Review: Longbourn, Jo Baker

Review: Longbourn, Jo BakerLongbourn by Jo Baker
Published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 8, 2013
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: E-Book, eBook
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Goodreads
five-stars

Pride and Prejudice was only half the story • If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.

I just loved this book. It’s hard for me to believe a retelling of Pride and Prejudice could be better than this. The lives of the servants, some of whom rate barely a mention, are fully realized in Jo Baker’s Longbourn. Mrs. Hill’s backstory is fascinating (and entirely believable, based on what we know of Mr. Bennet); she is mentioned only a handful of times in Austen’s novel. Sarah is mentioned only once in Pride and Prejudice, and the others are never mentioned by name.

I liked seeing Mr. Collins get a more sympathetic portrayal—he’s much kinder to the servants than some of the Bennets themselves. Jo Baker’s Wickham is odious—this story puts his elopement with Lydia in an entirely new and disturbing light. I appreciated Baker’s empathy for Mrs. Bennet. In her hands, Elizabeth Bennet is imperfect and a bit thoughtless.

In addition, Baker captures the setting well. Longbourn and Pemberley are drawn in vivid relief from the vantage point of the kitchens, servants’ quarters, and stables. There are some beautiful descriptive passages of the scenery, particularly near the end of the novel.

Austen doesn’t say much about the Napoleonic Wars; many critics have pondered the oversight. Baker makes them a central part of one character’s story. I also appreciated the way the book didn’t shy away from issues of race and class. It’s clear from the context that Mr. Bingley has earned his money somehow as part of the slave trade, and his former slave Ptolemy Bingley is a brilliant character.

I highly recommend this book to fans of Jane Austen, but even if you read Jane Austen and felt like something was missing, this book might be what you’re looking for.

five-stars

Review: The London Séance Society, Sarah Penner

Review: The London Séance Society, Sarah PennerThe London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
Published by Park Row on March 7, 2023
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
three-stars

A spellbinding tale about two daring women who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead.

1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.

Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

I did not enjoy this book as much as Sarah Penner’s first book, The Lost Apothecary. The story was not as compelling to me. The ending held some surprises, and I liked the scripted process Penner created for the séance. I also appreciated the fact that Penner created a plausible Victorian lesbian romance—it didn’t feel tacked on, but I think Lenna thought about her attraction to Vaudeline at weird times—like when she was angry with her. Vaudeline, the medium, was an interesting character. I didn’t find Lenna or her deceased sister Evie compelling, and Mr. Morley was a cartoonish Snidely Whiplash type.

Too much of a caricature. I also wanted a bit more of a feel for the setting, which is something I got from The Lost Apothecary. There was a bit of a feel for the setting, but not much. I saw a Goodreads reviewer describe this book as a “great concept, average execution.” That’s exactly the way I felt.

three-stars

Review: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold

Review: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie RubenholdThe Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Narrator: Louise Brealey
Published by Highbridge on October 8, 2019
Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction
Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London—the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates; they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, but it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness, and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time—but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

This book was very moving. I cried twice: while listening to the Introduction and while listening to the Conclusion/A Life in Objects. What I particularly appreciated about this book is that it focused on what is known about the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper and not what he did to them. The book also did not focus at all on the killer himself. I appreciated this fresh approach. One problem I have with true crime as a genre is the way it can be overly glib about horrific crimes; people forget that real people were at the center of these crimes. Hallie Rubenhold handled the story of each woman gracefully. She has done a wealth of research into these women’s lives. The great tragedy that seemed to be at the heart of most of their stories was that they were poor and struggled with alcoholism. Rubenhold argues that the women have been dismissed as sex workers, the implication being that perhaps the world was better off after they were killed. However, not only is it untrue that they were all sex workers—as though that even means they deserved what happened to them, which Rubenhold also dismisses—but she also emphasizes their relationships with family members, loved ones, and friends. This book was a refreshing biography and should be the model for other books about famous crimes. It’s a shame that we, as a people, are more fascinated by a psychopathic misogynist than the women he killed.

five-stars

Review: The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Daré

Review: The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi DaréThe Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Narrator: Adjoa Andoh
Published by Penguin Audio on February 4, 2020
Genres: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 12 hours 6 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
five-stars

The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself - and help other girls like her do the same.

Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will “break your heart and then put it back together again” (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams... and maybe even change the world.

This book is fantastic. I picked it up as part of the Book Voyage Challenge. The March book is a book set in Africa, and the recommendation for this one was so compelling that I decided to pick it up, and I’m so glad I did. Adunni is an inspiring heroine. The other characters in the book are complex—never just straight “bad” or “good,” they’re a realistic mixture of both. Daré even manages to help the reader feel compassion for her antagonists.

I listened to the audiobook and cannot compare it to the print text, but I thoroughly enjoyed Adjoa Andoh’s narration. Some listeners might have trouble with Adunni’s dialect, but I found as I listened that I got an ear for it and could follow the narration without too much trouble.

I’ve read a couple of critiques about this book, the gist of which is that the plucky girl who wants an education is a trope in Nigerian fiction. I can’t speak to that as I simply don’t have enough reading experience, but perhaps those who have read more might agree that the story is predictable and cliché. That was not my experience, but it seems that plenty of other reviewers felt that way. One criticism I’ve seen that I don’t think is fair is how Adunni sometimes waxes poetic. Dialect is no indicator of intelligence, and just because she is uneducated doesn’t mean she isn’t poetic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I’m glad I read it.

five-stars

Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint Smith

Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint SmithAbove Ground by Clint Smith
on March 28, 2023
Genres: Poetry
Pages: 128
Format: Audio, Audiobook, Hardcover
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

The number one New York Times bestselling author, intellectual, and spoken-word poet Clint Smith gives his devoted readers a collection of poetry straight from the heart. It is a meditation on the country he studies through the lens of all he has learned from fatherhood. The poems are manifestations of Smith's wisdom and latest observations, starting with the precarious birth of his son, to the current political and social state of the country, to childhood memories, and back again. Smith traverses the periods of his life from four different cities and the process of realizing what it means to build a life that orbits around his family. Amid all of it, he has watched as the country has been forced to confront the ugliest manifestations of itself, and he has thought about what it means to raise children amid the backdrop of political tumult. Smith is a poet who uses the form to interrogate his own autobiography and the state of the country today, affording those who prefer reading poetry a shot of news, and those who normally seek out nonfiction, some lyrical beauty. Above Ground is a lyrical, sometimes narrative work of poetry that follows from Smith's first book of poetry, Counting Descent.

I thoroughly enjoy everything Clint Smith writes. My students read Smith’s previous collection Counting Descent, and we engage with his work in other ways over the course of the school year. I was very excited about this collection when I first heard about it and pre-ordered it from Loyalty Books in Silver Spring, MD, so I could get a personalized, signed copy. Smith is my favorite living poet, hands down. I love what he says about poetry in his guest spot on The Late Show.

I downloaded the audiobook to listen to Smith reading the poems as I followed in the book. I highly recommend you do the same because these poems are meant to be savored both in print and in Smith’s reading voice.

Some of my favorites in the collection:

  • “When People Say ‘We Have Made It Through Worse Before'”
  • “Your National Anthem”
  • “For Willie Francis, the First Known Person to Survive an Execution by Electric Chair, 1946”
  • “Roots”
  • “Pangaea”
  • “The New York Times Reports That 200 Civilians Have Just Been Killed by U.S. Military Air Strikes”
  • “Nomenclature”
  • “This Is an Incomplete List of All the Reasons I Know I Married the Right Person”
  • “We See Another School Shooting on the News”
  • “The Gun”
  • “Gold Stars”
  • “The Most Remarkable Thing About Dinosaurs”
  • “Ars Poetica”
  • “The Andromeda Galaxy Is the Closest Galaxy to Our Milky Way”

If that sounds like a lot, well, that’s because this collection is incredible. I really liked all of the poems, but the list above stood out to me as I read.

April is National Poetry Month. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this new collection of poems by one of the greatest living poets.

five-stars

Review: Weyward, Emilia Hart

Review: Weyward, Emilia HartWeyward by Emilia Hart
Narrator: Aysha Kala, Helen Keeley, Nell Barlow
Published by Macmillan Audio on March 7, 2023
Genres: Fantasy/Science Fiction, Historical Fiction
Length: 10 hours and 51 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

This was an engaging read. I know I’m enjoying an audiobook when looking extra forward to my walks so I can listen and when I actually don’t mind doing dishes. I like to listen to audiobooks when doing tasks that don’t require concentration. In fact, I actually listened while sitting on the couch and mindlessly playing with a coloring app. That’s how I know I am really enjoying a book: when I have trouble putting it down.

Of the three characters, Altha was probably my favorite. I really liked the narrator who read her part quite a lot. Kate’s story resembled the plot of Sleeping with the Enemy. However, I didn’t find that to be purposeful or stilted—I suppose when you get down to it, stories of abusive relationships will often sound familiar.

Men do not come off too well in this book, but to be fair, Violet’s brother Graham, Kate’s father Henry, and a minor character, Adam Bainbridge, are all good, decent men. However, all the other male characters are flat evil, using their power as men to hurt the women in their lives. It seems to me the difference is fear. The good men in this book are not afraid of women and are not threatened by female autonomy. They also view women as fully human. This book has a lot to say about the harm of misogyny—both to women and men.

The family historian in me loved the idea of discovering the rich history of one’s ancestors in the way that both Violet and Kate do. Who wouldn’t want to discover they had inherited a centuries-old cottage and a gift for communicating with animals?

The setting is also well-drawn in all three eras. The idea that the families who stayed in Crows Beck flitted into all three women’s stories as minor characters—the Kirkbys, the Metcalfes—made the story feel more like an authentic family saga while also offering an Easter egg for the reader.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction about witches. I also love how it reclaims the title of “witch” from its negative history. It’s a great read.

five-stars

Review: The Blackhouse, Carole Johnstone

Review: The Blackhouse, Carole JohnstoneThe Blackhouse by Carole Johnstone
Published by Scribner on January 3, 2023
Genres: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 329
Format: E-Book, eBook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
three-half-stars

From the author of the “dark and devious...beautifully written” (Stephen King) Mirrorland comes a richly atmospheric thriller set on an isolated Scottish island where nothing is as it seems and shocking twists lie around every corner.

A remote village. A deadly secret. An outsider who knows the truth.

Robert Reid moved his family to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in the 1990s, driven by hope, craving safety and community, and hiding a terrible secret. But despite his best efforts to fit in, Robert is always seen as an outsider. And as the legendary and violent Hebridean storms rage around him, he begins to unravel, believing his fate on the remote island of Kilmeray cannot be escaped.

For her entire life, Maggie MacKay has sensed something was wrong with her. When Maggie was five years old, she announced that a man on Kilmeray—a place she’d never visited—had been murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended.

Nearly twenty years later, Maggie is determined to find out what really happened, and what the islanders are hiding. But when she begins to receive ominous threats, Maggie is forced to consider how much she is willing to risk to discover the horrifying truth.

Unnerving, enthralling, and filled with gothic suspense, The Blackhouse is a spectacularly sinister tale readers won’t soon forget.

I gave this book 3.5 stars because Johnstone kept me turning pages wanting to find out what was going on. The setting is also rendered sharply, and I love a book in which the setting is almost a character itself. However, I didn’t like the novel’s ending, and I nearly knocked off half a star because of it. I felt like Maggie was kind of a cipher as a character, and Robert was a little more clearly drawn. A reviewer on Goodreads says to watch out when you like a secondary character better than the protagonist, and that’s a pretty fair assessment. Most of the islanders were more interesting to me as characters than Maggie. I would also add that the setting was way more interesting than any character in the book, hence 3.5 stars. I wanted to like this one more, especially since it kept me up late, but the protagonists were not compelling enough in the end.

three-half-stars

Review: Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night, Julian Sancton

Review: Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night, Julian SanctonMadhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton
Narrator: Vikas Adam
Published by Random House Audio on May 4, 2021
Genres: Nonfiction
Length: 13 hours 28 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

The harrowing true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter.

In August 1897, thirty-one-year-old commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail aboard the Belgica, fueled by a profound sense of adventure and dreams of claiming glory for his native Belgium. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But the commandant's plans for a three-year expedition to reach the magnetic South Pole would be thwarted at each turn. Before the ship cleared South America, it had already broken down, run aground, and lost several key crew members, leaving behind a group with dubious experience for such an ambitious voyage.

As the ship progressed into the freezing waters, the captain had to make a choice: turn back and spare his men the potentially devastating consequences of getting stuck, or recklessly sail deeper into the ice pack to chase glory and fame. He sailed on, and the Belgica soon found itself stuck fast in the icy hold of the Antarctic continent. The ship would winter on the ice. Plagued by a mysterious, debilitating illness and besieged by the monotony of their days, the crew deteriorated as their confinement in suffocating close quarters wore on and their hope of escape dwindled daily. As winter approached the days grew shorter, until the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, condemning the ship's occupants to months of quarantine in an endless night.

Forged in fire and carved by ice, Antarctica proved a formidable opponent for the motley crew. Among them was Frederick Cook, an American doctor—part scientist, part adventurer, part P. T. Barnum—whose unorthodox methods delivered many of the crew from the gruesome symptoms of scurvy and whose relentless optimism buoyed their spirits through the long, dark polar night. Then there was Roald Amundsen, a young Norwegian who went on to become a storied polar explorer in his own right, exceeding de Gerlache's wildest dreams by leading the first expeditions to traverse the Northwest Passage and reach the South Pole.

Drawing on firsthand accounts of the Belgica's voyage and exclusive access to the ship's logbook, Sancton tells the tale of its long, isolated imprisonment on the ice--a story that NASA studies today in its research on isolation for missions to Mars. In vivid, hair-raising prose, Sancton recounts the myriad forces that drove these men right up to and over the brink of madness.

Belica in the ice by Adrien de Gerlache
Belgica dans la glace by Adrien de Gerlache

This is a terrific nonfiction account of a harrowing experience in Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Julian Sancton’s author’s note and notes on sources demonstrate a thorough and dedicated effort to tell the story of the Belgica’s winter trapped in the ice as faithfully and accurately as possible. However, his writing style renders the story as gripping as any adventure film. In fact, I can’t believe this book hasn’t been made into a movie. Surely someone out there has purchased the rights and plans to film it.

This book reminded me quite a bit of Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I can’t say I had the desire to travel to Antarctica before reading it, and if I did, I’ve been cured—much like Krakauer convinced me climbing Everest is not in my future (not that I wanted to, but after reading Into Thin Air, I really didn’t want to). I knew the crew survived mostly intact because this account existed, but it was harrowing to read, and Sancton kept me guessing how in the world these men would get out of Antarctica alive.

I have to say, Roald Amundsen comes across as a complete and total badass. I don’t know that I would have liked him personally, but no one could argue he wasn’t brave. Look at this dude.

Belica in the ice by Adrien de Gerlache

He’s a complete and total Viking.

I highly recommend this book. Even if you think you are not interested in Artic or Antarctic exploration, trust me, this book is captivating. I also recommend the audiobook. The author clearly enjoyed reading this breathtaking adventure, and his narration added a good deal to my enjoyment of the book.

 

five-stars

Review: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson

Review: Notes from a Small Island, Bill BrysonNotes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Published by William Morrow Genres: Nonfiction
Pages: 338
Format: E-Book, eBook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
three-half-stars

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such best sellers as The Mother Tongue and Made in America, decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while. This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland, and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of modern-day Britain, and to analyze what he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, zebra crossings, and place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, and Shellow Bowells. With wit and irreverence, Bill Bryson presents the ludicrous and the endearing in equal measure. The result is a social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain.

I have a little announcement. I picked up this book because my sister and I are planning a trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland in the summer of 2024.

Excited GIF

I thought reading a Bryson travelogue would be a lot of fun and add to the anticipation, especially as Bryson wrote it upon leaving the UK for the US (he now lives in the UK again)—I was expecting something a bit more wistful. I also thought he might travel to some of the same places on my itinerary and offer some insight.

Itinerary map for trip to the UK and Ireland

I’ll begin with about four days in London, travel by train to Edinburgh and spend a day there, then travel to Liverpool (stopping by Kendal on the way), spending an evening in the city. The next day, we’re off to Wales with a stop (and picture opportunity) in the village of Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch. We will take a ferry to Dublin and spend several days in Ireland, including Blarney Castle, the Ring of Kerry, and the Cliffs of Moher.

Sadly, I was a bit disappointed with this book. I suppose it isn’t Bryson’s fault he didn’t write the book I wanted to read, but given the enjoyment Bryson’s other books have offered, this was a bit of a letdown. He purports to love the UK, but he spent pretty much the entire book complaining about it. It bothered me that a lot of his complaining was due to his poor planning as well—he was downright rude to a few customer service professionals as well, and that never sits right with me. I suppose one thing that bothered me was that Bryson was privileged to be able to travel across the entirety of the UK, something I have dreamed about doing for over 30 years, and he didn’t appreciate it. I liked parts of the book and even chuckled a few times (hence 3½ stars), but overall, it’s not one of Bryson’s best.

A bit of an unrelated coda: I will probably read a lot of other books in anticipation of this trip, but I’m not sure I’ll include Bryson’s sequel to this one.

three-half-stars

Review: Country, Michael Hughes

Review: Country, Michael HughesCountry by Michael Hughes
Narrator: Michael Hughes
Published by HarperAudio on October 1, 2019
Genres: Historical Fiction
Length: 7 hours 19 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
five-stars

A vivid and brutal reimagining of Homer's Iliad, set in the Troubles of the late twentieth-century.

That was the start of it. A terrible business altogether. Oh, it was all kept off the news, for the sake of the talks and the ceasefire. But them that were around that part of the country remember every bit. Wait now till you hear the rest.

Northern Ireland, 1996.

After twenty-five years of conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed an uneasy ceasefire, as a first step towards lasting peace. But if decades of savage violence are leading only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country will start to question what exactly they have been fighting for.

When an IRA man's wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their old comrades for an assault on the local army base. But the squad's feared sniper suddenly refuses to fight, and the SAS are sent in to crush this rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce, and drag the whole region back to the darkest days of the Troubles.

Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, this powerful new Irish novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict, and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the honour of their country.

What a fantastic book. I am not sure what it says about the progress of humanity that setting a retelling of The Iliad amidst the end of the Troubles works so well, but it’s masterful. Working knowledge of neither The Iliad nor the Troubles is absolutely required to appreciate this book, but you will appreciate it on an entirely different level if you’re familiar with both. The characters are not caricatures or cardboard cutout representations of Greek and Trojan heroes; Hughes fleshes them out so fully that rather than a retelling, the story feels like it’s happening all over again, and this time, to real people. It’s well written, too, and I’m extremely glad I listened to the audiobook, read by Hughes, though a word of warning: a decent understanding of a Northern Irish dialect is required. Hughes manages to pick up some of Homer’s cadence while still making the story completely his own.

This book reminded me a little bit of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. In my review of that book, I wrote, “I’m not sure what to say about this book. It’s hard for me to recommend it to anyone because it’s really violent and disturbing, but it was completely captivating at the same time. I was riveted.” I might say the same about this book. I have a feeling this book will be one of my top reads of the year. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Troubles.

five-stars