2011/04: The Deadly Space Between -- Patricia Duncker

... the parameters of my world had become fluid and unstable. I had always been solitary, self-contained and independent. But I had been held in place by Isobel. We were like mercury in the porch thermometer; one rose and fell in balance with the other. (p. 150)

Toby Hawke is eighteen, friendless, completely alienated from teachers and classmates: he's been raised by his unmarried mother Isobel -- Iso for short -- who's only fifteen years older than him. (They're often mistaken for siblings.) Iso's estranged from her parents, but remains close to her formidable Aunt Luce and Luce's partner Liberty. Toby, mature in some respects but barely post-adolescent in others, has no father and no father-figure: his relationship with his mother is close, intimate, and when she introduces a new suitor -- the mysterious German scientist Roehm -- Toby's world view ... well, I'm fairly sure that amid the many snow- and ice-related metaphors and similes that colour this novel, there's one about shaking a snowglobe. That's what happens to Toby's world, not least because Roehm almost seems to be courting him -- perhaps as a way to Iso's heart. Toby finds Roehm fascinating, and the feeling seems mutual.

But Roehm remains mysterious. How does he know the layout of their kitchen without ever having been there before? How did he manage to buy perfect Christmas presents for people he'd never met? (How, for that matter, did he get Toby's password-protected files off his old computer and onto the new laptop that was Roehm's gift to Toby?) Why has Toby never seen him in daylight? (The answer to this last is not what you might be thinking.)

Toby's new laptop holds the key: there's a URL he doesn't recognise in his Favourites folder, and when he visits the site he discovers, or experiences, something that precipitates a crisis. After this point, the novel gains momentum like an avalanche, plunging headlong to a surreal denouement.

The Deadly Space Between is dense with allusion and motifs that, with each beat (each metaphor, reference, image) reinforce the claustrophobic and chilling ambience. There are references to Freud and Hamlet, to Weber's supernatural opera Die Freischutz, to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to Prospero Alpini and a work he never wrote. (It's not, as some reviewers seem to believe, an attempt to rework or reimagine any of the above.) Duncker's pacing is enviable: all the necessary information is there, but Toby doesn't recognise it and so nor do we.

There are some unsettling scenes in this novel. They are intentionally unsettling: I'm quite appalled at the readers who seem to think they're meant to be sexy or racy.

2011/03: Transition -- Iain Banks

How dare they do this to me? I had never been violent! Never! Had I? Of course, obviously, yes, ha, I had been extremely violent in my earlier life as a famously inventive ultra-assassin, but that was a long time and far far away and in another set of bodies entirely. (p.309)

I've got halfway through this novel several times, so finishing it felt like an accomplishment. I honestly don't know what made me stall: it's fun, pacy and often thought-provoking. It is also, despite the lack of author's middle initial -- at least in the UK edition -- very definitely science fiction.

There are multiple narrative voices, although not as many as you might think. Patient 8262 is an inmate in what seems to be a mental asylum: he isn't fluent in the local language, and spends much of his time reflecting on his past. The Philosopher reflects on his past as a torturer (first amateur, then professional). Madame d'Ortolan is the de facto head of The Concern (a.k.a. L'Expedience) whose purpose, according to the party line, is 'to make the many worlds better'. Mrs Mulverhill is a renegade Concern operative who's uncovered what she believes to be a massive conspiracy that will change everything. Adrian Cubbish is a London wideboy, a City fixer who got out of the coke trade and into hedge funds while the getting was good. And the Transitionary, effectively the protagonist of the novel, is an OCD ninja body-swapping multiverse-surfing assassin and occasional 'imp of the benign', intervening in the lives of the unAware (those who are ignorant of the multiple realities) for good or, usually, ill.

Not all the characters are likeable. In fact, they're all unlikeable to a greater or lesser extent. The Transitionary is not the only character with a misogynist mindset. It's not always clear who (if anyone) holds the moral high ground. Conversely, it's pretty obvious that the opening sentence could be spoken by any of the narrative voices:

Apparently I am what is known as an Unreliable Narrator, though of course if you believe everything you're told you deserve whatever you get. (p. 1)

At its heart Transition is a story about whether the means justify the end. There's a discussion of whether torture can ever be morally right. (When it saves lives? When it unlocks a mental barrier in the subject? When the victim is unaware?) There's a parallel thread concerning how power corrupts, especially when there's no consequence for misuse. (Dictatorships, limited companies, withholding knowledge for the greater good).

I'm not wholly convinced by the ending, which has a deus ex machina feel to it. There are a couple of other points in the novel where I felt a key piece of information had been deliberately withheld (that restriction on the minds a Transitionary can enter, for instance): and there are plot elements that seemed to be left unresolved (the attack in the asylum; Mrs M's eyes). And the whole conspiracy seems ... not exactly inconsequential, but rickety. Transition, though, is a sprawling novel with multiple threads and a non-linear structure, so it's not impossible that a rereading would knit the story together more firmly in my mind.

Reading this, I was reminded of two classic short stories: Connie Willis's 'And Come From Miles Around' and Robert Silverberg's 'Passengers'. The former seems a template for the film that a character's trying to pitch; the latter could be an examination of the sleazy underside of the Transitionary's uber-cool world-walking.

2011/02: Died on a Rainy Sunday -- Joan Aiken

The evenings were too short to abolish the McGregors' atmosphere in the house; even when she rolled into bed, dog-tired, she still felt it all about her. It was as if they were gradually taking over psychic occupation, and had left their elemental presences behind them to keep guard, watching and despising. (p.43)

Jane Drummond has just moved with her husband Graham and her two small children (Caroline, four; Donald, less than a year old) to a heavily-mortgaged house in the quiet Kent village of Culveden. Graham has a cavalier attitude to bills, and Jane's increasingly panicked by the final demands. Then, out of the blue, a former employer offers her some work. This will fix their financial problems, but what about the children?

Graham, who's been networking in the village, recommends Tim McGregor (for the gardening) and his wife Myfanwy. Jane finds herself increasingly uneasy about the pair: she suspects Mrs McGregor of cruelty, and wishes Mr McGregor would mend the fence between the garden and the weir. And Graham is behaving more suspiciously than ever ...

I'm fond of Aiken's psychological crime novels, and though Died on a Rainy Sunday is short and somewhat predictable, it has admirable atmosphere: the claustrophobic feel of an English village during a rainy summer is horribly familiar. Jane takes the children for a bus ride on a Sunday because that's the only entertainment. The village post office -- yes, this is a dated novel, published and firmly rooted in the early Seventies -- is a hotbed of gossip. Jane is sensible and independent enough to consider divorce; she's a bit of a snob, though frankly the McGregors would bring out the elitist in anyone; she's also very vulnerable, and knows it.

A quick, entertaining read: Aiken's not a showy writer but she displays a great deal of insight into human nature.

2011/01: Offshore -- Penelope Fitzgerald

The barge-dwellers, creatures of neither firm land nor water, would have liked to be more respectable than they were. They aspired towards the Chelsea shore, where, in the early 1960s, many thousands lived with sensible aspirations and adequate amounts of money. But a certain failure, distressing to themselves, to be like other people, caused them to sink back, with so much else that drifted or was washed up, into the mud moorings of the great tideway. (p.10)

Offshore examines, askance, the lives of a ragtag assortment of people living on barges and houseboats in the shadow of Battersea Power Station. It's 1961 and, on land, Swinging London is just kicking off. Tilda and Martha (six and twelve years of age) mudlark for de Morgan tiles to fuel their Elvis habit. Their mother, Nenna, waits for her husband to see sense and abandon his Stoke Newington bedsit to join them on the Grace.

When Nenna can't sleep, she sits up with Maurice (whose income derives from picking up men in the local pub, and possibly from selling on some of the stolen goods left on his boat by the nefarious Henry) and they put the world to rights. Richard, the closest to a leader that the boat-owners have, is ex-Navy and determined to keep things shipshape: Although he tried hard to do so, Richard could never see how anyone could live without things in working order (p.18). His wife Laura is not content with life on the rolling Thames. Once-successful marine artist Willis would just like to patch over the leaks long enough to sell his boat and live ashore with his sister.

But Nenna and her precocious daughters are the focal point of the novel. How does Nenna make ends meet? What will become of Tilda and Martha if the nuns don't stop praying for them? (The nuns' prayers are presently a bone of contention.) Will Edward return to his family? What, exactly, is the nature of his arrangement with his housemates in Stoke Newington? (I think this is alluded to, subtly and quietly, in the final scene.)

Offshore is a very funny, and quietly profound, novel -- novella, perhaps; it's under 50,000 words -- and though the ending feels abrupt, it settles after reading into a strange equilibrium. The boatowners are not precisely Bohemian, but they've turned their backs, one way or another, on shore life. Even Nenna's cat, Stripey -- who can only prey on rats below a certain size: the larger ones chase her -- is a quintessential ship's cat: in every way appropriate to the Reach. She habitually moved in a kind of nautical crawl, with her stomach close to the deck, as though close-furled and ready for dirty weather (p.29). Everyone's adrift, everyone's reaching for a lifeline, and a storm is coming.

My parents met in a similar community, at a similar time, just upriver at Strand-on-the-Green. It's strange how much of the novel seemed familiar to me from their anecdotes.

2010/85: The Amethyst Child -- Sarah Singleton

"I shall tell you what Amethyst children are like ... and you tell me if this matches up. First of all, they feel out of place. They see the world in a different way to ordinary people and they are so acutely aware of the problems we face they want to be part of changing it. They are creative people who have difficulty fitting in with anyone else and they have different aspirations. They don't like conforming ... they have psychic and spiritual powers ..." (p.34-5)

Amber is a teenage girl with Goth tendencies and a long, dull summer ahead of her. Then she meets Dowdie, an unconventional girl from a commune who challenges her nice middle-class assumptions and beliefs, says that Amber's different from the others (instant win!) and introduces her to charismatic James Renault, leader of the commune. James confirms that Amber is an Amethyst Child, 'part of a new wave of consciousness ... chosen to incarnate in these difficult times because they will lead us into a new era' (p. 54).

Amber is hooked: yet her natural caution (she bemoans her lack of bravery and aversion to risks) prevents her from becoming fully immersed in the world that Dowdie, James and the rest of the community are inviting her to share. She's also distracted by another new friend, Johnny, who has a DeviantArt account and creates artwork of Amber that reveals another side of her she didn't expect.

Despite the packaging, this isn't a dark fantasy: it's a gritty real-world story about trust, friendship and betrayal, with elements that could be read as fantastic or simply as delusional. The main narrative is framed and interrupted by an account of a police interview, which keeps the reader guessing as to what's gone wrong.

Singleton's writing is lovely and lyrical, and she sketches Amber deftly, avoiding stereotype whilst making it clear that she isn't quite as unique as she'd like to be. Johnny is fascinating and will make an excellent romantic hero when he grows up a bit. And Dowdie, perhaps the most rounded and individual character, is rough-edged and not always likeable. All three characters experience significant change: what's considerably rarer is that their parents, families et cetera are also changed by the events of the novel.

2010/84: The Crossing Places -- Elly Griffiths

"Marshland is very important in prehistory ... It's a kind of symbolic landscape. We think that it was important because it's a link between the land and the sea, or between life and death."
Nelson snorts. "Come again?" (p.24)

First in the Ruth Galloway series of archaeological whodunnits. I discovered this quite by chance: Anne and I went to the Bodies in the Bookstore event at Waterstones, back in the summer, where we paid £5 each to hang out with authors and drink decent Chardonnay. We also got goodie-bags: this was in Anne's, and I nabbed it because I like marshes, prehistory and the Norfolk coast.

Dr Ruth Galloway is a successful academic, single at nearly forty, living alone with two cats on the edge of the north Norfolk saltmarsh. She's called in by brusque, no-nonsense Northerner DC Harry Nelson to examine a body that's been found in the marsh. Nelson hopes that it's the body of Lucy Downey, missing for ten years, whose case he's still obsessed with. Ruth disillusions him: the remains are those of an Iron Age sacrifice.

But as Ruth gets drawn into the Downey case -- and another local child, four-year-old Scarlett Henderson, goes missing -- she begins to discover a web of lies, deceit and bad behaviour that seems to be centred on her mentor and hero, dashing Scandinavian archaeologist Erik Andersen. What really happened at the henge excavation ten years ago? What's happening out on the marsh now?

There are anonymous letters with a distinctly mythological tone; there's a druid, Cathbad (not his real name); there's the student who died in prison after (possibly) being framed by the police for a murder; there's a gruesome corpse on the doorstep, some fascinating observations on Iron and Bronze Age archaeology (though I'm unable to find any corroborative evidence for ancient North American timber being discovered on the Norfolk coast). Despite some irritations -- Ruth's obsession with her weight, though she's not what I'd term obese; DC Nelson's improbable ignorance of carbon 14 dating; the fact that the whole book's written in the present tense, a form I don't find as appealing at novel-length as I do in short stories -- The Crossing Places really gripped me, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

NB Not all single people are (a) sad and lonely (b) psychotic.

2010/83: The Mermaid Chair -- Sue Monk Kidd

We sat in a globe of light, the smell of burning everywhere, and no one considered how a fire blazing right there beside the water might affect a woman for whom fire and water meant nothing but tragedy and death, a woman who could not look seawater in the face, who'd boarded up her fireplace. We were blinded by nostalgia for the woman she'd been before all of that. It makes me weep now to think how hard Mother must have been trying that night. (p. 243)

Jessie is forty-two, happily married but restless now that her daughter has gone to college. She has spent over thirty years blaming herself for the death of her father, killed instantly when a spark from the pipe she'd bought him ignited the fuel line on his boat.

Turns out her mother Nelle has also been blaming herself for Jessie's father's death -- and perhaps with more reason. Now madness seems to be creeping up on Nelle, despite the concern and care of the monks for whom she cooks. Now Nelle has cut off her own finger. Jessie, summoned to Egret Island -- the small island off the Carolina coast where she grew up -- has to deal not only with her mother's secret fear and guilt but also with her own.

The story's mostly told from Jessie's point of view but there are passages in other viewpoints: Brother Thomas, the monk to whom Jessie is drawn and with whom she explores the peaceful solitude of the marsh; Hugh, Jessie's husband, a successful psychiatrist who finds recourse in his professional skills. These add to the narrative, especially Brother Thomas -- whose voice gradually becomes that of Whit, the person he was before he was a monk.

The Mermaid Chair explores infidelity, despair, crisis of faith, mental illness and death: it also examines how a happy life may become a claustrophobic one, and how the limits of that life can be pushed at. Kidd's portrayal of island life -- the small community, the beauty of the natural world, the restrictions of geography -- is at once mirror and contrast to the emotional arc of the story: mirror because claustrophobic, contrast because Jessie's inner despair (or possibly just desperation) finds solace in the friends she left behind and the slow easy rhythms of life on Egret Island. And by the end of the novel she's made a commitment to the most important person in her life: herself.

This novel receives a lot of praise from readers who've hit a similar point in their own lives. I wonder how many of them find solace in the blunt reality of acceptance:
I had come to the irreducible thing, just as I had with my father, and there was nothing to do but accept, to learn to accept, to lie down every night and accept. (p.315)