www.list.co.uk/books BIOGRAPHY DAVID SHIELDS The Thing About Life is that One Day You’ll Be Dead (Penguin) ●●●●●
Shocked by the increasing vitality of his 97-year-old father, essayist David Shields penned this ‘sort of love letter’ to his dad. Shields Snr reportedly wrote back by pointing out the errors in the book. The Thing About Life is that One Day You’ll Be Dead is more than just a chronological biography of a beloved parent, as the author throws in science, philosophy, anatomical research, dreams, pop culture titbits and a whole bunch of statistics. And I mean a lot of statistics. Did you know that fingernail growth is fastest in November and female sperm whales live 30 years longer than their male counterparts? The end result is a mish-mash of influences and references which appear to loom towards something profound but ultimately fizzle out. Like life, perhaps. A New York Times bestseller when it arrived in 2008, Shields got his eulogy out just in time. Papa Shields died later that year, aged 98. (Brian Donaldson)
HORROR COMEDY SG BROWNE Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (Piatkus) ●●●●●
As openings go, this one is an attention- grabber. Imagine you’ve just woken up to discover your parents’ corpses have been put in the fridge freezer, only to realise that you, their 21-year-old son, stuck them there. And all because you are a newly resurrected member of the flesh- eating undead and your mom and pop just didn’t
appreciate this new state of mind.
Breathers is also quite cinematic, which is probably intentional on the part of SG Browne, who worked in Hollywood for a few years. This first novel is in development in Tinseltown with ultra-hip Diablo Cody (Juno) producing and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson rumoured to be playing the book’s drop-dead gorgeous zombie lovers. As a blueprint for a zom-rom-com in the Zombieland mould, Breathers works just fine. As a satirical novel, it’s readable enough, though it lacks bite and could do with fleshing out. (Miles Fielder)
SOCIAL DRAMA NICOLE KRAUSS Great House (Viking) ●●●●●
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 DEBUT NOVELS 5 UPCOMING MEMOIRS Sarah Brown Behind the Black Door The UK’s former first lady shares her experiences of being resident at Number 10 including the time she had a bad hair day when Carla Bruni hit town and a nerve- shredding charity event. Ebury. Peter Taylor Talking to Terrorists Subtitled ‘A Personal Journey from the IRA to al-Qaeda’, this is the BBC documentary-maker’s account of 35 years coming face-to-face with committed rebels of all brands. Harper.
Joyce Carol Oates A Widow’s Story The beloved US author delivers a moving memoir about coping after the loss of her life partner. Fourth Estate.
Sherrie Hewson Behind the Laughter . . . lies a lot of tears no , as possibly the last of the Loose Women to fling out her life story tells us about a troubled marriage, battles with addiction and lots of fights with co-stars. Harper. Kym Marsh From the Heart She was in Hear’Say before pulling pints in Corrie. You know the one. This is her story. Hodder.
REVIEWS Books
ART COMIC SOPHIE CRUMB Evolution of a Crazy Artist (WW Norton) ●●●●●
From an early age, Robert Crumb’s maladjusted scion was the beneficiary of her parent’s archivist tendencies. His daughter’s ‘most interesting and expressive work’ was saved and now, 26 years later, the artist child revisits it and lays it out with a rare and indulgent candour. It’s difficult not to be enchanted by this beautiful volume with its gothic overtones and adolescent brio. Chronologically sorted from the scribblings of a child, all the way through hormonal imbalance, rebellion, escape, hedonism and motherhood, Evolution of a Crazy Artist has a vulnerability to it that is at once compulsive and rewarding.
With only a small introduction from her father, the occasional timeline memo and descriptions and dates on the images, this is refreshingly light on the usual semantics and self-congratulation this sort of thing promotes. It stands and falls on the artist’s talent, and her ability is never in doubt. Peppered with unflattering photographs of Crumb and her early forays into illustration and narrative, Evolution . . . does indeed evolve into something more than the portfolio of a gifted kid.
Each doodle or sketch brings with it the weight of youth and its inherent elations, depressions, angers, feuds and jealousies. The inherited puckish vulgarity slowly gives way to something else, something more personal, French (she now lives in the South of France with her husband and baby boy) and truthful. The pheromones of her creativity finally subdue life itself. (Paul Dale)
Like her last novel, The History of Love, Nicole Krauss’ new offering spans time and geography, introducing her readers to a multitude of characters that are inevitably connected to one another by an object: this time, a desk. Great House, though, is more conventional in its prose and, in general, less funny. Moreover, its characters experience crippling emotions conveyed in long and over-elaborate sentences that choke the book’s readability, rather than assisting it. But there’s a
contradictory power at the heart of this novel that inspires you to persist even when its momentum stalls. Pages of seemingly irrelevant storyline suddenly seem worth it for the few crystal clear paragraphs that come at the end. Slowly — sometimes, it feels, very slowly — Krauss unravels her mystery, taking us from New York to London and, finally, to a richly-painted Jerusalem where our patience is rewarded and answers are devastatingly revealed. (Yasmin Sulaiman)
SOCIAL DRAMA TRISTAN GARCIA Hate: A Romance (Faber) ●●●●● Early 1980s Paris and a young crew of movers and shakers are living life to the full in a country embroiled in political, cultural and sexual ferment. Narrated by Elizabeth, a leftist journalist for Libération, Tristan Garcia’s debut focuses on the feuds and friendships experienced by a trio of her highly individualistic yet deeply flawed male pals. With
sounding William Miller, a cross-dressing and confrontational character who rises from the page as the most involving creation. The book does get into its stride after a stuttering and flat opening, but the frequent and wilfully oblique philosophical musings on life, death, love and condoms do get a little wearing. However, there is a confidence about Garcia’s penmanship that hints at bigger and better things to come. (Brian Donaldson)
the AIDS timebomb ticking fast and loud, Hate’s participants are either struck with fear or (outwardly) relaxed about the disease: ‘AIDS belonged to us queers’ pronounces the distinctly non-Gallic
17 Feb–3 Mar 2011 THE LIST 35