Book review: My Notorious Life by Madame X, by Kate Manning

My Notorious Life by Madame X, by Kate Manning

“In the end, they celebrated. They bragged. They got me, finally, was their feeling. They said I would take my secrets to the grave.

 They should be so lucky.”

This is a review of the book My Notorious Life, by Kate Manning. It purports to be the journal of a midwife / female doctor in New York in the 1800s, who became notorious (as per the title) for her work on fertility and abortion.

I was given this book as an advance copy, to review before it is released by Bloomsbury in June 2013. (Got in just in time, right?) As such, my copy looks like the photo above, whereas the published version will have the title superimposed over the figure rather than the quote above. I apologise therefore for not having the published image to give you, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find on the bookshelves anyway, right?

And find it on the bookshelves you should. This is an absolutely fascinating historical novel, which chronicles the life of Axie Muldoon, aka Madame de Beausacq, and her experiences from being separated from her brother and sister via their adoption, to her education with the midwife who was unable to save her mother, to setting up a successful practice in “women’s medicine” with her husband Charlie. Anything which was seen to regulate conception was in those days illegal, and discussion of women’s reproductive systems was considered “obscene”, so Axie (or, as she was Christened, Ann) had to be very careful with the way she conducted her business.

The story is incredible. Short chapters and an engaging manner make it way too easy to keep reading way past bed time (“surely it’s not one o’clock in the morning already! I just went to bed!”) and, as Axie’s notoriety grows you become more and more convinced that things are too good to last. As, of course, they are. Madame de Beausacq become so reviled in the media that her clientele are too ashamed to admit they have used her services, and patients’ words are turned against them as the police struggle to find something they can convict her of. Yet, seen from the perspective of the twenty first century, what she is practicing is basic medical care, despite her lack of formal training. (It must be said, though, that some of the Republicans in America might be just as likely to go on a witch hunt for someone like her these days as the New York constabulary did back then. Maybe we haven’t evolved as much as I would like to think.)

Axie’s story is loosely based on the experiences of  Ann Trow Lowman, a midwife who practiced in New York City for approximately 40 years. Significant events from Lowman’s life are used, though they are (by admission of the author) moved around to make the story more compelling. In addition, Manning makes excellent use of real historical figures, such as Charles Loring Brace and Anthony Comstock, the latter of whom makes life extremely difficult for our heroine. All told it is gritty and realistic, and shows what life really was like 150 or so years ago, for city dwellers in America at least.

The novel is well written, tightly-plotted and very hard to put down. My only issue with it is the use of Axie’s grammatical foibles – while they add to the narrative, there are times when they feel forced and unnatural. Maybe it’s because they diminish somewhat as she matures so they are less common, but a couple of times they grated on me. Other than that, I can find nothing to criticise.  Read it. You’ll be glad you did.

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My Notorious Life by Madame X, by Kate Manning
434 pages (paperback)
Published by Bloomsbury in June 2013 as ebook and paperback

Book review: Little Known Facts, by Christine Sneed

Little Known Facts is the debut novel of author Christine Sneed, who has previously published a number of short stories. It follows the world of Renn Ivins, a fictional movie star of the ilk (and generation) of Harrison Ford or Pierce Brosnan – highly successful, multi award winning, and highly sought after by both studios and women.

I was not surprised to learn that the author was known for her short stories prior to this novel, because in reality that is what it is: a collection of short stories with Renn Ivins as the central theme. There are chapters from the points of view of each of his adult children, both his ex-wives, his current lover, a props attendant and wannabe biographer, and Ivins himself, all told in different ways and different styles. Yes, there is a kind of a narrative that follows throughout the chapters, but in many ways it feels much more like a series of essays about a central character than a novel as such.

I will also add here that I was a little surprised that the focus of the novel was, in fact, Renn Ivins, mainly because the blurb on the inside front cover implies that it’s more about his children. Yes, they each get two chapters (more than anyone else does), but it feels like it is Ivins’ story which is really being told, through them, rather than their own.

That being said, it is certainly an interesting read. There is a part of all of us which is curious about the lifestyles of the rich and famous: even if you don’t read the supermarket tabloids or gossip magazines, there is still that bit that wonders what it would be like to have that kind of life. Some covet it, others would hate it, but most of us have at least considered it. This book is one way to satisfy that curiosity: it’s a peek into the life of a very successful Hollywood star, and how that stardom affects those around him and those that mean the most to him. It feels slightly voyeuristic, but it does the job.

I was also impressed with the ease with which Sneed jumped from POV to POV. All of the chapters are styled in a different way – some in first person, some in third, one (from an ex-wife) told in excerpts from her tell-all autobiography, one (Ivins) as notes from his journals. They all felt distinct from each other which is no mean feat: many established authors struggle to change the feel and narrative style of their different POV chapters, yet in this it feels effortless. It may be, as I have noted, due to her background in short stories, but it was certainly noteworthy in a novel of this length.

All in all I thought this was an excellent debut novel. Well-written, engaging and just that little bit voyeuristic, it captured my imagination and made me stay up way past my bedtime so I could finish it. If you have any curiosity about how fame can affect one’s nearest and dearest, then this is definitely one way to find out.

 

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Little Known Facts, by Christine Sneed
320 pages (paperback)
Published by Bloomsbury
Available on Amazon as ebook, hardcover and paperback

Book review: The Harbour, by Francesca Brill

The Harbour, by Francesca Brill

This is a review of the novel The Harbour, by Francesca Brill. Set in Hong Kong during the Second World War, it follows the story of Stevie Steiber, an American journalist, and her illicit affair with British Major Harry Field.

The tale is an intriguing one. With a backdrop of impending war in a colonial outpost foolishly clinging to the belief it is untouchable, we see the frustration of a woman wanting to write something substantial and worthwhile, but forced by circumstance to deliberate on the frivolous antics of the British ruling class. You know, what sort of frocks are being worn to the races, that sort of thing. She is trying to convince some of the area’s most powerful Chinese women to allow her to tell their story, but always there is something in the background that seems to be going against her.

Add to this her quite frankly odd relationship with her editor (they got married to give her Chinese papers, yet he is already married and his wife is quite fine with the affair) and her fateful encounter with Harry Field and you have a fascinating and potentially explosive mix. That said, however, I didn’t really feel it lived up to its potential. Perhaps it was the head-hopping – I have difficulty with more than one or two POVs being shown per scene, and sometimes in this there were five. I understand that Francesca Brill has a background in writing screenplays, which is where this tendency probably comes from, but that doesn’t make it any less dizzying for the reader.I felt that perhaps more effort should have been put into external narration in these cases, as it is perfectly possible to demonstrate what a character is feeling or thinking by describing their actions, and it leads to less of a mosaic of points of view.

The other thing that may have stopped this story from fulfilling its potential is the scant attention paid to the feelings of the main protagonists. This is supposed to be a love affair that transcended everything, breaking up marriages, leading to social ostracism a la Anna Karenina, yet I didn’t really feel it. There was a lot of attention paid to what these people did, but comparatively little on how they felt and how that impacted on their decisions. In other words, the longing that they were supposed to be experiencing just didn’t jump off the page for me. For a book whose cover boasts the quote, “We need more love stories like this,” it was distinctly underwhelming.

Despite these shortcomings, it was a well written book and the story it told was indeed fascinating. As a debut novel it shows a lot of promise, and the characterisation of Stevie in particular was outstanding. I particularly liked her responses to questions about her personal life once the war had finished and how people tried to cope with her decisions  I also liked the depiction of Harry in the POW camp and how he came to do some of the things he did. The truth is that people’s actions, particularly in wartime, are very rarely black and white, and the shades of grey shown in this novel demonstrate that brilliantly.

All in all, I enjoyed  The Harbour. While some aspects of it did disappoint me, it does give an outstanding depiction of life in Hong Kong in the 1940s and the challenges and troubles faced by its inhabitants, and as I said the characterisation was indeed excellent. For a good historical novel about the war in Hong Kong, it’s well worth picking up.

 

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The Harbour, by Francesca Brill
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
342 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as  paperback and e-book

Book review: The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez

The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez

This is a review of the novel The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez, a fascinating story of when the present and the past collide.

The story tells the tale of two protagonists – Julian, an octogenarian former concentration camp inmate who has made it his life’s work to hunt down former Nazis to make them pay for their war crimes; and Sandra, a thirty year old woman who finds herself pregnant to a man she doesn’t love, and escapes to the Spanish coast to try to work out what she wants to do with her life. Their paths cross when Sandra meets an elderly Norwegian couple on the beach and strikes up a friendship with them, letting them adopt her (not literally) as a quasi-grandchild, only to discover that Julian is investigating them for their past sins.

I found it a difficult novel to get into, to be honest. I had high expectations from the blurb but the opening chapters didn’t really connect with me. After a while, though, I was hooked to the point that I didn’t want to put the book down. The two points of view have a fascinating juxtaposition, with Sanchez successfully going from the mind of an eighty year old man to a thirty year old woman without skipping a beat. Sometimes, particularly in descriptive sections, the voices were not very different, but then a reaction to something or an offhand comment would remind me forcefully that these were very different people.

Admittedly, some of Sandra’s decisions baffled me, as I would have done something totally different in her shoes. Then again, she and I are of very different character and, importantly, she remained in that character for the duration of the book. The other thing that I occasionally had trouble with was the fact that I am unfamiliar with Spanish customs, and therefore finding offices and shopping centres routinely open at eight in the evening had me scratching my head, until I remembered that in Spain it’s customary to have a siesta in the middle (and hottest part) of the day, and conduct business when it cools down later on. It’s a little thing, but it was just something I had to continually remind myself of so that some of the times used in the story made sense to me.

I don’t want to give the plot away, but I just wanted to mention a few things that really stood out for me. One was the fear Sandra had for the tenant in her sister’s house not far from where the Norwegians, Karin and Frederik, lived, after Karin saw him treat Sandra with disrespect. Another was the respective fates of Elfe, Bolita and Heim; yet another was the revelation at the very end by Elisabeth, also known as the girl on the beach. Finally, the explanation as to why Sandra’s pregnancy was relevant, which I had wondered about – why make her pregnant? What did it add to the story?Each of these revelations was a twist I hadn’t seen coming.

Congratulations must go to Julie Wark, who translated the book from Spanish into English. I have a feeling that a novel like this would have given a translator a few challenges but, unlike some translated books I have read, it flowed like it had been written in English.

All in all, The Scent of Lemon Leaves is a fascinating, intriguing and addictive book, showing the very human side of people the world sees as monsters and how they are, in many ways, just like everyone else. It asks whether it is worth chasing and prosecuting people for war crimes committed sixty or seventy years ago, or whether we should just let nature take its course as it does with everyone. And it shows how seemingly innocuous decisions and events can have repercussions that change your life. It makes you think and it infiltrates your dreams, and I thoroughly recommend it.

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The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
311 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as  paperback and e-book

Book review: Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall

Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall

 

This is a review of the book Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall. The novel focuses on Ada Howard, a middle-aged preacher’s wife in the American south, who is invited to a college reunion and uses that as the catalyst for a weight-loss campaign.

This is a journey of self-discovery more than anything. Ada fears that her husband is having an affair, and the promise of seeing an old flame at the reunion has her considering doing the same for the first time. In the twelve months that the book covers, she learns much about herself, her friends, her family and her husband, and comes out at the end a much happier woman.

I wasn’t able to relate to all of Ada’s journey. For one thing, I’m one of the few Western women who has never gone on a weight-loss binge, but then again I have a lot of friends who have so it wasn’t wholly foreign. For another, her weight was always counted in pounds. For someone who grew up on metric, I was forever having to translate her weight into kilograms in my head so I had some idea of what her progress was. These aren’t terminal problems by any means, but they did diminish my enjoyment of the book somewhat.

The other thing that was new to me, though I was happy to learn, was the aspects of African American culture that featured so heavily in the narrative. The group of women who lunched in white-owned restaurants once a month to prove to themselves (and others) that it was acceptable for them to do so was an eye-opener for me, and it reminded me that many of these battles are far from over, even fifty years after the civil rights movement. I also wasn’t aware – and this is key to the diet theme – that there is a strong “big is beautiful” belief about the female form, and that many women choose to be larger-figured because it affords them more respect and self-belief.

The book was structured well, too. Each of the chapters is titled by one of the “rules” Ada sticks with in her journey, such as “Don’t keep doing what you’ve always been doing”, “Manage portion sizes”, or “Create your own spa day”, all of which correspond to that part of her journey. Then at the end there is a chapter called “How to use my, Ada Howard’s, novel as a diet book”, which I thought was an innovative way of tying the narrative with a greater objective. As a book, it fits itself well – which I suppose is appropriate given the theme.

Ada’s Rules is an enjoyable, easy read which handles some very sensitive issues with grace and tact. It’s easy to pick up and hard to put down, and leaves the reader feeling satisfied – and (for me at least) also that they’ve learned something. Overall, it’s a well written insight into southern America and into the mind of an intelligent yet somewhat insecure heroine. I believe it’s well worth looking at.

 

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Ada’s Rules, by Alice Randall
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
342 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as hardcover