This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrell

For those long enduring (is that the right word, it sounds a little painful which I hope reading this blog isn’t) followers of Savidge Reads, you will know that one of the authors I hold in very high esteem is Maggie O’Farrell. I was actually introduced to Maggie one summer when I was staying with my Gran in my hometown of Matlock and we spent a week reading, pottering around bookshops and having cream tea. I ran out of books I had brought and she popped The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox into my hands and didn’t hear a peep out of me for the rest of the day until dinner. From then on I have loved everyone of the books she has published since and I think her latest, This Must Be The Place, might be my favourite of her novels yet because its bloody brilliant.

Tinder Press, hardback, 2016, fiction, 496 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

In essence This Must Be The Place is the novel of a marriage. Admittedly if that was how the book had been sold to me I admit, well if it wasn’t written by Maggie O’Farrell, I would have possibly rolled my eyes and muttered ‘oh how original’ under my breathe. For let us be honest books about marriage are hardly original are they? Yet here I do think that Maggie O’Farrell gives us something in the ‘marriage plot’ genre that is quirklily unusual, delightfully original and is also completely and utterly wonderful. But I should really tell you some more about the book shouldn’t I, though admittedly it is hard because there is a little mystery that I don’t want to give away. I shall do my best…

As the novel opens we meet Daniel as he watches a man, who he thinks is a photographer, watching his house. That is until his wife, Claudette, comes around the corner brandishing a gun (with one of their children firmly on her arm) and putting the fear of god into the man who has come into the middle of the Irish countryside where they reside together. However this is not really the start of their story, in fact we soon discover that we are somewhere in the middle of the story of Daniel and Claudette and as we read on we are thrown in all different directions in and around their marriage before and after this moment.

If that makes things sound like they are going to be all over the place, complicatedly time hopping here there and everywhere fret not. What Maggie O’Farrell does is give the reader a wonderful kaleidoscope like set of patchwork pieces of stories that we stitch together as we read before making a wonderful huge patchwork quilt we can luxuriate in. Yes we do go off into many different timeframes, never really in order and we do head off into different countries and different people’s heads, which you would think would distance us from the main story, oddly it makes us closer to it and see it from all these different angles. In fact really it becomes a patchwork of a couples life, the lives around them and the way we sometimes have a butterfly effect on each other, a small act of kindness we think insignificant becomes something huge and life changing to someone else, a moment of foolishness by someone else can lead to a life altering event for someone else, etc. I found this really fascinating as it looks at people’s lives from the inside and the outside, something we forget to do from time to time.

Anyway, the older, longer sluggish Marithe had looked up at the stars and asked her mother, who was sitting in the chair opposite, whether it would come back, this sense of being inside your life, not outside of it.
Claudette had put down her book and thought for a moment. And then she had said something that made Marithe cry. She’d said: Probably not, my darling girl, because what you’re describing comes of growing up but you get something else instead. You get wisdom, you get experience. Which could be seen as compensation, could it not?
Marithe felt those tears prickling at her eyelids now. To never feel that again, the idea of yourself as one unified being, not two or three splintered selves who observed and commented on each other. To never be that person again.

You may also think so many different narrators and perspectives might also make the novel and it’s characters a little gimmicky or two dimensional, in some authors hands that would be the case but not in this instance. O’Farrell creates a large cast of characters who come fully formed with some wonderful insights into Daniel and Claudette as well as their own stories which add to the reading experience. Somehow in a book that is just under 500 pages (O’Farrell’s longest) she covers adoption, cultural clashes, celebrity, infidelity, art and culture, nuclear families, love, death, grief, loss, illness, gun crime, separation, marriage, fate, co-dependency vs. independence and more, the list goes on and on. It is remarkable and shows the vibrancy and diversity of everything we human beings go through. It celebrates people and their lives, each time you meet a new character you become fully absorbed in them. One of the standouts for me was one of Daniel’s children Niall whose story of having eczema will stay with me for a long, long time. I genuinely felt what he felt.

Niall feels his eyes fill, feels the burn take hold. His hands spring upright of their own accord and begin to tear at his neck in a sawing motion, back and forth, across the skin of his throat. The feel of it is an exquisite, forebidden, torturing release. Yes, he tells himself, you are scratching, you are, even though you shouldn’t, but how good it is, how amazing, but how dreadful it will be when he stops, if he stops, if he can ever end it.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we come back to Daniel and Claudette for a chapter or two between the other alternating voices you might feel this was really a collection of interweaving short stories based around anecdotes passed between a cast of people who appear and reappear, but then isn’t that what our lives are really built on anyway? It shows though that Maggie O’Farrell is really experimenting and pushing the boundaries on her writing and as I hinted at in the introduction I do think this might be her most accomplished novels. Though accomplished makes it sound like I am going to give her a ‘well done’ sticker for good behaviour rather than the truth which is that she exceeded all my expectations and showed me what wonders the novel can do.

I loved how she played with form. In one chapter we go through an auction catalogue of some of Claudette’s possessions (I know I have avoided talking about Claudette and Daniel specifically but seriously, I don’t want to spoil their secrets and the events that become the heart of the novel, it is a huge part of its brilliance) from her twenties. One is told through an interview with an ex spouse. Another, one of my favourites, is told by someone who loves footnotes; their real story being revealed through the footnotes they interweave in their own narrative. She also plays with giving the reader more insight than the characters have, she might kill off a character in a mere line that we the reader get and yet no one else will pick up on until it happens many years later for them. She may send the story off before the main characters are even born, it is never gimmicky and always deftly done. There is no showing off, just some really stunning writing such as the below which is just a mere part of the book and shows you what she can do in a paragraph.

She doesn’t know it at the time but she will think about this moment again and again, the two of the standing on the steps of the subway station, a boy between them, a pool of blood at their feet, trains arriving and departing above their heads. She will play it over and over in her head, almost every day, for the rest of her life. When she lies in the bedroom of her apartment with only hours to live, her daughters bickering in the kitchen, her husband in the front room, weeping or raging, her son asleep in the chair next to her, she will think of it again and know it is perhaps for the last time. After this, she thinks, it will only live in the head of one person, and when he dies, it will be gone.

I could go on much, much more though I won’t because really I just want you to go and pick up This Must Be The Place because I think it is fantastic and quite a special book indeed. I have loved Maggie O’Farrell’s writing for such a long time and this just affirmed her as one of my favourite living authors, I am so, so excited about what she might do next. The only downside for me is that my Gran never got to read this, so I can’t chat about it with her which made me feel much more emotional than I was expecting. I have got a copy for my Mum though, which will be her first novel by Maggie O’Farrell so I am spreading the love, as I hope I will do to any of you who have yet to read her work. If you have, and indeed if you have read This Must Be The Place, I would love to have a good old natter with you about it.

Oh and if you would like to see Maggie talking about the book without spoilers, I got her to answer ten tenuous questions about it here.

Instructions for a Heatwave – Maggie O’Farrell

I do like a family drama. Well, at least I like them in a fictional sense rather than my own personal ones if they ever happen. That said it isn’t the most of original storylines for a book is it? Yet when an author brings a new angle on it, or writes a family so convincingly that you feel a part of their drama then there is nothing more compelling in literary fiction. In ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ that is exactly what Maggie O’Farrell creates.

***** Tinder Press, hardback, 2013, fiction, 352 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

It is the summer or 1976 when, after announcing that he is going to the local newsagents for a paper, Robert Riordan simply disappears leaving his wife Greta both horrified and mystified as to where her husband has gone. She soon calls upon all of her children to come home and help, however it seems none of the Riordan offspring really considers themselves a part of ‘the family’ for varying reasons.

Michael Francis is too busy caught up in the state of his marriage, his wife having just discovered the Open University and feminism and possibly herself, which we learn was really only a marriage after he got his girlfriend, now wife, pregnant after some rather angry sex aimed at his now father-in-law – it involves a hilarious conversation about whether being from Irish parents he might happen to be in the IRA. Monica is now married for the same time and coming to terms with the fact she doesn’t really like being a stepmom, and wonders if she might have liked her own children after all, she also happens to be terrified of the countryside, which now she lives in it is a quandary.  Aoife is the black sheep of the family and after a tempestuous relationship with her mother and estrangement with her sister has vanished to New York to get away. Now of course they must all come back to comfort their mother, try and find their father and also confront each other.

Whilst a family drama is nothing new in terms of a premise for a novel, Maggie O’Farrell masters it and creates something new and different with the characters in the Riordan family, the situations they find themselves in and of course the mystery of Roberts disappearance and the enigma. Though the novel is very much set in the present day, well the ridiculous heat of the infamous never ending summer of 1976, ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ is a novel that really looks at a/the families past too. I thought this was mainly done through Aoife and Gretta who, for me personally, take the novel to another level (or two or three) above any great literary family drama.

Firstly Gretta for her semi-tragic role within the family, and also for the big laughs in the book – sometimes at her expense, and as a woman who can completely rewrite her own history and often does. You know from the start, as she bakes bread in the sweltering heat, that here is a woman with hidden depths and a life behind her. Aoife is a real enigma and, for me, had the most gripping and compelling (even more so than Roberts disappearance, which occasionally you forget about) story with the relationship breakdown with her sister and also with her dyslexia or curse as she sees it, which at the time was not diagnosed and people merely thought someone was inept, put upon her by ‘a sorcerer who was in a bad mood’ when he passed her pram. I found her fascinating and her story incredibly moving. I also don’t think I have understood dyslexia so well before.

“There was a sudden, crushing weight on her chest and it was difficult to draw breath into her lungs; please, her mind was saying, she wasn’t sure to whom, please, please. Let me get through this, just this once, I’ll do anything, anything at all. ‘Contract’, she could recognise, right at the top of the page; that was good; Evelyn had said it was a contract. Or did it say ‘contact’? Was there an ‘r’ there? Aoife pressed her left eye hard with the heel of her palm and scanned the now undulating string of letters that made up the words. Was there an ‘r’ and if so, where ought it to be? Before the ‘t’ or after the ‘t’ or next to the ‘c’ and, if so, which ‘c’? Panic cramming her throat, she told herself to leave ‘contract’ or ‘contact’ or whatever the hell it was and look down the page and when she did, she knew she was doomed.”  

The conversations between the characters are another master stroke of O’Farrell’s as it comes of the page as real as the characters who speak it. I mentioned before the awkward conversation between Michael Francis and his father in law over dinner, a family he is amazed by because of ‘how nice they all were to each other’, about if he is in the IRA or linked to it, which was prevalent at the time. The conversations between couples who don’t really know if they know each other anymore or maybe got the other one wrong at the start, sibling bickering and the way an atmosphere can change slowly over time as family members start to remember what it was that annoyed them about each other etc are all completely believable.

As you may have guessed I really, really, really liked ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ and found myself gripped to it like it was a thriller because of the gripping and believable characters and the fact that there are a few mysteries and secrets, which all families have, to keep you going. I would heartily recommend any one give this delightful, and also occasionally rather dark and distressing, domestic drama a whirl, you will be pulled into the Riordan family far better than any ordinary soap opera and its stunningly written.

You can hear me in conversation with Maggie O’Farrell on my new podcast ‘You Wrote The Book!’, I now need to get a wriggle on and read her first three novels as so far I have only read her latest three and each book cements the fact she is becoming one of my favourites more and more each time. Are you a fan of O’Farrell? Which of her books have you read and what did you think?  Have any of you read ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ yet and if so what did you think?

The Hand That First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell

I don’t know about you but am I the only blogger who wishes they had cottoned onto all of this blogging malarkey about three or four years (maybe five or six) before they actually did? The reason that I have been thinking about that is that I could have shared my thoughts on so many other books with you all, one such book would be on that Granny Savidge Reads made me purchase and was ‘The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox’ by Maggie O’Farrell which we both thought was marvellous. However I can share my thoughts with you on the latest which I was rather delighted to get an advance copy of.

First off I should say it will be hard to do this book justice full stop, it will also be hard to say too much without giving everything away and spoiling it for the reader. There are two main stories running through ‘The Hand That First Held Mine’. One is the story of Lexie a recently graduated student who finds herself back at home in rural Devon with her family and younger siblings. When she finds Innes Kent spying on her over her garden wall she soon finds her chance to escape and ends up in the midst of the streets of London’s Soho during the bohemian 1950’s and part of a rather unconventional, but very touching for the reader, love story.

The other story set in the present day is of Elina, a woman who has not long had a baby though she cannot remember the birth at all one minute she was pregnant the next there was a baby by the bed, and her husband Ted who knows what happened and doesn’t want to tell her. As the book goes on O’Farrell very carefully allows us glimpses into these two very different worlds slowly filling in the blanks and adding in some subtle twists, plotting and weaving the two stories together slowly revealing how they are connected. I make it sound like there is no plot, there is – well there are two, I just don’t want to spoil anything for the reader. I will say I found both stories incredibly readable, you want to know what happens with both couple for very different reasons as there are things left unsaid and tensions bubbling under the surfaces.

Some reviews I have seen have bemoaned that the connection is too obvious but I didn’t really start to figure it out until two thirds of the way through. However this isn’t a mystery story for the reader to figure out it’s a tale of two wonderful female leads and their lives, though readers might like to be prepared for some shocks and the possible need for some hankies. It is also about the characters around them, for example Lexie has a wonderful strong willed landlady and Innes’ ex’s while Elina has a matriarchal mother-in-law to contend with.

For me the star of the whole book was the writing. Every single sentence was a real joy to read and seemed to have been crafted with care as if every word counted and that is a rare find I think. In some ways it reminded me of the way Brooklyn was crafted though the stories are nothing a like at all. The fact that on top of this atmospheric and beautiful writing are two such interesting women, a whole cast of wonderful crafted characters and a plot makes this a wonderful book for the reader, you won’t want to rush it rather savour every line page by page. 9/10

Here’s one of my favourite parts of the book which shows how beautifully written cinematic and captivating I think the prose is;

“But this is anticipating. The film needs to be rewound a little. Watch. Innes sucks in a nimbus of smoke, lifts a cigarette stub from the ashtray, appears to envelop Lexie in a shirt and push her across the room, the pillows jump on to the bed, Lexie zooms backwards towards the window. Then they are back on the bed and they are both naked and, goodness, doesn’t sex look oddly the same in reverse, except now they are lovingly putting on each others clothes, one by one, then whisking out of the door, running down the stairs, and Innes is pulling the key out of his door. The film speeds up. There are Innes and Lexie in his car, scooting backwards along a road, Lexie with a scarf over her head. There they are forking food out of their mouths in a restaurant and putting it down on plates, here they are in bed again and their clothes fly towards them. Here is a woman in a red pillbox hat walking in reverse away from Lexie. Here is Lexie again looking up at a building in Soho, then she is walking away from it with a jerky, reversed gait. Lexie is walking backwards up a long, dim stair case. The film is getting faster and faster. A train pulls out of a big smoke-filled station, rattles backwards though countryside. At a small station, Lexie is seen to get out and put down her suitcase. And the film ends. We are back, neatly, to where we left off.”

I now rather desperately want to read the rest of Maggie O’Farrell’s work even more than I did after reading ‘Esme’, especially after I saw her talking, despite a cold, at Foyle’s on Tuesday with Lionel Shriver. I am wondering if Maggie O’Farrell is eligible for the Man Booker if so I wouldn’t be shocked, rather delighted in fact, to see this getting long listed. As to her previous works what would you recommend? I have to say I might pace myself as I think they will be books to treasure and I don’t want to run out of them.

Savidge suggests some perfect prose partners:
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell (if you haven’t read it you should)
Brooklyn – Colm Toibin (for the writing)

Breaking The Book Ban Again

This is not my fault, I blame Oxfam for having a day where all books were 49p, I mean really its most selfish. I am naturally just going to buy more books that way and really thats not fair on me. I must write about some very interesting thoughts have been hearing around second hand books at some point, for now will just enlighten you to my purchases.

Two Adolescents – Alberto Moravia

One of Italy’s best writers. I have the Woman of Rome in one of my TBR boxes and they are quite difficult to get hold of in general so had to snap this up, must read one as my friend Giorgia recommended him to me over a year ago.

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen

I am so cross with myself admitting this… never read it, and I think out of them all bar of course P&P this will be my favourite because of the Gothic undertones, should this be read before or after Udolpho? I have had that ages. and know it needs to be read, there really are too many books in the world.

The Visible World – Mark Slouka

Have seen this somany times in second hand bookshops and always been tempted so today recklessly just added to my selection.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

One of my favourite books of last year as another Polly must read gift. Wonderful tale of a lost relative who turns out to be living in a mental institution, absolutely brilliant, very understated and just superb. Must read.

What Was Lost – Catherine O’Flynn

For my Gran as its her book group book a favourite of mine this year, review somewhere below.

The Keep – Jennifer Egan

I bought this for the blurb, I couldnt decide whether the line “then in steps Danny a damaged, cynical, 36-year old New Yorkerwho rarely goes anywhere that isn’t wi-fi compatable” made me think this would be one of the most dire (its the word wi-fi) or brilliant modern ghost story, time will tell this has gone quite high on the TBR pile.

Lucia Rising – E. F. Benson

Sometimes you are just meant to walk into somewhere and see something. I have been trying to get this on readitswapit but its like gold dust, I almost settled on one with a really horridly creased cover and then I see this. Will be doing this with Dom at some point, all the first three in the series for 49p, no it doesn’t constitute me buying nine books today, and two arent for me anyway.

The Savidge Top Ten Best Books of 2007

This is a really hard decision after such a brilliant year of reading, though am gutted didn’t managed 100 books, maybe this year, we shall see. I have to say part of me wanted to do a top twenty or a top 13 like the ‘Man Booker Dozen’ because I simply had so many that I would heartily recommend to you all. But enough of me waffling on, here is my list of what I thought was superb reading in 2007.

10. The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly
This was possibly one of the most surprising books of the year for me which I read after a recommendation from on of the book group members. She had read it and thought that it would be right up my street and she was indeed right. This is a tale of David a twelve year old boy who has just lost his mother. Having moved to a new house he buries himself in the world of books to beat out the grief in his head. However these stories start to seep into the real world and bad things start to happen and The Crooked Man comes to claim David. This book was dark enthralling and added a new exciting twist to fairytales that brought out your childhood fears.

9. Case Histories – Kate Atkinson
I fell in love with Kate’s writing, not with ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ as I didn’t really take to that and never finished it, with ‘Human Croquet’ which had a brilliant dark otherness about it. Having re-found my love for crime fiction in the last twelve months I was overjoyed to discover she has written a combination of crime and literary fiction and ‘Case Histories’ was simply superb. Following Jackson Brodie, a brilliant complex main character, ex soldier and police man as he is hired as a private detective Atkinson takes a look at how small the world is and how coincidences can change everything and interlink. Brilliant plotting, superb characters.

8. Winter in Madrid – C.J.Sansom
Having also read his Historical Literary Crime (now there is a new genre) novel ‘Dissolution’ this year I have really rather enjoyed my two experiences of Sansom. However this novel set in 1940 after the Spanish Civil War in the ruins of Madrid was just stunning. Harry Brett is sent by the government to spy and find out as much as he can about old school chum Sandy Forsyth who has become somewhat of a shady character in Madrid. Harry becomes involved in a dangerous game of plots, skeletons in closets and emotional warfare. I thought this was absolutely brilliant and let out a huge ‘gasp’ at the ending I didn’t see coming. I also bought a few copies for people for Christmas.

7. Restless – William Boyd
This book was another complete surprise for me and a fresh take on the war from a female point especially from the point of a spy. In 1939 Eva Delectorskaya, twenty eight, is a Russian living in Paris when she is recruited by the British Secret Service and put under the tutoring of Lucas Romer a man of mystery. The book starts as in the present day Eva’s past comes back to haunt her as a grandmother happily settled. I found this book both thrilling and unique, you don’t think of grandma spies really do you. I found it fast paced and yet it really got into the characters and their motives. I bought this for a lot of people over the year.

6. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell This was a recommendation from my Gran who herself is a great reader and it takes a lot to impress her after 60 odd years of reading and three book clubs, she devoured this in two sittings. I devoured it in one. When Iris Lockheart gets a phone call telling her she has a long lost Aunt she has never heard of and who is due for release from an asylum and could she come and get her, her independent lifestyle gets embroiled in secrets from the families past. I found this unsuspecting thriller completely sucked me in and wasn’t expecting the tale of Esme’s journey to the Asylum to be so gripping whilst also so emotional. This was unputdownable if that’s a word.

5. The Observations – Jane Harris
This was one of those books that you should judge by the cover. I was in a little independent book shop in Cromford when I saw this as one of their recommended titles and it looked so gothic, dark, mysterious and full of secrets, I thought ‘why not?’ This is brilliant novel and without a doubt Bessy Buckley is my favourite character of the year, and her narration is wonderful (I didn’t find her Scottish and Victorian slang annoying at all) I though it was a unique voice. The story tells of Bessy taking a job for Arabella in her grand house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Bessy is more than happy at first as she is escaping her past in Glasgow, however, when asked to keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts along side her employer’s odd behaviour she starts to worry. Worries that build up further when she finds her employer had a slight obsession for her predecessor Nora who died mysteriously. This book is just brilliant, gripping, mysterious it has all the makings of a future classic and with a heroine like Bessy it deserves to be.

4. Half Of A Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It was difficult to only put this at number four because it was so brilliant but the competition was really, really tough this year with so many good books. This is possibly one of the most heart wrenching novels I have ever read set in the lead up, and start, of Nigeria’s Biafra War. The book has three unique outlooks from that of a servant boy Ugwu, his employer’s wife Olanna, and Richard a journalist who is Olanna’s twin sister’s lover from England. I found this book incredibly moving and upsetting the vividness of the war engrained so much on the page that you felt you were there for the shock and awe of it all. Not an easy read by any standard but a book I think should be in everyone’s collection.

3. Atonement – Ian McEwan
I have officially started to become a huge fan of McEwan and plan to read a lot more of his books this year. Of course with the big movie out I would be surprised if there is anyone now who hasn’t read the book or who doesn’t know the story. A story based all around confusion, childhood interpretations and mistakes, after Briony sees her sister Cecilia jump in a fountain whilst their childhood friend watches. From then on more mistakes are made and people’s lives are changed forever. I wasn’t expecting the war to loom in the book but it was dealt with well and added an extra something to the book. This is one of McEwan’s longest and possibly one of his best.

2. The Book Thief – Marcus Zusack
I remember when I was recommended this by the same lady who recommended ‘Restless’ I thought “not another book about the War”. I have to say the originality with which Zusack writes this novel made it without question one of the best books of the year. The narrator of the novel is Death during his particularly busy phase in 1939 Germany and a book thief that he encounters, nine year old Liesle who lives with her adoptive family in bomb torn Himmel Street. I didn’t think a book written by Death sounded like it would be much fun, and there isn’t fun in war, however this book is full of real hope for humans written in beautiful prose where every word has been thought through. It was easy to see why this was the biggest selling debut adult novel in 2007.

1. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again’… I didn’t expect to find my new favourite read of all time (so far) this year, especially after ‘The Woman in White’ is such a tough act to follow, but with Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ from the first few pages it was a complete love affair. I love all things gothic and this book had it all. Following the unnamed second Mrs De Winter after she marries Maxim this books takes us through mystery, a beguiling ex-wife an evil housekeeper (Mrs Danvers was my favourite character in the whole book), a rambling estate and a possible murder. This book is a great gothic mystery but is also a great insight into people and how they work. If I hadn’t made the decision to put only one book per author in my top ten then I would have had to have ‘Jamaica Inn’ on the list which is almost as good. I am only worried now that having read what’s meant to be the best Du Maurier first I might be let down from now on, somehow though I doubt it.