Homesick by Jennifer Croft

Jennifer Croft’s autobiographical novella, Homesick, has a fascinating history. The book started life in 2017 as a novel written in Spanish: Serpientes y escaleras, which means ‘Snakes and Ladders’ in English. Then, two years later, a reworked version of the book (written in English and titled ‘Homesick’) appeared in the US as a memoir, complete with photographs to illustrate the writer’s childhood. A third version, also called Homesick, has now been published in the UK by the Edinburgh-based publishers Charco Press; however, in this edition, which is presented as an English-language novella, the photographs have been removed. This is the version I’ll be discussing here – recently longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, along with Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses, a novel I adored.

In essence, Homesick is a haunting, impressionistic novella written in brief, fragmentary vignettes – some comprising two or three lines, others two or three pages. Ostensibly a poignant, deeply moving portrayal of childhood, sisterhood and coming of age, the novella also touches on several related themes, including the emotional rollercoaster of first love, the pain of separation and the need to come to terms with change. Croft uses a relatively open, direct prose style here, leaving plenty of space between the short chapters. It’s a technique that fits neatly with the topics being explored, encouraging the reader to bring their own thoughts and impressions to this intimate story.

Central to the novella are Amy and Zoe, two inseparable sisters living in Oklahoma with their parents in the late 1980s/early ‘90s. Amy, the elder of the two siblings by three years, is naturally gifted, a well-organised perfectionist with a love of photography and languages. However, while Zoe enjoys the protection and stimulation Amy provides, her life is dictated by a frightening sequence of seizures, thought to be caused by a rare but benign brain tumour. Consequently, the girls are home-schooled from a relatively young age, fostering an atmosphere of intense closeness between the sisters and a shared passion for Eastern European figure-skaters and the languages they speak.

This secluded, protective environment cultivates a sense of mutual dependence between the girls, who share childhood secrets and ways of communicating with one another that are hidden from their parents. These feelings are intensified when both girls fall in love with Sasha, the young languages student hired to teach Amy Russian and Zoe Ukrainian, inspired by their devotion to the figure skaters of their dreams.

She [Amy] takes stock of the secrets between them: on her side, the secret stash of photographs that she still keeps; her secrets about Sasha, which now number in the dozens; her secret future; her secret grief. […] Subtract the secret rooms that Amy couldn’t access at the hospital, where things were done to Zoe that Amy cannot ever know. Subtract the lies that Zoe might be telling Amy, too, in the same way that she lied to protect her earlier that night. (p. 100)

One of the most interesting aspects of this novella is Croft’s exploration of the impact of a child’s chronic illness on the other members of their family, particularly a sibling. As Amy tries to come to terms with her sister’s illness, it raises several questions in her mind. She looks for clues about the origin of Zoe’s tumour in the various photographs she has taken, wondering too whether her own brain has been affected.

It seems impossible that Zoe got a tumor while Amy did not. The girls almost always get sick at the same time: chicken pox, strep throat, colds. Then it’s fun because their dad reads them stories like the one about the duck that turns into a swan and their mom brings them glasses of Tang. Unless Amy does have a brain tumor but no one knows yet. In that case her personality might already be changing. In that case she might already be becoming a completely different person, but nobody has noticed, and Amy can’t notice because it’s her brain that’s getting switched. (p. 46)

In the mid-‘90s, when Amy is in her teens, the girls are struck by a series of tragedies, each of which has a profound impact, particularly on Amy. Firstly, the city is rocked by the Oklahoma bombing, a massacre that kills and injuries several hundred; then one of Amy’s beloved figure-skaters dies suddenly of a heart attack at the age of twenty-eight; and finally, the loss of a loved one shatters Amy’s world. Shortly afterwards, Amy leaves home at fifteen to begin her studies at the University of Tulsa, separating her from Zoe and the security of home. It’s a risky move for the teenager, opening up a world of possibilities for her education while also exposing her vulnerabilities at a highly traumatic time.

Without Zoe, Amy is lost; she has little sense of how to ‘be’ with other people and interact. In short, her world feels destabilised and unbalanced, exacerbated by a profound sense of loss. At a certain point in the narrative, the focus begins to shift, and we realise that we are witnessing the fallout from these tragedies. As Amy struggles to deal with grief, severe depression exerts its grip, ushering in a period of experimentation with various coping mechanisms to dull the pain – alcohol, painkillers and self-harming – culminating in a cry for help that lands her in hospital.

Sometimes she [Amy] claws at the concrete. Sometimes all her muscles tense up so tight she gets terrified because what if she can never move again. She listens to the cars go by and tests out her fingers and wraps her hand around her throat. (p. 110)

Meanwhile, Zoe misses her sister terribly. But when she runs away from home to stay with Amy, her seizures soon worsen, prompting a return to home.

While the book mostly focuses on the girls’ childhood and adolescence, it closes with a short section giving brief, intermittent glimpses of Amy from her late teens to mid-thirties. Here we see a more grounded Amy as she pursues her desire to travel, moving through various European cities, reflecting on memories of Zoe and learning languages as she goes. There is some lovely evocative writing here, very much in keeping with Amy’s development and the challenges she has overcome.

2008, summer. Amy’s third trip to Berlin. He is more beautiful than she remembered, leaning in against the bar, his male jaw delicate, resting in his hand. In the light of the light bulbs the tattoo of the flourishing tree on his arm is almost incandescent. Amy goes straight to him, leaning in over the bar to kiss his smooth warm cheek. (p. 201)

While the fragmentary style and choice of a third-person narrative might not be to every reader’s taste (in truth, it’s a book I liked and admired rather than loved due to this slight distancing effect), there’s no denying the moving nature of the sisters’ story. Homesick is a thoughtful, intimate book, a sensitive portrayal of sisterhood, childhood illness and the devastation of personal loss, eloquently expressed in Croft’s simple, direct prose.

Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan

The publishing arm of Daunt Books has been on a winning streak recently, with a run of top-flight reissues/releases from critically-acclaimed writers such as Natalia Ginzburg, Nona Fernández, Celia Dale and Elisa Shua Dusapin. Now I can add Kathryn Scanlan to that list, courtesy of her remarkably powerful book, Kick the Latch, recently published in this beautifully-produced edition.

Described as a work of fiction, Kick the Latch is based on a series of interviews Scanlan conducted with an American horse trainer named Sonia between 2018 and 2021. As such, the novella thrums with a strong sense of authenticity, alive with the sights and sounds of the racetrack – a male-dominated world where resilience and determination are necessary for survival. Through a series of short vignettes (mostly around a page in length), Scanlan skilfully builds up a composite picture of Sonia’s life from childhood to middle age – spare in terms of prose style but rich in visual imagery.

Sonia is raised in a poor neighbourhood in Iowa’s Dixon City, where money is tight and luxuries are few and far between. From an early age, she develops an interest in horses, learning to ride on Rowdy, a small mustang she finds at a local stable.

If I was in a good mood, Rowdy might test me. If I was in a hurry, he wouldn’t let me catch him. He taught me trust. He taught me not to trust too much. I learned to be a little leery. (p. 22)

The novella follows Sonia as she learns the ropes of horse training, her teenage summers spent working as a trainer in Denton in return for room and board. By eighteen, she’s working the racetracks full time, travelling the circuit and sleeping wherever she can – typically in a trackside stall, a truck or a cheap motel.

It’s a gruelling life, especially at the bottom-tier racetracks – a rootless existence, travelling from one place to another, working sixteen-hour days for little financial gain. Nevertheless, Sonia finds it rewarding in many other ways. She clearly has a genuine affinity for the horses, caring as best she can for their temperaments and needs. The best trainers work with their horses, not against them, and Sonia really seems to understand this, flexing her approach to what the horse wants to do. Moreover, Scanlan is particularly strong at conveying the routines and rituals of horse training, the day-to-day tasks that Sonia carries out with care and dedication. In effect, she is the horses’ caregiver, tuning in to their emotions alongside their physical needs.

You have your bandages laundered, rolled up, ready. You have your sheet cotton and your hoof packing. You groom them and put on leg liniments, run bandages. You might freeze their legs with ice or put them in a turbulator with epsom salts. They love to stand with the warm whirlpool water up past their knees. If their shoulders are stiff, you rub salve on and wrap them in plastic and pin a wool blanket around their neck. Pretty soon the sweat start dripping. It loosens them up, makes them feel good. (p. 70–71)

One of the things Scanlan does so brilliantly here is to preserve Sonia’s distinctive tone of voice, recounting the trainer’s experiences in a direct, matter-of-fact way. And yet there is genuine humanity and compassion here too, qualities that shine through in the dedication Sonia applies to her work. In some respects, Sonia’s narrative voice reminds me a little of Tove Ditlevsen’s, as conveyed in the equally remarkable Copenhagen Trilogy – a straightforward, unadorned delivery that feels all the more potent as a result. Like Ditlevsen, Sonia has her own traumatic experiences to deal with. At seventeen, she is raped at gunpoint by a man who breaks into her trailer, a jockey she knows from her work at the tracks. And yet, as with other ordeals and hardships, Sonia deals with this incident stoically, taking measures to protect herself as best she can.

The guy sobered up, I knew him, I seen him every day, I knew exactly who it was—it was bad, but anyway, I survived. I cut my hair real short after that. (p. 42)

Working the racetracks becomes all-consuming for Sonia; it’s not just a job but a way of life, leaving little room for friends, family and relationships outside the racetrack community. Nevertheless, despite professional rivalries and competitiveness between trainers (and between jockeys), the racetrackers are a kind of family, helping and supporting their fellow members in times of need. For instance, when Sonia is severely injured by a horse (accidents are not uncommon in the world!), a fellow trainer and his wife step in, offering her a place to recuperate despite their previous disagreements.

For years and years you’re around nobody but racetrack people. You don’t have time for family. Your romantic relationships are short-lived because a rolling stone catches no moss. It’s hard, it’s grueling, it’s up and down. I had a lot of injuries. I could’ve been paralyzed real easy. The doctors stressed that to me—it wouldn’t take much. (p. 137)

Unsurprisingly, there are flashes of brutality lurking amidst the buzz of this strangely compelling world. Sonia doesn’t hold back on describing the disreputable tactics some (less ethical) trainers employ to pump up their horses immediately before a race. (If you’re sensitive to descriptions of animal cruelty, this might not be a book for you.) Nevertheless, Sonia doesn’t condone these dubious practices herself; rather, she is simply relaying the reality of the world around her, highlighting the cruelty for what it clearly is.

It feels as if Scanlan has compressed a whole life within the pages of this slim book – the sense of economy and precision is remarkable, calling to mind Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams, which captures the life of a railroad construction worker in the early 20^th century. There is also something of Chloé Zhao’s films here, particularly The Rider, both in subject matter and in style. Yet, irrespective of these comparisons, Scanlan has crafted something extraordinary with this book – the composite portrait of a woman’s life, illuminated with grace, stoicism, openness and humanity. I found it utterly compelling – a window into a world I knew nothing about.

Kick the Latch is published by Daunt Books; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy. This is my second review for Karen and Lizzie’s #ReadIndies event, more details here.

Big Blonde by Dorothy Parker – a post for the #1929Club

As some of you may know, it’s Simon and Karen’s #1929Club this week, a celebration of books originally published in 1929 – you can find out more about it here. So, for my contribution to the event, I’ve chosen Dorothy Parker’s Big Blonde, an excellent story that traces the sad and unfulfilling life of an ageing good-time girl as she slides into alcoholism and depression. This striking tale highlights how the society of the day made certain assumptions about women based on their appearance and situation; and while things have undoubtedly changed significantly since then, Parker’s story still has a degree of resonance with certain attitudes today.

Central to the story is Hazel Morse, a large, fair-haired woman ‘of the type that incites some men when they use the word ‘blonde’ to click their tongues and wag their heads roguishly’. Hazel is in her twenties when we first meet her, working as a model in a wholesale dress business. Through her work, she has the opportunity to meet various men, many of whom find her attractive and are keen to take her out.

Right from the very start, we see how Hazel is defined by her appearance, especially her blonde hair. Men tend to assume she is a good-time girl, fun and easy-going in company and an all-round ‘good sport’. At first, Hazel responds well to this attention, enjoying her popularity and the various benefits this confers. 

Her job was not onerous, and she met numbers of men and spent numbers of evenings with them, laughing at their jokes and telling them she loved their neckties. Men liked her, and she took it for granted that the liking of many men was a desirable thing. Popularity seemed to her to be worth all the work that had to be put into its achievement. Men liked you because you were fun, and when they liked you they took you out, and there you were. So, and successfully, she was fun. She was a good sport. Men liked a good sport. (p. 13-14)

Nevertheless, the situation changes somewhat when she marries Herbie Morse, a ‘quick, attractive man’ with a fondness for drink. With her thirties looming on the horizon, Hazel is keen to settle down to a life of cosy domesticity. Herbie, however, has other ideas, choosing instead to stay out drinking till late at night. Consequently, the couple often argue when Herbie gets home…

She fought him furiously. A terrific domesticity had come upon her, and she would bite and scratch to guard it. She wanted what she called ‘a nice home’. She wanted a sober, tender husband, prompt at dinner, punctual at work. She wanted sweet, comforting evenings. The idea of intimacy with other men was terrible to her; the thought that Herbie might be seeking entertainment in other women set her frantic. (p. 18)

In truth, Herbie still sees Hazel as a specific personality type – a carefree, easy-going blonde who enjoys a bit of fun – rather than an individual with needs and desires of her own. (Significantly, Hazel is referred to as Mrs Morse throughout the story, characterising her identity through her role as a wife.) In particular, Herbie fails to see that Hazel craves some love and affection, especially when she’s feeling low. As such, his tolerance is tested by this change in his wife’s behaviour – as far as Herbie is concerned, Hazel is no longer the good-time girl he signed up for in their marriage, but he makes no attempt to understand her feelings or situation.

With the arguments between the couple becoming increasingly violent, Hazel turns to alcohol herself, drinking during the day as a way of blurring the loneliness and depression – a situation that ultimately ends in the breakdown of the couple’s marriage.

By this point in the story, Hazel is also seeing Ed, a married man she met through her neighbour and daytime drinking partner, Mrs Martin – a forty-something blonde who hosts parties for good-time ‘boys’ in her flat. (In truth, Mrs Martin is essentially Hazel in ten years’ time unless something more hopeful happens to set her life on a different trajectory.)

While Hazel is relatively happy to be Ed’s mistress for a while, their relationship comes to an end when Ed moves to Florida for work. A succession of unsatisfying dalliances swiftly follows as Hazel slips further into depression.  

In her haze, she never recalled how men entered her life and left it. There were no surprises. She had no thrill at their advent, nor woe at their departure. (p. 31)

Throughout the story, Parker highlights how the emptiness of Hazel’s life is defined by the roles ‘available’ to her as a (once-)attractive blonde – roles dictated by societal expectations of her gender and physical appearance. As such, she is expected to be (in turn): a fun-loving, good-time single girl who enjoys going out; an easy-going, sociable wife, tolerant of her husband’s failings; and a lively, cheerful mistress who keeps her troubles under wraps. Each of these idealised images contrasts starkly with Hazel’s inner life, which remains largely unfulfilled.

As the years pass by, Hazel sees the long, slow parade of miserable days stretching out ahead of her – the steady succession of men, just like the ones that have come and gone, and the interminable evenings of being ‘a good sport’, largely for their benefit. With a wave of misery sweeping over her, it feels like she is being crushed between ‘great, smooth stones’ as the horror of her situation sets in. 

Big Blonde is a quietly devastating story with a distinct air of tragedy. While the reader hopes for a brighter future for Hazel, they fear that she is trapped in a vicious circle with little agency to break free…

Big Blonde is included in the Penguin Modern ‘The Custard Heart’ by Dorothy Parker; personal copy. It’s also available in this lovely Penguin Little Clothbound Classic edition

The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant – stories from 1956-71

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the first batch of stories from The Cost of Living, a collection of early and uncollected pieces by the Canadian writer Mavis Gallant. (If you missed my posts, you can read them by clicking on the links here and here.) In short, Gallant’s stories are excellent. The very best of them feel like novels in miniature; the kind of tales where everything is compressed, only for the scenarios to expand in the mind as the reader reflects.

Since then, I’ve read the rest of the collection and would recommend it to anyone interested in character-driven stories, especially those that delve into the inner lives of mid-20^th-century women. In this post, I’m going to pick out a few highlights from the second half of the book, focusing on two stories that resonated particularly strongly with me. 

Gallant is particularly incisive on the emptiness of suburban domesticity, the type of stifling, loveless marriage depicted in Mad Men and the novels of Richard Yates. In Bernadette (1957), we are introduced to Nora and Robbie Knight, whose transition from freewheeling liberal arts types to hypocritical middle-class suburbanites has taken place over several years.

The Knights had been married nearly sixteen years. They considered themselves solidly united. Like many people no longer in love, they cemented their relationship with opinions, pet prejudices, secret meetings, a private vocabulary that enabled them to exchange amused glances over a dinner table and made them feel a shade superior to the world outside the house. Their home held them, and their two daughters, now in boarding school. Private schools were out of line with the Knights’ social beliefs, but in the case of their own children they had judged a private school essential. (pp. 130–131)

The Knights live in a large house near Montreal, Robbie’s salary being sufficient to support a live-in maid, Bernadette, and a private education for their two daughters. (In essence, the girls are in boarding school because Nora doesn’t ‘trust herself to bring them up’.) While Nora likes to view herself as the host of successful, intellectually-stimulating dinner parties, Robbie amuses himself with various extra-marital affairs, much to his wife’s disdain. And yet, like many unfaithful husbands from this era, Robbie is forgiven, with Nora claiming the moral high ground in light of her husband’s indefensible position. 

When Bernadette falls pregnant as the result of a casual encounter, it proves to be the driver for the story. Once Nora becomes aware of the situation, she tackles the young woman about her condition; Bernadette, however, is fearful of admitting it, inadvertently implicating Robbie out of worry over his likely reaction. As Nora prepares to confront Robbie over this potential infidelity, the hollow nature of the couple’s marriage becomes increasingly apparent.

He [Robbie] went on reading. He looked so innocent, so unaware that his life was shattered. Nora remembered how he had been when she had first known him, so pleasant and dependent and good-looking and stupid. She remembered how he had been going to write a play, and how she had wanted to change the world, or at least Quebec. Tears of fatigue and strain came into her eyes. She felt that the failure of last night’s party had been a symbol of the end. Robbie had done something cheap and dishonourable, but he reflected their world. The world was ugly, Montreal was ugly, the street outside the window contained houses of surpassing ugliness. There was nothing left to discuss but television and the fluctuating dollar; that was what the world had become. (p. 151)

As the story draws to a close, there is a reversal of sorts in the marital power dynamics as Nora realises that Robbie is innocent – in this instance, at least. For once, it is Robbie who is in a position to seize the moral high ground, leaving Nora scrambling to re-establish their natural equilibrium. This is an excellent story, one that exposes the fault lines in a bourgeois marriage to striking effect.

One of the most interesting things about this collection is that it offers an opportunity to track Gallant’s development as a writer over time as the stories are presented chronologically. Some of the later stories are particularly nuanced and fluid, pieces like The Cost of Living (1962), which captures the bohemian lifestyle of a group of lodgers in France. The setting is a down-at-heel hotel in Paris, a dark and dusty environment in the midst of the city.

The story is narrated by Puss (short for Patricia), an unmarried Australian woman in her early thirties, resident in Paris for some five years. Puss has recently been joined in Paris by her elder sister, Louise, who, having inherited the family’s money, is the wealthier of the two women. Even though Louise can afford better, she chooses to remain frugal by lodging at the same shabby hotel as Puss. Occupying rooms nearby are the other two central characters in the story, both of whom are French: Patrick, an aspiring actor with a desire to travel, and Sylvie, another creative type, a ‘blurred impression of mangled hair and shining eyes’.

In this piece, Gallant perfectly captures the up-close-and-personal nature of life in a relatively confined space. The characters flit in and out of one another’s rooms, borrowing clothes and money, jostling for the use of the communal bathroom and other shared resources. The loose-living Sylvie is brilliantly portrayed.

Her scarf, her gloves flew from her like birds. His shoes could never keep up with her feet. One of my memories of Sylvie–long before I knew anything about her, before I knew even her name–is of her halting, cursing loudly with a shamed smile, scrambling up or down a few steps, and shoving a foot back into a lost ballerina shoe. She wore those thin slippers out on the streets, under the winter rain. And she wore a checked shirt, a blue sweater, and a scuffed plastic jacket that might have belonged to a boy. Passing her, as she hung over the banister calling to someone below, you saw the tensed muscle of an arm or leg, the young neck, the impertinent head. Someone ought to have drawn her–but somebody has: Sylvie was the core and grubby Degas dancer, the girl with the shoulder thrown back and the insolent chin. (pp. 206–207)

Money is a significant factor in the story, particularly the passing of it from one person to another. Rather tellingly, Louise keeps a detailed record of all her expenditure in a notebook, classifying each entry as either ‘Necessary’ or ‘Unnecessary’, reflecting the apparent value she places on various relationships.

So, in summary, The Cost of Living is a terrific collection. Across the volume as a whole, there are stories of uncaring mothers and self-absorbed fathers, of isolated wives and bewildered husbands, of smart, self-reliant children who must learn to take care of themselves. Many of Gallant’s protagonists seem to lack a degree of self-awareness, the ability to turn a mirror on themselves and see their faults and failings for what they really are. These are thoughtful, perceptive vignettes, beautifully sketched.

The Cost of Living is published by NYRB Classics and Bloomsbury; personal copy.  

The Trees by Percival Everett

The American writer and academic Percival Everett has written a remarkably clever and provocative novel here. At heart, the book is a blistering expose of the ingrained racism in certain sectors of American society and the country’s devastating history of lynchings, specifically targeting people of colour. However, rather than addressing these issues in a conventional literary novel, Everett plays with the tropes of genre fiction, using elements of satire, humour, horror and surrealism to create a thoroughly engaging page-turner with some vital social critique at its core.

The story opens with two back-to-back murders in Money, Mississippi, an area largely populated by rednecks with scant regard for racial equality. In each case, two bodies are found at the crime scene – a mutilated, castrated white man with barbed wire wrapped around his neck and a badly-beaten black man who appears to be holding the other victim’s testicles in his hands. Stranger still, the black body in each incident is the same one – a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old black boy who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in the mid-1950s after a white woman accused him of causing offence. What’s more, the two dead white men, Wheat Bryant and Junior Junior Milam, are closely related to Carolyn Bryant, the white woman who accused Emmett Till back in the ‘50s – an accusation Carolyn (aka Granny C) now regrets.

The local police, led by Sheriff Red Jetty, are baffled by the two cases, but help soon arrives in the shape of two black Special Detectives – Ed and Jim – from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (‘MBI’ for short). While the townsfolk view these super-smart detectives with a degree of suspicion, they soon have the measure of the local police, if not the perpetrator(s) behind the crimes themselves. As the investigations get underway, rumours of strange supernatural forces begin to surface, especially given the black body’s resemblance to Emmett Till…

Everett has a lot of fun with stereotypes and names in this novel, portraying certain influential white residents of Money for what they really are – fervent racists of the most pernicious kind. For instance, the town’s Coroner, Reverend Doctor Fondle, is deeply unnerved by these incidents as he rallies his fellow members of the local Ku Klux Klan.

“We got ourselves a situation, White brothers”, Fondle said. “I’m afraid what we’re lookin’ at is a real nigger uprising. Two of our own brothers lay dead, and a killin’ nigger is on the gawddamn loose. I seen him, seen him close up, scarred up by Satan himself. A nigger that’s as good at fakin’ death as anybody you will ever find. I seen him dead, and then he weren’t.” (p. 108)

During their time in Money, Ed and Jim cross paths with Gertrude (aka Dixie), who works as a waitress in a local diner. Gertrude helps the detectives by introducing them to her super-sharp great-grandmother, Mama Z, who knows pretty much everything about the goings-on in the local area over the past hundred years. As it turns out, Mama Z has compiled records of almost every lynching in the US – police shootings included – since 1913, the year of her father’s death. In part, she does this ‘because somebody has to’ – if Mama Z doesn’t do it, who will? With her knowledge of the local history and gossip, Mama Z suggests a couple of people for the detectives to see. ‘If you want to know a place, you talk to its history.”

As the narrative unfolds, eerily similar murders are reported across the US – firstly in Mississippi, then in other states, including South Carolina and Alabama. Alongside the original killings closely linked to the Emmett Till case, it seems a wave of copycat incidents is sweeping across the nation – culminating in retribution on a large scale, with numerous white victims being found at various sites, all attacked and castrated as before. With this escalation in violence, Ed and Jim are joined by Special Agent Herberta Hind from the FBI, another smart cookie who also happens to be black.

Everett draws brilliantly on his creative skills here, portraying these events with an outrageous seam of dark humour. On the surface, the Whites for Social Justice’s responses to the killings might seem risible, highlighting the absurdities at play as they prepare for the race war long anticipated by the group. However, Everett never lets us forget the seriousness and brutality of the situation he is tackling so smartly in this book.

“What we gonna do?”

“We have to get everybody together,” Morris repeated.

“You make it sound like we got numbers,” Rupter said. “Far as I can see, we got us and two other people. Where’s this war taking place? My boy’s got Little League this week.”

 “Yeah,” Fester said. “We is scattered all over the country. The very thing that makes the FBI afraid of us is our weakness.” (p. 265)

As the narrative progresses, the repeated reports of various killings might feel a little unnecessary, as one could argue that the reader will soon get the idea after the first four or five accounts. However, I think Everett is making a conscious point here. By mentioning several separate incidents and victims, he is highlighting both the importance of each individual case and the cumulative gravity of events as they pile up. Perhaps this an attempt to address the ‘erasure’ of individual victims of racially-motivated lynchings over time – a theme reflected in the actions of Damon Thruff, an influential friend and academic enlisted by Gertrude to review Mama Z’s work. 

He [Damon] found it all depressing, not that lynching could be anything but. However, the crime, the practice, the religion of it, was becoming more pernicious as he realized that the similarity of their deaths had caused these men and women to be at once erased and coalesced like one piece, like one body. They were all number and no number at all, many and one, a symptom, a sign. (p. 189)

As Damon works his way through Mama Z’s records, he notes each victim’s name in pencil, making them feel ‘real again’ rather than just a statistic. Moreover, the act of writing these names in pencil and subsequently erasing them is designed to set the victims free, liberating them from the weight of such a tragic history.

Stylistically, The Trees reads like a detective novel – it’s fast-paced and whip-smart, while the passages of outrageously funny dialogue and slightly surreal interludes add significantly to its appeal.

“What a fuckin’ mess. A goddamn clusterfuck.”

“Chief, is clusterfuck one word or two?” Jethro asked.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Get back to the goddamn station.”

“Yessir.” (p. 31)

As the quote on the book’s cover suggests, what Everett does so well here is to navigate these chilling, contemporary issues with satire, surrealism and knockout comedy, pushing his scenario as far as he can take it (certainly within the bounds of a page-turning novel). Moreover, as other readers have already observed, there is the basis of razor-sharp film or TV mini-series here, preferably directed by Spike Lee or Jordan Peele. Both the subject matter and the style feel right up their street.

There’s even a hilarious vignette involving a certain US President – no prizes for guessing which one! – and his response to the crisis. As a polemic, it comes across as barking mad and frighteningly believable all at once, just like so many other actions of this loose cannon himself.

Naturally, I’m not going to reveal how The Trees plays out – you’ll have to read the book itself to discover that! However, let me reassure you that it’s absolutely worth the ride. This is a very clever satire, conveyed in the guise of a propulsive detective novel, raising thought-provoking questions about justice, revenge and deep-rooted racism in the US today – not least the country’s toxic history with lynchings and other racially-motivated violence.

A vital, provocative and hugely enjoyable book that deserves to be widely read. I’m delighted to see it on the Booker shortlist – a terrific choice indeed!

The Trees is published by Influx Press; personal copy.

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin

When Dorian (at Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau) first introduced me to Laurie Colwin’s books, he described them as very New York-y. Wry rather than funny, bittersweet but not sentimental – and Jewish, albeit in a low-key kind of way. A little like Woody Allen’s films, back in the days when they were good. (Annie Hall would be a great reference point.)

First published in 1979, Happy All the Time fits right into that groove. It’s a charming, generous novel about love and friendship – light-heated in style but insightful on the complexities of human nature. More specifically, it explores the challenges of finding happiness in a relationship, especially when each partner has a different outlook on life.

Guido and Vincent have been best friends since boyhood. Both are well educated and comfortable financially – their families are upper-middle class and distantly related. When we first meet them, these men are in their late-twenties – neither is married, but each has a different attitude to romantic entanglements.

Guido – who manages a charitable arts trust on behalf of his family – thinks of himself as a romantic, ‘an old-fashioned man living in modern times’, wedded to the belief that real love affairs usually end in marriage. Consequently, he eschews the idea of casual dalliances in favour of deeper commitment. Vincent, on the other hand, flits from one unsuitable (and often unavailable) woman to another – ‘vague blond girls’ are his usual type, much to Guido’s dismay. Vincent – a garbage specialist at a think-tank for urban planning – is intelligent, optimistic and easy-going, but rather muddled in matters of the heart. Guido, by contrast, is an elegant, sensitive worrier; he agonises over things too much, analysing them to the hilt.

When Guido spots an attractive girl at a museum, it’s love at first sight. Unfortunately, the object of his affection – an elegant, precise, well-ordered young woman named Holly – proves rather challenging for him to woo. Nevertheless, Guido persists in his pursuit, and after two solid months of walks, dinners and visits to galleries, the pair are sleeping together and slipping into a natural routine.

Meanwhile, Vincent experiences his own revelation when he falls for Misty, a linguistics colleague from work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Misty is the exact opposite of Vincent’s previous girlfriends. She is intelligent, prickly and somewhat insecure (an earlier love affair has left her wounded and reluctant to commit). But for Vincent, this is serious, a point that Guido quickly detects.  

He had never seen Vincent so emotional. He could remember Vincent been troubled by women, or bothered by them, or made to feel guilty on their account, but he had never seen Vincent agitated by a girl. The tail of his shirt hung below his jacket. His loosened tie hung to one side. His hair looked as if he had spent the morning running his hands through it. This made Guido feel very old and wise. He felt that Vincent was about to have his heart broken at last and that he would be a bad friend to stop it. Vincent needed to have his heart broken. (p. 44)

Colwin is terrific with dialogue – a skill she uses to great effect here, especially in the early stages of Vincent and Misty’s relationship.

“What I mean to say is, I’m sorry to have kissed you like that yesterday.”

Misty lifted her eyes from the tablecloth. The most remote flicker of a smile crossed her lips.

“Is that really what you mean to say?” she said.

“I thought it was,” said Vincent.

“Think again,” said Misty. The flicker had turned into a real smile, a smile that looked almost warm. That, of course, was an excellent sign. “Did you actually drag me out to dinner to tell me that you didn’t mean to kiss me?” She was still smiling. (p. 46)

In time, Guido and Holly marry, settling into their lives together. While Guido makes a success of his family’s trust, Holly spends her time on various hobbies, ranging from cookery classes, flower arranging, studying the arts and languages. That’s all very well, but what really interests Colwin is some of the bumps along the road in these relationships – the difficulties of finding contentment when our outlooks are not in synch. After three years of seemingly blissful marriage, Holly remains something of a closed book to Guido. She takes care of the house and does various things to enrich their lives, but she rarely emotes – a point that Guido finds baffling and frustrating.

He felt his three years of married life had gone by in a swoon, although the details, like those in great paintings, stood out in high relief. But what Holly thought was still a mystery to him. Although by action she seemed to love him ardently, Holly did not seem to live in the realm of the emotions. She felt, she emoted, and she never gave it a second thought. The complexities of love and marriage were things she lived with and through, and that was that. Guido, to whom thinking and feeling were the same thing, was learning that you might live with someone whose sense of life was not your own. (p. 66)

When Holly announces that she needs some time on her own to appreciate the value of their marriage, Guido doesn’t understand. In short, Guido cannot put himself in Holly’s shoes (or anyone else’s, for that matter). So, despite struggling to appreciate that their lives have become too predictable, Guido reluctantly lets Holly go, fearing what might happen, if and when she returns. Meanwhile, Vincent and Misty are experiencing their own problems, particularly around commitment. Vincent is head over heels in love with Misty – a sensation he has never experienced before. Misty, however, remains cautious – fearful of getting hurt if she allows herself to open up.

“I love you,” said Vincent.

“I don’t believe you,” said Misty. “I think you find me sociologically interesting. You like the novelty but it’ll wear off and then you’ll get bored.”

“Look,” said Vincent, “is it so awful having someone love you?”

“Yes,” said Misty. (p. 90)

As the narrative plays out, we follow each couple’s path to finding happiness and contentment, encompassing their hopes and dreams, insecurities and frustrations. In short, each individual must learn to adapt or become more accommodating in some way as they come to terms with each other’s needs. Alongside the leading players, there are some wonderful supporting characters too. Most notably, a quiet, highly efficient secretary, a trippy, hippy cousin, a colourful uncle and an unbearable outdoorsy type who succeeds in making Misty jealous (thankfully only briefly).

This is a lovely book, the literary equivalent of comfort food – or being wrapped in a heated blanket on a cold winter’s day. A delightful, wise, wryly humorous novel, full of warmth and generosity.

Happy All the Time is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy. 

Excellent Women: The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher and I Used to be Charming by Eve Babitz

Two terrific books for you today – by prose stylists of the highest order. Enjoy!

The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher (1943)

This is a book for anyone who enjoys food – not the fancy, pretentious kind of food the word ‘gastronomical’ might suggest, but honest, simple, good quality fare, typically fashioned from flavoursome ingredients.  It is, in essence, a blend of memoir, food writing and travel journal, all woven together in Fisher’s wonderfully engaging style.

Backlisted listeners among you may have encountered Fisher through How to Cook a Wolf (1942), her wartime guide to keeping appetites sated when decent ingredients are in short supply. In The Gastronomical Me, Fisher looks back on some of the most symbolic meals and food-related experiences of her first three decades – the quality of the dishes consumed, the people who shared them and the memories they evoked. She writes lovingly of her early life, the most notable culinary occasions, irrespective of their simplicity, and the way our feelings towards certain foods are often entwined with memories of people, places and key moments in time. There is a sense of meals being part of the fabric of a person’s life here, inextricably linked to love, friendship and family – encompassing both happy times and sad.

Throughout the book, Fisher relates her most memorable food-related experiences, from her first taste of the frothy ‘skin’ on her grandmother’s homemade jam to the trepidation of swallowing a live oyster at the high-school dance. We learn of her travels from California to France, following her marriage to Al Fisher, an academic studying for his doctorate at Dijon. On their arrival in France, the Fishers were eager to experience the European lifestyle, delighting in simple yet flavoursome food, courtesy of their boarding house and the city’s modest restaurants.

The memoir gives us snapshots of Fisher’s life, mostly from the late 1920s (when Fisher would have been around twenty) to the late ‘30s, when Europe was in the grip of a tumultuous war. Various sea crossings are dotted throughout the memoir – as are various friends, family members and other eccentric acquaintances the Fishers meet on their travels. Naturally, there are affairs of the heart too, particularly when M. F. K. falls for the American writer and artist Dillwyn Parrish (or Chexbres as he is affectionately known) in the mid-1930s. In time, he becomes the love of her life; although sadly, their time together is very short, cruelly curtailed by Chexbres’ suicide, prompted by the debilitating impact of Buerger’s Disease.   

Where the book really excels is in Fisher’s ability to convey a genuine love of food. Not in a way that reeks of privilege or pretentiousness; just warmth, passion and enjoyment, laced with an admiration for the people who prepare it. In this scene, Fisher recalls a meal of freshly caught trout, potatoes and hot buttered peas from the garden of a Swiss guesthouse near Lucerne.

It was, of course, the most delicious dish that we had ever eaten. We knew that we were hungry, and that even if it had been bad it would have been good…but we knew, too, that nevertheless it was one of the subtlest, rarest things that had ever come our way. It was incredibly delicate, as fresh as clover.

We talked about it later, and Frau Weber told us of it willingly, but in such a vague way that all I can remember now is hot unsalted butter, herbs left in for a few seconds, cream, a shallot flicked over, the fish laid in, the cover put on. I can almost see it, smell it, taste it; but I know that I could never copy it, nor could anyone alive, probably. (p. 217)

It’s a glorious vignette, beautifully conveyed in Fisher’s elegant, eminently readable style.

I Used to be Charming – The Rest of Eve Babitz (2019)

I’ve written before about Eve Babitz, the American writer, journalist and album cover designer who died last December. Her 1974 collection, Eve’s Hollywood, could be described as autofiction or maybe a semi-fictionalised memoir. Either way, it’s a luminous book – like a series of shimmering vignettes on bohemian life in LA.

Slow Days, Fast Company followed in 1977, cementing Babitz’s reputation as a leading documenter of the Californian lifestyle/counterculture. Both books are currently in print with NRYB Classics, along with a third volume of Babitz’s work, I Used to be Charming – The Rest of Eve Babitz, compiled in 2019.

Charming comprises some fifty articles/essays, mostly published in magazines between 1975 and 1997. Far from being a collection of odds and ends, Charming contains some of the very best of Babitz’s writing – the titular essay, recounting her recovery from life-threatening third-degree burns, is worth the cover price alone. It’s a searingly honest yet funny piece, conveyed in Babitz’s thoroughly engaging style. Also of particular note is a sixty-page essay on the ethos of Fiorucci, the pioneering Italian fashion brand based. Much to my surprise, I found this absolutely fascinating and immersive!

As in the earlier books, Babitz turns her eye to various topics here – mostly related to California with the occasional sojourn to New York. She writes beautifully about men, relationships, actors, musicians, locations, fashion, body image and various personal experiences. Her style is naturally breezy – conversational, almost – both easy-going and whip-smart. It’s a tricky blend to pull off, but to Babitz it seems intuitive, as in this 1979 piece titled Gotta Dance.  

Once you feel what it’s like to dance with someone who knows how to dance, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. You may even come to realize, as I have, that dancing is better than sex. I mean that, I really do. It’s better because it’s a flirtation that can go on forever and ever without being consummated; because you can do it with strangers and not feel guilty or ashamed; because you can do it outside your marriage and not get in any trouble; and because you can do it in public, with people watching and applauding. And when you’re doing it right, you can’t think about anything else, such as what you forgot at work or that the ceiling needs painting.

Which is why women love to dance. (p. 203)

Babitz can be funny too, as in Tiffany’s Before Breakfast, an article about coping with an impending crisis. Here, she has arranged to meet her friend Tina to make plans to avert a collapse.

So we met at Nickodell’s, a thirties Hollywood restaurant which has stuff like “turkey croquettes” on the menu, it’s so Mildred Pierce. Nickodell’s – it’s sort of the only place in L.A. you can go without accidentally bumping into an alfalfa sprout. It makes you feel grounded. It’s a good place to discuss your nervous breakdown. (p. 136)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Babitz writes evocatively about cities, neighbourhoods and locations – not just her beloved L.A. but also the more friendly San Francisco.

Here, it seemed to me, was the essential San Francisco: a city of lights, a city of radiant beings, a city of taxis and tourists and back alleys, a city of crazily shaped enterprises, of too-high hills and too much romance from long ago, where the past and the present blur into each other… (pp. 315-316)

I’ve merely scratched the surface of this beguiling collection of pieces, which I read over several weeks during the dark days of January. Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in California, especially during this era.   

Both of these books qualify for Karen and Lizzy’s Read Indies event in support of Independent Publishers. The Gastronomical Me is published by Daunt Books, I Used to be Charming by NYRB Classics; my thanks to the Independent Alliance/publishers for kindly providing review copies.

Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

In August 2021, Faber and Faber introduced a new publishing list called Faber Editions, dedicated to showcasing radical literary voices from around the world. The first book in the series is Rachel Ingalls’ beguiling 1982 novella, Mrs Caliban (my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a reading copy). It’s an utterly captivating book – a subversive feminist fable that neatly combines the everyday and the extraordinary to thrilling effect. I loved it and would thoroughly recommend it to other readers looking for something imaginative and distinctive.     

Central to the novella is Mrs Dorothy Caliban, a middle-aged woman whose marriage is stagnating. Having lost her young son, Scotty, due to complications with routine surgery, Dorothy is still grieving – trying to cope with the impact of bereavement as best she can. Moreover, she has also recently experienced a miscarriage – another painful loss for her to come to terms with, largely on her own.

Now and again, Dorothy thinks she hears voices on the radio – people talking to her directly, offering personal messages of reassurance and support. They might be a sign of trauma, but this is never made entirely clear. Sadly, Dorothy’s husband, Fred, is of little or no help in this regard, the loss of Scotty and the unborn baby having pushed the couple apart.

That was the point where things began to change with Fred. The first blow had stunned them both, but the second had turned them away from each other. Each subtly blamed the other while feeling resentment, fury and guilt at the idea that a similar unjust censure was radiating from the opposite side. (p. 7)

To make matters worse, Dorothy suspects Fred of having an affair with another woman. There have been other dalliances in the past, so this wouldn’t be his first indiscretion, and his frequent absences from the house are a clear sign of trouble.  

One day, while going about her chores at home, Dorothy hears an unusual announcement on the radio. A giant lizard-like creature, capable of living underwater and on dry land, has escaped from the nearby Institute of Oceanographic Research. Having killed two of his keepers, ‘Aquarius the Monsterman’, is considered highly dangerous, and the public are warned that he should not be approached. At first, Dorothy thinks this might be one of her strange messages from the ether, but then she quickly realises that it’s a genuine alert.

Later that night, just as Dorothy is rushing around the house, preparing dinner for Fred and one of his work colleagues, who should manoeuvre his way into her kitchen but the ‘Monsterman’ himself…

She came back into the kitchen fast, to make sure that she caught the toasting cheese in time. And she was halfway across the checked linoleum floor of her nice safe kitchen when the screen door opened and a gigantic six-foot-seven-inch frog-like creature shouldered its way into the house and stood stock-still in front of her, crouching slightly, and staring straight at her face. (p. 20)

After some initial nervousness, Dorothy reaches out to the creature, treating him with care and tenderness. As a consequence, ‘Larry’ – as the amphibian is generally known – is gentle and inquisitive in return, quickly establishing a bond with his new friend and protector. It soon becomes clear to Dorothy that Larry has suffered greatly while being held at the Institute. He has been tortured and sexually abused – experimented on by the scientists who were fascinated by his uniqueness. So, in truth, his attacks on the keepers were a form of self-defence.

To protect Larry from the police, Dorothy hides him in the guest room, which Fred rarely enters. Over the course of the following few weeks, a touching, affectionate relationship develops between the pair as they learn about one another’s worlds. In essence, both Dorothy and Larry are seeking an escape, a release from trauma or torture – Dorothy from the loss of Scotty and the unborn baby, and Larry from being captured and abused. Moreover, both are constrained by the limits imposed on them by society. Consequently, they find solace in one another on an emotional level, a sense of connectedness that feels meaningful and real. There is also a strong sexual dimension to their union, an aspect which offers Dorothy a sense of liberation and fulfilment, freeing her from the isolation of her lonely, loveless marriage.

By day, Larry watches TV, listens to music and helps Dorothy with the housework, an activity he clearly enjoys. I especially like how Ingalls plays with our expectations of masculinity, presenting Larry as a sensitive ‘new man’ – someone who is attentive and helps around the house, unlike most men in the early ‘80s. At night the pair venture out, driving somewhere quiet where Larry can swim or walk among the flowers, carefully hidden from strangers to maintain his cover.

They dried themselves off, drove around for a while, and walked through some of their favourite gardens in bare feet. Dorothy was less nervous than the first time they had gone out, but still felt a sense of possible danger and an edginess, which she was beginning to enjoy. She skipped and danced after Larry, as with his long legs he went loping down the length of the flowerbeds. She giggled with nerves. (p. 63)

One of many things Ingalls does so well here is to inject the narrative with a degree of ambiguity. Larry might be a figment of Dorothy’s imagination, a kind of vision or fantasy on which to project her warmth and affection – and while this is never made explicitly clear, something is said in the final two or three pages that might give the reader a jolt. As Dorothy’s friend Estelle – a divorcee with two suitors on the go – reminds her, a woman’s grief can be misunderstood and mislabelled, possibly leading to wrongful incarceration.

Remember what happened to you. They almost had you in the loony bin. Once you’re helpless, one of those bastards steps forward with a hypodermic and the curtain comes down on your life. You stay there and they give you massive doses of sedatives every day because you’re easier to take care of that way. And then your brain is pretty much slugged into submission. No more chance to find your way out of your troubles, ever. (pp. 100–101)

As this intriguing novella reaches its denouement, the threat to Larry’s safety steps up a notch, forcing the pair to take additional risks in an attempt to evade the authorities.

I loved this tender, slyly subversive story, which Ingalls underscores with a wry seam of humour. A magical, otherworldly read with a sinister, unsettling edge. Very highly recommended indeed, especially for readers who enjoy a degree of ambiguity.

Passing by Nella Larsen

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Quicksand, the 1928 novella by the American writer Nella Larsen, born in Chicago in the 1890s to a white Danish mother and a black West Indian father. The novella – which was inspired by Larsen’s own background and life – tells the story of a young mixed-race woman searching for her place in society, lacking a sense of identity in a highly segregated world. In Passing (1929), Larsen takes these themes a step further by exploring the emotional, moral and societal implications of the act of ‘passing’, whereby a light-skinned mixed-race woman passes as white in a society divided by race. It’s a superb book, fully deserving of its status as a classic of the Harlem Renaissance.

Central to Passing is a fascinating yet complex relationship between two middle-class women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, who had known one another at school but then lost touch as their lives diverged. Both women are black but sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white, depending on their personal attitudes and circumstances – and it is here that the differences between the two women begin to emerge. While Irene lives almost exclusively as a black woman, ‘passing’ only when necessary to gain access to theatres or hotels, Clare seems to have wholly entered white society while concealing her true racial background. Moreover, Clare is playing a particularly high-stakes game, having married an outspoken white supremacist, the banking agent John Bellew, without revealing her ancestry.  

Irene and her black husband – a doctor named Brian Redfield – live in Harlem, New York, with their two sons, Brian Junior and Ted. At first, their marriage appears stable and conventional, but longstanding tensions begin to emerge as the novella unfolds. Earlier in their relationship, Brian wanted to move the family to Brazil, where racial differences were less problematic than in the US. Irene, however, was opposed to this idea, favouring the quality of life available to them in New York instead. Consequently, the couple remained in the US, a decision that Brian clearly regrets, often giving rise to a discernible sense of restlessness on his part.

Clare, on the other hand, spends much of her time travelling between New York and Europe, accompanying her husband, John, while he carries out his work. It’s a glamorous, comfortable life, albeit one tinged with the fear of exposure should her ancestry be discovered.

One day, when Clare unexpectedly spots Irene in a hotel tea room, she cannot resist coming over for a chat, giving us a masterful scene to observe. With her glamorous clothes and chic blond hair, Clare is virtually unrecognisable to Irene, who at first is concerned that she is about to be ejected from the tea room by an indignant white lady, somehow alert to her biracial status. During this chance encounter, Clare shares with Irene the details of her new life, how she is effectively passing as a white woman with all the attendant risks this entails.

By the end of the meeting, Irene vows that she will not see Clare again, despite the latter’s insistence that they must reconnect. In truth, Irene has been reminded of the air of selfishness surrounding Clare, a harshness that remains unsuppressed; and yet, there is warmth and passion in Clare’s character too, an allure that seems hard to resist. Moreover, Irene is curious to learn more about this perilous business of passing, which involves taking one’s chances in another sector of society with all its inherent privileges and risks. Consequently – and somewhat against her better judgement – Irene resumes her friendship with Clare, continuing to meet her when the two women are back in New York.

In some respects, Clare feels constrained by the abhorrent views of her husband and the implicit restrictions he places on her life, despite its financial comforts. As such, Irene represents an opportunity for Clare to gain access to the vibrant black community of Harlem she longs to re-enter. It’s a situation Irene observes for herself when she meets John Bellew in person, hearing his hated for ‘Negroes’ expressed in all its venom. (Bellew, at this point, is entirely unaware of the black heritage of the three women in his company – Clare, Irene, and another of their high-school friends, Gertrude).

It was, Irene, thought, unbelievable and astonishing that four people could sit so unruffled, so ostensibly friendly, while they were in reality seething with anger, mortification, shame. But no, on second thought she was forced to amend her opinion. John Bellew, most certainly, was as undisturbed within as without. So, perhaps, was Gertrude Martin. At least she hadn’t the mortification and shame that Clare Kendry must be feeling, or, in such full measure, the rage and rebellion that she, Irene, was repressing. (p. 174)

As a result of these interactions with Clare, Irene begins to question her loyalty to her own race, finding herself somewhat uncertain and insecure – not just with her racial identity but in other aspects of life too, particularly her marriage to Brian, which Clare also seems intent on infiltrating. 

She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. (p. 225)

[…] when she examined her feeling of annoyance, Irene admitted, a shade reluctantly, that it arose from the feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adherence to her own class and kind; not merely in this great thing of marriage, but in the whole pattern of her life as well. (p. 166)

What makes this story particularly compelling is the depth and complexity of the characters Larsen has created here, leading to a relationship that is both intricate and layered. While Clare can appear sophisticated and alluring on the surface, she harbours a manipulative streak at heart, a wilful seam of selfishness that drives her desires.

Clare, it seemed, still retained her ability to secure the thing that she wanted in the face of any opposition, and in utter disregard of the convenience and desire of others. About her there was some quality, hard and persistent, with the strength and endurance of rock, that would not be beaten or ignored. She couldn’t, Irene thought, have had an entirely serene life. Not with that dark secret for ever crouching in the background of her consciousness. And yet she hadn’t the air of a woman whose life had been touched by uncertainty or suffering. (p. 201)

Irene, however, appears outwardly caring and respectable, seemingly prioritising the security of her family over other personal aspirations. But Clare’s shameless audacity in passing as white, while also wishing to re-enter black society, reveals Irene’s jealousy and disapproval of Clare. As Irene so neatly puts it here, the ‘trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.’

Consequently, Passing is just as much an exploration of the complexities of female friendships as it is of race, touching on themes of desire, jealousy, loyalty, betrayal, victory and victimhood along the way. As the novella builds to a dramatic conclusion, the subtlety and precision of Larsen’s writing come to the fore. While at first, there seems to be a degree of ambiguity about the ending, close reading points to a clear interpretation of the crucial final scene, which I won’t go into here for fear of spoilers – save to say, it’s an outcome the reader is unlikely to forget.

As many of you will know, there is a film adaptation of this outstanding novella on the way, due to open in UK cinemas on 27^th October with a Netflix streaming release to follow on 10^th November. Rather appropriately, the film has been shot in crystalline black and white, with Ruth Negga as Clare and Tessa Thompson as Irene. I, for one, can’t wait to see it…

My edition of Passing is published (together with Quicksand) by Serpent’s Tail; my thanks to the publisher and the Independent Alliance for a reading copy.

Two very good books by Laurie Colwin: Home Cooking + Passion and Affect

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen (1988)

I have Dorian (at Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau) to thank for introducing me to Laurie Colwin. (You can read more about the background to that intro in my review of Colwin’s 1982 excellent novel, Family Happiness, by clicking on the link.) Alongside fiction, Colwin also wrote about food – specifically, home-cooked food, the kinds of simple yet flavoursome dishes that any good cook needs to have in his or her repertoire.

First published in 1988, and reissued by Fig Tree in this lovely 2012 edition, Home Cooking weaves together Colwin’s recipes, anecdotes and sage words of advice on the joys of cooking and sharing food with friends. In short, it is a delight to read – warm, generous, and completely down-to-earth, just like Colwin herself, I would imagine. In some respects, reading this book feels like having your warmest, smartest, funniest friend over for dinner – someone with a willingness to share their culinary tricks and treats alongside their unmitigated disasters.

There are chapters here on Friday Night Supper, How to Disguise Vegetables and Easy Cooking for Exhausted People. All the recipes seem eminently achievable – tried and trusted versions of Colwin’s family favourites, including Warm Potato Salad with Fried Red Peppers, Orange Ambrosia and Extremely Easy Old-Fashioned Beef Stew (which can be pimped up accordingly once the basics have been mastered). Pot roasts and baked chicken feature heavily, as do eggplants (aubergines) and broccoli, two of Colwin’s favourite vegetables. I will definitely be trying some of her ways with orzo as there’s a packet languishing in my cupboard as we speak.

Orzo with butter and grated cheese is very nice. Orzo with a little ricotta, some chopped parsley and scallion, butter and cheese, is even better. Orzo with chopped broccoli and broccoli di rape is heaven, and it is also a snap. While you cook the orzo, steam the two broccolis—the amounts depend entirely on how many people you are feeding—until tender. Chop and set aside.

Drain the orzo throw in a lump of butter. Stir it in, add the broccoli, some fresh black pepper and some grated cheese, and you have a side dish fit for a visiting dignitary from a country whose politics you admire. (pp. 85-86).

She’s not above sharing some of her kitchen nightmares, either – the culinary disasters that have lingered in her mind. After all, as Colwin generously admits herself, having just served crunchy pasta to her husband’s friends, ‘if all else fails, eat out’.

There’s also a particularly amusing chapter on ‘Repulsive Dinners’ recounting the horrors that Colwin has experienced elsewhere. In this passage, she recalls an invitation to supper in Connecticut where the ‘local markets were full of beautiful produce of all kinds.’ Unfortunately, none of these tempting ingredients found their way into the host’s meal. Instead, ‘an old-fashioned fish bake’ was produced – even those words themselves sounded ominous, as Colwin conveys.

The old-fashioned fish bake was a terrifying production. Someone in the family had gone fishing and had pulled up a number of smallish fish—no one was sure what kind. These were partially cleaned and not thoroughly scaled and then flung into a roasting pan. Perhaps to muffle their last screams, they were smothered in a thick blanket of sour cream and then pelted with raw chopped onion.

As the coup de grâce, they were stuck in a hot oven for a brief period of time until their few juices run out and the sour cream had a chance to become grainy. With this we were served boiled frozen peas and a salad with iceberg lettuce. (p. 153)

What I love most about this book is the way Colwin writes – hopefully you’ll get a flavour of her style from the passage I’ve quoted above.

In summary then, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen is a wonderful collection of essays, recipes and reflections on the joys of simple yet delicious dishes. An ideal present for any food lover, especially the unpretentious ones!

Passion and Affect (1974)

I’ve also been reading some of Colwin’s short stories over the past few weeks, dipping in and out of her bittersweet collection Passion and Affect. Colwin writes beautifully about quiet, unshowy people, many of whom are drifting through life, searching for happiness or fulfilment, even if they can’t quite recognise it when they find it. While not necessarily outsiders, many of Colwin’s characters are somewhat odd or idiosyncratic, written with a kind of humanity that makes them seem entirely recognisable despite their inherent strangeness. Here we have stories of people falling in and out of love, not quite connecting through mismatched expectations, failing to compensate for their respective flaws and imperfections.

As one might expect with any collection of short stories, some pieces will resonate more strongly than others, so I’ll focus on a few of my favourites from the fourteen included here.

In The Water Rats (probably my favourite story), we meet Max Waltzer, a thoughtful, successful man who adores his wife and four children so much that his happiness threatens to overwhelm him. For Max, the fear of potential tragedy manifests itself in the form of water rats, recently sighted on the nearby shoreline.

In the beginning of the spring, geese flew in V formation. Max watched them from the bay window. He looked out over the water and saw the first of the small craft battling its way to an old mooring. On the weekends he liked to sit by the bay window and watch his part of the Sound. It soothed him, and it gave him a sense of propriety to see the latticework gazebo, firm on its slope. A family of barn swallows was building a nest in its thatched roof. (p. 49)

This is a beautifully written story in which a man must come to terms with his fear of loss – a worry that poses a more significant threat to his wellbeing than any hypothetical catastrophe.

In Children, Dogs and Desperate Men, a woman slips into a dalliance with a married man – a cartographer she meets at her cousin’s engagement party – even though she knows it’s unlikely to lead to anything lasting. As with many of Colwin’s characters, Elizabeth is somewhat fragile, viewing herself as ‘shaken and out of place’, still recovering from an earlier unhappy love affair. This touching, wryly humorous story ends on an unresolved note, leaving the reader to wonder what might happen in the future.

This dry (and frequently direct) style of humour runs through several of Colwin’s stories, perhaps most noticeably in The Big Plum, one of the best pieces in the collection. Harry, a supermarket manager, studying for a degree in art history, becomes fixated on Binnie Chester, a checkout girl who reminds him of Vermeer’s famous painting, The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Harry studies Binnie closely, fantasising about her home life in ‘an old house of ruined elegance’ with her vaguely tragic relatives – perhaps a rakish father and a faded, abstracted grandmother. Somewhat inevitably, Harry’s dreams are punctured when he finally plucks up the courage to talk to Binnie out of hours, an exchange laced with humour and poignancy as the normality of her life is ultimately revealed.

I’ll finish with a final quote that gives a hint of Colwin’s skills in conveying character. Her descriptions are often memorable and distinctive, just like the individuals themselves.

Holly was impeccable: she had not opted for neatness, it had been thrust upon her by nature. She had simple, unadorned features, and thick straight hair that fell unalterably to her shoulders. Clothes on her looked somehow cleaner and more starched than they did on other people. (p. 89)

Passion and Affect is published by Harper Perennial; personal copy.