Reviewed by Alison Burns
For Yamina, ‘remaining invisible is a matter of survival’: a lesson learned brutally in early childhood. For her three daughters and her son, who did not grow up in rural, patriarchal, war-torn Algeria, there is more to life than domestic martyrdom or public subservience. There is culture – fashion, films, music, TV; there is politics; there is systemic racism; there is the loss of family history [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner
Mellors has an eye for fashion, and brittle connections, although her characters – see a grim lunch at the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar – can tend toward the one-dimensional. But this is easily-consumable contemporary fare, the couple at its core is compelling, and there are plenty of other beautiful people in their circle, like Frank’s sexually insatiable Scandinavian friend Anders; Frank’s black stepsister Zoe, an actress wannabe who takes too many risks; and Cleo’s gay best friend Quentin who the reader just knows is destined for worse things [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Alison Burns
Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War, when most male undergraduates, and many tutors, were conscripted, leaving teaching in the hands of refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors. They began their philosophical studies shortly after Hitler’s troops entered Austria and fought to rescue metaphysics (e.g. what is a good and what is evil?) from nit-picking logic and hair-splitting linguistic analysis [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner
Otsuka’s intention and Alice’s destination are never hidden, the novel’s prose is never excessive, yet this narrative delivers immense power, in both its specificity and wider relevance. As the pool was a place of community and togetherness, so the Belavista is a site of separate trajectories, each patient traversing a path of lesser connection and loss, into isolation and silence [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Alison Burns
Oskamp relays the histories of her clients with non-judgmental amusement and celebratory warmth, prizing their quiet heroism. By the end, we find that she has restored the balance in her own life, enjoying a daily routine which includes early-morning hours at her writing desk and twice-daily walks through the cemetery, either side of immersion in the slapstick, ordinariness and tragedy of a neighbourhood she admires [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner
Erdrich’s ease, wit and literary experience are on fine display in her generous, multi-layered tale, threaded with injustice and passion. The larger issues will not be resolved, but the personal dramas experienced by Tookie – with Flora, with Pollux, and with her complicated stepdaughter – reach solid and rightful conclusions. And then there’s a bonus final section to the book, in the form of Tookie’s literary recommendations [Read more...] in Reviews
* A 2021 Notable Book
Reviewed by Elizabeth Hilliard Selka
The novels are autobiographical and thus offer us a riveting insider’s view of the confusion in Eastern Europe in the first year of the Second World War – and the insider, herself an outsider, is Harriet. Woven into the day-by-day unsettling upheavals of the politics and practicalities of war is the story of Harriet’s marriage, her growing understanding of the man she has so suddenly married and revelations about the unforseeable complexities of love [Read more...] in Reviews