What I read: August

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid

This book took me completely by surprise, and I read it in one sitting. Opening in Lahore, Hamid’s second person narration directly engages the reader from the first page. Changez, the novel’s narrator, guides a nameless American tourist through his native city. As the day progresses, Changez tells of his own experiences of life in America, of financial success and falling in love with an American woman. Whilst this monologue style keeps you locked into Changez’s perspective it is skillfully controlled and completely engaging. TRF is concerned with ideas of nationality and identity, interrogating ideals of American capitalism and its misrepresentation and othering of countries such as Pakistan. Many have read the book as an allegory for the US’s relationship with religion, which is definitely an interesting aspect to consider, but even at its most basic level, TRF is just a really great story. I will definitely be reading more of Hamid’s work. 

A Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

This is a visceral, at times chilling, depiction of grief through the eyes of ten year old Jas. The plot centres around the aftermath of her brother Matthies’s death, still a child himself. Set on a farm in the Netherlands, this is a rural, religious community, a way of life that revolves around the bible and the cows in the field. Jas witnesses the established structures around her falling apart; her family struggling to cope with the loss of a child, the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001 decimating the livestock on which they rely and the evidence of her own corporeality and mortality. Everything is played out through Jas’s perspective and Rijneveld uses this childish lack of understanding, the strange way Jas sees the world, to paint an at times disturbing view of this community. Embedded in the narrative is an exploration of physicality, of the experience of living in a body that hurts and wants and dies, and what a child’s mind does to protect itself. I’m writing this just a couple days after ADOE was announced as the winner of the 2020 Booker International Prize and I’m not surprised- this has been getting incredible reviews since it was released and for good reason, it's unlike anything else I’ve read, an uncomfortable yet amazing debut. 

A Theatre for Dreamers - Polly Samson 

Set on the Greek island of Hydra, Samson interweaves a depiction of the artistic community that collected there in the 60s, with the fictional story of Erica, a teenager who leaves London for the  promise of Greece. Two of Hydra’s residents during this period were Bob Dylan and Marianne Faithfull and Samson attempts to tell their love story alongside the tale of Erica’s own self-discovery. All summer I had been seeing reviews about how reading ATFD was like going on holiday, how it immerses you in the sunshine and artsy spirit of Hydra in the 60s, yet I found the story predictable and cliche, the characters one dimensional and irritating, it just really didn’t do it for me. 

Toast - Nigel Slater 

Nigel Slater’s section in The Observer is a weekend staple so I was really looking forward to reading his memoir and some more long-form writing from him. Toast is a collection of food moments and memories, all the tins, salads and puddings that made up Slater’s 70s childhood. Whilst Toast also depicts Slater’s earliest experiences and changing family life, everything is underpinned by his love of and fascination with food. These moments are remembered through the meals. This is emphasised through the memoir’s structure- chapters are named after a dish, a flavour; treacle tart, radishes or burnt toast. It’s a deep dive into the food trends of the 70s and a really enjoyable piece of food writing. 

Red At The Bone - Jacqueline Woodson

Red At The Bone is disarmingly short. Even after reading I’m unsure how Woodson managed to accomplish so much in so few pages. It is a familial study of three generations, flitting between perspectives as the plot jumps back and forth through time. Central is the moment of Melody’s coming of age ceremony, a tradition that skipped her mother, Iris, who got pregnant at sixteen. The implications of race and class have left their mark across Melody’s family. She is the child of a boy who comes from nothing and a girl who wants more from the world than motherhood. The legacy of racist violence leaves her grandmother Sabe afraid of fire whilst burning with ambition. Intertwined is a discussion of sexuality, of the societal expectations for women, the histories and memories that each figure carries with them. Generations of stories gently overlap as the characters unconsciously reach for each other. Woodson’s language is poetic and this book is one to be savoured.

In The Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado 

This instantly became one of my favourite books and I could easily write an essay on In The Dream House, so I’m going to try and restrain myself here. I was already a fan of Machado’s writing after reading her short story collection earlier this year but her memoir is painfully beautiful. You can’t help but admire her magical style and use of language, whilst aching from the dark truth at the heart of the story. Through ITDH, Machado recounts her abusive relationship with another woman. Sexuality is an important aspect of the book and alongside voicing her own experiences, Machado unpacks society’s depiction and categorisation of lesbian couples. The memoir is fragmentary, broken into short, titled chapters in a style that perfectly mimics how memory works, how we look back on a period of time as a series of interconnected moments rather than one long consistent timeline. Everything is so sharp and considered and heartbreakingly real. Most of the book is written as ‘you’, establishing a difference between the ‘I’ of the present and the woman Machado was in the midst of this relationship, the different version of yourself you occupy in the past. ITDH is layered with emotion- simultaneously tender and angry. I had to put it down at times because I was reading it too quickly and I didn’t want it to be over. Such a critical piece of writing. 

Kudos - Rachel Kusk 

This is the final book in Cusk’s Outline trilogy, one I was really looking forward to reading after enjoying Transit a couple months back. Surprisingly however, something about this book just really didn't click with me. It follows the same character, Faye, and continues with Cusk’s framework of a narrator in shadow surrounded by strangers who share their deepest, most personal thoughts. For some reason however, I found Kudos really disappointing. I think the first two instalments were interesting in the way they experimented with this unique form and style, pushing the expected framework of fiction, but the characters and rough plot of Kudos lacked substance for me. It all just felt a little pretentious. 

The Cost of Living - Deborah Levy 

The Cost Of Living is the second in Levy’s ‘Living Autobiography’ series. This memoir depicts a later stage of Levy’s life, she has left her marriage and is trying to write, juggling this with a new home, being a mother and grieving the loss of her own. I love Levy’s narrative style and the simple beauty of these short memoirs. She loops through a huge range of topics with a touching, yet critical internal voice. TCOL’s handling of relationships (both with yourself and others) makes me think it is a book I will return to on multiple occasions. 

The Overstory - Richard Powers 

Essentially, The Overstory is a novel about trees. It is trees that connect the seemingly random lives of its characters, weaving the plot together like the undergrowth. Split into four parts, the first was definitely the strongest for me, introducing the separate characters who, at this stage, are only broadly linked by their connection to trees. The stories in this section were interesting, varied and depicted the human relationship with nature in a moving way that I felt the rest of the book failed to achieve. In the later parts, Powers brings all these characters together in one very long fable that focuses on human destruction of the natural world. Here, Powers loses subtlety and consequently what could have been a really interesting and provocative story instead begins to feel slightly repetitive. TO is, without doubt, an incredible feat, impressively detailed and widely researched, but it was just too long and lost focus towards the end.  

The Fire This Time - Edited by Jesmyn Ward 

I’ve had this on my shelves for a while but wanted to wait and read it after I had finished the Baldwin collection The Fire This Time is named after. Ward has brought together a collection of essays and poems on race in America, most written following the murder of Michael Brown by a police officer in 2014. Often entering into conversation with Baldwin’s earlier work, this is a vital and moving collection; a wide reaching and multi-faceted discussion of race in modern America. For me, the two highlights were Claudia Rankine and Edwidge Danticat’s essays, ‘The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning’ and ‘Message to My Daughters’.