Anglophiles - this is for you!

A month or so ago, I was lucky enough to get an advance copy at a much-anticipated book through Shelf Awareness. Random House and Indie Next List sponsored the giveaway last fall. The book was The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson who wrote the much-loved Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.  Her new book will be available to the rest of you in March. 

If you liked Major Pettigrew, you will thoroughly enjoy The Summer Before the War. Simonson paints a vivid picture of life in East Sussex England just before (and during) World War I.  As main character Beatrice arrives at the start of the novel as the new Latin teacher at the local school, we immediately fall in love with this forward thinking and independent young woman. The other characters in the village are just as clearly drawn as we read on and get involved as the villagers band together in the war effort. Simonson’s humor and insight make this novel a very enjoyable read. If you like Downton Abbey and Major Pettigrew, you will thoroughly enjoy this book!

Obsessed with Jackson Brodie

I've been on vacation for the last month. Actually I've been on vacation with Jackson Brodie the last month. Forget my family trip to the beach and my dear friends I see annually at Montreat; I've been in England and Scotland with Jackson Brodie, the "hero" in Kate Atkinson's "detective" novels. As you read in my last post, I discovered Kate Atkinson in her latest book, Life After Life. That award-winning novel was part romance, part historical fiction, part mystery and prompted me to find Atkinson's earlier books and devour them! I think many others have had the same urge -- I visited one of my favorite bookstores, Sun Dog Books, in Seaside, Florida and most of her books were sold out. I did manage to find Case Histories and One Good Turn which started my affair with Jackson Brodie, the brooding, imperfect star of the four books Atkinson has published since 2004.

I think I fell in love with Brodie when I learned of his taste in music -- Lucinda Williams, Nancy Griffith, Iris Dement -- all my favorite melancholy country/folk singers. Brodie's a type of anti-hero, with many faults and negative feelings, but he always manages to do the right thing, in spite of himself.  He's a tough, brooding guy on the outside, with a tender heart on the inside. I'm currently on my last of Aktinson's four Brodie novels, Started Early, Took My Dog, and I'm going to be bereft when I finish this book.  But researching my man Brodie for this post, I discovered there is a BBC series based on the novels. The only thing is I don't really want to see a flesh and blood Brodie, I prefer the man in my imagination. Atkinson cleverly gives no physical descriptions of her characters, she prefers to describe them by characteristics. Her characters come to vivid life without physical descriptions. Atkinson is a clever writer using plot twists and turns and humor to create an unforgettable story. You can bet that I will stay on vacation with Jackson Brodie as long as I can!

Getting a Re-do in Life

I completed the novel Life After Life by Kate Atkinson last night and I can’t stop thinking about it. The world the author creates is a dangerous place. The seemingly comfortable middle class life in the English countryside in the first half of the twentieth century is deceptive. A life can quickly and unexpectedly end by umbilical cord, beating, bombing, drowning, falling, and more. Death is ever present in life.

Although the story of Ursula Todd begins with her birth in 1910, the book is not chronological, and does not follow a sequence of events. It jumps from 1930 to 1910 to 1914, back to 1910, 1947, 1910, 1945, 1926, 1940 and so on. The author’s narrative device is telling and re-telling Ursula’s story through multiple outcomes to her life changing choices. The book is almost like one of those children’s chapter books where the reader chooses an ending from a number of choices. But it’s not exactly like that because Ursula has fragments of memories from other outcomes (or other lives?) in the same life. So the different outcomes and lives feel connected. The characters remain the same, but the endings change.

At one point in the book, Ursula’s beloved brother Teddy says, “What if we had a chance to do it [live our lives] again and again until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“I think it would be exhausting,” replies Ursula.

This book may sound exhausting with the repeated events, but that’s not all there is to the story.  The characterization of Ursula and her parents, brothers and sister really hold the book together, in my opinion. Their personalities remain the same through the different parts of the book. 

The book also mesmerizes because of the vividly drawn story of the London Blitz. The descriptions of life during the constant bombing of civilians were so real and horrifying that I felt like I lived through the Blitz myself.  

I can’t give away the “end” of the book, but Ursula attempts to change major events of the twentieth century for a better outcome for not just herself, but for her loved ones and society. This may sound kooky, but the book is deftly written and cleverly controlled. The story holds your attention even though the author goes back and tells the story of Ursula’s birth and other major events in her life over and over with different results. The effect is strongly compelling. As a reader, you are pulling for Ursula to get it right. I guarantee you will not want to put down this amazing book.  I will definitely read more by Kate Atkinson. She is a genius.