I’m not at all a
weepy person, but this novel broke my heart in two different places and
literally left me sobbing.
Tom Kettle is a
retired Dublin detective trying to live a quiet life by the sea when a case
from his past rears its horribly ugly face. Poor Tom is slowly descending into
dementia and is not only losing parts of his memory but can no longer be sure
of what he sees in front of him. Having experienced dementia in my own family,
this aspect of the story stirred painful and poignant memories of my own.
What Tom’s
meandering mind does finally reveal is that both he and his deceased wife suffered
sex abuse while in the care of Catholic orphanages. This is the second
heartbreak I experienced––that such brutality could be inflicted upon helpless
children by so-called men of God is horrific beyond belief. But Sebastian Barry
tells it all with such a deft touch that there’s nothing sensational or
exploitative in the story. It’s a slow, almost gentle reveal that it hit me
doubly hard when I realized exactly what was going on.
PS: I heartily
recommend the audiobook, because the narrator’s Irish accent really transports
you to the setting of this amazing novel.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER TWICE WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR
'A masterpiece' Sunday Times 'Stunning' LIZ NUGENT 'Extraordinary' Irish Times
Tom Kettle, a retired policeman, and widower, is settling into the quiet of his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea.
His solitude is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask about a traumatic, decades-old case. A case that Tom never quite came to terms with. And his peace is further disturbed when his new neighbour, a mysterious young mother, asks for his help.
In college, I specialized in the 19th-century
English novel, so it was a special pleasure to read about William Harrison Ainsworth, a lesser novelist of the era who hobnobs with the
likes of Dickens and Thackeray. It was laugh-out-loud fun to spend time in the
literary salons imagined by the author, who has such a delightful gift for
satire.
But there are so many other things going on in this
sprawling novel—serious questions about British colonialism, the slave trade, and the giant class divides. And underlying all of it are questions of fraud –
the actual historical case of a fraudster pretending to be heir to a baronetcy;
the literary fraud perpetrated by novelists and other fabulists; and the fraud
of hiding one’s own true nature from one’s self. And I couldn’t help seeing a
parallel to today’s political climate and the mystery of how the masses can so
easily be taken in by a charlatan.
I
already knew Zadie Smith to be a brilliant novelist, but now I know she’s a
brilliant performer, too! She narrates the audiobook, and not only is her voice
wonderfully expressive, but she has an incredible command of so many different
accents – Scottish, Jamaican, northern English (upper class and working class),
not to mention the Queen’s English. (Are we saying the King’s English now?)
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.
Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of…
This novel is irresistible to
anyone who writes for a living. It’s dishy, often hilarious, and confirms
everything we always suspected about the publishing world.
It also tackles the
hot-button issue of cultural appropriation in a thoughtful yet highly
entertaining way. It sometimes felt like I was watching a train wreck as the
narrator careens from one bad decision to another, but it was thoroughly
mesmerizing.
In my own writing, I sometimes
wrestle with the question of whether I should stray from my own lane and depict
an experience that I haven’t personally lived. But I believe in the power of
imagination, and I think it’s important to try to put ourselves in others’
shoes – assuming if it can be done with sensitivity and an authentic voice.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from literary sensation R.F. Kuang
*A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick*
'Propulsive' SUNDAY TIMES
'Razor-sharp' TIME
'A wild ride' STYLIST
'Darkly comic' GQ
'A riot' PANDORA SYKES
'Hard to put down, harder to forget' STEPHEN KING
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she…
Her, Too is a psychological thriller that puts
a new twist on the #MeToo novel. Kelly McCann is a lawyer who’s built her
reputation defending men accused of sex crimes. She tunes out the cries of Gender
Traitor! until she too becomes the victim of a brutal attack. She can’t
report her assailant without destroying her career in the process, so she
charts another course: revenge.
