'Gibney keeps plates spinning, while driving main plot forward with remarkable gusto'
There are lots of contrasting choices this week, all fiction and all worth reading.
Cameo, Rob Doyle, W&N, €15.99
A story about a writer who writes autobiographical novels, to great acclaim and garnering huge success, could be the story of Karl Ove Knausgaard. But this is Rob Doyle and his invented author of the Ren Duka autobiographical novels is never named, though the reader might suspect it’s more Doyle than anyone else. Ren Duka is a Dublin writer who pumps out novels at regular intervals. Duka is himself a fictional character, from the pen of an author who’s also a fictional character. So far, so complicated. And this novel is complicated. The title is fairly descriptive, as the reader never really feels they’re in a formal linear process (at least this reader didn’t), but they’re instead presented with a series of stories and stories within stores; metafiction, it’s called, so de rigueur these days even Julian Barnes is at it.
It’s a shocking book at times but also funny, violent, and it’s utterly accurate about everything that’s wrong with this increasingly creepy 21st century. The seeming chaotic structure of the novel is, of course, clad in the cast iron of a writer who knows precisely what he’s doing. But its fractured form makes you wonder; are there no more stories to tell? Is that it? A whole series of cameos wheeled on and off, including a New York porn addict who’s female, a Dublin taxi driver who’s a washed-up writer and a Chinese ‘diplomat’ with malign intent, doesn’t build a novel in the formal sense. But maybe I’m just old-fashioned, fond of a beginning, a middle and an end. And while I’m so admiring of Doyle’s talent, I’m also a bit forlorn.
Belgrave Road, Manish Chauhan, Faber, €24.65
Belgrave Road in Leicester is where new bride Mira finds herself, after leaving her home in India to join her husband. And it doesn’t take long for Mira to realise she’s made a mistake, leaving a life of relative privilege in India for this two-up two-down council house, living with her English born and bred husband and his Indian parents. The culture shock for Mira is immense. Also culture shocked, but trying to work all hours unofficially, is Tahlil. Originally from Somalia, Tahlil and his sister survived a horrendous sea crossing in a dinghy to join their mother in Leicester. But life in the UK is difficult and Tahlil is haunted by the horrors he witnessed and survived on his journey. Mira and Tahlil, she Hindu and married and he Muslim, build a tenuous relationship on their lunch breaks and their attempts to express themselves, both in a language they’re still just learning, is brilliantly depicted. The many prejudices within these ‘foreign’ communities against each other are also handled extremely well. It’s not just UKIP that hate all migrants. The migrant communities themselves are full of discrimination, as everyone scrabbles for a living in a country where the grass is not necessarily greener. It’s a beautiful, delicate love story, but also an illustration of the universality of human suffering, and I hope it will be huge.
Three Widows, Patricia Gibney, Bookouture, €15.99
A widow with two young children goes missing overnight. A woman’s tortured body is found in a public space in Ragmullin (Mullingar) but it’s not the body of Eilis, the missing woman. And then there’s another body. Lottie Parker realises she’s chasing a serial killer who’s killing with almost daily frequency. And she soon finds a connection between the victims. They’re members of a widows support group called Life After Loss. And the plot takes off in spectacular fashion, as Lottie tries to find the killer and save whoever might be next on their list – and it all happens in the space of four days. Lottie still has her own problems. She’s living with her elderly mother, now suffering from advanced dementia and causing all sorts of problems. Her partner in work and life, Boyd, has flown back from Spain with a little surprise in tow. Her team of detectives are all battling their own demons while trying to keep their heads in the game, and it’s difficult to see how Gibney keeps all of those plates spinning, while driving the main plot forward with remarkable gusto, but that she does. She is a prolific writer (this is her 12th Lottie Parker novel in paperback, but her 15th is already out as an ebook) and has sold more than 2.5 million books worldwide. This is a hugely enjoyable, fast-paced murder mystery.
The Bridge to Always, Lynda Marron, Eriu, €13.99
When Maeve sells her home and buys a fixer-upper in rural west Cork, upending her own life and her young daughter’s to be near her daughter’s father (who doesn’t know daughter Emer exists), the reader is immediately apprehensive. Why would anyone do that? Why take such a risk? Maeve’s dead mother tends to ask this question, and others, on the reader’s behalf. Greta may be dead, but she’s the voice of harsh reason in Maeve’s head throughout this fine novel about family and identity. But Maeve is gung-ho in her quest and while renovating her fixer-upper she encounters Malachi, a saintly neighbour and Agnes, and old lady of faded landed gentry. And of course she meets Tim, Emer’s father, now married into serious money with two kids. It’s a mess. And it gets much messier before there’s any resolution, that resolution not at all what Maeve envisaged. The story is supported by a wide cast of interesting characters, rogues and decent people, just like anywhere, and it’s an absorbing saga about long-term unrequited love and its sometimes-dangerous consequences.
Footnotes
Cork’s Ortús Chamber Music Festival runs from February 21 until 1 March and features some major talents, with gigs across the city and county. See ortusfestival.ie for details.
Limerick’s 42nd Literary Festival runs from 27 February to 1 March with lots of big names guesting, most particularly the brilliant French author Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. See limerickliteraryfestival.com for details.