And prejudice.

Publisher: Sphere (Little, Brown)
Pages: 361
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-751-54027-7
First Published: 1994; re-printed and edited 2007
Date Reviewed: 7th March 2016
Rating: 3/5

Joscelin’s been a mercenary for years but when he gets in a fight with a man who accuses him of trying to carry off his wife, things start to change. The man, now dead, leaves a widow and child and they will need taking care of. And in the background is the conflict between Joscelin and his half-brothers – Joscelin is the child of his father’s other woman – and the fight between the king and his son.

Shields Of Pride is one of Chadwick’s earlier novels, recently reprinted, that deals with completely fictional characters. It’s a fair book but far outmatched by some of her others.

The history is as strong as always; Chadwick’s knack for throwing the reader back in time is just as good here as elsewhere. The details ensure an almost film-like, immersed quality, and the two main characters are stunning. Particularly Joscelin. Chadwick’s hero is fully medieval. Unlike some of her books wherein the hero is a historical dream, inevitably very similar to her other historical dream heroes, and sometimes a little too modern in sensibility, Joscelin is simply a medieval man. He’ll fight to the death, no holds barred and in anger, then kiss his wife who, similarly unaffected by any misplaced modernity, doesn’t comment on the fight and happily follows him to bed. If it feels like the book lacks any nicety, it’s for good reason.

Not so good is the plot. One could say there isn’t a plot, just a scene, a man who takes to wife the woman whose husband he killed, and their resulting average life together; indeed if that were it it would be fine – and it is for a good chunk of pages. What happens, then, is that the story begins to drag and continues to drag until the end. Unnecessary minor conflicts are conveniently added to, it can only be assumed, lengthen it. (The book would have made a lovely novella.) Fights happen then life happens then fight happens and rinse, repeat; you can see the conflicts coming a mile off. Each battle is meticulously detailed but as you know who is going to win you could skip them if you wanted to. It’s hard to say there’s a climax because the end of the book is a lot weaker than the middle.

Amongst this is the family set-up: Joscelin is the lauded, loved, out-of-wedlock oldest son whose father treats his wife and younger sons badly. The initial introduction works – you’re introduced to the hurt wife who had to live in the footsteps of the other woman (who lived with them) and the official heirs who are constantly criticised because their mother was married out of duty and isn’t loved. The thing here is that these people are rightly angry and it’s well established that they have reason, but as the book carries on they are written more and more as crazy bad guys who are too hateful and as much as one might agree that they shouldn’t blame the messenger for the faults of the sender it all becomes a bit too hubble bubble toil and trouble, and a bit too good versus evil. Add to this the young-skinny-woman and older-large-woman divide and the release date shows.

Where Shields Of Pride works, then, is in the afore-mentioned factual hero and the history. It works as a generally upbeat, escapist read, that doesn’t demand anything of you, but shouldn’t be picked instead of others.

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Taking ‘do as I say’ to the extreme.

Publisher: One (Pushkin Press)
Pages: 293
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-957-54885-5
First Published: 11th February 2015 (in translation); 26th February 2015
Date Reviewed: 3rd March 2016
Rating: 3.5/5

Together with his four elder brothers, Ben starts going to the river to fish, secretly, because the town views the previously-worshipped waters with suspicion. The boys are caught by a neighbour, whipped by their father, but the real trouble with creeping out alone is yet to come. One day the madman Abulu, considered religious by some, happens upon the brothers and tells them that one will kill another.

The Fishermen is a book that incorporates folklore, old customs, and 1990s Nigerian social and religious culture into its tale of tragedy. A literary venture, it takes its time on one particular element, bolstered by a background of politics, fundamental Christianity, and the kind of child discipline we now call too much.

Dealing with the writing style first because it’s the first thing to make its mark, Obioma favours a detailed, sometimes overly-wordy, almost studious style that nevertheless has the power to wow on occasion. He likes ‘big’ words, beautiful sentences, and his young narrator, Ben, is just the right side of well-spoken rather than appearing too old for his years. Obioma narrates in a way similar to the spoken narration you often find in Victorian adaptations, films – that slow, wistful narration most common to women. There’s an oral tradition feel to it, poetic, storyteller. It could certainly be called too much – it’s one of those styles you’ll likely either love or hate. Obioma is entirely unapologetic; he wants a well-written book, old fashioned – understandably more 90s than nowadays – and he will have one. (You do have to remember the setting when considering the style, the time and the place.)

It’s not completely well-written but whether that’s down to Obioma or the editing process is hard to say. Certainly the myriad uses of ‘in’ instead of ‘on’, of ‘on’ instead of ‘at’ and so on, are at odds with the rest of the text, suggesting an oversight or perhaps a slight discord between our literature professor and the publisher’s editors. Whatever the reason, the constant misuse is distracting and means keeping your mind on the story is difficult.

There is a disconnect of sorts between Ben and the reader; where Obioma is so focused on the way he writes his tale – the words, the genres, the background – Ben, his brothers and other family are not so detailed. They are detailed – they’re not one-dimensional at all – but there’s no pressing reason, no feeling of the need to care, which is a problem when the story involves a lot of tragedy. And it’s hard to get to grips with the family – the way the father metes out punishment, the mother quick to manipulate and throw her children under the proverbial bus, are perhaps more difficult to read than the author hoped.

Not much goes on in the book – this sounds too ironic to be true so I’ll explain: the book is a series of tragic events with some politics in the background, but not much beyond that. This isn’t a failing in itself, many books are similar, it just means that The Fishermen is more about the sum than the parts. The book is not as interesting to read as it is to contemplate after the fact, when you’re able to put everything together and see that Obioma’s goal has been to provide an overall meaning, a message, even.

Superstition or prophecy? Obioma presents the possibility of both and asks you to form your own conclusion. What was it that made things happen as they did and can and should religious ideas take precedent? Obioma looks at the psychological factors ruling his characters’ choices, the way one thing said by a person considered mad has a knock-on effect. And as much as the characters are Christian, the author shows that mythology and old ways can still creep into life, that we can move on to new ideas but those old ones will remain ingrained for a time.

A note on one of the tragedies – this book deals with under-age crime in a way that may make you uncomfortable. This is actually a reason to read it rather than not because it opens you to the situation and says more by its inclusion than Obioma could say without it – more than he could say just in words. It’s viewed through a similar lens as the rest of the book: it happens, whether it’s right or wrong is irrelevant here.

Overall, then, The Fishermen is a good book, but doesn’t quite keep the promise of the first pages. It does make for some interesting contemplation but the contemplation is fairly short-lived. Take it as a look at 90s Nigeria, its politics and its culture and society and you’ll be best off.

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She may not see you when you’re sleeping, but she knows when you’re awake.

Publisher: Doubleday (Random House)
Pages: 310
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-857-52231-3
First Published: 13th January 2015
Date Reviewed: 14th January 2016
Rating: 4.5/5

Every day Rachel takes the train to work and back home; she has a favourite house on the route whose occupants she’s made up life stories for. She gets used to their routine, seeing them in their garden most days that summer but one day the man stands alone and the news breaks that the woman has disappeared. Rachel had seen her with another man and it occurs to her that she might be able to help with the inquiries.

The Girl On The Train is a chilling psychological thriller with no reliable characters. Constantly compared to Gone Girl, there are some similarities but the atmosphere differs.

It’s the page-turner factor that stands out most in this respect. Whilst other thrillers make you want to speed through their pages, Hawkins’ book stays steady, a bit like a steadily moving train, ironically. You do want to keep reading because the execution is excellent, bar none, but there’s a subtlety to it, the feeling that you could put the book down, it’s just you don’t want to at present. You will finish the book quickly enough whilst feeling you were able to relax. Yes, for all grimness you’ll enjoy an even ride.

To this excellent execution then; this book is well-paced, well-plotted, and well-edited. In hindsight you can see that Hawkins gives the whodunnit away fairly early, in fact when you look back you can see the neon lights blazing above the person’s head. The reason you don’t see, straight away, who the criminal is is because of all the work Hawkins has put in to fleshing out the characters. She makes you sceptical of everyone – everyone is unreliable, in part because you come to feel they should be (that’s not to say they are in fact reliable, more that Hawkins messes your head up). The book feeds off a sort of reader prejudice, if you will, in which Hawkins plants an idea and lets you run with it. But of course you’re right to be sceptical – as much as this author-reader interaction is a game, it’s something that’s important. The nature of the situation requests that you learn how to identify who you’re looking for, to work out how to spot lies and manipulation.

Aside from their unreliability, none of the characters are particularly likeable. You’ll find yourself wondering if perhaps you should be sympathetic – and right at that time Hawkins comes in and messes with your head again. This is an author who is on the ball, who has thought of everything.

There obviously comes a time when you work it out but it’s not at the end. No, Hawkins keeps the book going for a good amount of time after this reveal, skirting the line between perfect length and too much, so you can get that bookish satisfaction. She keeps up a thin thread of mystery right until the end.

Rachel’s life is marred by her failed marriage. It’s marred by her childlessness, the depression this caused, the drinking it resulted in. The character’s unreliability is down in part to her inability to retain memories, due to drink and sometimes a sort of blanking out of the event. Is it convenient? Most certainly, but we wouldn’t have a book if she just knew everything. In this way, The Girl On The Train echoes Elizabeth Is Missing; both books feature heroines (anti-heroine in Hawkins’ case?) trying to solve puzzles they’ve forgotten the clues to. Rachel sports bruises she can’t remember getting, realising that’s par for the cause, but it makes her think nonetheless.

Through Rachel, because of her utter despair, Hawkins is able to delve into issues. She can have Rachel repeat things, which might be annoying but is understandable. Whilst unlikeable in a way you know is down to genre, Rachel comes across as real. Her issues are grounded in reality, and despite your uncertainty as to her role in the disappearance Hawkins urges you to empathise. This is a woman who needed help and didn’t get it, who has gone crazy from pain and instead of support has received scorn, at least from those she wants support from. She wears out those who care. Part of this whole thread, this subplot of sorts, relies on the ending and shows how easy it can be for someone to slip through the net. Whilst the emphasis is of course on the thriller aspect, Hawkins’ writing about what Rachel’s dealing with is important. The other characters, particularly the two other narrators are focused on, too, if for a lesser amount of time. In the case of issues this is largely a book about women but it’s not exclusive.

The writing itself is pleasant. It flows well, Hawkins makes good use of language and whilst it’s not going to be called literary fiction any time soon in terms of the text it’s not too far from it either.

The Girl On The Train isn’t going to wow everyone and it’s the sort of book that is ripe to disappoint if your expectations are too high. It’s best to go into it with a view to having a good reading time, to enjoy the journey an author can take you on. It isn’t Gone Girl and your feelings for that book won’t necessarily translate to this one whichever way you felt. Take this book as an individual and for what it is; hop aboard and take a seat.

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Racial divide? What’s that?

Publisher: Picador (Pan Macmillan)
Pages: 306
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-447-23713-6
First Published: 27th February 2014
Date Reviewed: 6th January 2016
Rating: 3/5

Boy, a girl, runs away from home, and the abuse from her father. She gets off the bus at the end of the line, moves through a few menial jobs, makes friends. The boy who loved her, who she loved, is forgotten as life takes her towards businessman Arturo and his reputedly perfect daughter, Snow.

Boy, Snow, Bird is based around three girls/women. There isn’t much plot – what little there is isn’t particularly compelling – this is a book written as a study. It’s not bad but beyond the study there’s little to cling to and the ending comes out of left field.

This study, then, forms the subtle backbone of the story. It’s great, full of the sorts of sentences that beg quotation for the meaning they provide because the handling is really very good. Oyeyemi hasn’t a unique viewpoint, but the way she’s written it is wonderful. To sum it up, the book is about race – divisions and broader social issues in the mid 20th century.

To speak of it in long form, the book is about the way this fictional group of black Americans – whose role in the story is to illustrate this particular angle – try to fit into the mostly white society. Strictly speaking, it’s about colour, for example you aren’t told until 1/3 of the way through that particular characters are black, showing the importance of the question, ‘does colour really matter?’ Now of course you may have viewed these characters as black anyway, the lack of detail at the beginning lets you imagine what you want to imagine – but being shown, suddenly, almost, that they are black is what Oyeyemi seems to have been aiming for, not in order to shock you (in case you’ve seen them as white people) but in a literary fiction shocking way, if that makes sense.

The family of Boy, Snow, Bird accomplish their desire to fit in by never acknowledging their colour. That the book is fictional, verging on magical realism, means that they are able to completely ignore their colour in a dismissive way (without actively being dismissive) that furthers the point without the need for the reader to suspend belief. A prime example of the way the family functions is in the scene wherein Boy is asked, by her black in-laws no less, if she slept with a coloured man to produce her mixed-raced daughter.

On the surface Boy, a white character, finds no shame in differences, and never mentions it beyond her discussions with her in-laws.

“Nice try, but I’m not going to stand here while a coloured woman tries to tell me that maybe I’m the one who’s coloured.”

Oyeyemi’s Boy is open, firm, no nonsense; rather than seeming at all superior, she causes Oyeyemi’s study to be more obvious. There is never any sense that Boy is higher or indeed lower because of her whiteness. Or is there? Why did Boy send away her beautiful step daughter?

The above said, you can likely see where ‘Snow’ comes in. Snow is not white but she’s the apple of her relatives’ eyes, a girl supposedly of lighter skin who everyone adores because of it. She fits into the white society, supposedly tricks white people into thinking she’s like them – of course that she’s like them is Oyeyemi’s whole point so the book is a little meta. As says Boy:

Snow’s beauty is precious because it’s a trick. When whites look at her, they don’t get whatever fleeting, ugly impressions so many of us get when we see a coloured girl – we don’t see a coloured girl. The joke’s on us.

In addition to this basic premise, Oyeyemi takes a glance further back to the days of plantations and the differences between ‘house negros’ and the people who worked in the field, the hierarchy there.

Moving on from this subject, it must be said that Boy, Snow, Bird is no fairytale re-telling. Yes there is a beautiful girl called Snow, and yes her stepmother sends her away, and there are mirrors, but beyond that there is nothing. If you want to read an exceptional dialogue of race relations and fitting in, give this book a try, but if you’re looking for a retelling go elsewhere.

Mirrors in this book suggest beauty, look at beauty and identity. What Boy sees in the mirrors she’s obsessed with point to many issues she has and it is primarily here that the book shows the distinction between fantasy and magical realism. It’s a fair subject and an interesting look at both the outer world and the inner world – what one sees in themselves, what others see, and what can cloud perception.

Where Boy, Snow, Bird fails, then, is in the way it’s written. It’s not the words – Oyeyemi writes beautifully – it’s the execution. The addition of characters that don’t aid the plot. Letters when prose and actually meeting the characters would’ve been better. An ending that seems thrown in for good measure. A lack of detail and a general confusion, different to the planned racial confusion, and distance between reader and characters, make it difficult to lose yourself in the text and work out where the characters are, what time they’re in, what’s going on, and what the book is about. Unfortunately the question ‘what does this book want to be?’ can be applied here.

It’s hard to say why the ending was written. In the last few pages Oyeyemi starts up on a completely new issue that is interesting in itself but has no baring on the rest of the book – or at least it shouldn’t; Oyeyemi sort of jams it in. If it is an attempt to provide a reasoning for abuse it fails miserably because it’s not a very nice thing to use in comparisons, at least not in the way it’s been written. If it’s to try and show that the author hasn’t forgotten the set up, it really wasn’t needed here. And if it’s some sort of girls in it together idea it just falls flat. (This issue warrants the use of an extra genre tag but I’m not going to use it because the book does not do that tag and its readership any favours.)

If Boy, Snow, Bird had been a novella or short story, more focused, it would’ve been excellent. As it is although there’s much to like about it on a historical and intellectual level there’s just as much that isn’t so good and as such it’s difficult to fully recommend it. If there was ever a chapter book to dip into, this one is it.

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The modern British version of the American dream.

Publisher: Picador (Pan Macmillan)
Pages: 466
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-447-24164-5
First Published: 15th June 2015
Date Reviewed: 7th December 2015
Rating: 3/5

Ranjeev’s father is ill and despite his claims to the contrary, cannot work any more. The family, once fairly high up in society, find themselves nearing poverty. Avtar’s family is in need of money too, especially as his brother has to keep studying. Tochi’s family was killed in a gang war, their low caste status meaning they were hunted. The three men decide to take a risk and travel to England. Then there’s Narinder, the British Sikh who married Ranjeev because she felt called by God to help those in need. Britain may be said to offer better options, but as the men find, it’s not quite the opportunity they were led to believe.

The Year Of The Runaways is a long novel of job searches, spiritual searches, pain and suffering. It is more of a report than a story, the ending is a bit of a rush job, and it can be as arduous to read as the characters’ lives are to live.

There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of Punjabi in this novel. I’m not the best person to comment on this as I can speak a fair amount of Hindi (similar enough to Punjabi for me to have understood the majority of it) but anyone who knows only or less than how to say ‘hello’ in the language is going to be stumped, often. It’s an interesting situation because on the one hand it’s nice not to have a running translation commentary, which I think anyone could understand – those who speak the language don’t have to read everything twice and those who don’t speak the language don’t have to feel the language, being translated, is rendered pointless – but there is no glossary and only one or two translations for paragraphs of text. I would say that a small amount can be figured out from the English replies Sahota writes, but most cannot and you can’t always Google the words because everyone transliterates differently (I myself had many light bulb moments when I realised, for example, that ‘beita’ was ‘beta’ – an obvious example, but you see what I mean).

If you understand the language or are able to get past it, there is the general writing to consider. It’s mostly good but there’s some clunky phrasing and sudden uses of very colloquial terms in amongst the otherwise literary text.

As said, the book is a novel of job searches. Not much happens beyond the cycle of job search, fast food and construction work, losing the job, searching for another, getting harassed, and hiding from the authorities. Is it true to the real life situation? It would seem so, but it doesn’t make for a very good story when you’re talking over 450 pages and a non-ending. As far as the ending is concerned the story just suddenly stops, in the sense that you flip over the page to keep reading and find only a blank one, an epilogue tagged onto the end of the book, set a year or so into the future. The epilogue doesn’t fit the rest of the book and contains the most rose-tinted of rose-tinted scenes.

What is good in The Year Of The Runaways are the discussions of caste, wages, and treatment of the underclass – if we can call them that. The men find themselves at the mercy of others who share their ethnicity but have been in England most of if not their entire life, as well as at the mercy of each other. They are nobodies both figuratively and in the sense that they have no honest paperwork. They get less than minimum wage because of the catch-22 – they can’t complain because they’ll be deported and their employers can pay them as little as they want because it’s all under the radar.

Indian caste divisions apply to England – the low-caste Tochi, a chamaar (‘leatherworker’) is viewed as below the rest of the men even when he’s the one doing fairly well for himself and they are practically on the streets. This said, the man who is high-born doesn’t understand why that fact doesn’t have any sway in his treatment; he becomes the lowest of the lowest as far as living conditions are concerned. Throughout Sahota does not say anything, he lets his words, his stories, do the talking, and even then it is subtle. It’s a ‘take what you will’ method of storytelling and as such there are bound to be many views and interpretations as to what he is saying and what’s important. Sahota has said that his book owes a lot to those he’s met, the stories of NRIs in the UK.

In regards to Sahota’s fairly journalistic stance, it could be said that it doesn’t quite do what it ‘should’ be doing. You might expect a book about illegal immigration to show you there are reasons for it, that these people ought to be where they travel to and the residents of that country should welcome them. Sahota does this but only a little. Tochi, the chamaar, goes to England because his family have been killed, his auto-rickshaw has been destroyed, and he is being hunted because of his caste. His presence in England poses a question: shouldn’t he be a refugee? In many ways Tochi is the definition of the sort of immigrant host nations look for: he works hard and would surely look for a job for which workers were sorely needed if it weren’t for his status as an illegal. Sahota doesn’t look into refugees, the book doesn’t go into the process, but he is the character you are likely to remember most.

If you take away the issue of immigration and focus solely on the social issues, the book seems stronger. It has more going for it. The discussions of caste and money and religion, in a largely objective manner, are very detailed. Sahota shows both sides of the stories, for example, Narinder’s devotion that may look a bit much on occasion – certainly to those around her – but is built on true belief and love – and then her lessening belief as she sees the horrors in the world and cannot understand why God would bring so much misery. In this way you see that glimmer of a different viewpoint as she sees herself, a believer who can trust that god will help her fairly well-off self, contrasted with others who are not so lucky. The caste issues show that it can be easy to find help and help is available, but only if the classes match and that sometimes success, in this case financial, is of no matter – sometimes even no success is better than success.

In this way – the success or no success – Sahota also comments on the way people are sent abroad to help their families – not just the way it happens but the way one person is compelled to put themselves at risk and the way there’s no certainty. Considering the characters he writes we can assume he is making the point that sometimes it’s not needed, and it’s not that he’s saying it simply shouldn’t happen, it’s that he’s asking if all Randeep goes through, for example, is worth it. Is Randeep’s plight as a homeless man, is what Avtar goes through that requires urgent care, okay when placed against their family’s wishes to get to England, to have money? Now Sahota isn’t saying it isn’t, he isn’t saying that, no, this is not okay and it shouldn’t happen, because he’s included the other side, Tochi’s need to be in England – what the author is asking is that things be given more thought. And likely they are given a lot of thought, but Sahota is pressing the idea because of the tales he has come across. Like my analogy at the start of this review, he’s suggesting that the idea of going abroad isn’t what it seems, it’s not the gold mountain those who immigrated to America thought America would be… or at least that’s what the book says up until the ending.

To go back to the ‘should be doing’ debate and to look at that ending, the other characters besides Tochi are in that grey area. Randeep, high-born, is sent on a marriage visa so that he can get a good job and keep his family in the luxury they’re accustomed to. He is the one Sahota gives the most hardship to, once in England, but the ending (it’s difficult to call discussing it a spoiler) does kind of ruin it, leaving the character ultimately learning little or at least learning nothing that Sahota thinks important to impart. Narinder, Randeep’s visa wife, is the one who learns the most but it’s a bit too subtle and her section of the ending is strange. The other character, Avtar, who sells his kidney and gets a student visa, shows the desperation and a will to be himself and do well whilst trying to balance the hopes of his family. It’s the families that push their sons on, the sons living in dire straits whilst their relatives, by comparison, are wealthy. And then Randeep gets his planned divorce and brings his family over, Avtar gets the medical help he needs and throws college away for good, and there are no questions as to the horrors of the men’s lives whilst their families waited for them. Surely in real life something would be said, but Sahota’s ending is a dream world in which the men are suddenly in high-powered jobs with no telling of how they got there. Narinder and Randeep are free of their marriage but they applied for a divorce just days after a suspicious inspector visited which would’ve surely made the inspector even more suspicious. It is this gap in the narrative that would’ve made the book excellent had it been included – the drudgy of work and running is important but it’s not the be all end all of it.

To briefly sum it up, The Year Of The Runaways is okay but it’s not compelling enough for the length it is and requires a great amount of your attention due to its reliance on extreme subtlety. It’ll be your background book, so to speak, that one you’re reading alongside a slew of others.

I received this book at the Young Writer of the Year award blogger event.

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