Tag: Jess Kidd

The Haunting Season – Bridget Collins, Laura Purcell, Elizabeth Macneal, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Jess Kidd, Natasha Pulley, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Andrew Michael Hurley (2021)

On By philshanklinIn Short Story collections4 Comments

This creepy collection of eight short stories by the above listed authors first appeared in hardback in 2021 and has just been published in paperback in time for Halloween.  In fact, it is equally well suited to the winter months with a number of stories being set around Christmas with quite a bit of snow on the ground in the mainly Victorian settings.

I decided to read this because of this selection of authors.  I have only read books by two of them but the other six have certainly been on my radar and this proved a good way to try their writing out.  Both of the two I have read, Imogen Hermes Gowar and Jess Kidd have produced five star novels as far as I am concerned.

The time settings are explicitly Victorian apart from Andrew Michael Hurley’s tale which is modern.  They all have a Gothic/Classic Ghost Story feel.  I don’t think any of them would keep you awake at night, the creepiness is more atmospheric than horror.

Although I loved the idea of this book I can be sniffy regarding the short story format.  I’ve never really got to grips as to why this is but I rarely feel totally satisfied.  I suspect it is because what I like about reading fiction- the development of characters over time, multiple plot strands and the feeling of being on a journey with the author cannot be fully realised in the short story format.

These authors are ideal for such a collection as their writing style is not entirely dissimilar to one another.  All of them gave me some level of enjoyment and it is the story-telling and the actual plots that illuminated the strongest.  Best of the bunch, probably, not that surprisingly as it is the author I have read the most books by, is Jess Kidd with “Lily Wilt”, a tale of a Victorian photographer who falls in love with a corpse.  The author keeps it snappy (see what I did here…? Although the process of nineteenth century photography was hardly snappy) in short sections and writes with a relish and verve which is evident in her novels.  Runner-up could very well be Elizabeth Macneal’s dark Lyme-Regis set account of fossil-hunting where characterisation is strong and a wicked tale is spun.  Kiran Millwood Hargraves’ “Confinement” explores post-partum psychosis in a tale with echoes of the true crimes of baby killer Amelia Dyer very efficiently.  Andrew Michael Hurley’s tale is modern but reflects ancient traditions which reminded me I must get round to reading his breakthrough novel “The Loney”.  Natasha Pulley brings back her characters from “The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street” which would please existing fans and has urged me once again that I should read that novel.  New tenants in creepy houses forms the backbone of Bridget Collins and Imogen Hermes Gowar’s contributions and Laura Purcell uses supernatural elements in a satisfactory whodunnit in “The Chillingham Chair”.

This was a highly enjoyable read, even if it sometimes took me a while to get into each new tale but that’s more a reflection of me as a short-story reader than the writing.  I’m already excited that for 2023 we are being promised further stories with a Christmas theme from these eight contributors together with Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Susan Stokes-Chapman, Stuart Turton and Catriona Ward which could very well be a late 2023 highlight and gives me a chance until then to discover more of all these authors’ longer works.

The Haunting Season was published by Sphere in hardback in 2021.  I read the 2022 paperback edition.

The Night Ship- Jess Kidd (Canongate 2022)

On By philshanklinIn New BooksLeave a comment

I’m up to date with Jess Kidd’s four adult titles.  Two strong four star works, “Himself” (2016) and “The Hoarder” (2018) paved the way for her triumphant five star Victorian London-set work “Things In Jars” (2019) which ended up in my Top 10 Books Of The Year for 2019.  I also had the pleasure of interviewing her for Issue 90 of NB magazine when her debut was published so I was very pleased to receive this pre-publication copy of her latest.

We have a dual time setting, firstly the 1628 voyage of a Dutch boat, The Batavia, setting sail towards the place it was named after (now Jakarta) with young Mayken on board accompanied by her nursemaid Imke.  The ultimate destination is a father Mayken does not know, following the death of her mother.  Running alongside this is a strand from 1989 where Gil arrives at Beacon Island on the Australian West Coast to live with a grandfather he barely knows following the death of his mother.  These characters are mirrored beautifully in the early stages and it is not long before we discover Beacon Island is where the survivors of the Batavia shipwreck ended up.  Ghosts always have a part to play in Jess Kidd’s novels, here their influence is quite subtle with the echoes of the events of the past constantly just nudging the twentieth century Australians.  Both Mayken and Gil are great characters and both become touched by supernatural elements and the folklore of sea monsters.

Jess Kidd is using the real events and people of the ill-fated Batavia voyage.  What I really love about this author’s work is how the history sparks her into imaginative realms.  This was especially so in “Things In Jars” where the developments in medicine were seamlessly incorporated into a gripping mystery novel.   I think here her desire to follow the events of what actually happened as a tribute to those who perished in the seventeenth century have stopped this from taking flight in quite the same way.  The child’s imaginations of a sea monster being present for Mayken feels a little stodgy for Gil who comes across the story of the Bunyip in a discarded book.

These are minor gripes about what is, if not an Essential five star read like “Things In Jars”, a strong novel which shows how well Jess Kidd  is  developing  as a storyteller and historian.  This is my second favourite of her four novels and should continue to enhance her reputation as one of our most effervescent writers.

The Night Ship will be published by Canongate on 11th August 2022.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

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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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”.

Top 10 Books Of The Year – 2019- Part One (10-6)

On By philshanklinIn 100 Essential, Books, New Books, Uncategorized3 Comments

Even though we’re not quite at the end of the year I now know that I am unlikely to finish the book I am currently reading so it’s time to look back again to the 10 books which made the most impression on me during the year.  These are not necessarily published this year (just 3 out of the 10 were) if I read it this year then it was up for inclusion.  The total number of books I finished in 2019 is 56, which is down on previous years where I usually hit the mid to late 60’s mark, apart from the golden year of 2016 when I read 80.  I’m not sure why this figure is down so this year probably due to a change of commitments.  Out of those 56 nine of them I classed as five star reads which nicely fills up most of my Top 10 places, the spread of the other star ratings is 28 at 4*,15 3* and 4 at 2* (didn’t have any two star reads last year where the spread was (12/32/22)- I must have been feeling a bit stingier this year.

It does seem like quite a bit of my reading has been books which I missed out in 2018, obviously a bit of a vintage year as 50% of the titles were published then.  Gender wise the men have pushed ahead with a 60-40 split putting an end to last year’s perfect balance.  Nobody makes the list more than once this year and there are two authors who are no strangers to my end of year Top 10.  It does seem, however, and perhaps it is no surprise given the state of the world currently, that for much of 2018 I have been rooted in the past as all of the fiction choices are set in earlier times with a significant chunk (4) being set in the Victorian era or earlier.  Right, let’s get on with the list.  The full reviews for each title can be found be clicking on the link.

10. The Library Book -Susan Orlean (Atlantic 2019)  (Read and reviewed in August)

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My non-fiction pick of the year is this extremely memorable book which works both as a love letter towards libraries and their continued importance and as a true crime work where the author explores the fire which destroyed the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986.  It wasn’t just because I work in libraries that I found this work so inspirational although it was one of the reasons behind me applying for (and getting) a promotion.  Susan Orlean reinforces everything I believe about libraries although the systems in place in the UK seem decidedly impoverished compared to the USA.  I said “The book itself was inspired by Orlean’s memories of going to a public library with her mother when she was a child and them bonding over their piles of chosen books. This seems to me a valuable inspiration for a fascinating work.”

9.Things In Jars – Jess Kidd (Canongate 2019) (Read and reviewed in March)

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I’m up to date with Jess Kidd having read all three of her novels and this marks her first time in my end of year Top 10 with her best book yet.  This built on the supernatural elements which have been present in all her works yet with its nineteenth century setting it seemed to work better here than it has in the past.  I said of this “Here we have the Victorian love of the unusual and freakish and the developments in medicine which attracted the honourable and the disreputable sitting beautifully in with what becomes a gripping mystery peopled with characters about whom I wanted to know so much more.”

8. Bridge Of Clay – Markus Zusak (Doubleday 2018) (Read and reviewed in July)

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We had to wait years for it to arrive but Australian author Zusak manages to get his follow up publication to my 2008 Book of The Year, “The Book Thief” into my Top 10.  I would have thought that a publication from an author of a modern classic after a lengthy wait would have been a major literary event but it seemed to creep under the radar somewhat when it arrived in hardback last year and this year in paperback.  That made me initially a little anxious but I needn’t have been.  I said “Its chatty, scattered narrative actually masks the emotional depth of the content.  It was only looking back as I neared the end that I realised how much I knew about the characters’ lives and how involved I had become, a testament to a great novel.” I read a library copy and then had to go out and buy it to have it readily on hand for a re-read.

7.The House Of Impossible Beauties – Joseph Cassara (Oneworld 2018) (Read in July, reviewed in August)

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2018 was the year when the New York Drag Balls of the late 70’s and 80’s went mainstream in the UK thanks to TV series such as “Pose” and “Rupaul’s Drag Race” and at least a couple of novels of which this was the best.  In my review I compared it to what else was out there (as well as the documentary “Paris Is Burning”, available on Netflix, from where Cassara’s characterisations are developed) and concluded “Perhaps more than “Pose” it shows the struggles in terms of coping with discrimination, poverty, prostitution and mortality but like the television series it is all done with great humanity and compassion and more than a fair share of glitter.”

6. Take Nothing With You – Patrick Gale  (Tinder 2018) (Read in February, reviewed in March)

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This marks British author Patrick Gale’s fourth appearance in my end of year Top 10’s out of the nine books of his I have read which must mean that he has settled into being one of my most favourite authors.  Previous end of year positions have been 4th for “Facts Of Life” (1995) in 1996, 9th for “Rough Music” (2000) in 2001 and 6th for “A Perfectly Good Man” (2012) in 2013.  His latest matches this position and I can’t help but note that the books of his I really like I miss out on at the time and catch up with in the following year.  This has the most modern setting of any of the books on this year’s list with one narrative strand actually being set in the present (gulp!) with the main character contemplating his past whilst receiving treatment for cancer, but it was the past that Gale really drew me into with his story of Eustace, the young gifted cellist.  I said “I fell in love with the boy growing up in his parents’ old people’s home in Weston-Super-Mare in the 1970s with ambitions to be a musical great if only his mother and father and society will let him realise his dreams. It is haunting, nostalgic and sensitive and has all the qualities to make it an essential read.”

Find out the Top 5 in my next post.

100 Essential Books – Things In Jars – Jess Kidd (Canongate 2019)

On By philshanklinIn 100 Essential, Books, Uncategorized5 Comments

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I have read both of Jess Kidd’s previous novels and I was delighted to interview her for NB issue #90 following the publication of her debut. It was this book “Himself” (2016) that I expressed a slight preference for – a novel set in 1970s Ireland which absolutely fizzled throughout although both books have been very strong. “The Hoarder” (2018) had a modern West London setting and like its predecessor combined a good mystery with vibrant language, colourful characterisation and a supernatural element.

All of these factors are present in her third novel, with its setting always of particular interest to me, Victorian England, yet it is not just for this reason that I think that Jess Kidd has written her best novel to date and all that potential she has shown up until now has come into fruition with this hugely entertaining novel.

Like all of Kidd’s main characters to date Bridie Devine can see ghosts but here it’s just one, a half-naked ex-boxer she encounters in a churchyard who remembers her from her past. This supernatural touch is something which obviously means a lot to the author and I felt in “The Hoarder” it did not work as well as it had in “Himself” but the pugilist Ruby is a great character and becomes Bridie’s sidekick on some private detective work.

A child has been kidnapped from a country house in Sussex but it is soon apparent that this is no ordinary child and a gallery of rogues, richly-drawn characterisations worthy of the best of Dickens, seem to be involved in her disappearance. Bridie enlists the help of her seven-foot maid Cora, the spectral Ruby and crossing-sweeper Jem to locate the child.

I do read quite a few of these gutsy Victorian set novels and I’m aware that when they are done well they are likely to feature in my end of year Top 10. The actual case within  the novel recalled for me another female amateur detective Heloise Chancey in MJ Tjia’s series of novels but here with greater depth and the sheer vivacity of the language reminded me of Michel Faber’s “The Crimson Petal And The White” and (although set in late eighteenth century London) within its themes of “The Mermaid And Mrs Hancock” by Imogen Hermes Gower- both great favourites of mine, but this novel certainly has a life of its own.

I particularly like it when the history of a historical novel is incorporated seamlessly. Here we have the Victorian love of the unusual and freakish and the developments in medicine which attracted the honourable and the disreputable sitting beautifully in with what becomes a gripping mystery peopled with characters about whom I wanted to know so much more. I hope this novel will be the making of Jess Kidd and will get readers discovering both her other publications. The effervescence of her writing will stay with me for some time.

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Things In Jars is published in hardback by Canongate on April 4th 2019. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Hoarder – Jess Kidd (2018)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, Uncategorized2 Comments

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Jess Kidd’s 2016 debut “Himself” attracted a lot of attention and was shortlisted for awards.  I was of the opinion that it introduced us to an impressive new voice and I was delighted to interview her and have my review published alongside the interview in NB magazine Issue #90 when “Himself” was one of the featured titles.  I thought the book fizzled with life, with its setting of an Irish village in the mid-1970s where the author introduced us to memorable characters in a mystery tale which seamlessly took in elements of magic and the supernatural.

 With “The Hoarder” she has largely done it again and produced her second strong read.  This time we are in present day West London where main character Maud Drennan has started work as an agency care-worker for Cathal Flood, a difficult elderly man and the hoarder of the title.  It’s not just him thwarting Maud’s plans to put things in order as the supernatural draws the care-worker into a mystery involving a disappearance and a possible murder hidden deep within the secrets of the house.

 As in “Himself” main character Maud is able to see ghosts but here they are a host of Saints who act as her spirit guides and I must admit that this aspect does not work as well for me as it did last time round.  In “Himself” main character Mahoney was also aided and abetted by an unlikely side-kick, the wig-wearing Mrs Causley who memorably sees herself as “Miss Marple.  With balls”.  In this novel this role is taken by another unlikely candidate the wig-wearing, agoraphobic, transsexual Renata, who for me did not sparkle quite as much as her predecessor (but who could also fit Mrs Causley’s description!)

 This time around, however, I did find the mystery element of the novel more satisfying yet I did miss that great sense of the outsider coming into a tight-knit community theme which worked so well in “Himself”.  I suppose there is a danger when an author’s second novel has a similar feel to the first that comparisons will be made.  There is no doubt that if you enjoyed the debut then you will get much out of this and if you enjoy this as the stand-alone novel it is then I urge you to seek out her first book where everything feels just a little fresher and where her imagination gleams just a little more brightly.

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The Hoarder was published in hardback by Canongate in February 2018

Newbooks 90 – Available now

On By philshanklinIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I’m pleased to say that this has been the busiest month ever on reviewsrevues.com with lots of new visitors and followers from all over the world.  A considerable number have been attracted by my review of the ITV series “The Level“, which in under three weeks has become by far my most read review of all time and many have, happily, stayed around and looked at other things whilst they are on the site.

So, with new people around I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention newbooks magazine and the associated nudge website, both of which I am involved with.  I am the lead contributor for literary fiction in the magazine and the community voice for the Bookhugger section of the website.  The magazine is published four times a year and the latest edition has just arrived.

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The featured author in the black and white photo on the cover is Jodi Picoult and there is an interview with her inside on the publication of her latest book “Small Great Things.”  There is also an exclusive from me, an interview with Jess Kidd whose “Himself” I enjoyed and reviewed recently.  There’s also a piece on “Black Narcissus” which compares the book to the film, which you also would not have read anywhere else before.  If you are looking for book ideas for Christmas, Jade (Book Geek) Paul (Book Life) and myself (Book Hugger) are ready to help.  To meet press deadlines I was researching books for Xmas whilst the sun was blazing down (remember that day?) so I have been anticipating the publication of the books I selected as good present choices for some time.  If anyone wants to get hold for me any of the books I’ve highlighted for Xmas they would be most welcome!!

Also it was good to see contributions from a couple of other wordpress bloggers, both of whom I have been following for some time.  Bookish Beck has highlighted, as I also have, a Christmas book by Jeanette Winterson, which may very well become a seasonal perennial. There is also an interview with Simon Savidge of Savidgereads who has been blogging for a number of years and who is always worth a visit.

If I haven’t tempted you enough there is also the opportunity to get hold of four free recommended reads by just paying the postage.  There is the aforementioned “Himself”, together with “The Return Of Norah Wells” by Virginia McGregor, “Dragon Games” by Jan-Philipp Sendker and “The Curious Charms Of Arthur Pepper” by Phaedra Patrick.  There are articles on all of those books.  With Man Booker Prize announcement imminent there are a collection of my reviews from the short/long lists (“His Bloody Project” for the prize please).

If you haven’t checked out newbooks for a while.  This is a magazine that is getting better and better.  This edition and back issues can be purchased by visiting the shop on the Nudge website either as a single copy or more sensibly by taking out a subscription.  Happy reading!

 

Himself – Jess Kidd (Canongate 2016)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, Uncategorized5 Comments

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“Himself” is Mahoney who returns to the Irish village of Mulderrig in the spring of 1976.  This was the place his mother disappeared from 26 years before, leading to him being brought up by nuns in an orphanage.  Mahoney has come back to find out what happened to her.  He can see ghosts and this should help, although he has never seen his mother’s spirit.  The larger than life Mrs Cauley takes him under her wing, a marvellous character, wheelchair bound and bedecked in a range of wigs with her theatrical tales and a determination to rouse the village with her annual dramatic production.

Kidd’s debut novel absolutely fizzles with life.   There’s some great characterisation here with Mahoney, a 70’s man with long hair and flared trousers alien to most of the village seeming the most stable of the lot.  The living and the dead are used well, the ghosts being “just echoes of the stories of their own lives sung back in the wrong order- arsewards”.  In fact, there’s a lot of “arse” in “Himself”.  Kidd has a ribald sense of humour which sounds just right emanating from these almost Rabelaisian characters. This gives body and depth to what is at heart a very dark tale of a suppressed crime, but she will also have you laughing out loud.

Mahoney’s arrival and investigations unleashes supernatural elements into the community as Mahoney’s fancy piece, Shauna says; “Oh God!  Can’t anything just be normal around here?  Can’t a storm just be a bloody storm?”  There’s all manner of things falling on the people of Mulderrig urging them to give up their secrets.  This is a rich tale which incorporates the supernatural and magic to very good effect.  This is not an easy balance and as far as I am concerned a lot get this wrong.  AK Benedict got it right earlier this year with “Jonathan Dark Or The Evidence Of Ghosts” yet Kidd’s novel is a more satisfying read which will benefit greatly from group discussion to bring out the undoubted quality of the writing.

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Himself is published by Canongate on 27th October 2016.  Many thanks to the publishers and nudge for the review copy