Yet another point in history where people were treated badly.

Publisher: Sceptre (Hodder)
Pages: 323
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-444-70401-3
First Published: 1st July 2010
Date Reviewed: 20th January 2014
Rating: 4/5

Born differently-abled, Grace later contracts polio and becomes, as far as the 1950s were concerned, ineducable and severely mentally impaired. Taken from her parents, she is institutionalised along with hundreds of other children and adults, forced into a situation of poor hygiene, neglect, and abuse. Grace’s inner world is full but she has difficulty being understood by those who believe she is stupid; the exception to this is Daniel, a boy who lost his arms in an accident and takes a shine to her.

Grace Williams Says It Loud is a semi-biographical story. A look at the horrors of institutionalisation and the way disabled people used to (and still are to some extent) seen, the book is a good starting point to learn about the truth of disability and social discrimination.

Henderson wrote the book in honour of her sister, whose disabilities were never properly diagnosed. Henderson herself is therefore very much a part of the book – whilst it may take an interview to learn that this is so, the author never excuses herself; her presence as the oft-hateful younger sister Sarah is unapologetic, realistic, and at times very damning.

Whilst the institution in this book may not be as quite as awful as some were, Henderson never holds back from detailing the horrors that occurred. She shows the abuse that was meted out by the staff – sadistic, sexual, forced medication (the latter often increasing the patients’ mental and physical issues) – as well as the numerous slurs and taunts. The words ‘spastic’, ‘mong’, and other denigrating phrases are here in abundance. It is of course worth noting that unlike other books written in our times, where authors use ‘retard’, ‘spastic’, and ‘spaz’ without thinking of the hurt this causes (consider that these words are similar in this way to the N word) Henderson’s use is medical, historical, and relevant.

The author shows just how much severely disabled people – at least ‘severely’ in the sense that they seem so on the surface – can be misunderstood. Grace may not be able to speak, but she is as intelligent as she could be given her lack of a formal education. She is capable of a sexual relationship and love. Her friend (or ‘boyfriend’ – whilst Grace speaks of love a little and has sex, love is one area that Henderson does not elaborate on) Daniel, treats her as he would any other person and whilst Grace is limited in how much she can tell us, being the only narrator and stuck in an institution, there is the suggestion that it is society that is the reason for the disability. This common idea, that society is the cause of disability, the person themselves more able if society helped them be so, is very much suggested in this book. Grace often responds, or starts, or tries, to respond to questions asked by those around her. The way Henderson writes shows that those people answer for Grace before they’ve even given her a chance, never seeing the issue that their belief in stupidity before proven guilty causes.

Henderson’s writing is easy to read but the necessarily restricted-to-a-few-locations story may sometimes prove boring. This is of course both the point and an inescapable truth. Grace is stuck in the hospital, she is not allowed to live to the full extent of her capability, and the narrative is written solely from her viewpoint. Indeed if the narrative switched it would be like a get-out card – if Henderson allowed the reader time away from Grace they would never be able to appreciate just how awful, how dull, how wrong these places were and can still be.

However, beyond this, the writing can at times prove difficult. The author mixes a highly literary style with short bullet-point-like sentences and paragraphs, and whilst you could say that Grace could well think this way, it just doesn’t work. If it is to show that Grace does have a mental impairment of sorts then it is understandable, and admittedly Henderson never tells the reader exactly what Grace’s differences are (this is a nice reprieve from the world’s obsession of having to know what is wrong with someone instead of just getting on with it), but it may prove confusing and it can change the pace in a way that it seems shouldn’t happen. Apart from this the constant and sudden switches between the current time and flashbacks can be confusing as there is nothing to separate the two strands of thought – you learn that Grace is now thinking of her childhood, for example, halfway through, because an age or year is mentioned. Switches happen, we change our thoughts constantly and suddenly, so it is realistic, but the difference in reality is that we of course know what we are thinking about, and if someone else is talking and switches subject we can ask them to explain. Grace could find explaining difficult of course, but the problem is that as readers, bystanders, we don’t have the chance to so much as ask.

The writing is problematic in places, but otherwise Grace Williams Says It Loud is an excellent book. It is incredibly important, it tells of the people that tend to be looked over in the media, it uses words in their true medical and historical contexts, and albeit that it is written by an able-bodied woman, it gives a voice to those society likes to forget.

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A book written during the events it tells of.

Publisher: Vintage (Random House)
Pages: 342
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-099-48878-1
First Published: 2004
Date Reviewed: 16th January 2014
Rating: 5/5

Original language: French
Original title: [As above] (French Suite)
Translated by: Sandra Smith

As the Germans invade France, numerous people head to the regions still free. The refugees are composed of all the social classes, including the middle class Pericands, regular bank workers the Michaunds, and an uppity novelist. As the invasion becomes occupation, a German moves into the Angellier house, where an unhappy Lucile awaits the someday arrival of her unfaithful husband. No one, neither French nor German, knows what will happen in the days ahead.

Suite Française is a theme and character driven book that defies tradition and looks at war with a unique, humorous, and tragic lens. Published posthumously, decades after the author was killed at Auschwitz, the book as it stands is composed of two of a planned five novellas, still in the drafting stage.

What a draft this is. Némirovsky’s book, translated into English by Sandra Smith, reads as though it were almost ready for publication. Beyond a few errors, some of which the translator has edited, there is little to suggest that the work, beyond the obvious lack of a conclusion, had not been through several rewrites already.

The writing is exceptional. Némirovsky speaks of the horrors of her time yet includes a constant thread of humour. It is not laugh-out-loud humour and mostly pertains to social class differences, but for its use it shows that in times of plight some light-heartedness goes a long way – the characters don’t find much funny; the humour is from the author. The book is very literary and may prove easy to loose yourself in. This is particularly interesting when you consider that the book, beyond the basic thread of the war, lacks a plot.

There are ‘mini’ plots here and there, for example the story of one character’s love for another, but by and large the book simply discusses the day to day life, if it can be called such, of the characters. Indeed the major aspect of this book isn’t the characters per se, it is society. In looking at the war, Némirovsky isn’t describing the acts of the enemy and saying how awful they are. She does include horrors, of course, but the awfulness focused on in Suite Française is the lack of compassion and community of the refugees. The middle classes thank God the lower classes were bombed instead of them, the lower classes don’t understand the middle classes, an egotistical man thinks his celebrity will continue to get him whatever he wants, and everywhere people are stealing everything from everybody else. For the most part no one helps anyone else, and that is the point Némirovsky makes in the first novella, Storm In June. Not that being out for oneself leads to long-lasting complications – though, again, this is another point that is made; maybe being out for themselves should affect the characters.

Class divides remain in times of strife. A prime example of the irony of a Christian woman of the middle class is shown here:

“Do you see how good our Lord Jesus is? Just think, we could be those unfortunate wretches!”

In the above case, the author is blunt – the sentence is a flashback a young man has of his mother after he has returned from running off to join the army, and, as he says, “Hypocrites, frauds!”

What is particularly interesting about the book, yes, beyond the theme work and different approach, is Némirovsky’s writing of the Germans in the second novella, Dolce. Whilst the Germans were written as one mass in the first novella, in Dolce there are various individuals assigned to live in certain French homes, and these men are written in a way that borders on compassion. This may not sound so strange as a whole, as war is known to be more important at the top than the bottom, and the German soldiers want to fit in despite being the conquerors, but it is somewhat strange when you consider that Némirovsky was writing of the enemy sitting outside her window, so to speak. In Dolce, the author gives personality and voice to the people despised as she wrote her book, to an enemy that wanted those of her background dead – an enemy that would later arrest and kill her. For this personification, Dolce makes for uncomfortable reading, most especially now in our present day (who knows how it might have been received if the work had been published just after the war?), where we know what happened and we know a lot more than Némirovsky would have at the time. How should the reader respond to the feelings of compassion the author invites – should we just read the book as a work of fiction or is it Némirovsky’s hope that we look inside ourselves and question those feelings? Should we be chastising ourselves for even considering these invaders’ thoughts? Should we be viewing them as people that are as human as the French? Should we be thinking about how easy it is to be led by someone to believe they are a good person?

Finally, another factor that is interesting due to the time and situation in which the book was written, there is a somewhat ironic (sadly ironic) comparison to be made between the French soldier, Jean-Marie Michaund, and the author herself. Jean-Marie wants to be a writer, and during his stay at a farm, Némirovsky writes:

He wrote with a chewed-up pencil stub, in a little notebook which he hid against his heart. He felt he had to hurry: something inside him was making him anxious, was knocking on an invisible door.

Suite Française is a masterpiece; it makes no difference that it is unfinished. (Though it must be said that, at least in the English translation, Némirovsky’s notes and a rough plan for the rest of the book have been included.) It may be low on plot, but it is high in social studies, in character development, and in beautiful language. Sporting vast appeal for those interested in social history as well as those who simply enjoy reading, Suite Française is one you shouldn’t pass up.

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A trip for freedom.

Publisher: Legend Press
Pages: 202
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-90655-808-2
First Published: 2009
Date Reviewed: 7th October 2013
Rating: 5/5

Jack lives a monotonous life. He wakes up in his mother’s house, tries to continue writing his novel, fails, goes out every now and then, rinse and repeat. One evening he decides to eat a dreary kebab in a dreary shop but his meal is interrupted by Neil Blake, a man of a similar age who has led a more colourful, slightly illegal life. Whisked away by Neil’s friendly nature, Jack finds himself at pubs and parties. Then Neil suggests a trip to Scotland.

On The Holloway Road is a clever and well written book, inspired by Kerouac’s On The Road, that deals with the themes of life and freedom. Written in hindsight from Jack’s perspective, the story is slow, aptly lazy in its pace at times, and a little satirical.

The characters are complete opposites, and not supposed to be liked particularly. Neil is impulsive, he dislikes any limitations placed upon him by outsiders, and he is full of charm, but he can be thoughtless and selfish. Indeed he would laugh at being told to think about repercussions – the reader is likely to think ahead and question Neil’s decisions, and it is exactly that action that Neil would denounce. Neil lives in the moment, lives for freedom, has experienced the other side of the coin and sees its flaws. In comparison, Jack has little will, in fact what will he does have is a side effect of his spending time with Neil. Jack is content in his monotony, his typical life that fits neatly into the slot, and though he isn’t happy he won’t do anything to change that.

Jack’s overall dullness is a major reason the book is slow. Rather than an error on the part of the author, the pace is a decided upon element that shows you just how different Jack and Neil are. Neil’s dialogues are fast paced and full of words, as Jack says, but it is the difference in nature that allows the reader to see where Jack’s safe life might be too safe, whilst of course showing that Neil falls a bit too much towards the other extreme. The book is very much a character study as well as a different take on Kerouac.

It is character-driven, and it is plot-driven, yet at the same time it would be difficult to say that there is a plot as such. The plot is vastly in the realm of the book’s themes. Blackman has crafted a commentary, a very sharp commentary that strikes at the heart of current political, social, and law elements that protect/hinder (depending on the way you see it) the people of the United Kingdom. Through Neil and Jack, Blackman shows the limits of the people’s freedom, the limits imposed by the government and councils. There are many scenes where Jack finally lets go a little, Jack the good lawful if boring citizen, and is rewarded by a penalty of the exact type the duo are trying to escape. As an example, a trip to a country park costs them £100 in car parking fines when they get back to the car and notice the fine details of the parking space.

Freedom here is woven into the larger political context. The story shows the differences between someone who is institutionalised, or just used to, the way of the land, and another who isn’t. And of course what is interesting as well as understandable is the way it’s the person who has been to jail that wants to be free, especially as it is a freedom in lifestyle that Neil wishes for (in other words Neil isn’t wanting the ability to go and kill someone). It’s the case that everywhere they go, Neil says they are or should be free. The government soon tells them they aren’t.

Leaving my Figaro marooned in the grass, I walked forward to get a better look. Warnings were being shouted through a megaphone. Acts of Parliament were being invoked. Arrests were being promised. The appearance of fairness, of reason. Disperse now. A chance to avoid arrest.

And if reason failed, as it surely would, then violence would be justified. Protocol would have been followed. The blows of the batons would have legal sanction, while any retaliatory violence would be grounds for prosecution.

Jack is no one without Neil, and indeed it comes as no surprise to understand, through Jack’s words, that he relies on Neil to ‘live’. It’s one of those things you know instinctively, and it just takes Jack’s words to cement it. And as for Neil, it seems that freedom he wants is nowhere – no matter restrictions or not, you get the sense he will always be against something. In this way the ending is very appropriate, the particular ending for him says a lot about the character and what Blackman is trying to say.

To refer to the inspiration, Kerouac’s On The Road is used both behind the scenes, so to speak, and in the story as an element in itself. Jack and Neil listen to the audio book whilst travelling; it is almost a double usage of the work, between the tape cassette and Blackman’s references to it as the author. It forms a lot of the philosophy and quotations are borrowed and reworked so that they fit in with Neil and Jack.

As the book reaches its ending, another clever aspect becomes apparent. The way it is written, the way the story is referenced, makes it seem possible that it could be about Blackman, that it could be about anyone. Twisted into the last chapters is the final resolution – the answer to what happens after the book concludes, there is even a hint as to what happens a lot further down the line. If only Jack takes the chance.

It seems he did, or perhaps he hired Blackman to do it for him as the author clearly knows more than Jack, just as Neil does. Blackman is almost the unbiased third party, the person in the middle of the two.

On The Holloway Road is superb. It is likely to appeal most to British readers, as they will be able to relate to the political details well, but the references to Kerouac and the commentary will interest readers of other nations too. And the theme of freedom is universal as are likely some of the civil elements.

I know the author as a fellow book blogger.

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Speaking to Andrew Blackman about On The Holloway Road, and A Virtual Love (spoilers included)

Charlie Place and Andrew Blackman discuss life on the road, following in Jack Kerouac’s footsteps, offline and online identity, writing an entire book about a character but never giving them a voice, current climate change activism, and withholding – for very good reason – the endings your readers expect.

If you’re unable to use the media player above, this page has various other options for listening.

Sit at the table. Don’t wait to be asked. Your parents might moan but your career will flourish.

Publisher: WH Allen (Random House)
Pages: 171
Type: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-75354-162-3
First Published: 11th March 2013
Date Reviewed: 9th July 2013
Rating: 3.5/5

A mixture of memoir, research, and experience, Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, discusses what holds women back from having successful careers. Looking at how social expectations create barriers, she details what we can do to change the workplace to further equality. Drawing on her time as an intern, at Google, and, of course, at Facebook, Sandberg’s book is as much about personal experience as the experiences of others.

Lean In is a comparatively short book that, although it could have been longer as well as better edited, presents good evidence and is a fair motivator. Sandberg is honest from the beginning – this book isn’t of a particular genre and she is very aware that she is not perfect with gender herself. This contributes to the success of the book, even if it doesn’t quite heal the inconsistencies.

Sandberg makes it clear from the word ‘go’ that her word isn’t the be all and end all, that equality means having a choice (for example between being a stay-at-home mum and a working parent), and that whilst the book will likely resonate most with women, there is something for men, too.

These are promises she keeps. Partly due to her own status as a mother, she constantly considers points about child well-being, contact time, and the reasoning against leaving children to go on trips. This is a good aspect of the book and yet as it is obvious and understandable that she defends her own choices, inevitably Sandberg ends up unconsciously reinforcing why there is the social expectation to stay at home in the first place. This isn’t to say you’ll necessarily end the book thinking she’s a bad mother, but she does unfortunately bring into focus the very thing she didn’t want to. This sort of thing also happens with other unrelated accounts, such as when she says crying is good between employees but makes herself sound weak.

On the promise of choice, Sandberg never waivers. Her opinion is that if women want to work they should, if they want to look after their children they should, if they want to combine both they should. She also highlights the need for men to have a choice as well – in that a stay-at-home father is seen as a bad life style when it shouldn’t be. And she reminds you how people will ask a woman how she intends to change her life to accommodate her child, but a man is never asked.

As suggested above, the promise of making the book interesting for men is kept. This reviewer, as a woman, may be saying this from an ‘outsider’ perspective, but Sandberg spends much time speaking about the lack of paternity leave and about how men who wish for equality are not given support or credit.

What of the major aspects, then? Beyond choices and parenting, Sandberg discusses the fact (backed up by evidence) that the sole difference of gender on an otherwise identical profile will illicit different responses from study groups. She explains how we don’t even notice our own biases, how she doesn’t notice hers, and how research suggests that it’s people who say they are not biased who are actually the most subjective. She talks of how women are often the issue, not supporting each other, and how it’s unfortunate, even if understandable, that a woman’s view of another woman is considered most important – unfortunate because a woman will often be more negative of another woman than a man will be.

Sandberg looks at the differences in our perceptions of successful people. A strong successful man is liked, a strong successful woman is considered bossy. Likeability doesn’t match success. She discusses catch-22’s – a woman who helps a colleague is less likely to have the favour returned due to the stereotype of caring, a woman who doesn’t help will be penalised more than a man would be. And she debunks the old saying that people are different as they get older – “nothing has changed since high school; intelligence and success are not clear paths to popularity at any age”.

Perhaps surprisingly, whilst Sandberg hopes for change she says that sometimes stereotypes and little ideas must be bought into to gain success. She speaks of women assuming dominate poses, such as physically taking up more space, to aid the mentality of strength. The focus on faking it until you make it is, in the context of Sandberg’s main ‘lesson’, both understandable and a contradiction.

Unfortunately there are more of these contradictions in the book. One is the focus on women with children. Up until half-way through Sandberg’s advice and opinion is generalised and useful. This then stops suddenly. The initial reason is that there is a chapter that isn’t nearly as worthwhile as the rest and the book becomes very repetitive. But the second and more obvious reason is the exclusive focus on motherhood. There is very little in this book written specifically for women who have no desire to parent. This may fit Sandberg’s own position as a mother, but it renders the book inaccessible, creating a bit of a ‘them and us’ situation. There is a lot about women who are thinking of having children and women who want them someday, contrasted with one single story of a woman (who nevertheless wants children one day) speaking up for those burdened with extra hours so their colleagues can spend more time with their own families. Women with or who want children may indeed have a tougher time succeeding in their careers, but the premise of this book did not suggest such a level of positive discrimination. And to go back to Sandberg’s accidental reinforcement of the mother stereotype, much of what she says in the latter chapters only reminds the reader of why ‘we’ have discrimination.

Taking the positive discrimination further, the book is, perhaps obviously, inaccessible and irrelevant to those on lower incomes. Indeed Sandberg talks of wage gaps, single parent families, and how she happens to be lucky, but this doesn’t make the situation any better. If this was to be about helping women to succeed she needed to cover those not fortunate enough to have the money to afford university, to not have the wealthy and supportive parents, partners, social contacts, those who are stuck in dead-end jobs. As other reviewers have pointed out, Sandberg acknowledges the help of many many women in the creation of the book, but nowhere is there a mention of the women she employs to look after her house or children, excepting a single reference to a faceless woman she was jealous of for owning her, Sandberg’s, son’s affection.

This lack of accessibility is cemented by the name-dropping. Sandberg has worked at Google, Facebook, in countless privileged positions – and that is the point, the continual reminders of luck, money, and a nice but rare modern office culture will likely divide many readers from the text. If the target audience was high-income women then the book wasn’t particularly necessary in the first place, or at the very least Sandberg should not have brought in mentions of lower-income families.

And it’s a pity because as the book moves into its second half there is enough repetition that could have been replaced with a whole new chapter about how to get that first good job, and the book wouldn’t have had to have been any longer. Sandberg is in a position to have written this book, in so much as people will give her book deals without persuasion, but she displays a distinct lack of knowledge or at the very least has left such knowledge out, out of convenience.

But then given the contents of the acknowledgements, how much of this book did she actually write and how much is simply paraphrasing?

Sandberg’s book provides a lot to think about, and her honesty is refreshing. But it’s not perfect by any means and is full of contradictions and missing information. Read it, it’s worth it on the whole, but don’t expect many answers.

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The okay Gatsby. The great writer.

Publisher: N/A (I read the version by Alma Books)
Pages: N/A
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: N/A
First Published: 1925
Date Reviewed: 17th April 2013
Rating: 4.5/5

When Nick Carraway moves home, he finds his neighbour to be the host of many all-night parties. Having met his (Nick’s) cousin and her friend, he is encouraged to join the friend, Jordan, in attending one of them, and finally meets his allusive neighbour. What he doesn’t know is that his new acquaintances are familiar with each other.

The Great Gatsby is a novel of money and aiming high for innocent reasons. It’s relatively short with enough characters to get the messages across but not too many that you lose track of them, and at once both lives up to its reputation and falls short of it.

The story itself is basic – written before, written since, without much to recommend it. Gatsby himself isn’t as great as described, but then that could be the point, and therefore the statement at the beginning of this review refers primarily to the book as a whole. It is therefore in the writing that the success of the book can be found. Fitzgerald’s writing style is literary, political, satirical, and spot on for the time. Indeed so woven into the era his book is, it can seem dated today in ways that many classics aren’t – references to political events that have not stood the test of time (in other words are not particularly well known today) inevitably mean that whilst the sentiment may be obvious, in order to fully appreciate what Fitzgerald is saying some research may need to be conducted. For this reason a version of the novel with notes included is recommended.

Whilst Fitzgerald was reported to be nonchalant about the title of the book, the name undoubtedly fits well in both a potentially sarcastic manner and in the feelings of the crowds of people who supposedly know Gatsby himself. Gatsby is both a well-developed character in his own right, and a representative of all those who try their best to make something of themselves for whatever reason.

None of the characters are particularly likeable except, perhaps, Nick, who is simply a bystander who becomes exploited whilst trying to do the right thing. Here there are innocent aims, together with snobbery, material wealth above all else, and a distinct lack of care for anyone.

Fitzgerald portrays the romances in an intriguing way. He uses the word ‘love’ many times, but whilst reading it may be hard for the reader not to wonder where this referenced love is. Certainly there is love of money, as a particularly poignant line imparts, but of romantic love there is little. If Nick is to be believed, then the love was mostly in the past, and perhaps it’s the money itself that causes the physical separations, in terms of the space between two people on a sofa, for example. Yet there is an interesting contrast in the book between those who separated because of money, and those who have come together despite it, even if those who transcend money do not truly transcend it. And the subtext that money makes the world go round – money causes separation, which causes poor choices, which causes situational conflicts between characters, which causes a look to someone of less money – is ironic and exploited to great effect.

The story is average – it is the message that is to be taken away; the warnings for those who dream without considering the reality, the alerts to the fact that some people are not genuine or will move on if their pretentious needs are not met. These messages are presented in books often, so it is Fitzgerald’s writing that makes the book one of those you ought to read.

On many levels it’s the fact that it’s anything but great that makes The Great Gatsby worthy of your time.

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