by Phaedra Patrick
This is the story of an older woman, Martha, who is a volunteer at her local library. Martha is very stressed and sad. Her house is cluttered with things she needs to sort through and work she has volunteered to do for others. She feels frustrated because she keeps applying for a permanent job at the library but is never successful despite how hard she works as a volunteer.
She feels she has wasted her life. She gave up a man she loved to come and look after her aged parents. Her sister did little to help out because she has a husband and children. Martha did not get along with her parents. She felt her father was too strict and wouldn't let them have any fun. He did not like her associating with her grandmother, he felt the grandmother was a bad influence on her. She resents her mother because she felt her mother never stood up to her husband.
One day a parcel arrives on her doorstep. When she opens it she finds it is a published book of stories she and her grandmother had made up when she was a child. She is even more shocked when she sees the book is dedicated to her by her grandmother, three years after her grandmother supposedly died.
With the help of a bookseller she is able to track down another copy of the book and also, eventually is reunited with her grandmother who is ill but still alive.
As the book goes on Martha finally blows up at all the demands on her. She eventually learns why her grandmother disappeared so many years ago... her father had told her to disappear as she had revealed some embarrassing info at an anniversary celebration. Martha was sick and never learned that the man she thought of as her father was not her biological father, but a fisherman who died in a storm. She can now understand why her father may not have been as close to her.
Eventually Martha reunites with her grandmother and the remaining family is reunited. She may even develop a romantic relationship with the bookstore owner.
The book shows that we cannot change our past but we can change how it impacts us and we can overcome our feelings of inadequacy.
I thought it was a very interesting story. It kept my interest from beginning to end. The author did a great job of presenting the sad little librarian/perfectionist.
Thursday, 30 May 2019
Friday, 10 May 2019
Spring
by Ali Smith
This is the third book, in a series, that I have read by this author. I just read my comments on the previous book, Winter. I commented that I hoped "Spring" would not be as depressing as "Winter".
Well, it wasn't really.....
The book has a few references to new life and growth in spring but... it doesn't really seem to be regenerative or hopeful. One of the book reviews I read calls this the darkest book.
The story makes references to climate change, Brexit and Trump
The first chapter is like a stream of consciousness rant. The second chapter "I'm the child who's been buried in leaves, the leaves rot down, here I am". No idea who this is, she doesn't seem to appear else where in the book.
Then we meet Richard Lease, TV and Film Director, who is struggling with a script he doesn't want to work on. He is distraught after the death of a female friend and Mentor. He leaves his home, throws away his phone and heads out of London on a train going he knows not where.
Then we meet Brit who is working as a guard at an Immigrant detention centre. It sounds like a horrid place and a horrid job. Rumours start circulating that a young girl entered the facility, no one knows how she got in our got through security. She apparently met with the Head of the Centre and after that cleaning crews cleaned all the bathrooms in the place.
One day Brit is on her way to work and at a train station she is approached by a young girl in a school uniform. The girl says she wants to get a a location on a post card she has and heads to the train. Surprisingly no one asks her for a ticket . She gets on a train and Brit follows her.
They head north and eventually get to a train station where Richard has decided to commit suicide by lying down on the train tracks. The little girl spots him and he is rescued.
Then the three of them head off to the girls desired destination driven by a woman in a coffee wagon that doesn't really sell coffee or anything else. It turns out that the driver is one of a group of volunteers who try to help immigrants. It seems that the young girl hopes to find her mother.
When they arrive at the destination, a battlefield, Brit calls in to her agency and there is a raid. The driver is arrested and Richard and the young girl are taken away.
We never learn what has happened to the girl or the driver but at the end of the book Richard is doing a documentary about the volunteers who work to help the immigrants.
This was a powerful book but disturbing too. I am afraid the last book Summer won't have much Sunshine when it comes out. She is an amazing author.
This is the third book, in a series, that I have read by this author. I just read my comments on the previous book, Winter. I commented that I hoped "Spring" would not be as depressing as "Winter".
Well, it wasn't really.....
The book has a few references to new life and growth in spring but... it doesn't really seem to be regenerative or hopeful. One of the book reviews I read calls this the darkest book.
The story makes references to climate change, Brexit and Trump
The first chapter is like a stream of consciousness rant. The second chapter "I'm the child who's been buried in leaves, the leaves rot down, here I am". No idea who this is, she doesn't seem to appear else where in the book.
Then we meet Richard Lease, TV and Film Director, who is struggling with a script he doesn't want to work on. He is distraught after the death of a female friend and Mentor. He leaves his home, throws away his phone and heads out of London on a train going he knows not where.
Then we meet Brit who is working as a guard at an Immigrant detention centre. It sounds like a horrid place and a horrid job. Rumours start circulating that a young girl entered the facility, no one knows how she got in our got through security. She apparently met with the Head of the Centre and after that cleaning crews cleaned all the bathrooms in the place.
One day Brit is on her way to work and at a train station she is approached by a young girl in a school uniform. The girl says she wants to get a a location on a post card she has and heads to the train. Surprisingly no one asks her for a ticket . She gets on a train and Brit follows her.
They head north and eventually get to a train station where Richard has decided to commit suicide by lying down on the train tracks. The little girl spots him and he is rescued.
Then the three of them head off to the girls desired destination driven by a woman in a coffee wagon that doesn't really sell coffee or anything else. It turns out that the driver is one of a group of volunteers who try to help immigrants. It seems that the young girl hopes to find her mother.
When they arrive at the destination, a battlefield, Brit calls in to her agency and there is a raid. The driver is arrested and Richard and the young girl are taken away.
We never learn what has happened to the girl or the driver but at the end of the book Richard is doing a documentary about the volunteers who work to help the immigrants.
This was a powerful book but disturbing too. I am afraid the last book Summer won't have much Sunshine when it comes out. She is an amazing author.
Mr. Flood's Last Resort
by Jess Kidd
This is an interesting, but a bit bizarre book.
It is the story of a care giver who is assigned to give care to a cantankerous old man. He is a hoarder and hard to get along with. He has been warned this is his last chance to behave or he will be put in a care home. The care worker learns that the previous caregiver had a breakdown from working with the man.
The caregiver, Maud, has a ghost in her past, her older sister disappeared one day and no one knows what happened to her. Maud's mother blames her for her sister's disappearance.
When Maud arrives at Mr. Flood's house it is a mess, cluttered, dirty, with lots of cats. She dives in trying to get some order in the kitchen. Mr Flood is annoyed that she is there. She keeps calm and puts up with his outbursts, eventually he stops being so grumpy. Mr. Flood has piles of National Geographic magazine blocking the way to most of the house including the upstairs but Maud squeezes through the magazines and prowls around the house. She sees a lot of bizarre specimens and a picture of Mr. Flood's wife.
One day a picture is stuck to the window in the kitchen. As Maud is cleaning the kitchen she finds a glass bottle with a paper rolled up in it. Maud looks at it she sees it is a picture of two children, a boy and a girl. The girl's face is burned out of the photo. Maud is curious about this. When she asks Mr. Flood he says he only has a son, whom he despises and doesn't trust. Maud also learns that Mr. Flood's wife died after falling down the stairs at the house. Was she killed or was it an accident?
Maud was raised Catholic and one of her favourite books was about Saints. In the story she now has various saints including St. Valentine who hover around her at times reacting to what is going on and sometimes even talking to her. No one else can see them.
Maud's landlord is an agrophobic transvestite named Renata. Renata is a mystery fanatic and when Maud tells her about her job with Mr. Flood Renata gets excited about solving the mysteries.
As the story progresses Maud meets a person who claims to be the man's son, Gabriel. Mr. Flood denies he is is son. She also meets another man who claims to be the former care worker.
As Maud and Renata seek to learn the truth Maud finds a number of newspaper clippings about a missing girl. She eventually finds out that the floods had a daughter Marguerite who attempted to kill Gabriel. She was put in an institution but kept escaping.
At one point Renata's house is ransacked and she is roughed up too. They get worried as to who would be trying to warn them off.
Eventually Maud discovers that Marguerite and the missing girl are the same person, Marguerite had started to use a different name. She also learns, with the help of a psychic that there is a body at the bottom of the well on the Flood property.
In the end we learn that Gabriel, and his cousin Stephen had killed Marguerite when she returned to the house and it is she who is at the bottom of the well. While it appeared that Mr Flood was grief stricken at the loss of his wife we learn that his wife was initially married to Mr. Flood's brother and when the brother died Mr. Flood married her. It probably was not a happy marriage.
His wife was the one who had all the money and Flood tried to take control of it but gradually she was able to get back her fortune and in her will she was supposed to have directed that after flood's death all money from the assets should go to the institution her daughter was in. We learn that the Mother knew what her son and the cousin had done but she loved the son so much she never reported this to the police. We also learn that for some reason (never explained) the son was pretending to be the care giver and the cousin was pretending to be the son.
At the end of the book Maud, Renata and a retired policeman go back to Renata's childhood village to face the past. The saints are no longer around.
It was a very interesting, somewhat bizarre story. It is not often that you have a story where so many characters are bad, or all have done bad things. It seems like all the Flood family were bad.
Stephen
This is an interesting, but a bit bizarre book.
It is the story of a care giver who is assigned to give care to a cantankerous old man. He is a hoarder and hard to get along with. He has been warned this is his last chance to behave or he will be put in a care home. The care worker learns that the previous caregiver had a breakdown from working with the man.
The caregiver, Maud, has a ghost in her past, her older sister disappeared one day and no one knows what happened to her. Maud's mother blames her for her sister's disappearance.
When Maud arrives at Mr. Flood's house it is a mess, cluttered, dirty, with lots of cats. She dives in trying to get some order in the kitchen. Mr Flood is annoyed that she is there. She keeps calm and puts up with his outbursts, eventually he stops being so grumpy. Mr. Flood has piles of National Geographic magazine blocking the way to most of the house including the upstairs but Maud squeezes through the magazines and prowls around the house. She sees a lot of bizarre specimens and a picture of Mr. Flood's wife.
One day a picture is stuck to the window in the kitchen. As Maud is cleaning the kitchen she finds a glass bottle with a paper rolled up in it. Maud looks at it she sees it is a picture of two children, a boy and a girl. The girl's face is burned out of the photo. Maud is curious about this. When she asks Mr. Flood he says he only has a son, whom he despises and doesn't trust. Maud also learns that Mr. Flood's wife died after falling down the stairs at the house. Was she killed or was it an accident?
Maud was raised Catholic and one of her favourite books was about Saints. In the story she now has various saints including St. Valentine who hover around her at times reacting to what is going on and sometimes even talking to her. No one else can see them.
Maud's landlord is an agrophobic transvestite named Renata. Renata is a mystery fanatic and when Maud tells her about her job with Mr. Flood Renata gets excited about solving the mysteries.
As the story progresses Maud meets a person who claims to be the man's son, Gabriel. Mr. Flood denies he is is son. She also meets another man who claims to be the former care worker.
As Maud and Renata seek to learn the truth Maud finds a number of newspaper clippings about a missing girl. She eventually finds out that the floods had a daughter Marguerite who attempted to kill Gabriel. She was put in an institution but kept escaping.
At one point Renata's house is ransacked and she is roughed up too. They get worried as to who would be trying to warn them off.
Eventually Maud discovers that Marguerite and the missing girl are the same person, Marguerite had started to use a different name. She also learns, with the help of a psychic that there is a body at the bottom of the well on the Flood property.
In the end we learn that Gabriel, and his cousin Stephen had killed Marguerite when she returned to the house and it is she who is at the bottom of the well. While it appeared that Mr Flood was grief stricken at the loss of his wife we learn that his wife was initially married to Mr. Flood's brother and when the brother died Mr. Flood married her. It probably was not a happy marriage.
His wife was the one who had all the money and Flood tried to take control of it but gradually she was able to get back her fortune and in her will she was supposed to have directed that after flood's death all money from the assets should go to the institution her daughter was in. We learn that the Mother knew what her son and the cousin had done but she loved the son so much she never reported this to the police. We also learn that for some reason (never explained) the son was pretending to be the care giver and the cousin was pretending to be the son.
At the end of the book Maud, Renata and a retired policeman go back to Renata's childhood village to face the past. The saints are no longer around.
It was a very interesting, somewhat bizarre story. It is not often that you have a story where so many characters are bad, or all have done bad things. It seems like all the Flood family were bad.
Stephen
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