Books REVIEWS
FAMILY DRAMA ALAN HOLLINGHURST The Stranger’s Child (Picador) ●●●●● When it comes to keeping his fans waiting, Alan Hollinghurst has got it down to a very fine art. It’s seven itchy years since the London writer scooped the Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty and this resultant beefy doorstopper proves that he hasn’t been whiling away those many months in prevaricating fashion.
The Stranger’s Child is a sprawling family epic featuring the thoroughly well-off Valance and Sawle clans, kicking off in 1913 with a weekend’s jollities heightened by the appearance of talented young poet Cecil, whose attentions are fought over by best buddy, George, and his sister, Daphne. Fleeting romance and lifelong regrets are the lasting testaments of the weekend’s goings-on as we travel through the inter-war years, mid-sixties (which seem to be swinging elsewhere) and to contemporary times.
Perhaps stung by the tabloid bluster about the gay romping
in his award-winning 2004 novel, there is the merest fleeting of skin action in this work which is more about the legacy of writing. There are letters penned, unfinished or hidden while subjective memoirs and reviews leave their own scars. Certainly, Hollinghurst has a finger on the pulse of the awkward secrets which keep families connected to one another, but the feeling you are left with on finishing The Stranger’s Child is similar to the emotions which rise during the closing credits of Stephen Poliakoff’s lesser-successful TV dramas. These are tales of a haunted privilege which hint constantly towards a devastating reveal, but whose drive falters, leaving you wholly underwhelmed. (Brian Donaldson)
SOCIAL DRAMA ROSS RAISIN Waterline (Viking) ●●●●●
The strength of Ross Raisin’s debut novel, God’s Own Country, was the authenticity of the central character’s Yorkshire voice. In this follow-up, Raisin has moved proceedings to Glasgow, and his Scottish brogue is a lot less convincing. The story begins with former shipbuilder Mick Little
grieving for his recently dead wife. His two sons – one caring, one with issues – and his Highland in- laws are suffocating him, and he can’t wait for them to leave. But when they do, Mick struggles with his
loss, first sleeping in the shed and then leaving for London on a whim.
FAMILY DRAMA HELEN WALSH Go to Sleep (Canongate) ●●●●●
Helen Walsh’s third novel, Go to Sleep, aims to explore, and explode, the taboos surrounding post-natal depression. Based on her own experience of PND – which is estimated to affect a quarter of new mothers – Walsh’s account of post- birth disorientation, terror and psychosis is unflinching and significant. It is also invested with humour and colour: heroine
Rachel’s droll inner monologues about Peppa Pig and CBeebies are only too familiar (‘Mellow fruitfulness? My arse’). Several narrative threads
weave through heady evocations of Liverpool’s multi-racial street culture, offering welcome respite from the isolation of the subject matter. The author does well to challenge the stigma of PND, but Go to Sleep is
relentlessly melodramatic. At every turn, its 30-year-old protagonist undergoes life in extremis and this endless procession of histrionics threatens to obscure the novel’s intense but fragile central theme. (Nicola Meighan)
The book begins slowly and tepidly, Raisin’s morose take on Glasgow over- familiar to anyone who’s read the last 30 years of Scottish literature, and the dialect remains clunky throughout. Although latterly accelerating into a passable Kelman-esque stagger through London’s underbelly, it’s not enough to save what is actually a pretty pedestrian affair all round. (Doug Johnstone)
NORDIC CRIME YRSA SIGURDARDOTTIR The Day is Dark (Hodder & Stoughton) ●●●●●
Just as Norwegian Jo Nesbø is busy being ‘the next Stieg Larsson’, Yrsa Sigurdardottir is apparently ‘Iceland’s answer to Stieg Larsson’. There are obvious comparisons: those writers plus the granddaddy of them all, Henning Mankell, have turned Nordic crime into a sub-genre we just can’t get enough of. Each of them churns out intelligent beach reads that keep you gripped without troubling the intellect. Sigurdardottir is no better or worse, just female: her heroine lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdottir worries about outfits and
childcare rather than booze and women, while solving crimes. The story is far-fetched but mildly compelling, involving a Mary Celeste-style mystery at a Greenland mining camp. The workers have disappeared, a grisly video discovered and the locals are suspiciously unhelpful. Sigurdardottir evokes the harsh landscape beautifully, but there’s an air of unreality, while the simplicity of the narrative makes it hard to genuinely care what happens. (Kelly Apter)
44 THE LIST 23 Jun–21 Jul 2011
ADVERTISING HISTORY JOHN HEGARTY Hegarty on Advertising (Thames & Hudson) ●●●●● As the man behind the iconic adverts for Levi 501s (Nick Kamen in his boxers), Audi (‘Vorsprung durch Technik’) and Barnardo’s (a baby jacking up on heroin), John Hegarty is better placed than most to discuss the perfect campaign. To the casual, if culturally-aware, reader, the first half can be a chore to plough through, as he pitches at the creatives with strategic buzzwords and brand awareness. Happily, the wait is worth it as we
sample the anecdotal meat behind the theoretical bones of the book’s subtitle (‘Turning Intelligence into Magic’).
There’s the tale of how one high-street chain, which refused to stock 501s for £20, came crawling back as the jeans virtually flew out of their competitors’ doors. So successful was that campaign, Levi’s halted the ads as they couldn’t keep up with the instant demand. Beautifully designed and appealingly written, Hegarty insists early on that no one should ever read a book about advertising. Little wonder that his favourite word is ‘irreverence’. (Brian Donaldson)