The Children of Dynmouth by Wiliam Trevor

The blurb of The Children of Dynmouth uses the word ‘sinister’, and the phrase ‘evil lurking in the most unlikely places’. It had won me over with that alone, but the main reason for reading is that I was interested in the Penguin Decades series, and this was published the year I was born, so seemed as good a place as any to start.

Evil and sinister are definitely very appropriate words to describe both the feel of this book, and the central character, fifteen year old Timothy Gedge. Timothy lives in Dynmouth, a nondescript seaside town, and spends his time visiting the residents of the town, and just generally wandering around making sure he knows everybody’s business. He is a pretty odd character, he appears to have no friends of his own age, and enjoys attending funerals, whether he knew the deceased person or not. It is through Timothy’s eyes that we view the foibles, idiosyncrasies and secrets of the people of Dynmouth, and as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that he is prepared to use his ill-gotten information to further his own needs, wants and desires.

Timothy appears to be an unloved child, his mother seems to have no time for him, yet all the time in the world for his elder sister, and his oddness leaves him with very few friends at school. The only time he ever felt good at anything was when he dressed up as Elizabeth the 1st for a lesson, and realised he had a talent for mimicry and humour. Thus when the annual spot the talent competition comes around, he decides to enter with a decidedly dubious act involving a bath, a wedding dress and three historical murders. And then sets about procuring all the props he needs from the residents of Dynmouth, using his knowledge of their hidden truths to blackmail them in to giving them what he needs. Sometimes he is speaking the truth, other times he is only partially truthful, and he has used his imagination to conjure up the rest, but on all occasions he causes devastation in his wake, tearing apart families and friendships, and exposing the papered over cracks in peoples lives. He is also creating the excitement he craves in life through bizarre fantasies. It is one such fantasy, that celebrity talent spotters may be at the small town talent show, that fuels his rampage through the personal lives of the people of Dynmouth, and when this is finally quashed, it is only replaced by another, even more unlikely fantasy.

In many ways Timothy is a despicable character, but I couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for him. Unloved at home, ostracised at school, and living in a town where the height of ambition seems to be to get a job in either the fish packing place, or the sandpaper factory is hardly the ideal scenario for turning out a healthy, happy well balanced child. Tellingly, the two most balanced, well adjusted children in the story are the two that are schooled outside of Dynmouth and only return for their holidays. As a character, Timothy is a brilliant vehicle for developing a sense of the stifling nature of growing up in a small town, without parental guidance and support.

The novel itself is interesting and as much as Timothy, his deviousness and his fantasies are a large part of the story, the people of Dynmouth themselves, and the gradual reveal of their facades, fantasies and hidden truths was another of the reasons I liked this book. Dynmouth is always portrayed as dull and staid, but when we first meet the residents they seem happy, if ever so slightly resigned to the blandness of their lives. As Timothy reveals his secrets, the residents take on a new light, and their unhappiness and despair almost seems to have been apparent from the start. I liked seeing how the dynamics between people changed as their secrets became known, and the unhappiness they had previously managed to hide (even from themselves) came to the forefront, and permanently changed relationships.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The sinister and evil mood was present almost from the very start of the book, but it was a very gentle story, with nothing overplayed or exaggerated. It all just felt very real. The characterisation of all the characters seemed totally believable, and their secrets, although one of them was a fairly big secret, none of them seemed outlandish at all. It was a book about small, ordinary things. The ordinary lives were changed by the actions of one child, and I felt it was enlightening both in how many secrets a small community can have, and the effects of these secrets on that community.

Good Bits

“Timothy Gedge was a youth of fifteen, ungainly due to adolescence, a boy with a sharp boned face and wide, thin shoulders whose short hair was almost white. His eyes seemed hungry, giving him a predatory look; his cheeks had a hollowness about them. He was always dressed in the same clothes: pale yellow jacket with a zip, and a t-shirt that more often than not was yellow also.”

The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

It was the structure of The Post Birthday World that convinced me to read it. Its actually been sat on my shelves for a long time, and I wasn’t sure it was ever going to get read. Sometimes it just seems the right time for a book, and this one just seemed to tie in so well with some things I’ve been thinking about recently, I felt I had to read it.

Irina McGovern, an American living in London is in a solid, stable relationship with Lawrence, also American, when suddenly she feels an irresistible pull to another man, and is overcome with a strong desire to kiss this man, a joint friend of her and Lawrence. That is how chapter one finishes, and from that point onwards the book veers off in two opposite directions and covers Irina’s life over the next five years in both circumstances. There is the thread where she submitted and kissed him and conversely, an alternate reality where she resisted and didn’t kiss him.

At the start of the story, Irina is reasonably happy and content in her relationship with Lawrence. She has moments were she wonders whether it is right, but the companionable, peaceful home life they have is generally all she wants out of life. A children’s book illustrator, she spends her days working and indulging her other passion, cooking and baking, for a very appreciative Lawrence. The other man is Ramsey Acton, a world famous snooker player, who comes complete with the income, attitude and lifestyle of a major player in the sports world. On the surface these two men couldn’t be more different. Lawrence earns good money, but they are cautious with it, and having an alcoholic mother has left him vehemently opposed to regular drinking, or being drunk under any circumstances Ramsey on the other hand likes a drink, and splashes his cash on good food and wine whenever the opportunity arises. Lawrence is a terrorism expert, who works in a think tank so converses about politics and current affairs regularly. Ramsey has no real interest in anything but snooker. Without giving too much away, in one thread Irina leaves Lawrence for Ramsey, and in the other, she stays with Lawrence and the novel juxtaposes the two opposing possibilities of Irina’s life.

It’s an intriguing, if simple idea, but what makes this book so special is the way it is done. The chapters are written so that a conversation may appear word for word in both strands of Irina’s story, although the emphasis may be totally different or the conversation is between two different people. It is not only conversations, but events that occur in both threads, although the outcomes can be totally different dependent on which reality we are in. Even a simple trip to the supermarket with her partner (whichever one) turns out totally differently. Relationships with friends, parents and colleagues are all juxtaposed with slightly different outcomes dependent on which reality we are following. The parallels don’t stop with the small things either. The biggest events in each strand are tuned on their heads to, all be it at different ends of the respective stories.

It made for a brilliant story, and a thought provoking read. I can’t imagine there are many people that haven’t wondered what would have happened in a given situation if they’d reacted differently, said something different, or done something differently. What we see Irina do is go through a series of trade-offs. Some decisions don’t pan out the way you want, or intend, but there are other things that are beneficial because of that decision. She obviously doesn’t see this, because she is only living one life at a time, but as readers we see her trade offs and compromises in her life (either one), and this can only be seen by seeing both lives. I wouldn’t work as a linear narrative, because as readers we would also be thinking what if?.

As I mentioned earlier, it was thought provoking for me on a much more personal level too. At eighteen, I left a Lawrence (that really is his name), for a Ramsey type character, but sixteen years later, that same Lawrence is back in my life, and all the little things that irritated me enough to leave him, are what I love about him now. Its odd, and this book expands slightly on thoughts I’d been having anyway about what would have happened if I’d have stayed then. Would it have all been rosy, did we both need to go our separate ways and grow up, world my life be totally different now, would it be better, worse or just different. Not having the luxury of seeing my alternative reality, I’ll never know, but all I can say is that I loved this book, and it was definitely right book, right time!

The Radleys by Matt Haig

I had this book pushed onto me, and told I HAD to read it, by someone I usually trust implicitly to know what I will like. But Vampires? I haven’t read vampire fiction (modern at least) since I read Anne Rice in my teens and I was therefore really unsure. But I read it anyway, and I’m really glad I did.

The Radleys are vampires. Although unless they told you, you wouldn’t know it. Peter and Helen Radley live in a normal, pleasant suburban street with their two teenage children Rowan and Clara. Rowan and Clara don’t even know themselves that they are vampires, as their parents have never quite found the right moment to tell them. It would not be immediately obvious to them because the family are abstainers, meaning they consider blood drinking to be morally wrong, and although the craving itself never goes away, they attempt to live normal lives. There are issues however. They still have extreme reactions to sunlight, can’t abide even the smell of garlic, and eat copious amounts of rare meat! The children have these oddities explained away to them as sensitive skin and so on, but problems arise when fifteen year old Clara decides to turn vegan! Whilst at a party a drunken boy pushes her a little too far, and in her deprived state, she loses all control, and reverts to her true nature.

This event is the crucial point of the whole novel. In essence, the book revolves around the revelations and events that this discovery has on the whole family. Peter and Helen have to deal with the natural repercussions of this event, as well as the double shock for the children, who realise both that they are vampires, and that they have been lied to their whole lives in one evening. Add into the mix the appearance of Will, Peter’s brother, a fully practicing and out of control vampire, and the whole façade of normality Peter and Helen have constructed for themselves threatens to come crashing down.

There is so much about this book that makes it readable. It mixes an original story, humour and moments of intense darkness together very well. Because as much as this book is about abstaining vampires, not all vampires abstain so there is blood drinking, killing, and persecution. And some pretty sadistic vampires out there. The humour comes from a book within the book, known as the Abstainers Handbook. Chapters from this are interspersed throughout the novel, with ‘helpful’ tips, such as

“if blood is the answer, you are asking the wrong question”

That such a book could even exist is amusing in itself, but the way it is written is so condescending, it is impossible not to smile at some of its ‘advice.’

There is so much more to this book though than a slightly quirky vampire story, although it does do that very well. In fact I felt that the vampirism was just a representation of difference, and how we all try to protect ourselves from being seen as different. Because as much as Helen and Peter attempt to create an outward impression of normality, it never quite succeeds. They manage to hide their vampirism, but their neighbours still think there is something not quite right about them, and comment to themselves about their odd behaviour. Being set in suburban England, it is portraying scenes that are completely understandable for many readers of this book. Many people live in the vicinity of people who don’t draw their curtains, or exhibit other slightly strange behaviour. I thought the book was brilliantly observational on how ordinary people live, and how even slight differences can provoke comment, usually in so called liberal minded people. I liked the fact that I could imagine the places easily, and even some of the people.

In the end though, the book is about accepting who you are, and not trying to build too much of a façade up around yourself, and reconciling your own life and preferences with other peoples. It is about the Radleys progression from almost denying themselves, to learning to accept what they are, but also how to temper that with what is required to live in a civilised society. And it was brilliant. I loved it.

Let The Geat World Spin by Colum McCann

I’m finding it difficult to actually summarise what Let The Great World Spin is actually about. It actually includes a fictionalised account of Philllipe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Centre, but it’s not really about this. It is actually a series of stories about a rather large cast of characters, all of whom ether witnessed, or were in some way involved in Petit’s daring stunt. The stories are all set in New York, and although we are presented with a ‘no holds barred’, gritty overview of New York, particularly its darker, grubbier side, this book is not really about that either. It is more about the personal stories of the characters themselves and the connections between the characters, although in the majority of cases they are connections they are not aware of.

Although the action takes pace mainly on the day of the high wire walk itself, with each character, we get a view of what they are doing on the day, usually interlinked with their history, so we discover the situation they are in now, as well as finding out how their life has panned out to get them there. It is difficult to detail the connections as that is part of the beauty of this novel, the connections between the characters do not become apparent until the latter half of the book. We start with an Irish Jesuit priest living in the Bronx, being a friend to the prostitutes and struggling with a personal dilemma involving his vow of celibacy and falling in love. There are also stories involving a drug addled bohemian couple, at least one of who’s life is turned around in a car accident, a prostitute telling her story from jail, and her daughter (also a prostitute), as well as a group of women all grieving the loss of children in Vietnam, and a judge presiding in court the day the tightrope walker is brought in.

All of the lives detailed in the book are precariously balanced, an obvious parallel to the walker high above the city, precariously balanced himself. I think thats what I liked most about this book. All of the characters have some horrendous things thrown at them, whether through circumstance, their own making, or a little of both, yet somehow, they seem to carry on, in some way or another. They all seem to find ways of coping with heartbreak or grief, and most of the characters seem to find a point or meaning to their lives. They are all characterised so well, and in a way they all seem so individual, yet the ordinariness of their lives and their daily struggles seem so universal, even though most of their situations are alien to me. To each character, their life is all they have, and all they are fighting for, yet as a reader, with the knowledge of all the characters, it was fascinating to see how small events and small kindnesses in fact can have an impact on someone else’s life. It is almost managing to convey that life is so small, but also so big both at the same time.

I think there is so much more in this book than I could possibly write about here. I loved it. I think I loved everything about it. From the troubled Irish Priest to Tillie, the career prostitute, I loved them all, I was rooting for them all. Tillie particularly was heartbreaking. Her voice telling her story from prison, lamenting the fact that her daughter ended up in the same position as her, even though she promised her she never would. Somehow, through all their faults, and all their bad choices, I felt so much for these people. And of course, the tightrope walker. I need to know more about him. I did read a bit about him here, but I think I will be searching out more about him, and this event in particular. And of course, it was interconnected stories, always a hit with me anyway, especially with the gradual reveal that makes everything come together at the end.

Favourite bits.

“It had never occurred to me before, but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing is as strange as the last, and connected.”


“We have all heard of these things before. The love letter arriving as the teacup falls. The guitar striking up as the last breath sounds out. I don’t attribute it to God or sentiment. Perhaps it’s chance. Or perhaps chance is just another way to convince ourselves we are valuable.”

Room by Emma Donoghue

I usually try not to read books when everyone else is reading them (or writing about them), mainly because I think too much information previous to reading a book will always lead to a sense of disappointment when I do actually read it. But I really wanted to red Room, so tried to avoid as much as possible anything written about it, and come to it as fresh as I could. This wasn’t altogether successful, but it didn’t matter in this case, because I loved this book!

The basic concept I think everyone knows by now, that Jack and his mother are imprisoned in a single room by Jack’s Ma’s kidnapper, and Jack himself was born into the room (or Room as he knows it) so has never known anything else. Room, and everything in it, is his world. He does watch television although only in small amounts, but he believes everything he sees on TV to be pretend, an idea given to him by Ma, so that he doesn’t feel he is missing out on anything.

This could have been a depressing, almost unreadable book, if not for the fact that it was narrated by Jack himself. I thought the way he narrated the story, and the language he used, particularly giving each object in Room a proper name really gave an insight into how he saw the room as the world. It was ‘Bed’ ‘Wardrobe’ ‘Plant’ etc, just as we would say school, home, work. And once in the outside world, his actions and thoughts are indicative of exactly how difficult it will be for him to adjust to living in society, and how many apparently simple things he will have to learn that come naturally if you’ve grown up in ‘Outside’, as Jack calls it.

“There’s something going zzzzz, I look in the flowers an it’s the most amazing thing, an alive bee that’s huge with yellow and black bits, it’s dancing right inside the flower. ‘Hi’, I say. I put out my finger to stroke it and- Arghhhhhh,”

I liked Jack’s insight into this whole story. And it really was what saved it from being too heart wrenching to read. When the focus is totally on Room, and Ma’s efforts to entertain and educate Jack, it is easy to forget the torment she must be going through cooped up in a small space, repeatedly raped, and being forced to have Jack sleep in the wardrobe, in order for him never to see her kidnapper. But what would her mental state be when they do finally make it out of captivity? And how difficult would it be to read her conversations when she actually has someone else (other than a six year old) to talk to them about.

However, because everything is seen through Jack’s perspective, and because this is so well written, any of the issues and traumas that might be affecting his mother are seen through his eyes. That is, with total bewilderment, and mainly relating to how this affects him, and how he is going to deal with this totally new world in which he has found himself. Issues that she might face are briefly touched upon, and suggested, but filtered through Jack’s odd, stilted language, they become issues to ponder, rather than have it spelt out.

Even though this book is told totally through Jack’s eyes, there is still a strong sense of love that comes through. Jack loves is mother unconditionally, as he would, as he is he only person he speaks to. But the sense of total and unconditional love that ma feels for Jack is portrayed so well, even when the narrative is written from a child’s perspective. Love for Jack is what keeps Ma going, and it is amazing to me the imagination she put in to keeping her child entertained and educated all day, everyday in such a small, claustrophobic space. I think that says lot about the nature of love and motherhood, and in a way, society as a whole.

I can’t really praise this book enough. It kept me gripped all the way through, I was constantly picking it up ‘just to read that little bit more’, and left me thinking bout the whole situation, and about love, and motherhood, and what it really means.

The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna

The Birth of Love is really four different stories, two set in the present and one each in the past and the future. There are slight connections between the stories, but really they are just four different perspectives on childbirth and motherhood. We start in turn of the century Vienna with a man named Semmelweiss imprisoned in a horrific lunatic asylum for daring to suggest that many more women could survive childbirth if doctors washed their hands between performing autopsies and attending births. We then move to Brigid, just beginning to feel early contractions with her second child in twenty-first century London, and from there on to Michael Stone, a reclusive author struggling to deal with the publicity involved with the publication of his first book, which happens to be about Semmelweiss, and struggling to decide whether to visit his aging mother whom he has not spoken to for many years. And finally, a story set in 2153, when climate change has caused irreversible destruction of the planet, and all reproduction is carried out in laboratories. Women are harvested for eggs at eighteen and the forcibly sterilised. In the midst of all this, a woman somehow gets naturally pregnant and escapes from the compound, although this story is told through prisoner interviews once the escapees have been recaptured.

The running theme throughout the novel is of motherhood as a powerful force in nature. The women in all of the stories are dealing with different aspects of childbirth and motherhood, but they all feel an overwhelming urge to have children, and protect their children. The women in the first section are terrified of the hospital for fear of losing their own lives, and that of their babies. Brigid constantly talks in terms of her body doing this to her whilst she is in labour, Michael feels the need to visit his mother a final time, even though she will not really know f his presence, and the women in the final section feel unfulfilled and incomplete because of their forced sterility. And obviously, the child born from a supposedly closed womb is an obvious symbol for the natural and all-encompassing nature of motherhood.

It is difficult to say which of these was my favourite thread, because they were all interesting, and very different. I found it difficult to understand how such a simple thing as hand washing could be refuted, and fascinated by the different theories that the doctor in charge of childbirth hospitals came up with to avoid having to wash their hands. And the images of the treatment/incarceration at the lunatic asylum were difficult to read .Childbirth in the past was obviously a much more dangerous procedure. Brigid’s story was pretty graphically described, and not pleasant reading in places, as it spares no details about the nature of childbirth, but the realism in he description was necessary to get across the impression of childbirth as all consuming, and a powerful experience. And the sparse almost robotic language used in the interrogation of the prisoners in the futuristic section contrasted well with Brigids section as it makes clear that this force and power is what they are missing from their lives. With familial terms replaced with words such as egg and sperm donor, and progeny of the species, all human ties with reproduction have been severed and what we are left with is an emotionless, businesslike society, but without love.

I did enjoy the slight moments of interconnectedness between the various threads in this story (but then I always like that in a novel), however, I think it was the differing experiences of childbirth and motherhood that I found most appealing, however difficult they were to read. Giving birth today is described in full detail, but as much as childbirth is painful I think we have it lucky. I can’t imagine a society where just going into hospital to give birth is a life and death situation, or conversely, a situation where childbirth and family relationships are stripped away altogether. I really hope we never end up in such a dystopic society.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns is not a happy story. It is a brilliant book however. Telling the story of two women living their lives through some of the most tumultuous times in Afghan history, it is sad, harrowing, depressing and ominous. But I loved it all the same.

Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy Afghan and his housekeeper, who was forced to leave his service when her pregnancy was discovered. Having lived a very solitary life with mainly just her mother for company, and revelling in the weekly visits from her father, she leaves to live with her father, who she is sure will be overjoyed to receive her. However, this is not the case and at fifteen she is married off to a much older man and sent to live in Kabul. She gradually adjusts to her new life and eventually stars to enjoy it, but as her husband Rasheed, gets more and more impatient that she cannot produce a child his behaviour towards her becomes more and more violent and degrading. Eventually, a local girl, Laila, ends up staying with Rasheed and Mariam as her parents are killed in a rocket attack and Rasheed also takes an interest in her, also fifteen.

This book is really the story of these two women, and how Afghanistan has treated them over the course of their lives. Although they are characterised very well, both individually, and the turbulent development of their friendship, the tragic events that happened to them could have been that of many women in Afghanistan. It’s a bit of a portent when Laila’s father says early in the story ‘it’s a good time to be a woman n Afghanistan’. At the time he said this, it was. Education and career prospects for women were more available than ever before, yet as readers we know this is all about to change. And when the Taliban finally roll in, Mariam and Laila are in the forefront of our minds, as we already know that they are trapped with a man who believes the Taliban to be a good thing. In a way it is possible to read the interplay between Rasheed, Mariam and Laila as a microcosm of Afghanistan as a whole, male leaders oppressing women as mere possessions and baby making machines, and God help them if they don’t produce male heirs.

I leant a lot from this book. I was well aware of recent events n Afghanistan but I wasn’t aware of the violent history that had preceded it, and because this book encompasses a relatively long period of time it also shows how the fighting and wars preceding the Taliban’s emergence into power devastated the country, both physically and emotionally. I also think this book does a very good job of pointing out that the Taliban did not come to power with totally new ideas. The attitudes they based heir theocracy on, and enforced brutally, were already present in many area of Afghan society, and when the Taliban took power, by many people they were simply legitimising attitudes already felt by many Afghan men.

Despite all the moments of horror and degradation, especially for women, this book is tempered with stories of how individual people fight the theocracy, in small but very relevant ways. Female doctors breaking the law to operate without Burkha (nurses posted on watch) and orphanage staff trying to look after children with no resources and still taking in children in need.

However, this book is essentially about Mariam and Laila. Their plight can come to represent that of all Afghani women, but the story of their friendship and bond is central to this story. Although at first they hardly speak to each other, they eventually develop a bond that is as close to mother and daughter as either of them has ever known, as they both had emotionally distant relationships with their respective mothers. With women being the central theme of this novel, it comes as no surprise that one of is strongest elements is mother/daughter relationships, especially living in a country where being female was a distinct disadvantage. The juxtaposition of the emotionally deficient relationships of both Mariam and Laila with their mothers, and the love Laila shows her daughter is enlightening.

It might be obvious that I loved this book. It was so well written, and with both large and small themes juxtaposed, but neither made more important than the other. It was harrowing, and upsetting. But also informative, and overall about love, and how that is the most important thing in the world.