Less is Lost, by Andrew Sean Greer.

 

            It is an infinite pleasure to welcome back Arthur Less, hapless hero of ‘Less’, Andrew Sean Greer’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.  He hasn’t changed much;  he’s still a minor American novelist;  he’s still shy and blushes easily, confidence a fleeting visitor in his life and work, but!  He is still with his great love, Freddie Palu, living in the tiny house of his famous poet ex-lover (recently deceased) in San Francisco – but.

            For a number of obscure reasons, Arthur is unsure of Freddie’s devotion, especially as Freddie, a high school teacher, has removed himself to Maine on a three-month sabbatical, taking a university course in narrative form.  Arthur plans to join Freddie as soon as possible, and make a start on his next novel.  It’s no fun living alone in their hilly little eyrie, and having to attend the ex’s last rites with the ex’s widow Marian who, after years of hating him for stealing her husband, now relies on him to be her emotional and physical support at the great man’s funeral.  Life is full of ironies, big and small.  And bombshells delivered by Marian, in the shape of monies owed by Less for the aforesaid Eyrie – for which he has paid no rent of any kind for at least ten years – and a time limit of one month in which he has to find the money ‘so that the will can be probated, then the Eyrie will be his’.  When the news is relayed to Freddie, he is aghast:  how can someone never think to question whether he owes rent?  ‘The subject never came up,’ says Arthur uncomfortably.  Even he sees that this is taking trust too far.

Strong action must be taken:  no trip to Maine to see outraged Freddie – he must go on the Southern speaking tour and the PrizeGiving Committee that his agent has commanded he attend, and oversee in Savannah the turning into a musical (!) of one of his short stories about his boyhood:  if he slogs his way through this Southern Odyssey, he will have earned enough to clear the debt.

And here Mr Greer has a wonderful time – and so do we! -  with Arthur’s adventures in his borrowed van which, the farther South he travels, seem to call for ever more U.S. flags and bumper stickers (he even wears a cap and grows – not very well – a beard), but never seems able to disguise his gayness, for he is always asked ‘are you Dutch?’  But faint heart never won Fair Freddie, and Less, fired by love, has the stoutest heart of all.  His quest is laugh-out-loud funny, and Greer’s wonderful facility with language is a perpetual pleasure, for Less will always be more than the sum of his parts.  FIVE STARS.    

  

 

The Axeman’s Carnival, by Catherine Chidgey.

 

            ‘The Axeman’s Carnival’ tells a story which may be all too familiar to some:  marital violence perpetrated for distressingly common reasons:  a livelihood going down the tubes;  jealousy;  loss of control (‘I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!  It’ll never happen again!’) when the guilty one has had ‘a skinful’, and a gradual build-up of resentment and rage so that each destructive episode repeats itself sooner or later in varying degrees of cruelty.

            Catherine Chidgey doesn’t spare the reader as she describes the lives of Rob and Marnie who farm sheep on a high country station in Otago.  Rob’s family have owned the farm for generations, but it is losing money steadily, regardless of Rob’s 24/7 efforts to keep it afloat – no wonder he loses control and hits the missus sometimes when he’s had a few;  she has no idea the pressure he’s under!  Women are pretty clueless all round, really, and look what she’s done – brought home a bloody magpie that’s fallen out of its nest:  it’s just a hatchling, it’ll never survive (it certainly won’t if Rob’s got anything to do with it!) and she should be out working instead of teaching it words.  Bloody women!  Just because she lost a baby last year she’s gone all clucky.  It wasn’t really a baby anyway, and Rob couldn’t help punching her – not his fault she had a miscarriage!

            Poor, anxious Marnie manages to stand firm, however, in her determination to keep her little Magpie whom she baptises Tama, short for Tamagotchi, but also Maori for boy or son, and Tama, who narrates this beautiful, terrible story is well aware of the poisonous atmosphere in that creaky, rotting old farmhouse, of the nine golden axes hanging above the marital bed, and Rob’s overwhelming desire to win a tenth at the next Axeman’s Carnival, sealing his reputation as the best Axeman ever.

            Ironically, Tama’s facility for language – he can imitate perfectly every human word with ease – earns him a huge following on Twitter, thanks to Marnie thinking he would look cute in a selfie or two;  in fact he becomes, thanks to his internet following and eventual clever marketing, the saviour of the family finances.  Rob will have to eat his words and curb his impulses.  But can he, especially with his jealousy running rampant and a skinful consumed at the Axeman’s Carnival?

            Ms Chidgey has excelled herself:  in beautiful, lyrical language she tells a savage story of Man the Wrecker against the Environment, elemental and capricious, always battling each other.  Who will win, and at what cost?  And what happens to Rob, Marnie and the unbelievably intelligent and hilarious Tama?  There’s only one way to find out – be the happy captive of this mighty story.  SIX STARS.

What's Tops for 2022?

 

WHAT’S TOPS FOR 2022! 

(Even though we have started 2023).  Late again, BUT!  Better late than never, so there.  I have read some wonderful stories this year, and here are the really super-stand-out titles (in no particular order) that thrilled me to the marrow in 2022 – and we’ll all have to admit that there wasn’t much else about the year just gone that was uplifting, heartwarming and optimistic, except the marvelous escapism of great fiction.  Let’s get started:
 

The Hungry and the Fat, byTimur Vermes

 

Never, by Ken Follett

 

Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen

 

We Are Not Like Them, by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

 

Greta and Valdin, by Rebecca K. Riley (NZ fiction)

 

City of Ice, by Brian Klingborg

 

The Fish, by Lloyd Jones (NZ fiction)

 

Harbouring, by Jenny Pattrick (NZ fiction)

 

Legendborn, by Tracy Deonn  (Young Adults)

 

Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes

 

Vine Street, by Dominic Nolan

 

Managing Expectations, by Minnie Driver  (Non-fiction)

 

City on Fire, by Don Winslow

 

These Days, by Lucy Caldwell

 Have a safe and healthy 2023, everyone, and happy, happy reading!  

 

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver.

 

            Demon Copperhead is the nickname of narrator Damon Fields, child of a young man who died before Damon’s’ birth, and a girl who was too young for motherhood and entirely without family of any kind to support her.  Alcohol became her crutch.  He also has the misfortune to be born in Appalachia, ‘hill-billy’ country, one of the poorest, most exploited parts of the States bordering the Mason-Dixon Line, where Mining is the only work on offer and those offering it have complete power – over everyone.  In short, the Great American Dream is a nightmare for the ordinary folk Damon grows up with.

            But!  He is best friends with Maggot, his name for Matthew Peggot, who lives next door, and Maggot’s family has taken him to their hearts, which is just as well for, though she loves him, Damon’s mum cannot be relied on, especially when she goes on a bender;  then the boot is usually on the other foot:  Damon becomes, of necessity, a care-giver from a very early age.  Which is not to say that he’s any more deprived than any other of his schoolmates;  everyone puddles along, various parents in rehab of some kind, depending on their addictions – until twin tragedies occur:  opioids in the shape of oxycodone and fentanyl make their first appearances, and Damon’s mum meets her fate in the shape of Stoner, a fast guy with a motorcycle, a steady, well-paying job – and a loathing for Damon. 

            It is patently clear that this is not a marriage made in heaven.  In short order Damon is made an orphan and  abandoned to the inept local welfare system where he is subjected to the whims and vagaries of people who have applied to foster him, but only want the monthly allowance the State pays them to ‘look after’ him.  At the age of ten, he has become just a number, living in squalor and worked into the ground at one place, and barely fed in another.  This part of Damon’s narrative is purposely reminiscent of Dickens’s David Copperfield, for Ms Kingsolver wants it known that not a lot has changed between modern-day Appalachia and British Victorian times, just the anaesthesia that people use (including, eventually, Damon) to block out heart-ache, sadness and hunger for increasingly shorter periods.

            Ms Kingsolver was born, raised and lives in Appalachia, and there is no writer more uniquely and superbly qualified to write Damon’s powerful story, which is both a tribute to the country’s beauty and an elegy to its cruel mismanagement.  In God We Trust means nothing where Money is the only God.  Having said that, let us thank whatever deity gave us the pleasure of Ms Kingsolver’s singular literary voice:  how lucky we are to hear it.  SIX STARS.