Tag: Debut novels

Trespasses – Louise Kennedy (2022)

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As I was reading this it was announced that Louise Kennedy has made the shortlist for the 2023 Women’s Fiction Prize alongside Jacqueline Crooks whose “Fire Rush” I have already read and rated five stars.  On the evidence of these two books this particular judging panel seem to know how to spot a gem.  I think this novel is outstanding and a serious contender for my Book Of The Year (yes, I know it’s only May!)

It caught my attention when it won Novel Of The Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards beating Donal Ryan, whose book I’d loved.  It was also a title which popped up when I was “Looking Around” at what other bloggers had loved at the end of 2022 and Cathy at 746 Books and Karen at Booker Talk and my friend Louise’s recommendations were enough to push this up my To Be Read List.

Set in Northern Ireland in 1974 it is ostensibly a tale of a problematic relationship between a Catholic Primary School teacher who works part-time in her family’s pub and a customer, an older Protestant barrister.  But it is so much more as with a lot of attention to domestic detail the author humanises a world which seemed so alien to those of us who were around then watching the horrors of daily news bulletins in the UK at the height of The Troubles.  As a child then it seemed impossible to me that life could go on as normal there through the barricades, searches, explosions and retaliations but Louise Kennedy brings this time to life.  I recall enough to know that this is subject matter that I would not actively seek out but the author has convinced me otherwise in skilfully recreating this time and location. 

Characterisation is great.  Main protagonist Cushla’s mother copes with the effects The Troubles have had on her family through alcohol and some wonderful one-liners.  Her class favourite, seven year old Danny is such a strong illustration of the resilience of children, her colleague Gerry is a valuable support and there’s a very scary parish priest.

Perhaps the hardest thing to come to terms with was what Cushla sees in barrister Michael Agnew and whether it is worth the trouble it will cause but the author does  not romanticise this attachment.  We see it in its warts-and-all reality but accept that Cushla is experiencing something different.

I felt my involvement which started off very strong deepened more and more as I progressed through this excellent book.  There really has been some exceptional writing coming out of Ireland the last decade or so and this, dealing with very difficult issues and a very difficult time in the country’s history is amongst the very best.

Trespasses was published in 2022 by Bloomsbury.

Small Joys – Elvin James Mensah (Scribner 2023)

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Wooh!, I wasn’t expecting this.  The blog has become awash with five star ratings- we have now had three on the trot and I am thrilled to be knocked for six by this unassuming debut, which I will certainly be promoting as one of the uplifting, feel-good novels of the year.

I know nothing about this author, other than he graduated from Bournemouth University and the indication from his Acknowledgements that there have been struggles with mental health.  Issues on self-worth, self-esteem, gay shame, depression, anxiety and the importance of support networks are central to this novel.  The most uplifting aspect is the notion of friendship, especially a bromance between two unlikely characters.  Harley Sekyere is a young, gay, black man who has found his university course on music journalism too much to cope with.  He is at a very low ebb when we meet him in his first-person narrative and is returning to a house-share in Kent where he has stayed before.   It is set around the time of the London bombings of 2005.  His unlikely friend is Muddy, a rugby-playing, bird-watching gem of a character, full of contradictions and challenges to all manners of stereotypes.  At its most basic this is a glass nearly empty meets a glass almost full scenario.  Muddy’s similar but less well-adjusted mate Finlay and girl friends Chelsea and Noria add to this network which allows Harley with his high-functioning depression to actually function.

It’s heart-warming, it’s funny but it also chilling, especially in aspects of race and sexuality which is handled so well.  At times it reminded me of Paul Mendez’s five-star debut “Rainbow Milk” (2020) and there is obviously a connection as I discovered after finishing this that Paul Mendez is narrating the audiobook.  Here, the scope is smaller, things feel more intense and contained and it works brilliantly because of this.  It is extremely uplifting but throughout it never loses its very brittle edge, as if things can turn suddenly.  These are characters who operate in the modern world and are totally convincing.  Occasionally behaviour is questionable but they have each other to provide balance and support.  As in Jacqueline Crooks’ five star debut “Fire Rush”, music plays an important part and the mid-noughties setting helps this whether it be Muddy’s love for the Gallagher brothers pitched against Harley’s fondness for female rap, to sing-alongs in the car or pub karaoke, music provides an uplift throughout.

Elvin James Mensah is not going to solve this country’s mental health crisis within one novel but Harley’s story provides a pathway which can certainly be seen as inspirational.  There is the odd moment where we momentarily move away for reflection and analysis but the author skilfully allows the characters and their dynamics to illustrate the points being made.  I came away from this novel appreciating a great reading experience and with the awareness that we all could do with a Muddy in our lives.

Small Joys is published by Scribner in the UK on 13th April 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Death Under A Little Sky – Stig Abell (Harper Collins 2023)

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Although I have never read either of Stig Abell’s non-fiction works and have seen him only briefly on TV I was actually quite excited to read his debut novel- a literary crime thriller.  Stig is without doubt a high achiever – a double first English degree from Cambridge led to him joining the Press Complaints Commission, which doesn’t seem the most natural route to the role of the managing editor of The Sun newspaper and from there he went on to become the editor of The Times Literary Supplement.  He has since been the Launch Director for Times Radio where he presents the Breakfast Show.  I was intrigued by this mixture of the literary and the mainstream – here is a man who is able to put his ideas across and he is equally at home with the academic as popular culture (he’s also quite easy on the eye) and here he is opting to write a novel within the crime genre because of his deep love of detective fiction.  Could this be where he falls flat on his face?  Not as far as I am concerned as this novel is very good indeed.

We meet main character Jake Jackson at the start of the novel getting out of a taxi in the middle of nowhere in an unspecified part of the English countryside.  He walks to a house he has inherited from an uncle where he intends to embrace a solitary, rural life, giving up his career in the police.  As much as it is a crime thriller this is a novel of escaping and of adapting to circumstances, all feeling rather relevant in this post-Covid 19 world.  Jack is going to wing it- he is happy to give up technology, has no transport and no real survival plan.  What he does have is his uncle’s impressive library of detective fiction which Jake believes initially will do.  I really like this man.

However, this is a crime novel and things will not stay quiet, even though for a considerable time the thriller aspect just simmers alongside Jake’s coming to grips with his new life but slowly the author ramps up the pressure and we get a highly satisfactory crime fiction set-up.

As you might expect it is well written and the grounding Jake has in police-work and detective fiction gives the novel a huge respect for the genre which elevates it onto a higher level.  Stig Abell knows exactly what he is doing here- his love and absorption of crime novels and his years of professional analysis of literary works is so evident and has resulted in this first-class example.  Is there anything this man does not excel in?

Death Under A Little Sky is published by Harper Collins on 13th April 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Arthur And Teddy Are Coming Out – Ryan Love (HQ 2023)

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This is a debut novel I’d highlighted at the start of the year in my “Looking Forward” post.  I was admittedly nervous as it is being promoted as “the feel-good novel of the year”, this means for me it could go either way with too high expectations leaving me disappointed.  I do think this description is just about appropriate and the author demonstrates good skills at keeping readers entertained with his first publication.

At the age of 79 Arthur has decided to come out to his family, wanting to live the time he has left as a gay man.  At the same time his 21 year old grandson Teddy is contemplating doing the same thing.  The strongest aspect throughout is this intergenerational bond, the obstacles posed by their new situation and their coming to terms with themselves and one another provide the best moments in the novel.  The woman between them, Arthur’s daughter and Teddy’s mother creates a significant number of these obstacles.  Her reaction to her father’s revelation pushes her son back into the closet.

In reality, nobody here has it that difficult, considering.  The London suburbs where Arthur lives seems surprisingly antiquated in its views and Teddy already has his life mapped out if only he will follow the plan set by his celebrated journalist mother.  In alternating narratives focusing on Arthur and Teddy we seem them coming to terms  with aspects of their lives and the focus is very much on what they expect to get out of things.  Arthur, although much older, seems the most optimistic.

The emphasis is on feel-good yet I felt it lacked slightly the laugh-out-loud set pieces which would really make it memorable and I would have liked a greater share of the limelight given to Arthur’s wife of many years, Madeleine. I know that this is not her story but I felt she needed a little rounding out as a character as she gave her husband a very easy ride.  She had had decades to come to terms with things but I felt even a scene depicting a conversation between her and Teddy’s mother where their responses were explored openly would have benefited both characters.

When a new character who has accepted his sexuality is introduced, the octogenarian Oscar, I had high hopes for some more riotous moments but he also felt ultimately under-developed which is a shame.

I did really like the tensions of potential office romance and the adage of “you’re never too old” which runs through Arthur’s story but is definitely the strength of the bond between Arthur and Teddy which will have readers praising this.  The title advertises the book well- you certainly know what you will be getting as a reader and if you are not prepared to be drawn into these characters’ worlds you are unlikely to have chosen to read it in the first place.  A good debut.

Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out is published in the UK by HQ on 13th April 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy. 

In Memoriam -Alice Winn (Viking 2023)

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There are some very strong debut novels which have already appeared in the first quarter of 2023- here’s another one.  I haven’t read that many World War I novels- I do have a little collection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry sitting on my shelves which I haven’t got around to.  I find it easy to put off reading about this time in history as it is so grim.  I was, however, intrigued by a strong publisher’s push and a description by Maggie O’Farrell of this as a “devastating love story between two young men on the Western Front.” I decided to grit my teeth and get on with what I suspected would be an emotional reading experience.

We first meet Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt as sixth formers at Preshute, a public boarding school, perusing the school paper which produces a Roll of Honour for those killed, wounded and missing in the early days of the war, a conflict which you know they are inevitably going to be drawn into.  To begin with they are somewhat glib and their relationship is both caring and detached, maintaining a public indifference which masks a longing for one another.  Already they are children acting the part of grown-ups but nothing like their need to function in a completely different way once they sign up.

The description of battles, of everyday life in the trenches, of the limited chances of survival is exceptionally strong.  The action at times becomes overpowering.  A prisoner of war sequence is written as gripping thriller.  These boys should be rabbits-in-the-headlights, it is extraordinary to read how they were forced to adapt to these horrendous new experiences.  Life at home is also conveyed well, the anger the young soldiers must have felt towards their parents’ generation bothered by petty trivial matters without any understanding of what is being endured.  The young women handing white feathers to those too young to enlist or on leave and not in uniform I found absolutely chilling.  From time to time as the war advances  further issues of the school newspaper’s Roll Of Honour makes for very sobering reading.

I’m not sure how I feel about the author embracing aspects of the First World War that have become so familiar they are in danger of losing their power- the class divisions in the trenches, war poets, the footballs -at one point I became nervous that she would use the WWI football anecdote everyone knows but she states in her historical note at the end that she thought this would be too much.  I wasn’t totally convinced by her portrayal of the relationship between Gaunt and Ellwood and this for me was a little more tricky.  I appreciate I’m looking at a same-sex relationship from a modern perspective but I felt a little more could have been made of the issues regarding these very young men, forced to operate in a horrific adult world and exploring their feelings and sexuality within this.  In the war scenes their youth came across so strongly, in the love scenes less so.  I just think the balance was slightly off-kilter with these characters which meant I did not feel their relationship came across as real as I had hoped.

Reading about this war it is hard to comprehend how Europe survived after this.  I imagine it was largely, hard to believe this in our modern world, was because it wasn’t spoken about.  My grandmother lost a brother at the Somme, I cannot remember her ever talking about him.  This is the reason why, even a century plus on, I think it is so important that we have writers of the calibre of Alice Winn who can so vividly bring this dreadful time to life.

In Memoriam will be published by Viking on 9th March 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Fire Rush – Jacqueline Crooks (Vintage 2023)

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This big buzz debut was one of the titles I featured as one of my potential highlights of the year.  Jacqueline Crooks has published short stories but this semi-autobiographical work is her first full-length novel.  It is also my first five star read of 2023.

This is a confident, lyrical, powerful work.  The author handles tonal change very well and is able, through an involving narrative, to sustain the pull of heritage, underwater imagery and the rhythms of the often undulating, often sparse dub instrumental versions of reggae music throughout a novel rich in plot and characterisation.

We start in 1978 in Norwood, a London suburb, with three girls, Yamaye, the narrator, Asase, prickly and sassy and Rumer, a white girl from the Irish travelling community who escape underground to dances in a church crypt, “a three-pin plug, charging ourselves to dub riddim, connecting through each other to the underground” whilst tensions with police, the use of stop and search laws and the men who hit on them on the dancefloor weave a potent web. 

A second section features Yamaye removed from her community, falling into a difficult lifestyle with restricted choices within a squat finding her expression in toasting over the rhythm tracks in a Bristol nightclub.  Circumstances force her to Jamaica in a third part to search for her heritage and regain meaning to her life.  Each section feels different and yet there is a flowing overlap which feels like it could stifle the main character at any moment as she struggles to keep her head above water.  This phrase is apt as there is so much water within the images of this book from the calling from the Caribbean over the oceans, the lingering ghosts of slave ships and release from the enchainment of the seas all having a part to play.

There’s a great cast of characters, vividly drawn.  The language is rich and rooted in a Black British Caribbean which feels poetic and powerful and often mystical and elusive, acknowledging a sisterhood of many previous generations, occasionally keeping meaning at arm’s length but then pulling in for a warming hug.

I really enjoyed this- from the fyah of the fierce girls dancing in the damp, smokey club to the fire of the title, the spiritual energy from a much simpler Jamaican life, there is much growth and development which kept me involved throughout.  It is a very strong debut and Jacqueline Crooks deserves to make a significant impact with this.

Fire Rush will be published by Vintage/ Jonathan Cape in the UK on 2nd March 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Hide – Matthew Griffin (2016)

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This wasn’t really what I was expecting.  From the cover and from what I’d heard about this book I was anticipating a love story between two American men with a historical element which caused them to keep their love hidden within a tenderly written, possibly understated debut novel.

There wasn’t much of a historical element as this was old age breaking down the long-lasting relationship of Wendell and Frank in rural Virginia, two men who had rarely left the house they shared together in case people worked out their relationship.  When a health emergency hits Frank, Wendell claims he is his brother.

This is the tale of the deterioration of Frank’s health told in a first-person narrative by Wendell.  I can recognise the poignancy of these men and their hidden lives but I did have issues with the novel.  Firstly, it is without humour which, when the going is good made it a little dry and when things took a turn for the worse I was desperate for the author to introduce some lightness.  This is the second time I’ve thought this  recently, Andrew Holleran’s 2022 comeback novel “The Kingdom Of Sand” also featured the old age of gay men with the same relentlessly downbeat viewpoint.  Secondly, I felt their past needed more attention, we particularly learn very little about Wendell. I can understand this to a point as the title suggests, secrecy is paramount but it holds these characters at arm’s length.  Thirdly, Wendell is a taxidermist and we have some detailed accounts of his work which was really difficult reading for me, there was one section I had to scan rather than read and this is something I so rarely do. 

I toyed with a disappointed two star rating but then technically it works so well.  It is a well-crafted novel.  Matthew Griffin is a University Professor and graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and that proficiency shows.  There were quite a few moments when the present day was informed by the back story of the relationship explaining why they were reacting thus but I feel there was more opportunity to open up and give us more of these lives.  I’m sure this then would not have been the novel the author wanted to write but I personally think some more back-story on both individuals and their time together would have resonated with a wider audience and might have given a bit more balance to the air of despondency Griffin creates.

Hide was published by Bloomsbury in the UK in 2016.  I read the paperback edition from 2017.

The Toll House – Carly Reagon (Sphere 2022)

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As the nights draw in something creepy becomes an increasingly appealing reading choice and this debut novel might very well fit the bill.

In 1863 the cottage on the Old Turnpike Road, Stonebridge, was a working Toll House lived in by the keeper Joseph Walton and his pregnant wife Bella.  In the present day it becomes a new home for Kelda and her six-year-old son Dylan.  They chose the house out of financial necessity but from their initial viewing Kelda senses it needing her and confuses this with homeliness.  The house is, in fact, haunted and the past and present clash.  The nineteenth century is covered largely by a first-person present tense narrative by Walton with a third person narration for the present day.

It takes a while to move from gently unnerving to anything more chilling, and as in many ghost stories, it is the child, Dylan, who bears the brunt whilst Kelda cannot believe anything is seriously amiss despite increasing evidence to the contrary.  It does build nicely as both Kelda’s own past and the distant past of the Toll House come back to haunt her.  Her desire to live a life no more demanding than work, childcare and maybe meeting the perfect man on a dating app is certainly thwarted by the history of her house. 

The novel doesn’t add anything new to the haunted house genre and it was more subtly creepy than out and out chilling as far as I was concerned but plot and characterisation are handled well and there’s a solid sense of history throughout.  There are some good twists, especially towards the end.  This could very well be a popular choice for bookshop browsers in the month leading up to Halloween.

The Toll House is published by Sphere as a hardback and e-book on 6th October 2022.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Whale Tattoo- Jon Ransom (2022)

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This debut is published by The Muswell Press, an independent publishing house I’d not heard of before but a look at their catalogue shows they are putting out some very promising new material alongside fascinating Classic Crime list and a Queer Classics strand re-publishing out-of-print titles which deserve another airing.  So far so good!  They currently have a title “Scent” by Isabel Costello longlisted for the Polari Prize, the pre-eminent LGBTQ+ award and I can only think Ransom’s work must have been published after the cut-off date for 2022 as this would certainly seem to be worthy of consideration.

The novel hinges on a back-story event of a washed up whale on the Norfolk coast who Joe Gunner believes is an omen of further death which will haunt him.  I expected a ghostly, lyrical piece but this is a highly visceral read with lots of bodily fluids, copious amount of vomit and armpits and underpants which makes for a slightly uncomfortable highly sensory read (thank goodness a scratch and sniff version is not available!).  It’s dark, raw and relentlessly gritty as Joe returns home after a period of attempting to escape harsh realities.  One of the main sources of anguish, Tim Fysh, has married Dora yet wants to pick up with Joe where they left off.  It’s a tale of hurried encounters, of numbing lust, love and hate.  The river like the dying whale speaks to Joe taunting him for his return and his mistakes.

Its simmering power will continue to haunt me for some time although I would have relished a little more lightness.  Some plot turns surprised me and considering it is peopled with characters that were not always easy to care for I found myself driven to find out what would happen to them and the portrayal of this unsympathetic environment had a very hypnotic pull making this an impressive, unflinching debut.

The Whale Tattoo was published in paperback by Muswell Press on 3rd February 2022.

Isaac And The Egg- Bobby Palmer (Headline Review 2022)

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Not too deeply within me lurks a bibliotherapist.  I strongly believe in the importance of fiction in mental health and its ability to support and heal- when a carefully chosen text connects with the reader at the right time.  I have done the odd course on this and it is something I may wish to pursue further in the future.  I think its most potent power works subconsciously and positive change can be brought about in implicit connections between the text and the reader.  The thing that makes this a knotty area is just like with the development of a reader where it is never the same books that propel the fledging reader into a life-long bookaholic so not every book with the potential to heal would work with each individual.

It was with an open mind that I approached this debut which has a strong pre-publication buzz.  I just know that in future months there will be people saying how much this book has helped them, the issue of grief is central and here it is turned into a very commercial read.  But, as I said above, I don’t think everyone who begins this book would get as much out of it but it is certainly worth giving it a go.

Newly widowed Isaac has reached his lowest point when he encounters a creature in the woods.  “The Egg” felt like one of those Furby toys in my mind, the author likens it to an abominable snowman painted on a hard-boiled egg by a child.  The Egg is taken home and over time helps Isaac begin to cope with the total collapse of his life. There is a mystery which builds up which kept this reader going when the shenanigans between Man and Egg begin to grate (which they occasionally did and which may be the point where readers give up).

There are references which we will be aware of which the author is right to make explicit, especially so to “ET”, when scenes feel reminiscent the author cannily acknowledges this.  Links to popular films are used as a device here as Isaac and Egg spend much time watching these.

I do feel (and I am acknowledging the bad pun here ) that at times the author has over-egged his tale and you might not look at beans on toast the same way again but these tragi-slapstick moments do give it a very filmic quality which suggests a film/tv adaptation wouldn’t be out of the question.  The writing is lively and of a good quality which suggests Bobby Palmer is a writer to be reckoned with, and an attention-grabbing debut is a very shrewd introduction.  This is also a gift of a book for reading group discussions.  If this is the first time you have heard about this make a mental note as I think novel and author are about to make an impact.

Issac and The Egg is published by Headline Review on 18th August 2022 .  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.