cutting room floor of a Cormac McCarthy novel goes to war with my great great grandmother in an America ravaged by a killer flu. Cue Armageddon Americana. The end. Widely considered King's greatest work, The Stand is reasonably engaging but about 800 pages too long. I'm surprised Peter Jackson has resisted making it into a trilogy.

Oh well... back to irregular programming!

I've been thinking a lot about other books that might be worth reading during these strange times. Three more categories sprang to mind overnight (can't say I've been sleeping all that well at the moment). I mean, we may be in this for a long, long time. Might as well try to knock off a few bucket list books while we can.

THE ISOLATED FEW (That Aren't Beckett, Marquez or Murakami)
First, in keeping with the general sense of malaise we've all been feeling, some plague-adjacent novels that deal with themes of isolation, quarantine and loneliness.

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine. A hugely life affirming, utterly gorgeous novel about a woman who locks herself away during a civil war and translates literary classics into Arabic. It's the book about loneliness and the intrinsic value of life you didn't know you had to read.

Caribou Island by David Vann. Although not focused on a solitary character left alone, this bleak survival story of a couple on the frozen Alaskan plains still manages to plumb the depths of isolation with chilling (sorry) power.

Euphoria by Heinz Helle. Speaking of bleak, this story of man versus man versus the brutality of nature is what I like to think of as The Road minus any prospect of redemption.

This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun. A political prisoner is kept in an underground cell, not much bigger than a grave, for thirteen years. Jelloun's novel is a marvel, pitting the human spirit against extreme, solitary deprivation.

The Door by Magda Szabo Oh how I love this book. While not about isolation as such, it without equal when it comes to questioning how we "other" those we deem to be beneath us.

Anything by Thomas Bernhard. When it comes to misanthropic works of human isolation, few are as unforgiving as the novels of Bernhard. It takes a brave soul to wade into the swamp of his sentences, but if you're game, you'll be greatly rewarded (albeit it a kind of horrific and painful way). Of particular relevance is Frost, Correction, Gargoyles and The Lime Works.

What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell The existential dread born of dislocation underpin this splendid novel about obsession and the human need for connection in what ever form one can claw it. Again, not exactly on point, but absolutely extraordinary for what it says about being alone in a strange place.

The Tenant by Roland Topor Another take on the mental collapse brought about by isolation, The Tenant is rightly considered a masterpiece of claustrophobic solitude. Polanski made a good movie of it, but nothing compares with the sheer brilliance and horror of the novel itself. In my all-time Top 5.

LEGENDS OF THE LONG FORM (That Aren't Tolstoy or Joyce)
If there was ever a time to hit those huge classics you've always meant to read, surely it must be now. There are so many to choose from, but these are a few of my favourites.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo Granted you'll probably find yourself breaking into song every few scenes, Les Mis is a remarkably readable epic of poverty and revolution in France. I could hardly believe how quickly I raced through its fifty million pages.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Okay so you might sing one or two songs along the way (what is it with classics and their musical adaptations???), but you'll most certainly be enchanted by the windmill-conquering adventures of the lunatic knight and his trusty sidekick. Weighing in at five thousand Les Mises, it'' take you a long while to get through, but I guarantee you'll be glad you did.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville A rip roaring adventure and a deeply detailed lesson on flensing in one, Moby Dick could probably have done with a huge edit, but you'll hardly care when you're standing with harpoon ready, sea spray whipping your face, waiting for the white whale to surface.

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil A book so stupidly huge that it's usually published in two or three volumes, The Man Without Qualities depicts life amidst the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Sounds gripping, right? Well, believe it or not it is. And the four billion gazillion pages fly by.

The Brothers Ashkenazi by IJ Singer Moving a bit forward in time... you're probably familiar with Isaac Bashevis Singer but not many remember his brother, Israel Joshua, who, in my opinion, was the better writer. This sprawling family saga is about as perfect they get. Another in my all-time Top 10.

Saville by David Storey Thought I'd go out on a limb here and add a forgotten Booker winner to the pile of classics. Storey is hardly spoken of in the same breath as Hugo or Cervantes, but Saville has a decidedly Dickensian air to it and so ought to sit alongside the others.

And the one I haven't read: Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman. I know a few people who consider this the greatest novel ever written. I'll get to it one day but I'm not sure I have the emotional fortitude to join Grossman on the front right now.

SERIES TO BINGE READ (That Aren't Proust, Powell, Mantel, Kanusgaard or Ferrante)

Netflix and its ilk have made us accustomed to binge watching countless series, one after the other, ad infinitum. Flicking through the various streaming services, I used to be all like, "Arghhhhh, how am I ever going to watch all this?" Now, only a couple of weeks into the pandemic, I'm more like, "Ah, crap. I've watched every episode of every show ever. Give me some books." So if, like me, you like losing yourself in a single world over the course of multiple novels, you might want to check out these.

The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy Sure, he's written my favourite post-apocalyptic book of all time, but McCarthy is best known for single-handedly inventing the Western noir. The three novels that make up the Border Trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain) are each superb in their own right, but read together they make up an extraordinary feat of narrative bravado, with descriptive splendour and a fair dose of human tenderness to boot.

The Notebook Trilogy by Agota Kristof There's a current of abject brutality that runs through Kristof's chilling masterpiece of children set loose in a land ravaged by war. The three books (The Notebook, The Proof and The Third Lie) differ stylistically, clearly designed to offer alternative angles on the same theme. It all gets a little confusing in the middle, but when you come out the other side.... hoooo-weeee.... Mind. Blown.

Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias I'd rate The Infatuations as one of the greatest European novels of the 21st century. Go and read that. But when you're done, it's well worth checking out Marias's three book sequence (Fever and Spear, Dance and Dream and Poison, Shadow and Farewell). Steeped in intriguing philosophical concepts, it is also a bloody great adventure with all the undercurrents of crime and international intrigue that make Marias one of the most accessible literary reads.

The History of Bestiality by Jens Bjorneboe If you really want to wallow, Bjorneboe is your guy. He is one of the most confronting and difficult authors I've ever encountered, but spending the time working through his novels (they're actually quite short) is endlessly rewarding. But be warned: the story (likely apocryphal) goes that, when embarking on this trilogy (Moment of Freedom, Powderhouse, and The Silence), Bjorneboe said that by the time he was finished he'd know so much about man's capacity for inhumanity to his fellow man that he would no longer be able to live in this world. When the third one was done, he killed himself.

The Jesus Trilogy by JM Coetzee If I may quote myself from last year: "taken together, the three books (The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus) are remarkably enigmatic - but I think Coetzee is asking this: Stripped of the things that we consider fundamental to personhood - a name, an identity, a home, family, friends, language, control over our minds and bodies, longevity, community, etc. - is there some intrinsic value in having lived?" TL;DNR: Just read it.

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett Sometimes all you need is a good laugh, and nobody makes me laugh as heartily or consistently as Pratchett. The Discworld series has about seventy billion books, so they'll keep you occupied and overjoyed throughout. A much needed antidote to these shitty times.

Well, that's about it for my pandemic reading recommendations coverage for now. Hope to see you back here, where I'll be returning to regular programming in the coming days.

Reading In a Time of COVID19 (Part 1)

And just like that, the world changed.

Needless to say, the new normal is shit. Who would have thought that in 2020 we'd be locked in our homes, steering clear of one another, anxiously waiting to get a sense of quite how catastrophic this oncoming plague is likely to actually be. Hope resides in a combination of the ancient and the modern: physical isolation and medical science. To that end, sending a huge shout out to all who have tried not to be #COVIDIOTS and, most importantly, the essential workers on the frontline. No doubt this has made us reconsider how we ought to be valuing the different levels of the so-called societal strata.

One thing that has become increasingly apparent is the importance of reading at this time. It is not just a luxury but a damn necessity. To pass time. To stay sane. To be communal, to find new friends while separated from our communities. In the coming days and weeks, I'll try fill this blog with new short reviews and musings to point you in the direction of great reads. But for now, just a couple of recommendation posts, starting with these two lists - Pandemic Reads and Big Books To Live In. And whether you're turning to e-reading, rifling through your piles of unread books or availing yourself of all the wonderful indie bookstores that are staying open and delivering books to your door without you having to partake in any person-to-person contact just remember the new mantra. STAY SAFE. STAY HOME. STAY KIND.

PANDEMIC READS
For some people this might be cutting it too close. But if you are up for reading how some of the world's finest writers have considered life as we are currently experienced it, look no further than these extraordinary novels.
The Plague by Albert Camus.
Blindness by Jose Saramago
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
Light by Torgny Lindgren
Nemesis by Phillip Roth
The Last Town of Earth by Thomas Mullen
The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian
The Trespassers by Meg Mundell
Severance by Ling Ma
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

BIG BOOKS TO LIVE IN
If you're more inclined to escape this whole clusterfuck and lose yourself in a great, big book, then here are a few of my absolute favourite 400+ pagers, with links to the ones I've reviewed or discussed on this blog.
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray (490 pp, but close enough and too good not to include here)
The Slaughterman's Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits (525pp)
Europe Central by William T. Vollamn(832pp)
The Tunnel by William H. Gass (652pp)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (848pp)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (639pp)
Underworld by Don Delillo (827pp)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (662pp)

Might you brave Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (512pp) before I do? Or might this be the time you finally trudge your way through the holy grail of literary bricks, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace(1077pp)? Whatever you choose, keep up the mantra: STAY SAFE. STAY HOME. STAY KIND.

And be sure to check back in a couple of days for more book-nerdy tips!

The Battle of the Book Behemoths

Like just about every other reader on the planet, I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the last instalment in Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. Unlike many others, I have the somewhat daunting distinction of not having read any of them. Yes, knowing from the outset that it would be told over the course of three books, I decided to wait until they'd all been published then go at them as one. While that sounds kind of piggish and silly (and I admit it is), at least I didn't quite do what a friend of mine did, holding off for all the Knausgaard books to be translated before embarking on them (he even toyed with learning Norwegian as it would probably be quicker). What I hadn't anticipated, of course, is quite how long each book would be. Wolf Hall kicked things off with 675 pages. Bring Up the Bodies was a relative novella at 432. And now... gulp... along comes The Mirror and the Light, which breaks the scales at over 900 pages. So that's about twenty-four billion pages I have ahead of me, in a single sequential stretch.

Not that I'm complaining. It is, however, indicative of a very clear trend: the big book is well and truly back. I say this as I'm halfway through Colm McCann's new novel, Apeirogon (a mind-bending addition to the "i" before "e" except after "c" rule exceptions), which, at 457 pages, is seriously hurting my wrist. Meanwhile, Yaniv Iczkovits's incredible novel, The Slaughterman's Daughter, has also finally found its way to the English-speaking world in what, I must say, is one of the most stunning aesthetic carapaces I've seen in just about forever. That's another 500 pages (every one of which I relished last year when I read it in proof form). And so they keep coming. Just look at my bookshelf!

I have yet to brave Krasznahorkai's brick. And I'm dying to read Tyll, after all the raves it's been getting. So much for my annual tally clocking 200 books. Maybe I need to shift to page counts instead!

The Books That Made Me Vol. 1: I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier

Mr. Grey was guilty. That much I knew. I stood at the front of the class, near Ms. Rapke's desk, and clutched the cue cards in my sweaty hands. The notes were scrawled in tiny script; I would barely have been able to read them, even if the ink hadn't smudged. Twenty pairs of eyes - tenth graders, precariously hanging from the cliff of childhood, set to fall at any moment; judgemental, cynical - all on me. It had come to this: my closing address.

Three weeks earlier, I begrudgingly picked up the book, fully prepared to hate it. The year was 1991, and Mt Scopus College was still in that late-80s miasma of literary staleness. The texts they forced us to read for English sucked, completely removed from our experience as teens. Indeed, I went back and reread most of them for this blog a few years back, hoping to discover that I was just too immature to appreciate them at the time. I was, after all, a dickhead as a kid. Alas, nope. I was right. They did suck. All of which is to say that I came to this book with close to no expectations, other than having had my interest slightly piqued by something Ms. Rapke said on the first day: At the end, we will be holding a trial. That was it. No details.

So began what has become a lifelong love affair with Robert Cormier's YA masterpiece I Am The Cheese (if you preferred The Chocolate War you are, of course, wrong). It may not be my favourite book of all time, but it's the one that I have read more than any other. I make a point of reading it at least once a year (I'd say I've now read it over thirty times), to remind me what it is like to be awakened to the potential of the novel as a form. It is my personal madeleine, a mnemonic that instantly transports me back to those few weeks in Year 10, but also a revelation: I find something new, something jaw-droppingly brilliant on each new reading. There is little by way of plot description that could do it justice. Adam Farmer is cycling to Rutterberg, Vermont to deliver a parcel to his father. Along the way he encounters various people and landmarks, all slightly eerie and unsettling. Something is not right. Interspersed between the chapters are transcripts of interviews. At first it seems he is undergoing some kind of therapy following a traumatic event. Brint, his interlocutor, is gentle, caring but disturbingly probing. It's as if he has an agenda. As the story progresses we learn that Adam is the only survivor of a car accident that killed his family. And that when it happened they were on the run. Adam's father was a journalist who uncovered and reported on a huge corruption scandal. Organised crime was implicated, but so too was the government. The family went into witness protection. Their handler was a man Adam knew as Mr. Grey. He visited regularly, whisking Adam's father into the basement where they speak in whispers. As Adam pieces together the fragments of his family's past, as his reality begins to drop out from under him, we are also forced to rethink everything we've read. Who is Brint? What is the purpose of these interviews? Could it be that Adam - whose real name we learn towards the middle of the book - might yet be the final victim?

I Am The Cheese is many things: structurally innovative, perfectly plotted, daring (for a book written in 1977, it sure was willing to ask some difficult questions about power) and a lot of fun. It also has a twist that is so astonishing, so deftly executed, that I can't help but think it remains a major cultural influence. I wouldn't be surprised if it was lingering in the backs of the minds of those who wrote The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense and even Fight Club (yes, I know that was Pahlaniuk). I can only imagine how it must have felt back in 1977, when readers didn't routinely question the reliability of their narrators.

Back to the classroom. The trial ran over two English periods, an hour and a half in all. Ms. Rapke was the judge. Other students played the roles of Mr. Grey, Adam and the defence lawyer. Guilt was to be decided by popular vote, in a show-of-hands poll of the rest of the class. I spent days honing my skills, watching Twelve Angry Men, LA Law and, the latest upstart in the world of legal drama, Law & Order. I cross-examined Mr. Grey, who did a barely passable job of inhabiting the character, with a fire this book had ignited in me; one that would carry on for the rest of my school days and ultimately launch me into a legal career, albeit one on the defence side of the criminal law fence. But it was the closing argument that sealed the deal. I had spent so long examining the book, finding the clues and the incriminating evidence that, should you pay close enough attention, is there to be found, that there was no room for doubting that not only was Mr. Grey responsible for the deaths of Adam's parents, but he was also planning to kill Adam. Ms. Rapke put it to the class: Who thought Mr. Grey did it? A brief moment of inaction. Silence. I don't think I could breathe. Then the hands went up. Every single one of them. His fate was sealed. And so was mine.

I read I Am The Cheese again this week and fell in love with it all over again. To think what the right book can awaken in a kid. And the right teacher. How lucky I was to have had Ms. Rapke. And Mrs. Auster, Ms. Swaitlo and Mrs. Jensen, all of whom encouraged my crazy love for the written word. Some of whom read the many extra stories I gave them each Monday after a weekend locked away in my room (me, not my teachers). Some of whom gave me books from their own collections, books they thought I'd like. To think, without them, and without Mr. Cormier, I might have become a corporate lawyer. Perish the thought.

PS Andrew Saffer, if you're reading this, I still have your copy. It was a twenty-eight year loan, yeah?

2020: A Visual Book Diary Vol. 1

I've always struggled to keep track of all the books I read. I used to keep a list but stupidly saved it on a local drive and, when the computer went kaput, it took ten years of reading data with it. Goodreads is a pretty decent way to keep track, but I tend to read a fair few manuscripts and also forget to add a bunch of published books because I'm a) lazy and b) a technophobe. This year, I've decided to hit the issue two ways. Firstly (and obviously), I'm starting the spreadsheet thing again but saving it to my Dropbox. But, let's be honest, there will come a day that I forget to pay for my renewal and I'm going to lose everything again. It's how I roll. Secondly, I thought it might be nice to keep a visual diary of sorts by lining up the books on a shelf as I read them. That way, I can take a pic every couple of months and see how the year is progressing.

So here we go: the 9th of January, five books in, this is the first entry in my visual book diary (ignore the back row - I'm at the dreaded double shelving stage of my book collecting). Yes, it's been a great start. Some reviews coming soon!

2020: A New, Red Dawn

Of the many ways I'd thought about opening this first post of a reinvigorated blog, this was not one of them: My country is on fire. My city, far from the flames, has been blanketed in smoke. Pictures from some of the burning towns look nothing short of apocalyptic. Hell, even my bayside suburb, usually glorious and vibrant at this time of year, looks like a scene from a disaster movie. Through it all, I've mostly locked myself inside and read. Six days in and I'm onto my sixth book for the year. Like many city folk in Australia, I've felt helpless and despondent. And useless. Until today.

With mad props to Emily Gale, Nova Weetman and others, the Australian (and now international) writing community has mobilised to raise money for the Country Fire Association (the roof body for the volunteer country fire fighters in each state). If you head over to Twitter right now and follow the hashtag #AuthorsForFireys (Fireys is Aussie slang for firefighters), you can see a whole array of amazing items being auctioned off for the cause. There are signed books, manuscript appraisals, AMAs, the chance to have characters named after you in your favourite author's next book, special handmade book-related knick knacks... you name it. Literally every author and book industry person I know is getting involved and it's magnificent. Personally, I've bid on a cartoon portrait of my dog, an original typed draft of a story by Josephine Rowe and the chance to have a ferret in the wonderful RWR McDonald's next book named after me, in honour of my beloved (and much-missed) ferret, Spaekk.

I'm also getting on board with a special package of book related stuff that includes:

- An inscribed copy of The Book of Dirt
- A signed Chinese edition of The Book of Dirt
- A copy of the new Text Classics edition of Arnold Zable's incredible novel Cafe Scheherazade, to which I have written the introduction, signed by Arnold and me
- A curated collection of my Top 5 novels of all time
- Two unpublished short stories
- The first two chapters of my latest work-in-progress (a pretty surreal novella)
Plus I will be matching the winning bid dollar for dollar.

All #AuthorsForFireys auctions run until 11pm AEST on Saturday January 11.

At the moment the highest bid for my lot is at a staggering $700. I genuinely cannot believe it. If you want to get involved, or check out all the other incredible things on offer, be sure to jump on Twitter and search the hashtag.

These are pretty scary, shitty times. But at least I feel a bit better knowing how beautiful and generous the reading and writing community can be. Sending much love, strength and hope to those on the frontline.

Check back soon when I'll be returning to regular programming.

Thumb Wrestling a Paper Giant: The Decade in Review (Part 2)

Only a few days left so I figured I better get my shit together and finish this countdown. I've spent the last few days incessantly juggling the order of the Top 10 and, really, but for the top three there could have been any permutation of what's below. So, here they are: my ten favourite books of the... um... I still have no clue what it's called. Bring on the 20s!

10. The Jesus Trilogy by J.M. Coetzee (2013/2016/2019)
Okay, okay. I know I'm cheating here. But it wasn't until I'd read the final instalment that I came to understand Coetzee's greater project with his Jesus books and I now consider it impossible to view them individually. Indeed, if you do, The Childhood of Jesus (the first salvo) really collapses in the second half and wouldn't stand a chance of making this list on its own. Viewed as a whole, however, it's truly breathtaking and completely puts to rest fears that he had somehow diminished after moving to Australia. Using the surreal fable form that made Waiting For the Barbarians so incredible, Coetzee lands a hefty blow to the soul with this examination of life's true value. The Schooldays of Jesus reads like a philosophical murder mystery and The Death of Jesus rivals any of the great existential novels of yesteryear. Think Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy but more magical, timeless and, dare I say better. Read as one, I now suspect Jesus might be Coetzee's masterpiece.

9. What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (2016)
My 2016 Book of the Year, Garth Greenwell's What Belongs To You is an unrelenting, lustful, homoerotic carnival of obsession and sacrifice. Kicking off with a tawdry quick fuck in the toilet cubicle of Bulgaria's National Museum of Culture, it follows the unnamed narrator's descent into near-madness as he falls for Mitko, an opportunistic rent boy who swans in and out of his life. It might seem an unlikely setup for an insightful examination of the modern human condition but let's face it, we all live in a world of anomie and unfulfilled desire. And Greenwell demonstrates a capacity for profound understanding that most philosophers would kill to possess. His new book, Cleanness comes out soon and promises to "revisit and expand" the world of his debut and I, for one, could not be more excited!

8. The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (2012)
There have been some great war novels in the last ten years, the majority having been written by returned soldiers. Phil Klay's Redeployment (ok, it's short stories but whatever), Roy Scranton's War Porn and David Abrams's Fobbit immediately spring to mind. But none shook my soul like Kevin Powers's incendiary debut. The Yellow Birds draws on his own life as a poet and active soldier to craft a riveting tale of one man's struggle to come to terms with the death of his friend during service in Iraq. Not a single war cliche pollutes the perfect prose. The emotion is raw, the anger palpable, the depth of humanity staggering. Check out my original review here.

7. Melisande! What Are Dreams by Hillel Halkin (2012)
Another quiet book that has firmly lodged itself in my heart, Melisande! What Are Dreams? is a book that seems to have been mostly overlooked but thoroughly deserves to be considered a classic. It is, to my knowledge, the only novel written by the acclaimed translator of the Hebrew and Yiddish greats, and one that he wrote quite late in the game. Little surprise then that it is so deeply imbued with the kind of cultural and literary intelligence that very few debut novelists could ever muster. A melancholic story of a marriage in decline, Melisande! What Are Dreams? is one of the most tender meditations on the nature of human relations that I have ever read.

6. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018)
By now the story behind Nunez's National Prize-winning breakthrough is well known. A distinguished, decades-long career of consistently excellent but commercially unremarkable novels and then, suddenly, she's heralded an overnight success. As I wrote in the previous post (I only read it this year), The Friend is all the feels you could hope to find in a book. The story of a woman who is left to care for her friend and mentor's oversized dog after the friend's suicide, it is in turns tragic and funny but always warm and insightful. There is a mind-bending twist, so cleverly executed that it spoils nothing to mention it here; only to note that it is a moment of true narrative genius. I can see myself returning to The Friend over the years like one would a favourite song.

5. The Town by Shaun Prescott (2017)
A debut novel published by a small local press, The Town might just be my favourite Australian novel of all time. It's hard to describe this surreal masterpiece in a way that comes close to doing it justice. Suffice to say, this story of an unnamed writer working on a book about disappearing towns who turns up to a small unnamed town just as bits of it begin to disappear, ranks up there in the pantheon of brilliantly absurd works by Kafka, Bernhard and Borges. Picked up by Faber in the UK and FSG in America (it is finally getting released in 2020), it was my 2017 Book of the Year and came very close to being my favourite of the decade. Check out my Book of the Year citation here.

4. Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill (2014)
It's funny looking back over my top ten lists from each year and thinking that, while I didn't get the order wrong at the time, some books have edged their way up in my memory such that they have lasted in a way that others on the same list simply have not. In 2014, Jenny Offill's masterpiece in miniature landed at number five. Half a decade later and it remains a book that I treasure more so than most that were above it. This autopsy of an ordinary failed marriage is so exquisitely rendered that I melt every time I spare it a thought (which, I should add is often - basically, I'm 60% puddle). Not a wasted word to be found. Check out my original review here.

3. The Infatuations by Javier Marias (2011/13)
When was the last time you read a novel that you thought was worthy of being held up alongside the traditional classics? Marias's sprawling story of love, friendship, death and mourning was my 2013 Book of the Year and probably stands as the most distinguished of the decade. It is a big book, both in size and substance, but one that is endlessly rewarding. As I said when I first reviewed it, it's the only time I've had an inkling of how it might have felt to be alive when Crime and Punishment or A Tale of Two Cities were first published, Oh, and Marias should have won the Nobel before Handke. Just saying.

2. Trieste by Daša Drndić (2012)
If I had to name the book that had the greatest impact on me as a writer and influenced the way I viewed literature, it would unquestionably be Daša Drndić's unrelenting revelation of a novel, Trieste. Framed as the reminiscences of an old woman waiting for a son she had long thought dead, it expands endlessly into a kaleidoscopic overview of 20th century horrors. Structurally innovative, encyclopaedic in knowledge and unflinching in its indictment of human depravity, Trieste proved Drndić the true master (yes, above Sebald) of the documentary fictional form. If this list were about literary achievement alone, Trieste would be my definite number one. It most certainly was my Book of the Year for 2012, the best year for fiction in the entire decade. I only wish she was still here to laugh at me saying all this. Check out my Book of the Year citation here.

1. Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball (2014)
I expect it comes as a big surprise to just about nobody that Jesse Ball would have written my favourite book of the decade. Hell, he was responsible for three of my books of the year (2011, 2014 and 2018). Of those, it was Silence Once Begun that I've picked as the greatest, a bona fide work of staggering genius (sorry, DE) that pays homage to Abe and Endo then transcends them both. The central conceit - a man walks into a police station and confesses to a string of disappearances (and, one is made to assume, murders) before consigning himself to absolute silence. Thus he remains throughout questioning, throughout trial, after conviction, all the way to execution. And se we hear the "testimony" of other players in the story, some likeable, some sinister, all with varying degrees of reliability. You can check out my original review here but, seriously, get off your computer and read the novel instead. Silence Once Begun is the distillation of all that is great about Jesse Ball, and cemented him as the single most exciting novelist of our times. If you haven't read it you pretty much wasted the... um... Jesus Christ can someone just tell me what we called that decade?

The Worm Awakens: The Decade In Review (Part 1)

Well, it’s been close on a year and my resolution to reinvigorate this here blog has come to naught. Almost a hundred and twenty books down and not a peep from me, even when Jesse Ball put out something new. Seriously, I might as well have been in a coma. Anyhoooo... a few days ago I woke from a fever dream with the revelation that I was ready to start again, to venture back out from my hole of literary self-absorption (I’ve spent the last two years galavanting about the place spruiking my own book) and write about some novels I’ve loved. And what better way to start than with a decade in review: my top 20 books of the… um… teens? Post-naughties? Pre-twenties? Shit, has anyone actually worked out what we call the last ten years? But I digress.

On average, I read about 120 books (overwhelmingly novels) a year. Sometimes more than that, occasionally fewer. I used to keep a detailed book diary but, being the technological troglodyte that I am, it was on the local drive of my old computer that one day just cacked it on me and, well, here I am, left to rely on my 8th grade maths skills. So can we all just smile and agree I've read somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 books since 2010? Sifting through my Bookworm posts, I’d forgotten quite how much I'd loved some of them and now I’m desperate to reread them. If only I had the time. Guess I’ll have to settle for splashing about in the jacuzzi of nostalgia that is a Top 20 list.

Before I do, though, I want to give a quick shout out to three non-fiction books that absolutely blew me away. First up, Patti Smith’s stunning memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids (2010). Has there ever been a better reflection on New York's countercultural boom? Ten years on and I still think about that beautiful friendship, its triumphant marriage of art and humanity, and how tragically it ended. Next up, Behrouz Bouchani’s incendiary prison memoir (is that even the right category?), No Friend But The Mountains (2018). A damning indictment of contemporary Australia, made even more relevant in the wake of the current regime’s doubling down on inhumanity. Bouchani is the true north to Australia’s moral compass, and his book is as important as Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago or Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man. Finally, one of the few books that have fundamentally changed the way I think about the world, Who Killed My Father (2019) by Édouard Louis. I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, but Louis’s J’Accuse against France’s capitalist structure and the collateral damage it makes of its workers is heartbreaking, infuriating and as close to downright perfect as any modern political tract could possibly ever be.

Alright, on to my Top 20 of the Decade. Now, I'm not claiming these are the best books written in the past ten years but they are most certainly my favourites. Kicking things off with numbers 20 to 11:

20. Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander (2014)
Hands down the funniest book of the decade. The premise alone is downright hilarious - neurotic Jewish guy escapes to a dilapidated house in the country only to find an elderly Anne Frank hiding in his attic, working on the follow-up to her diary. But it is the battle of wits that follows that will have you howling with laughter, with the odd pause to wonder just how sacrilegious Auslander’s whole undertaking really is. Unadulterated, irreverent genius.

19. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (2014)
This beautifully wistful novel about an old woman locked in her basement in war-torn Beirut, dutifully translating classics got me right in the feels. Aaliya is one of the most endearing characters I’ve met in a book, and her witty, sometimes cutting opinions on literature and life are just marvellous. Read it and feel better about the world. Full review here.

18. How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu (2010)
A lovelorn time machine repairman reminisces about his life and the relationships that have shaped it. And how he might use his shitty job (it ain’t as glamorous as it sounds) to change it. Yu has been disappointingly quiet of late but, hey, when you pull out a masterpiece this early in your career, why not sit back and take a break? Or, you know, shoot yourself far into the future and let the people of 2374 enjoy your next outing. Full review here.

17. A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (2015)
In the year that everyone fell over themselves to praise Hanya Yanigihara’s massive gut punch, A Whole Life, it was a similarly titled, much smaller book that really did it for me. Seethaler’s quiet, spare tale of an unremarkable man watching the horrors of the 20th century unfold around him in the Austrian alps is absolutely extraordinary. A masterclass in narrative containment.

16. The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray (2016)
I don’t know what it is with me and these bonkers science-tinged benders, but god I seem to love them. Maybe it’s just that their subjects tend to be so far out of my wheelhouse, or that they touch on familiar themes in new and exciting ways. Or just that, when done right, they are a magnificent joy to read! Whatever. All you need to know is this: John Wray wrote the best of them. Taking in everything from theoretical physics, kooky cults, pickling (of the gherkin variety), the Holocaust and the culture wars, The Lost Time Accidents absolute floored me. It’s a riveting, joyous romp of a read. Full review here.

15. The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara (2013)
Yeah, yeah. You loved A Little Life. You thought it was the best book of the decade. Well, you’re wrong. Fight me. Granted, it was pretty good but face it, Bucko, it wasn't THAT good. It wasn’t even Yanagihara’s best book. That honour goes to the morally complex, deeply unsettling The People In Trees, in which Yanagihara asks one of the most important questions of modern times: how much can we forgive genius for the moral failings of its vessel? And trust me, when it comes to this particular genius - a scientist who discovers a tribe who might possess the secret to eternal youth - the failings are colossal. Full review here.

14. Black Rock White City by A.S. Patric (2015)
Winner of the 2016 Miles Franklin Award, Black Rock White City is one of the greatest invocations of immigrant life in Australia ever put to paper. Wrapped in a carapace of existential mystery, this astounding novel is ultimately a meditation on displacement, marginalisation, casual racism and what it means to be Australian in the wake of national and personal trauma. It was my book of the year in 2015, and remains a favourite that I revisit from time to time. Full review here.

13. Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf (2015)
I was late to the Haruf party. He’d already died before I read a word. But there was something about the collective grief at his passing, and the air of celebration about this, his swan song, that left me with no choice but to pick it up. Simple in what it has to say - two elderly neighbours find companionship (or is it love) following the deaths of their partners - it is Haruf’s delicate style and gentle, gorgeous prose that renders this little book a masterpiece of human connection and compassion. Full review here.

12. The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard (2011)
You know how some books just lodge themselves in your soul and refuse to leave? How they keep ebbing and flowing in the tide of your consciousness, causing you to suddenly think of them at the least likely of times? Well, I can’t think of any book that does this more for me than Hannah Pittard’s incredible debut. The novel traces the lives of a group of small-town kids in the years following the abduction of their friend. From teenage life into adulthood, it tracks the ripples of grief while proffering some truly profound insights into the way our moral understanding evolves over time. A remarkable book, and one of the finest debut novels I’ve ever read.

11. Census by Jesse Ball (2018)
There are many ways to honour the memory of someone you have loved and lost but nothing I’ve read comes close to the surreal beauty of Census, Jesse Ball’s homage to his brother. The references are oblique; this story of an old man taking his son across a strange landscape as he tries to make a census of its populace captures the spirit of Ball’s love more than any straightforward memoir could possibly have done. It is a novel of enormous heart, and one that chokes me up every time I venture back into its pages. Full review here.

Well, that's enough to digest for one sitting. Check back soon for my Top 10.

2018 Mid-Year Wrap: Blue Moon Edition

Alright, so 2018 hasn't exactly been the blazing return to blogging that I was hoping it might be. I did manage to squeeze a semi-respectable sixty three books into the first half of the year, though. So that's got to count for something. Hopefully, I'll write something of substance about some of them at some point but, until then, here's a list (in no particular order) of a few that I really loved.

The Everlasting Sunday by Robert Lukins: A masterclass in building narrative tension, this exquisite debut crackles with solar flares of burgeoning masculinity. Set in a school for wayward boys, The Everlasting Sunday explores what it means to become a man when you have been thrown on society's scrap heap. It's cold, it's brooding, and it slams you in the gut with a sledgehammer. Just brilliant.

Census by Jesse Ball: A book so staggeringly beautiful that I was compelled to stop ignoring this blog and review it. Ball's surreal tribute to his brother is both magical and heartbreaking. Easily his best novel since his masterpiece, Silence Once Begun.

Flames by Robbie Arnott: Flames is so unlike anything I've read lately that I find myself tongue tied trying to get across how bloody great it is. Daring in form and almost folkloric in tone, Arnott weaves together threads of nature, myth and Tasmanian history into a compelling family saga. Flames is overflowing with incredible ideas and unexpected, delightful imagery. A truly original piece of literary fiction.

Pink Mountain on Locust Island by Jamie Marina Lau: Another experimental triumph, Pink Mountain... positively bristles with raw energy. It shoots all over the place in short, sharp chapters, taking in drugs, gambling, art and some pretty screwy family dynamics along the way. There are times that it flies off the rails, but that only adds to the thrill. Buckle up, if you dare.

Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe: A gorgeous novella that makes high art of Somerset Maugham's scraps, The Fish Girl will draw you in gently before plunging a thousand daggers into your soul. I know it's technically not a 2018 book but I'm happy to play fast and loose with the rules for a book this extraordinary. And thanks to the folks behind the Stella Prize for making me aware of its existence. Their picks are consistently spot on, but this year was a particular standout.

The Cage by Lloyd Jones: Well this was unexpected. Lloyd Jones writing the best work of Kafkaesque fiction about Europe's refugee crisis? Who'd have thunk it? Shades of the great Czech master abound in The Cage, not least of which is the titular contraption itself. Read it for a sophisticated, compassionate and brutally honest meditation on how we (mis)treat the outsider and how easy it is to slip into unthinking cruelty.

One Of The Boys by Daniel Magarial: A couple of pages into this devastating novella and you know you're in for a harrowing read. A father tricks child services into giving him custody of his two sons, only to brutally mistreat them as he descends into a drug-addled hell. One of the Boys is about as confronting as it comes, but there is exhilaration to be found in the boys' resilience and ultimate rebellion.

Peach by Emma Glass: Speaking of confronting, you'll be hard pressed to find anything as difficult to read as this breakout debut novella. It took me a few pages to work out what was going on and then it struck me: I was being made witness to the immediate aftermath of a rape as the narrator struggles to make sense of her experience. Written in stark, hallucinatory snippets, Peach is, as I called it in my review, a hell-ride into the hyper-real. Read it and weep. Literally.

Well, that's about it on the reading front. As for music, 2018 has been pretty good with only a couple of future classics. My favourites so far:

Bloomington Cutters - Humming Status, Singing Quo.
Slow Bloom - Hex Hex Hex
Spanish Love Songs - Schmaltz
The Bennies - Natural Born Chillers
Pass Away - The Hell I've Seen
Tiny Moving Parts - Swell
Pennywise - Never Gonna Die
The Last Gang - Keep Them Counting
Captives - Over The Rainbow
Late Bloomer - Waiting

Shine Bright, Fierce Star: On the Loss of Daša Drndić (1946-2018)

My dearest, dearest Daša.

For two days now, I have been crying. You are gone and I have only this: memories of a friend. So indulge me.

I'll start at our first meeting; an entirely unremarkable one, the same as any between reader and writer. Back in July 2012, I was in London, perusing the new releases in Hatchards. For some reason, I was drawn to one book in particular. Its dust jacket was a simple tan, the colour of unbleached pulp. The author's name was unfamiliar to me, though I must confess a soft spot for part of it. My grandmother's name was also Daša. And those red lines, stark bolts bleeding from the letters of the title: TRIESTE. Train tracks, perhaps, bent briefly out of shape to form the symbol that still strikes fear into any Jew who might happen upon it. SS. I flicked through the pages, saw the photographs, the documents, the transcripts, the lists. I read the first page right there in store, Haya Tedeschi sitting with her box of memories, and I was transfixed. I went to the counter, bought it, and spent the rest of the day under your spell. I knew right away that I had stumbled across an outright classic, a revelation.

Had I only read your magnificent book, it would have been enough.

I reviewed it a couple of weeks later on this blog. You must have set up a google alert, because within a few days I received an email. Polite, but unimpressed. "Dasa Drndic calling," it began. "Thank you for understanding my book." You then took issue with one aspect of what I'd said. I had been sucked in to a controversy surrounding Trieste, that you thought unfounded. We discussed it at length, emails flying back and forth, and I was swayed by what you had to say. For the first (and last) time ever, I printed what amounted to a retraction. Trieste went on to become my Book of the Year. At which point, it should have ended. Who has the chutzpah to write to a blogger to complain, anyway? Isn't that the cardinal rule: "Ignore your reviewers"? Do not engage. It can only end badly. But somehow, in those furious few days, we had proven the adage wrong. We had forged a bond. You, the literary titan of Croatia. Me, a struggling writer here in Australia, who spent most of his time procrastinating, reading books by the dozen and pontificating about them on the internet, when he should have been writing. We were, dare I say it, becoming friends.

I have spent the last two days reading over our six years of correspondence. In it I found entire lives - ours, our families', our books'. We spoke of everything: literature, criticism, politics, the mundane and the ridiculous, often punctuated by you with cat emojis. I was reminded of that first while, when everything about you struck me as intense, fierce. Your extraordinary intellect intimidated me no end, and I was always waiting for the moment you would cut me off. You were cynical and sarcastic, unforgiving and unrelenting. Holy shit, you were impressive. But here's the kicker, the thing that made it all the more delightful to speak with you. You were funny. Like, fuck off, fall-on-the-floor-laughing funny. Yes, behind that uncompromising wall was one of the funniest people I've known. You made me laugh through some pretty dark times. Both mine and yours. And you were generous. You knew me only as some guy across the world who once said something infuriating about a book he loved and who you set straight. Yet, when I told you about my friends Mieke and Will, editors at the literary journal Higher Arc, who wanted us to have a conversation "on the page", you jumped at the opportunity. I've read over it today, cringing at my contributions. But you, you answered so beautifully, every word a deadly weapon. You doubled down on your ferocious railing against the shitness of the world. It was, like much of what you wrote, a massive middle finger to convention, to complacency, to human failing. Yes, a warning to us all: Do better.

The years passed, and the books kept coming. Leica Format, which you were disappointed to hear I didn't like as much. And then Belladonna. You sent me the uncorrected proof, made me promise I wouldn't tell your publisher that I had it. What a magnificent achievement it was; arguably an equal to Trieste, and one for which you are still garnering great praise. Also, Doppelgänger and EEG, which have yet to be translated. In the background, I was finishing The Book of Dirt. You hadn't read a word but you were unwavering in your support. When at last it was done, I spent weeks building the courage to ask you to read it. "Yes," you said without pause. "Send it over." Did you know that impressing you was the single most important thing for me at the time? Did you see in what you read, a letter of devotion and admiration? Did you realise, at that point, that you had taught me how to write, had shown me the potential of unconventional literary form? In your work, I discovered the key to my own voice. I waited the next however long, nervously checking my inbox each day, wondering if you'd read it. Then: an interrogation. We spent a couple of hours on Messenger while you subjected me and the book to critical vivisection. I got defensive, upset. We argued. And then, at the point of greatest despair, you laughed and told me I'd passed the test. Of course you liked it. You would provide a quote. If you could only have seen me then, a shaking mess on the floor of my study, giggling like a maniac.

When the diagnosis came, you slipped it casually into conversation. "And now some bad news..." you said. It became a constant cloud over our chats. We spoke as we always did, but there was the odd comment about a bad test, some pain, a setback. You didn't let it dampen your vigour, though. You were always rushing off to this book fair, that literary festival. There were book launches and celebrations. You sent me photos, always smiling. Yes, there were flashes of anger, of despair. But they were soon washed away by another excitement: a new book, a different edition, some achievement by your daughter. Mostly, you deflected the conversations back to me, to my book. You took pride in its success like a godmother might. And, above all, you wanted to know about my little girl. That always made you happy. Knowing you, in part, inspired her name. "I miss it, having little children," you wrote. "She makes me smile."

A few months ago, I asked you to send me a signed book. I wanted something inscribed from you, a token of our friendship. Neither of us said it, but we both knew why. Things were not good. You were in bed, with back pain. The cancer was spreading. You said you'd try. "When I'm feeling a little better." I didn't say anything. We had tried once before. A friend of mine was on a panel with you in Edinburgh. You gave him a book for me, but he was unable to take it. So you had your publisher mail it to me instead. It got lost along the way. I like to think it is in some Kafkaesque postal nightmare, maybe even an existential Escher painting. Anyway, I waited and didn't push the point. Then you told me you just received the Italian edition of Doppelgänger. "It's ugly," you said. "But I will send it anyway." A few days later, this: "I went last night to send you the little ugly book, it was cold and pouring, and i forgot to write anything inside, i haven't even signed it. I feel like punching my nose. So sorry... the post office is less than a kilometre from my home. It took me almost an hour to limp there and back." This time it arrived, much cuter that you made out. The inscription, of course, is what's on the envelope. My name in your handwriting. And the knowledge of your effort to send it. That I possess a clean copy of a book I've never read in a language I can't understand is the kind of absurdity you loved. We laughed about it together. You said you'd send something else when you had the chance.

Our last exchange was from our respective sickbeds. Your health was rapidly deteriorating. The cancer had reached your brain. I, meanwhile, had just had a minor stroke. We talked about brains and memory and language. "I just said parmesan instead of marzipan," you said. "It's ok," I replied. "I prefer parmesan anyway." And you left me with a somewhat reassuring thought as I waited for the results of my MRI: "Don't worry. If your brain is broken there's nothing to find out. Relax." Followed by five emojis of cartoon sheep blowing kisses. It was the last I'd hear from you.

Last month I sent you the link to an article in an Australian paper in which, as always, I raved about Trieste. You didn't write back, though you shared it on your Facebook page. I wrote to you again a week later but you didn't see it. I tried not to think what that might mean. And again last week. But you didn't see that either. I didn't have the guts to say goodbye. I hoped that you would pull through and write something back. I didn't want to have to explain that I might have given up on you. You would have ripped me to shreds. Also, like now, I was not ready for our friendship to end. You fundamentally changed me as a person and as a writer. I still can't imagine not having you to turn to when things get too hard in this shitty writing caper.

You are already being spoken of as one of the greats, as one of the most important emerging voices from Europe. A successor to Ferrante, The Guardian said only two weeks ago. Yes, your star is still very much on the ascent. And I will be at the frontline, screaming your name to anyone who might listen. We will continue to talk. That is, I suppose the magic of what we do. Our voices live on even when we are gone. Knowing there are books of yours that have yet to be translated, that are in the process of being translated, means that I can look forward to new conversations, new arguments. Yes, we will continue to speak for many years to come. Because yours is a voice I refuse to stop hearing.

My dearest, dearest Daša. Thank you for everything. I will miss you forever. And I will hold you close for just as long.

Microviews 59: The Summer Reading Stack Edition

Well, it's been a twenty five book kind of summer (and by summer I mean the first six weeks of 2018) which, I hope, goes some way to explaining why I've already fallen behind on updating this here blog.

I'm not going to review them all in depth (obvs!) but a few worth noting before I get into the longer form pontification:

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie didn't quite live up to the hype, but I still found it to be a powerful and very timely reworking of Antigone, exploring some of our most pressing contemporary paranoias. Terrorism, Islamophobia, political upheaval and, well, forbidden love all get a good look in with more nuance (and less razzle dazzle) than, say, Houellebecq's sensationalist Submission. I was particularly taken by Isma and Parvaiz (the latter mostly because I'm interested in the process of radicalisation), which I suppose almost made up for the overly cartoonish Aneeka and total wet-blanket dickwad Eamonn.

Jim Heyman's Ordinary Sins was a rather intriguing collection of tiny character sketches of regular people going about their business while wrestling with their personal failings. There was something recognisable in each of them, something uncomfortably relatable. Worth a quick dip, I say.

At last I get the love people have for George Saunders. No I didn't like Lincoln In The Bardot. And I was only mildly entertained by Tenth of December. But holy shit, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Saunders's batshit crazy novella, was a revelation.

A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman was a thoroughly beguiling novel about a young man (a hack writer, really) entangled by his grandfather in a scheme to defraud the German government with Holocaust claims for survivors deserving of compensation but who did not fit the very strict criteria for getting any. A somewhat ethically challenging, though witty and moving, book.

And now onto something a little more substantial:

The Only Story by Julian Barnes
The years have not been kind to the former rock stars of English letters. Ian McEwan now cranks out fair-to-middling minor entertainments on a semi-regular basis while Martin Amis has gone all scattergun on his readers, misfiring more often than not. Their books have become something akin to Dorian Gray’s portrait in the attic: withered, unseemly, a mere shadow of what came before. For Julian Barnes, however, the portrait remains intact. Time took a far more personal toll: stealing away his wife, Pat Kavanagh, in 2008. Since then, Barnes has been producing books of immense depth and beauty. Sure, they might resemble his early work but something more profound has crept between the covers, an understanding of life that most never come to possess. Sense of an Ending finally saw him win the Man Booker Prize. The Noise of Time was one the best meditations on art and power that I’ve ever read. And then there was his strange, uneven but moving memoir, Levels of Life. The Only Story continues Barnes’s quiet exploration of love and loss that seems to characterise his later oeuvre. What starts as a fairly standard May December romance - 19-year-old Paul meets 38-year-old Susan (married, of course) at tennis club, and begins torrid affair - gradually shifts into something much more significant and complex. The affair continues - the two run away and try to start a life in London. Paul begins to study law. Susan does her best to make something of her independence. The years pass, age creeps in: the depredations begin. Conventional wisdom has it that these kind of romances collapse with the weight of time. In Paul and Susan’s case, time is a trash compactor, crushing them against one another, leaving no avenue for escape. As Susan descends into chronic alcoholism and, later, dementia, Paul cannot let go. Perhaps love runs deep, but it seems that Paul is driven more by guilt and obligation. He has lost the chance to know what love really is. And, as a result, he lets opportunities for a fulfilling, dare I say normal, life pass him by. The Only Story is a sad book, wistful and philosophical. It is also throughly, thoroughly British. What might come as a bit of a surprise to Barnes fans is its stylistic experimentalism; Barnes slips between first, second and third person throughout, making the reader sometimes witness, sometimes accomplice, and sometimes protagonist. I doubt The Only Story will go down as one of Barnes’s strongest offerings - it is a little too quiet and slightly overwrought - but it remains a novel of considerable beauty and wisdom from a writer who, unlike his contemporaries, still clearly has a lot to say.
3.5 out of 5 Michael Douglases

The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
Early money had Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 a high chance to win the 2017 Man Booker Prize. When it failed to make the shortlist there was a collective gasp. Poor Jon had been robbed! I was more ambivalent; I had appreciated the subtlety of Reservoir 13, but couldn’t get quite as excited as my writer friends on Twitter who devoted entire threads to fawning about it. Maybe it was the buzz - they generally have impeccable taste and I came to the book quite late so my hopes were impossibly high. Or maybe it was because Reservoir 13 reminded me too much of one of my favourite novels of the past decade, The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard. That book also deals with the fallout from the disappearance of a child in a small town, and the ongoing ripple effect on those who knew her. As a study of grief, and the legacy of lost friendships, it is beyond compare. For me, Reservoir 13 lacked its emotional weight and narrative drive. Which isn’t to say it isn’t a very good book - it most certainly is! - but I felt there was something missing. Enter The Reservoir Tapes. Billed as a sequel, it is really more of an equal. Fifteen short pieces - interviews, snippets, side stories - in a slim, elegant volume that makes the main novel look like War and Peace. Here we hear the voices of those who knew poor, lost Becky, those who saw something, or heard something, or thought they saw or heard something, or might just be contributing to the scuttlebutt. Here we get to see McGregor doing what he does best: concise, daring, razor sharp storytelling. Indeed, had I just read this and not bothered with Reservoir 13, I’d have hailed it a masterpiece. It tells the same story better. Yep, this is the book that should have won all the prizes. This was the one robbed of the Man Booker. Whether or not you’ve read Reservoir 13, I implore you to rush out and buy this. For although it was conceived as a series of pieces to be read on BBC Radio, and perhaps almost an afterthought, The Reservoir Tapes is contemporary literary fiction at its absolute best.
4.5 Out of 5 Phantom Menaces

Lullaby by Leïla Silmani
Okay, seriously. What the fuck is with the whole “Next Gone Girl” thing? Sure, I get you need to shift units but whoever thought it would be a good idea to flog Leïla Silmani’s far more sophisticated Lullaby as some cheap psychological thriller should be made to read Gone Girl over and over again while sitting in a tub of week-old, lukewarm, curdled milk. Silmani won the Prix Goncourt - one of the world’s most prestigious prizes and consistent indicator of excellent literary cred - with this for heaven’s sake. Lullaby opens with a horrific scene: two little children are brutally murdered by their nanny. Rewind to Myriam, a driven, successful lawyer, and her aspiring music producer husband Paul, searching for a carer for their two kids. A bunch of decidedly unremarkable applicants are interviewed. Myriam and Paul are ready to give up when Louise appears. She seems perfect. Her references check out. The kids take to her almost immediately. Problem solved. Of course, as you would expect from any book billed as the next Gone Girl - particularly one that opens with a grisly murder - the cracks soon begin to show. Louise becomes a little too obsessed. Too clingy. Think Single White Female or The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. We get flashbacks to moments in her former life. We learn she had an abusive ex-husband and wayward daughter from whom she is estranged. She is by and large homeless. She sees in Myriam’s family a chance to belong. The disappointment of her standing in the pecking order, when pointed out to her, is inevitable. as is her completely unhinged reaction. Lullaby is a pretty passable thriller but readers looking for the next Gone Girl are likely to be rushing back to the store and asking for a refund. What the book really does, and does well, is hold a magnifying glass over the relationship between servant and master. Louise is a fine study in the frustration of life when stuck on the lowest end of the socioeconomic totem pole. There is no question Louise had a terrible run, and Silmani demonstrates the kind of conditions that might (though she in no way determinative) result in catastrophe. For me, this strength is also the book’s greatest weakness. Because when it comes to examining the kind of relationship Silmani has chosen as her subject, there already exists an unassailable masterpiece: Magda Szabo’s The Door. No killing. No Gone Girl. Just a perfect observation of human relations. By all means read Lullaby - it is a throughly enjoyable book (though maybe if, like me, you are a new parent, you might want to give it a miss). But do me a favour. When you’re done go and read Szabo. That’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read.
3.5 Out of 5 Rebecca De Mornays

Peach by Emma Glass
Beware all who come to this book: it may well destroy you. In prose rich and visceral, Peach recounts the few weeks in the aftermath of a violent rape as the narrator struggles to make sense of her experience. The opening chapter is the most memorable thing you are likely to read this year. A woman stumbles home; battered, bruised, bleeding, defiled. It is as poetic as it is harrowing, written with a jarring rhythm that gives agonising immediacy while you are forced to bear witness. What follows is a hell ride into the hyper-real: Peach’s torment becomes your own. We learn little of the crime other than the name of its perpetrator - Lincoln. He is a sinister presence throughout, haunting Peach’s psyche, the counterpoint to her boyfriend, Green. How does she explain it to those who love her? How does she come to terms with her own body that has been so egregiously violated? How does she piece herself back together? And what of the child that might be growing inside her? Even the sympathetic characters have a ghoulishness about them: Peach’s parents try to force her to eat meat. That is when they aren’t bonking with gay abandon in the room next to her. Mr Custard, her teacher, begins to literally fall apart. Green seemingly metamorphosises into a tree. And Peach begins to disappear. To a large part I was reminded of the break from reality that also characterised Max Porter’s Grief Is The Thing With Feathers. Indeed, the two have a lot in common, in their brevity, their form as prose poem, their haunting, surreal interpretations of loss and their astounding originality. Both are difficult reads, but essential ones if we want to glimpse the extreme edges of the human condition.
4 Out of 5 Straw Dogs

An Empty Chair at Tmol Shilshom: Aharon Appelfeld 1932 - 2018

It saddens me to start the year with a post in loving memory of one of my favourite writers. As some of you may have heard, Aharon Appelfeld, the last of the great survivor novelists, died today aged 85. Although eclipsed in the public eye by the likes of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, Appelfeld was the finest of them all. I long harboured a fantasy of meeting him in the cafe he was known to frequent, Tmol Shilshom. Whenever I went to Jerusalem, I made a beeline to Yoel Moshe Solomon Street, climbed the stairs, and plonked myself at a table. Without fail, I'd order a shakshukah, pull a book from my backpack and wait. He never showed. I did ask every now and then. He still came, I was assured. And he was famously generous with his time for anyone who cared to chat. Alas, it wasn't to be. I would only know him on the page. And maybe console myself with the knowledge that I sat where he once sat, and breathed the same fragrant air he breathed.

But back to his work. Appelfeld's compassion and unflinching humanity made him one of literature's truest moral compasses. He was also one of the few novelists I can think of who wrote multiple masterpieces: Tzili, The Iron Tracks, The Retreat, Katerina... I could go on. What sets his books apart from other Holocaust literature is the absence of the Holocaust itself in almost all of them. That's not to say it isn't there; it exists in the ether, either looming, peripheral or somewhere in the past, but we are never taken into the camps, or forced to bear witness to the horrors that have become the template for most other books. Appelfeld, in that way, was a soothsayer, a giver of wisdom and, most importantly, a town crier for what might still come.

Reflecting on his death it occurred to me that his greatest work is also his most relevant to our times. Written in 1978, Baddenheim 1939 - a slim, perfect novella - is the story of a bunch of Jews at an Austrian spa retreat at the dawn of the Second World War. As they frolic without a care, concerning themselves only with petty gossip and other such fripperies, turning away from the news that is seeping in, we sense their increasing isolation and, moreover, come to realise that they will soon be easy pickings for the Nazis. It is a cautionary tale of the highest order, and the ultimate train crash on paper: you know it's coming but you can't look away. That it ends just as the horror descends makes it all the more powerful.

A quick check of his works in translation proved an unexpected delight - he had another novel published last year that I have not yet read: The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping. I ordered it straight away, knowing it will be my last "first dance" with this wonderful soul. Still, I will return to him time and time again in the coming years; for guidance, for a greater understanding of the craft, and for the familiar warmth of true goodness.