A chance purchase in the Auckland Airport became a very satisfying mystery. An apparent murder-suicide is presented in the context of a small town in Australia 500 km north of Melbourne, with the added complexity of a cold case from the past. The context of how heat and continuing drought and mystery affects the psychology of a place and people both individually and collectively is presented very well – a very good read.
Author: AJ
The Lonely Hearts Hotel – Heather O’Neill
O’Neill is a wonderfully descriptive writer of places and people, with sensational metaphors. This new novel is about two orphans who endure terrible hardships while growing up in Montreal from 1915–25: poverty and abuse and then the depression. Much of the story is about vice (such a good word) in Montreal with an extension to New York in the 30s. The two principal characters, Pierrot and Rose, are both flawed and endearing, while dealing with fate and opportunity. This may be my favourite of all O’Neill’s novels.
Her – Harriet Lane
A dark psychological drama about the relationship between two women, based on a one-sided memory. This is a sisterhood story with a riveting examination of the tyranny of motherhood. Really fascinating how the story unfolds.
The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton
An epic story set in a remote gold mining frontier town in New Zealand’s South Island in 1866. There is a mystery with murder and disappearances; everyone is hiding misdeeds and withholding information. The structure of this Man Booker prize winning novel is fascinating. The first half of the book essentially describes a meeting of 13 men and each fairly long chapter provides a different point of view unique to each character. The second half has shorter chapters as more back story is revealed, mostly about some really delicious villains. This is fabulous story telling, even better as a second read compared to when I first read this book.
The Sympathizer – Viet Trans Nguyen
This is a brilliant book, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, about the aftermath of the Viet Nam war from the point-of-view of Vietnamese people. The narrator is a Communist double agent who flees to America after the fall of Saigon, and then returns to Viet Nam to be subjugated to the extreme brutality of a Re-Education Camp. This book has a brilliant presentation of politics and ideology, moral ambiguity, and the existential crisis of leading a double life that is complex, compelling and frustrating. The legacy of war is presented in graphic detail.
The Daughters Of Mars – Thomas Keneally
This is a sweeping epic story of two Australian sisters who travel to Europe as nurses at the time if WWI.The settings: Egypt, Gallipoli and finally France. The chaos of war extends to medical care, and just as WWI is ending, Spanish influenza creates more death and suffering. There is a broad scope to this novel, particularly the role of women at this time. Keneally is the author of Schindler’s Arc, the Booker-prize winning novel that was transformed into the movie Schindler’s List.
Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
The first sentence in this book is just three words: “Lydia is dead”. This beginning and much more in this fine book is reminiscent of The Lovely Bones. Lydia is the 16 year-old daughter of a mixed race American-Chinese family in the 1970s. Her unexplained death causes the family to disintegrate from the pain of uncertainty and grief. The back story unfolds effortlessly – issues of race and identity politics, and the secrets from not speaking their minds. This is a very powerful and compelling book; be prepared for some profound sadness at times.
Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
Patchett is a great writer and this latest book is a wonderful story of what appears to be entirely dysfunctional families. A blended family with step-children united in their dislike of their parents, and each other, is described wonderfully. Then over 5 decades, relationships change and evolve. A favourite sentence that encapsulates how relationships change: “She had loved Bert Cousins, and then grown used to him, then was disappointed in him and then later, after he left her, with five small children, she had hated him with the full force of her life”. Wow.
The Lola Quartet – Emily St. John Mandel
The steamy heat of Florida is the setting in which people make bad decisions and lives spiral downwards: the consequences of lies and deception produce weariness and desperation. This is very good story telling by the author of Station Eleven.
What David Read 