Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

 

What a year to win the Booker Prize?! To be forever linked in people’s memory with a global pandemic – and guess what? The winner totally suits the mood of 2020 – tentative hope mixed with chronic despair. My father, who has been following along on this Booker journey over the years, despite his dedication to reading them all rather waning in recent times, actually bought this book (because it’s set in Scotland apparently). He read it before me and described it as an “emotional roller-coaster” - so I was duly forewarned. However, I found it less an emotional roller-coaster and more a trudging ride through misery on a grimy bus that kept breaking down. The story centres on the chaotic maelstrom surrounding the alcohol-dependence of Shuggie’s mother Agnes and therefore as you can probably imagine, ends up being a bleak read.

Stuart’s descriptions of the various settings in this book are grim and evoke a soul-destroying sense of place and grinding poverty. With full awareness of my own privileged upbringing, I struggled to picture the hellish descriptions of the closed and polluted Pithead and what my imagination conjured up was so repulsive and abhorrent to me that I desperately wanted to remove everyone from the situation. Stuart also did a brilliant job of not turning the characters into caricatures of good vs. bad or right vs. wrong; as the book’s major success is conveying the huge complexity of humans’ responses to the circumstances and relationships in which they find themselves. This inspires a huge level of empathy from the reader for the characters in this story and I hope that it goes some way to dispel a lot of the stigma and shame that exists around addiction. Perhaps the key to the vivid descriptions and nuanced characters is how this book is based on the author’s own early life, giving authenticity to the storytelling. It also leads to me having a huge amount of respect for him being able to write about these traumatic events and yet more empathy for what he endured.

The story is equal parts heart-wrenching and heart-breaking and while reading I sunk into a feeling of hopelessness that cast a mood that stretched out beyond the time I spent within the pages of this book. The book is soaked in realism, and the thought of people experiencing what occurs in this book every day is difficult to comprehend, especially a child, and all the more so as he had the added burden of being tormented for being different to contend with. The lonely isolation of all the older characters walled up in their various defences against the realities of life contrasted so harshly with the vulnerability of this young child – his softness and tenderness - as he sought the love and care that he so desperately needed and, as a result, was very hard to read.

It feels appropriate that this book won the prize in 2020 as I hope that it can act as a warning against the pandemic worsening an already difficult situation for those living in poverty. This book graphically and emotionally describes the impact of a lack of resources; desperately reducing options and choices available to make things better and the wide-reaching damage of the various harmful coping strategies that just make the whole situation worse. Although it was hard to read, it’s an incredibly important perspective that deserves to be heard and shared. As I’ve often discussed before on this blog – reading is a vital way to increase people’s empathy and understanding of people’s lives and inner world that lie beyond our direct experience and, as ever, the Booker is doing a good job of promoting these books to a wider audience.

Milkman by Anna Burns

 

Catching up with the Bookers has been long overdue, mainly as a result of waiting for them to become available from the library, all the more difficult given the events since 2020 and the Covid pandemic. I took the opportunity to dive into my own bookshelves and re-read some books especially during lockdown, something I rarely do as I feel as though there are so many new books out there waiting to be read and explored.

What I’ve particularly enjoyed about these last few books, is reading stories from women’s (and non-gender conforming, may there be more!) perspectives. With ‘Milkman’ comes an immersive and often oppressive depiction of living as a young woman in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. Once again, the style of the writing is particularly distinctive and effective at creating an intense experience, with stream of consciousness taken to an extreme. Analysing the style of writing, reminds me of school during English Literature lessons where we were taught to attempt to interpret particular words or choices made by the writer – I would sometimes get frustrated with the nebulous nature of the reflections and think, well maybe that’s just how it ended up, no great intention, just how the words fell on the page! And I still think that might be the case sometimes. But in books like ‘Milkman’ and often with the Bookers, I find myself sensing an atmosphere while reading, not through the narrative being described necessarily but through the stylistic choices of the writer. Where initially I was surprised by the lack of paragraphs and chapter breaks, I came to see that this was purposeful; where the character didn’t get a break from her inner thoughts, feelings and presence of the overbearing community around her, neither did the reader. The ever watching eyes of judgement and control from the collective and especially male gaze, reinforced and policed by the female grapevine was reflected in the structure of the book.

Where interconnectedness was celebrated in ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, Anna Burns emphasises the claustrophobia of a close-knit society, with the drama of the story coming from the setting during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and gossip. The power of hearsay generates the narrative of the novel, with truth not seeming to matter and judgements with serious consequences and punishments being metered out on the basis of rumour. Distrust is ingrained into all the characters leading to conformity to ensure safety and protection from any vulnerabilities that would arise from authenticity or individuality or going outside of bounds. Although the novel is embedded in the setting of Northern Ireland, it has an element of universality in terms of who is believed in cases of sexual harassment and how a young woman’s life is curtailed by the decisions and behaviour of a man. Burns brilliantly builds the elements of fear and control, ratcheting the destructive effect of this stranger on the protagonist’s life and the resultant powerlessness that is so sinister because it’s so realistic and pervasive.

I really appreciated the approach taken by the writer to construct this window into a young woman’s experience and take some bold decisions in terms of the structure and not naming any of the characters – suggesting that their actual names were unimportant; just their role and relationship to the other characters, emphasising the lack of individuality enjoyed by any of them. I felt that the story lost it’s way right at the end when exploring the mother’s experience, which was interesting but less engaging, as it lacked the immediacy and impact of the rest of the writing. But still, this comes highly recommended and I look forward to more diversity of perspectives in future books, as looking back over the years of the Booker there has been a dominance of male writers and so more balance would be welcome.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

 

I’ve already mentioned that this novel by Bernadine Evaristo was a joint winner with ‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood, and this highlighted to me how difficult it must be to pick a winner from the Shortlisted books because to have got to that stage means that each book is of particularly good quality. I think that’s what I love most about reading the Bookers is the opportunity to read such brilliant books that are exceptional, and that have the ability to enlighten and enhance my life.

I started by listening to this book in audio format, but managed to get hold of a physical copy from the library and so switched to that. And as a result I realised that audiobooks don’t always capture all there is to a book as in the case of ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ which is written in an unconventional format without usual punctuation, paragraphs and other constraints of conventional prose. Nearly each chapter is written from the perspective of a different person; mainly women, mainly black and from different generations. I loved how the characters intersected and the time shifts allowed for a great depth of story-telling, through diversity rather than a deep dive into one protagonist’s perspective. It felt so refreshing, especially with the form of the writing, with a clarity similar to poetry in its conciseness and edited insights.

The different perspectives in turn each gave layers of revelation and explored different avenues about characters that challenged the views represented by another character’s perspective. This gave such a richness to the lives represented and reinforced how we’re only ever seeing our own version of events and people. I particularly liked the diversity represented in the characters, all kinds of women including someone who identified as non-binary. I didn’t realise how much my Booker reading experience was missing out on this breadth of expression.

Inherent in this style of writing, was sometimes a sense of wanting to stay longer in a particular character’s world, or come back to it, like in ‘The Testaments’ when the story rotated through three characters. But being left with a sense of wanting more was somehow appropriate within the writing style; succinct and purposeful writing with a clarity that could have got lost in a more wordy format. Each chapter was a brief interlude from one’s own life and experience, dipping into an incomplete representation of another person’s life, and it was a joy to read.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This book signified a first for this blog and my Booker reading experience; I listened to it as an audiobook. And it is only the second time a joint winner of the Booker was awarded (the previous time was in 1974 when the prize was shared between Nadine Gordimer ‘The Conservationist’ and Stanley Middleton ‘Holiday’). ‘The Testaments’ shared the 2019 prize with Bernadine Evaristo ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. More on that later.

Prior to listening to this book I listened to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to which ‘The Testaments’ is a sequel. I think it was definitely a prerequisite, as without the first book, which introduces the characters and describes the dystopian world of Gilead, the sequel would not have made much sense. Which reminds me, I still need to go back and do the same for Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy, having only read the final installment ‘The Ghost Road’ which won the Booker in 1995. And less enthusiastically, I should probably read the final book in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy ‘The Mirror and the Light’, but definitely won’t be completing the trilogy that starts with ‘The Famished Road’ by Ben Okri.

The audiobook of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was read by Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Offred in the television series that has been developed and ‘The Testaments’ audiobook was also read by a actor from the TV show, Ann Dowd and two others. I hadn’t watched any of the television show, but was vaguely aware of some of the aesthetics from trailers and so this informed my imagination as I listened, especially with the voices of the actors. I think this supported the already thorough and expansive descriptions by Margaret Atwood; to convey a complete and absorbing alternative reality, that swept me up and engaged me through both books.

Listening to an audiobook is definitely a different experience of ‘reading’ and one that doesn’t come naturally to me, despite it often being easier to listen to something rather than physically read when my chronic illness flares up and I have limited energy. Some books work better than others, as I will discuss in a later review, but the narrative drive of ‘The Testaments’ meant that it was just as good as reading it for myself. It’s difficult not to review both books really as they are equally good and are integral to each other. I can see why ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ left readers and fans wanting more, although they had to wait 33 years! Atwood is so clever to use the extreme setting of Gilead to describe conditions that shock, repel and outrage readers, leading to condemnation of these ‘fictional’ circumstances which then expertly forces readers to reflect on real-life occurrences.

It is interesting to see Margaret Atwood win the Booker for a second time (only J.M. Coetzee and Hilary Mantel have also managed this feat) and I wonder whether this fed into the decision to award joint winners. The two winners are very different in their approach although both are incredibly ambitious in the scope of their writing in distinct ways. ‘The Testaments’ has fewer protagonists who explain the extensive altered reality to the reader, while ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ has breadth and depth through the number and diversity of perspectives but is based in the real world – although as the multi-perspective approach highlights – this world is experienced differently and explores multiple truths. But actually it’s not totally necessary to compare and contrast the two books just because they were joint winners, they both deserve to be considered in their own right.

‘The Testaments’ builds a convincing situation for the story and depicts each of the characters so well, leading to a huge investment in their plights. There is intrigue and deception and an underlying sense of unease that pervades the whole novel, underpinned and overseen by the hugely sinister system. The complicated nature of good and bad is explored especially in regards to the Aunt Lydia character and also how, to survive, some people will carry out atrocities. There is also examination of what it means to grow up unthinkingly within such oppressive systems and what it takes to recognise and challenge authority given those conditions.

It has so much to trigger in terms of reflections about surveillance, patriarchal systems, power and dominance, what outside forces can do to help, societal control, ideologies and resistance. And overall Gilead is horrifying because it’s so extreme and yet especially because it has so many parallels to aspects of life now. And it’s all the cleverer to wrap up all these ethical, moral and philosophical questions in a well-written and well-paced plot. I came away from listening with huge respect for what Atwood has created and for its cultural reach, as often, these almost covert attempts to highlight crucial issues in our own society, can be the most powerful as they can trigger debate on a broader scale. As ever, reading (or listening!) and then with cross-overs to TV or film, has the ability to increase empathy by immersing people in the experience of another, those who may or may not have thought about such issues before, which will hopefully raise critical and compassionate thinking and action and have positive effects in the world.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

This book was a real challenge for me in many ways. First of all, the subject matter – given away quite obviously from the title – involved many killings (far more than seven, spoiler alert!) and extreme violence including rape. Secondly, the intermittent use of the Jamaican dialect style of writing to depict some of the characters’ internal dialogue, made it quite difficult to read – although even this wasn’t sufficient to obscure the extreme subject matter. Additionally, there were the added challenges of numerous characters (which I find less of a problem as I just tend to assume that if the character is significant they will become familiar through the course of the book) and the nature of the storytelling from multiple viewpoints, each character generally nursing various grudges and attempting to execute various hidden agendas.

As ever, with reading the Booker, one can’t fault the quality of the writing and the ambition of the writer. In fact, managing to successfully repulse a reader takes some skill as it involves vividly conveying occurrences. This book definitely managed to convey a sense of immediacy, however, this resulted in me withdrawing from caring about the characters (which perhaps draws a parallel with the hardening of many of the characters that occurs when exposed to constant violence from a young age) but also meant I withdrew from caring about the narrative. This book challenged my willpower regarding my policy of always finishing a book after starting, as I was tempted to stop reading as I disliked it so much. In fact, it was only because I’d persevered with other Bookers that I didn’t enjoy, that I couldn’t justify stopping this time. And so I set myself a daily page goal of 68 pages and plodded on day by day.

The book did introduce me to a time and place in history about which I knew very little as the story explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley (referred to as ‘The Singer’) and its political context of Jamaica and the role played by the CIA in that area of the world. The story also covers the 1980s crack wars in New York City and also jumps to the 1990s for the last part. I think that although the same characters recur, the scope of novel was too great and encompassed too much to be particularly effective. However, I’m not sure whether I came to that conclusion mainly because I didn’t enjoy the subject matter with its graphic violence and swearing. I make a point of avoiding violence in films and TV as I find it disturbing. However, clearly I acknowledge that there are many people living in numerous places in the world, such as those depicted in this book, who do not have this privilege of choosing to avoid violence and are forced to choose between killing or being killed.

I also think that this book made me reflect on the use of written dialects and reminded me of ‘How Late It Was, How Late’ the 1994 winner which was written in the Glaswegian vernacular and equally challenging. It is no doubt a point of debate and contention as clearly these differences occur and are inherent in the culture of the place where a novel is set. However, it does make it very difficult to read, follow and understand what is happening when one isn’t familiar with the dialect and has no cues of body language etc that one might have if visiting the place in person and interacting with those local. There is clearly much that can be lost in translation from one language to another and therefore it is not always possible to convey the true sense or meaning of the character, but then this is also lost if a reader cannot understand what is being said/written. I’m not sure what the solution to this issue is, or whether there even needs to be a solution, but it is always interesting to reflect on such aspects in the course of writing these reviews and it would be great to hear other views and perspectives on this topic.

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

Ever since this book won the Booker Prize in 2017 I have been confused by its title and had to look up the meaning of ‘bardo’ - which apparently is a term to describe the transitional state between life and death in Tibetan tradition. But I couldn’t understand what that had to do with Lincoln! So, the novel is grounded in the historical newspaper reporting of President Lincoln visiting the body of his deceased son while it was temporarily placed in a crypt in Georgetown. The death of his young son occurred in 1862 during the American Civil War and it touches on its historical context, although this is far from historical fiction, more a flight of fancy triggered by a fact.

I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, being unfamiliar with Saunders previous writing – which, as ever, is the joy of reading the Bookers! I flicked through the hardback copy I had got from the library and was very confused by the structure of the text – sometimes just a word or a sentence separated by recurring names in centred text. Bizarre. After starting reading I realised that the name represented who was ‘speaking’ or from whose viewpoint the account originated. In other chapters, text was divided by short references to texts – with no way of knowing whether these were authentic quotes from factual accounts or stories – especially since they often contradicted each other in their observations. Although unconventional in style with these gaps between text, it was easy to get the hang of reading the pages and it conveyed an immediacy and propulsion through the course of the story. Moreover, it cleverly emphasised the subjective nature of different narratives that is often forgotten in the quest for ‘truth’ especially in historical contexts where the most dominant voices or agendas tend to persistent over time.

The novel is mainly set in the ‘bardo’, featuring the characters of ghosts from graves within the cemetery, who don’t or won’t acknowledge that they are ghosts. They are lingering on Earth for a number of reasons and the main narrative is scattered by these mini short stories of their previous lives. The structure is chaotic and yet is coherent enough to convey great emotions such as the grief experienced by Lincoln for his child. Through this unusual style of writing, it encourages the reader to suspend disbelief and I was transported along into this unworldly existence with a huge varieties of characters surrounding a very touching portrayal of a grieving father, who also happens to be President during a pivotal period of history.

I like this idea of being struck by an occurrence that actually happened and then using fiction to flesh out a story which then leads to poignant reflection on what it means to be alive, exploring death and grief. It was all a bit random with surreal descriptions transitioning between realities and varying individual and merging perspectives. Apparently occurring during the course of one night, its scope was expansive in terms of spanning broader time-frames and exploring wide-ranging issues. And yet somehow despite all this seeming madness - it worked and I found myself caught up in its wild flow. This book was hugely creative and imaginative, while also being emotionally affecting and thought-provoking through its story-telling. It also triggered an almost meta-realisation that part of being alive is celebrating and exploring the creative world through unconventional writers such as Saunders – and acted as a reminder to me that this project of reading the Bookers is an important one as it encourages me to keep an open mind and to embrace the unfamiliar.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

My reading of the 2016 Booker winner is rather overdue mainly because I have been patiently waiting for the copy in my local library to become available. Of note, this winner was Paul Beatty who is an American, and won the first year that the Booker prize allowed entries from any book written in English published in the UK and Ireland. This is considered controversial by many but I think it does make sense to me, as before the geographical limitations seemed slightly arbitrary.

So I think I should probably start this review with a disclaimer: I am not a fan of satire as I find it difficult to laugh about challenging subjects no matter how skillfully explored. ‘The Sellout’ is a satire and the book cover is plastered with reviews about how hilarious it is with people apparently laughing out loud at its brilliance. Well, suffice to say I did not laugh and I didn’t find it amusing. In fact I sometimes struggled to make sense of it. I didn’t get many of the references. Now this may well be because I am not American, and crucially I am not African-American, and therefore, I may have missed the cultural contexts. Also, I approach topics about race and racism with respect and some trepidation as I am aware as a white person that I come from a privileged perspective. I think it is important to listen to the voices affected by these issues with an open mind, to learn and understand their experience. So for me, this is what made this satirical approach so difficult to process.

Saying that, it was bold and distinctive in its style and it did introduce me to a part of the world that I don’t know much about, as most of my experience of America is through mainstream media. As highlighted in this book, this leads to an incomplete view of the people in the US and so it was a welcome insight. The premise is surprising if not shocking, a black man being questioned by the Supreme Court for ‘owning’ a slave and instigating the introduction of reverse-segregation in his home-town. It’s a very provoking basis for a book and lead to a number of interesting reflections about modern society. Also, I found the references to Psychology interesting especially because I am embarking upon a career in this area. Although clearly the application of the various techniques to raising a child (the protagonist) was very troubling.

So I suppose that if this book’s purpose was to make people feel uncomfortable and challenge their stereotyped views about race and society then it was a success. However, overall I felt that it did so in a muddling kind of a way. I came away from it thinking that it was an interesting approach but how it slightly missed the mark for me, but then maybe that’s satire – and I just don’t get it.