{"id":1163,"date":"2012-05-14T06:32:20","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T06:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2012-10-22T17:16:45","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T17:16:45","slug":"opposed-positions-by-gwendoline-riley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1163","title":{"rendered":"Opposed Positions by Gwendoline Riley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Opposed-Positions-high-res.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1178\" title=\"Opposed Positions - high res\" src=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Opposed-Positions-high-res-187x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"187\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Opposed-Positions-high-res-187x300.jpg 187w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Opposed-Positions-high-res-641x1024.jpg 641w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Opposed-Positions-high-res.jpg 1593w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 187px) 100vw, 187px\" \/><\/a>Published by Jonathan Cape, 17 May 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>240pp, hardback,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Contenders for the title of worst fathers in literature \u2013 Willy Loman, King Lear, the Mayor of Casterbridge <em>et al<\/em> \u2013\u00a0need to\u00a0move over and admit a new member to the ranks: Brian Kelly, the intuitively abusive parent of Aislinn. Gwendoline Riley\u2019s fourth novel offers a portrait of relentless bile so instinctive,\u00a0wholly inescapable and immediate it brings the reader out in a cold sweat.<\/p>\n<p>One damaging parent leaving indelible finger marks on a young soul would be bad enough, but, as Aislinn slowly learns, she and her brother Liam have had a second broken role model to contend with &#8211;\u00a0their mother. If one of Brian\u2019s favourite taunts is to deride Aislinn for her \u2018pout\u2019, her mother can match it with \u2018sullen\u2019. And there\u2019s worse: a cycle of poor judgement in men which, Aislinn comes to see, will never be broken.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a flavour of A.L. Kennedy to Riley\u2019s delicately surgical depiction of the family as black hole, with its flashes of acrid humor and sense of rootless modernity. But the terrain is one Riley has made her own: an intense narrator with a social circle comprised of unhappy, unsettled and nihilistic boozers and creative drifters. Attracted to her floating isolation, this flakey group exerts a curiously heart-warming charm.<a href=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/RileyGwendolinecInDemand.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1180\" title=\"Riley,GwendolinecInDemand\" src=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/RileyGwendolinecInDemand-243x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"243\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/RileyGwendolinecInDemand-243x300.jpg 243w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/RileyGwendolinecInDemand-832x1024.jpg 832w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/RileyGwendolinecInDemand.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 243px) 100vw, 243px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ranging from Manchester to New York and Indianapolis, where Aislinn finds her constricting social and family bonds \u2018beautifully dissolved\u2019 and can write, this short novel laces its devastating observation of relationships with disturbing maturity. If\u00a0next year&#8217;s\u00a0Orange judging panel\u00a0doesn&#8217;t take notice of Riley, it will have missed a trick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a flavour of A.L. Kennedy to Riley\u2019s delicately surgical depiction of the family as black hole, with its flashes of acrid humor and sense of rootless modernity. But the terrain is one Riley has made her own: an intense narrator with a social circle comprised of unhappy, unsettled and nihilistic boozers and creative drifters. Attracted to her floating isolation, this flakey group exerts a curiously heart-warming charm.[&#8230;] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}