Tag: Adam Mars-Jones

Box Hill- Adam Mars- Jones (2020)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, Rainbow Reads2 Comments

box hill

1975- A Bank Holiday weekend and Colin, the narrator, is spending his 18th birthday at Box Hill, near Leatherhead Surrey.  He’s got there on the back of his sister’s ex-boyfriend’s motorbike.  He has been taken out for the day because his mum is in hospital and he has had a row with his Dad.  Box Hill is a meeting place for leather- clad motorcyclists and whilst on a walk Colin trips over the feet of Ray and from that point on his life is changed.

This was a title I highlighted as one I wanted to read in my post which looked forward to 2020 publications (I’m doing rather well with these having now read 50%).  A copy I ordered from Waterstones went astray in the post and so I purchased it on Kindle.  (It was later returned to Waterstones who were very good at reimbursing me).  That did mean I missed out on the physical sensation of the classy blue-covered Fitzcarraldo edition (I had been wanting to read one of this independent publisher’s books for a while because there is something very impressive in their stark appearance).  This is obviously a publishing house who really wants the content of the book to do the talking.  If you are not sure what I am talking about have a look at their website to see what I mean. It is pushing this to call it a novel.  At 128 pages in the paperback edition it is no more than a novella which I read in a couple of sittings.

I’m not sure what I was expecting having never read Mars-Jones before but I was surprised how accessible this work was.  I think I was expecting it to be somewhat literary and impenetrable.  It is written in a highly endearing chatty style which looks back on the events of 1975 from a viewpoint of almost a quarter of a century.  The author has subtitled this “A Story Of Low Self-Esteem” and this is certainly the case as the narrator enters a relationship where he is certainly subservient and has little real knowledge about the life of his partner.  If this might seem far-fetched consider Colin’s youth leading him not knowing what to expect; the age difference between them and the 1975 setting where to live as a gay man was very different to how it is nowadays actually makes it chillingly plausible.

Colin is happy to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor by the side of his lover’s bed and never questions any actions or strange behaviours because he does not know any different.  This is a love story but to our modern eyes it is disturbing especially when  Colin becomes a mascot for the motorcycling group and wholly accepts behaviour which would nowadays be considered abusive but for him it is a great romance.

I really liked how this was written.  I liked the details which cause the narrator to step back from the past.  There’s lots of little asides- an incident with alcohol causes him to look back to childhood Christmases with his parents and their tipple of choice, advocaat.  So as their child is not left out he is given a glass but his is custard.  A small moment which I felt said a lot about this character.

I was never less than intrigued by this story.  My main quibble comes with the novella form.  I end up feeling slightly short-changed and here I would have liked the plot to be fleshed out into greater length.  There was certainly enough material here for this to have happened and especially as I was enjoying the writing so much.  Some of Adam Mars-Jones’ other fiction is quite substantial so now I feel I’ve dipped into his writing and been enthralled that I would benefit from exploring further.

four-star

Box Hill was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2020.

Looking Back….Looking Forward

On By philshanklinIn New Books, Uncategorized6 Comments

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, early on in the year I post ten titles that I am looking forward to being published and at the beginning of the next year I see how many I have read.  I’ve discovered that other things take priority and these titles often go on the back burner, my best score for this was in 2017 when I read four of the ten.  Let’s see how I got on this year.

The Library Book – Susan Orlean (Atlantic) – Read it and really enjoyed it.  Made it into the Top 10 of my Books Of 2019.

What Hell Is Not – Alessandro D’Avenia (Oneworld) – Some books seem to have a big pre-publication buzz and then you never actually come across them again.  This was certainly the case with this a translation of an Italian best-seller which I didn’t even encounter again during the year.

Out Of The Woods – Luke Turner (W&N) – I know this sounds petty but the publishers turned me down for a review copy of this via Netgalley which immediately puts my hackles up and made me decide not to bother with it.  So beware publishers!  This also happened this year with “Queenie” by Candice Carty-Williams and I’m still holding out from reading that one too.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf – Marlon James (Hamish Hamilton) – I keep picking this up in the library but it’s such a big book and I do struggle with fantasy that I’ve never got round to borrowing it, but I could very easily one day get round to reading it.

Zuleikha – Guzel Yahkina (Oneworld) – This is a debut that I think I have probably missed out on by not reading.

Narrow Land – Christine Dwyer-Hickey (Atlantic) – This was shortlisted in the An Post Irish Book Awards Eason novel of the year which was won by another of my Top 10 Book choices “Shadowplay” by Joseph O’ Connor.  I’ll still be looking out for this.

New Daughters Of Africa – Edited by Margaret Busby (Myriad) – I think I should try and read more anthologies in 2020 especially as I missed out on this in 2019.

Confessions Of Frannie Langton – Sara Collins (Viking) – Read it.  I enjoyed it and rated it a four star read.  There was good publicity for this book and I think it would have received very healthy sales for a debut.

Big Sky – Kate Atkinson (Doubleday) – I knew I would be taking on a bit challenge to get to this stage in the Jackson Brodie series having only read one and needing to read books in order.  I do have the first of this series “Case Histories” lined up as my next re-read so maybe I will get round to this one day.

The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead (Fleet) – Read it and rated it four stars.  Didn’t impress me quite as much as his terrific  “The Underground Railroad” as a novel but it is still a chilling, impressive read we are promised a tale of a 1960’s set novel of two black boys sent to a reform school, based on a hideous real-life institution which operated in Florida for over a century.

Well, three out of ten, that’s 10% better than last year and only 10% behind my all time best.

2019 had its highs and lows.  I’ve been promoted at work which might have a slight influence on how much time I have for reading and reviewsrevues.com.  I started the new job today.   The low certainly came on the very last day of the year when my lovely cat Tara, aged 11, was put to sleep after the vet discovered a large tumour in her intestines.  I feel that Tara has been a part of reviewsrevues as she has so often been by my side when I have been on the computer putting the reviews together and she features sat on my lap whilst I am reading in the photo on the introductory post.  I do have another cat, Archie, who is Tara’s son, who was obsessed with his mum and is just a little bewildered by her absence.  It was not a very nice way to round off 2019.

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Tara

But looking forward to 2020.  Here are the titles that I have highlighted that will be out in the coming months which hopefully I will get to read during the year:

Swimming In The Dark – Tomasz Jedrowski (Bloomsbury) Due 6th Feb. Written in English by a Polish author described as a major literary debut about the forbidden love between two young men on opposite sides of the political divide receiving much praise from Edmund White and Sebastian Barry.

Here We Are – Graham Swift (Scribner) Due 27th Feb. I’ve not read Booker winner Graham Swift before but I will be very tempted by his latest set in 1959 on Brighton Pier.  I like the idea of books set on piers, I was impressed by “Murmuration” by Robert Lock (2018) which featured a seaside pier in different points of time.  Here we are promised “a masterly piece of literary magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition.”

Actress – Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) Due 20th Feb- Another Booker Prize winner.  I’ve read and really enjoyed  this Irish author’s “The Green Road” (2015).  This, her 10th novel focuses on a mother/daughter relationship where the mother is a famous actress.  The blurb has completely won me over “Brilliantly capturing the glamour of post-war American and the shabbiness of 1970s Dublin, Actress is an intensely moving, disturbing novel about mothers and daughters and the men in the lives.  A scintillating examination of the corrosive nature of celebrity“.  This sounds just the sort of book that makes it into my end of year Top 10.

Animals Of Lockwood Manor – Jane Healey (Mantle) Due 5th March.  Another debut which sounds quirky enough to get me interested.  A World War 2 setting in a country house where a museum’s collection of mammals has to be stored for safe-keeping.  This is described as a “gripping and atmospheric tale of family madness, long-buried secrets and hidden desires.”

The Recovery Of Rose Gold – Stephanie Wrobel – (Michael Joseph) Due 5th March.  This is a debut with a big buzz around it from a US born author now living in the UK.  At its centre is Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy.  Some are predicting it will be the year’s biggest thriller and I’m determined to read it early on.

Box Hill – Adam Mars-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions) Due 18th March.  I’m surprised I’ve never read Adam Mars-Jones before but I feel that this his first novel in a decade will be a good place to start and at only 160 pages may be a good entry point.  In “Box Hill” we are promised “a sizzling, sometimes shocking, and strangely tragic love story between two men, set in the gay biker community of the late 1970s. ”

Thousand Moons – Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber) Due 19th March.  The sequel to Barry’s very impressive “Days Without End” (2006) which won both the Costa Novel and Book Of The Year award.  This puts the focus on the previous novel’s main protagonists’ adopted daughter set in nineteenth century Tennessee.  It is described as “a powerful, moving study of one woman’s journey, of her determination to write her own future, and of the enduring human capacity for love.”

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder) Due 31st March.  I still only have read one Maggie O’Farrell novel and that was “The Vanishing Act Of Esme Lennox” (2006)which was a five star read included in my 100 Essential Books thread and which ended up in my 2016 end of year Top 10.  Here she delves back to the late sixteenth century with this novel based on Shakespeare’s son.

Everyday Magic – Jess Kidd (Canongate) Due in June.  An author who is getting better with every publication and who found herself in my Top 10 this year for “Things In Jars” has decided to write her first children’s book in which according to The Guardian a young orphan discovers his aunts are witches.  Expect mystery, magic and perhaps the odd touch of the supernatural if her adult novels are anything to go by

Piranesi – Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) Due in September.  Struck big with the stunning “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” but that was sixteen years ago.  I may even have time for a re-read of that modern classic before embarking on what is described as “a new otherworldly fantasy”.