What’s sitting on the bedside bookstack this October.
The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright, Jonathan Cape, 2023
Anyone who’s been reading a few recent Bookstacks will notice I’m partial to Irish literature. My grandparents were Irish immigrants. Even transplanted to Australia, there’s a lot that is familiar in the cultural legacy; the Catholicism, the big families, the lack of money and knowing your place in the pecking order. So, no surprises that I’m an Anne Enright fan. Loved the Gathering, the Green Road and Actress and thus headed straight to this one when I saw she had something new out.
Carmel McDaragh’s father is a well-known fictional Irish poet, Phil McDraagh. She grows up in reaction to his dramatic leaving of the family. Her daughter Nell grows up in reaction to Carmel and so a generational pattern is set. The push and pull of love, loyalty and disappointment plays out in a destructive loop.
I wanted to love, love, love this one but it came in at like. There was something that always had me a bit wrong-footed. I don’t know if it was a lack of balance in the narration or frustration with the characters. It just never seemed to settle for me. It’s Anne Enright though, so the writing is still a joy.
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff, Allen & Unwin, 2023
This absolute page-turner of a book has me wondering how exactly she got me to laugh so much while at the same time covering domestic violence, sexual abuse, caste discrimination and the general all-round subjugation of women.
Geeta is part of a microloan group in rural India. Everyone in her village, and the group, think she murdered her husband because he disappeared one night five years ago. As a single woman, it’s not terrible to have a dangerous reputation but life gets chaotic when she starts to get further job requests.
It’s described as ‘a feminist revenge thriller’ and I think it takes skill to pull that off successfully, which it definitely does.
White Cat Black Cat by Kelly Link, Head of Zeus, 2023
This is a collection of seven modern fairy tales. There is something reminiscent yet foreign in these stories. You think you know where they’re going but you’re wrong. There’s a character you recognise from childhood, heading in a familiar direction but then it all tilts and you’re in a completely different world.
The blurb on the back saying ‘poised on the edges between magic, modernity and mundanity’ is bang on.
August is a Wicked Month by Edna O’Brien, Faber & Faber, 1965
This is Edna O’Brien (incidentally more Irish literature – though she lived in England for a long time). It’s going to be gorgeously written. It’s going to get into uncomfortable interior territory. She throws her first paragraph down with the ease of someone who has 20 books to her name.
What should be a sexual awakening and liberation for young divorcee Ellen, is something sad and sullied. Wow, to be a woman in the sixties!? The humiliation and shame that was attached to desire, the vulnerability and harassment of being a woman alone. This book was initially banned in several countries.
I’m not going to lie. This book is a downer. It well-written and it’s interesting but unless you like pressing at a bruise, I wouldn’t read it when you’re feeling fragile.
Rain Birds by Harriet McKnight, Black Inc.2017
I borrowed this from the library after reading Remember This a beautiful personal essay on friendship and grief by Susie Thatcher. She and the author Harriet McKnight were friends. They met at Canary Press, bonded over writing and played a big role in the development of each other’s writing. She wrote so lovingly about Harriet and Rain Birds that I had to read it too.
Pina is feeling isolated and over-it as she looks after her husband who has Alzheimer’s. Arianna is taking part in a project reintroducing black cockatoos into the local national park but she’s dubious about their donor organisation. I’m only two chapters in so far but the portent is that their paths will cross and changing things for both of them.
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Nina Cullen 