list.co.uk/books Reviews | BOOKS
DARK LOVE STORY BEN BROOKS Lolito (Canongate) ●●●●●
If you enjoyed Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, you’ll love this latest novel by Ben Brooks, an unconventional love story that is both twisted and tender, centring on two lonely individuals who find solace in each other (despite their age gap).
When fifteen-year-old Etgar discovers that his girlfriend Alice has cheated on him, his entire world grinds to a halt. Unable to cope
with her betrayal, he begins scouring the internet for comfort. In an adult chatroom he finds Macy. Having lied about his age, the two soon begin exchanging intimate emails. But how long until the truth comes out?
Brooks has created the most authentic teenage voice of the
twenty-first century. He is unflinching in his portrayal of the mind of a fifteen-year-old, exposing the underbelly of the adolescent world as its inhabitants manoeuvre through life via alcohol, sex and the internet. Brooks’ genius ultimately lies in his deadpan comedy. His turn
of phrase reads like poetry. His humour can be so abrupt and unexpected that it will make you genuinely laugh out loud, which is fundamentally what makes this book an unforgettable read.
Though the novel may be grim at times, it is also a charming exploration of love in all its different forms, whether it is for our lovers, friends, parents or even our dogs.
Funny, witty and addictive, Lolito is a quirky and disturbing ball of energy that will consume readers until they have turned the last page. (Karyn Dougan)
HORROR HUMOUR CHARLIE HUMAN Apocalypse Now Now (Century) ●●●●● LITERARY NON-FICTION OLIVIA LAING The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writ- ers Drink (Canongate) ●●●●●
It starts so well. The early chapters of Charlie Human’s wry fantasy are a riot, as 16-year-old narrator Baxter Zevcenko introduces us to his dysfunctional family life and shows off the highly profitable porn distribution network he runs at his Cape Town school. Once his girlfriend is kidnapped and the plot kicks in, however, things soon deteriorate. The bulk of the book is packed with
monsters and magic and decapitations and explosions and gore, and yet somehow it’s all a bit dull. Baxter seems oddly unfazed by anything that happens to him; whether cage-fighting a demonic crow or watching a loved one betray him, his narration never loses its detached, sarcastic tone. As a result the action lacks any real sense of peril, and the humour just isn’t funny enough to compensate.
It's a shame, as the central mythology (based on South African folklore) is solid, and there's plenty of imagination on show throughout. The ingredients are there for a fun, exciting fantasy romp, but it needs a much better narrator. (Ally Nicholl)
There’s a fear, given the title, that this seeks to romanticise alcoholism, positioning writers as tortured geniuses set apart from ‘ordinary’ people. Thankfully, Laing allays this fear.
The Trip to Echo Spring is a
nuanced and heartbreaking book that focuses on six writers as Laing follows in their footsteps across the US: F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever and Raymond Carver. Like her first book, To the River (a meditation on the river Ouse and Virginia Woolf), the psychogeographical approach places the sextet in a particular landscape, grounding them, highlighting their humanity and quashing any reading of romantic martyrdom.
It’s deliciously evocative, Laing’s melancholic and lyrical style conjuring the location, before effortlessly segueing into medical facts about alcoholism, the effects on the lives of each writer, and well-chosen passages from their work. This is a highly accomplished book, and highly recommended. (Ever Dundas)
INTERNATIONAL FICTION RAWI HAGE Carnival (Hamish Hamilton) ●●●●● AMERICAN REALISM DW WILSON Ballistics (Bloomsbury) ●●●●●
With his IMPAC Award-winning debut, De Niro’s Game, Rawi Hage was marked as one of Canada’s most exciting new writers. His third novel, Carnival, is just as thrilling. Fly, the narrator, is a bibliophile taxi driver prone to grand delusions. In Hage’s typically picaresque style, Fly talks of life growing up in a carnival, his devotion to his anarchist friends and his flirtatious religious debates with his quiet neighbour, all interspersed with tales of the people who hail his cab.
Carnival is suffused with literary references, and its disjointed structure, dark humour and musings on psychosis create an inescapable absurdist atmosphere. Before his writing career, Hage – also a visual artist – was a taxi driver. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the episodes about Fly’s passengers are the most captivating, from tender lovers and S&M enthusiasts to drunk bigots and big-time criminals. And although the last section feels like an unnecessary departure, Hage’s mellifluous prose holds the fragments of this violently chaotic, but warm and funny, novel together beautifully. (Yasmin Sulaiman)
In DW Wilson’s debut novel Ballistics, the Canadian Rockies are on fire, a son searches for his long-lost father, and manly men do manly things. When his grandfather suffers a heart attack, Alan West begins a journey to uncover the truth about his past as he seeks out the father he has never known.
Though the journey itself is an
important and recurring theme for Wilson, this book is essentially about men. It explores their relationships; with each other, with their sons, and to a lesser extent, with women. In fact while the novel is well-written, confident, and often compelling, Wilson’s portrayal of women jars somewhat. The female characters are little more than plot devices, their personalities barely explored. Instead their interactions serve mostly to show the reader what makes the male characters tick.
Wilson’s narrative is nevertheless engaging. His descriptive style is vivid and effective, albeit tinted with a romanticised view of small-town America, and while the novel may not go out with a bang, fittingly, this book is about the journey. (Campbell Miller)
11 Jul–22 Aug 2013 THE LIST 51