5★ “He drank out Granddad’s farm years ago. After I have him buried, I’ll burn the cottage down and p*ss on the embers and I���ll sell the two acres.”
Bob5★ “He drank out Granddad’s farm years ago. After I have him buried, I’ll burn the cottage down and p*ss on the embers and I’ll sell the two acres.”
Bobby Mahon has been visiting his sick father every day, hoping each day will be the last. As he leaves through the old front gate, he reflects on it needing attention.
“There’s a red metal heart in the centre of the low front gate, skewered on a rotating hinge. It’s flaking now; the red is nearly gone. It needs to be scraped and sanded and painted and oiled. It still spins in the wind, though. I can hear it creak, creak, creak as I walk away. A flaking, creaking, spinning heart.”
If only it were his father’s heart on the skewer, to pay for the misery he inflicted on Bobby and his mother. Like so many people, especially these Irish men, they never really know how to talk. Bobby does know his father takes great joy in Bobby losing his job.
“It gave him an extra six months, I’d say. If he ever finds out how Pokey Burke shafted me, he’ll surely make a full recovery. Pokey could apply to be beatified then, having had a miracle ascribed to him.”
Pokey Burke will not be made a saint. Josie Burke, his father, had been a good boss, but when Pokey let the men go, Bobby says there were rumblings. They’d had several years of building cheap houses, borrowing and building, but they went bust.
“ I should have known something was up the day last year when Mickey Briars came in asking about his pension. Did ye boys know we’re all meant to be in a proper pension? We didn't, Mickey. Ya, with some crowd called ‘SIFF’. A proper pension like, not just the state one. Tis’ extra.’ Mickey’s left hand was outstretched. It held the invisible weight of what he should have been given but wasn’t. . . . Mickey’s hard old skull splintered that door and it very nearly gave way. Pokey must have sh*t himself inside. I want my f*ckin pension, you little pr*ck, Mickey roared and roared. I want my f*ckin pension and the rest of my stamps. . . . We locked Mickey into the back of Seanie Shaper’s Hiace until he became more philosophical for himself.”
This is a town where everyone knows everyone’s secrets, or so they believe. They have theories as to why someone’s business failed and how they could have prevented it, but as the author lets each of the 21 characters speak, we gradually get a more rounded view of things.
When two people are seen talking together, rumours begin. The garda are in the street, a stranger is seen outside the shops, a blow-in moves to town (for what reason?) – any of these require a discussion as to what is happening or about to happen. Bobby’s wife, Triona, refers to one group of women as the Teapot Taliban.
The language changes with the people. The words are strung together so smoothly that I wasn’t even aware of the lack of quotation marks and such, although I know that’s a deal-breaker for some readers.
It’s not for skimming, it’s for listening to the words in your head, the lilt, the Irish inflection, the subtle differences between the outgoing and the quiet, the sly and the simple. Each chapter is headed with the name of its narrator, and many of the names feature in each other’s memories. We see some people, like Bobby and Pokey, in increasingly greater detail.
Vasya, “the Russian”, discovers he doesn’t exist. He had come from his home in Siberia, following advice from friends. He was a good worker but had no English. He’s put on as a C2 worker.
“ I took from others words and phrases that served me well for a while: off the books, under the table, on the queue tee. One man can learn some trades by watching another closely. Now I work some days for the foreman again. Bobby. He calls me the best of the ‘see too’ boys. I don’t know what this means. I smile and nod.”
He learns what ‘see too’ (C2) means when he tries to claim his entitlements when the business closes.
“sub-contractors, foreign workers who were only taken on by builders if they registered as self-employed. That way the builder hadn’t to pay the proper rates; stamps, tax, pensions or what have you.”
Lily the Bike, as another woman refers to her disparagingly, is a favourite of mine.
“There are rakes of men around here that have called to me. I’ve had years of eyes at my door. Eyes that can’t meet mine, full of hunger when they arrive and full of guilt as they leave. . . . I’d never blame a man for calling to me. Men have to do what they have to do. Nature overpowers them. Some of the old farmers were lovely, once you got over the smell. They had a smell you could nearly talk yourself into liking. I even bathed one or two of them — they loved it - like big auld babas, splashing around and grinning up at me...”
I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not, but lately I’ve read a few books by Irish authors who haven’t used quotation marks, and some have used almost no punctuation at all. I often write in fractured phrases rather than full sentences if that’s how I’m thinking, so maybe it makes me more comfortable with this run-on style.
This was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2013. The many chapters from different viewpoints reminded me of Irish author Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 and If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, both of which are favourites and were also longlisted for the Booker Prize in earlier years.
5★ “ ‘He’s gonna be sick. You know that, don’tcha?’ The old man fixed him with a stern look and pressed the billfold back into the bib of his overalls.5★ “ ‘He’s gonna be sick. You know that, don’tcha?’ The old man fixed him with a stern look and pressed the billfold back into the bib of his overalls.
‘I seen him sick before.’
‘Not like this.’
‘I can deal with it.’
‘Gonna have to. Don’t expect it to be pretty.’
‘“Never is. Still, he’s my dad.’
The old man shook his head and bent to retrieve the bucket and when he stood again he looked the kid square. ‘Call him what you like. Just be careful. He lies when he’s sick.’
‘Lies when he ain’t.’ ”
The kid has lived with the old man, known as Bunky, all his life. He has met his father only a handful of times and always been disappointed. His dad is a drunk, and the old man has hated seeing the kid get his hopes up over the years only to have them flattened when the dad doesn’t even remember he’s coming.
Wagamese describes young Franklin Starlight.
“He was big for his age, raw-boned and angular, and he had a serious look that seemed culled from sullenness, and he was quiet, so that some called him moody, pensive, and deep. He was none of those. Instead, he’d grown comfortable with aloneness and he bore an economy with words that was blunt, direct, more a man’s talk than a kid’s. So that people found his silence odd and they avoided him, the obdurate Indian look of him unnerving even for a sixteen-year-old. The old man had taught him the value of work early and he was content to labour, finding his satisfaction in farm work and his joy in horses and the untrammelled open of the high country. He’d left school as soon as he was legal.”
Now he has been summoned to his father’s bedside, such as it is, because Eldon has things he needs to say, to share, to explain, but not here. Not in the hovel he’s living in and not in front of the woman who is currently in his bed.
“His father’s face was slack, the skin hanging off the bones like a loose tent, and there were lines and creases deep with shadow. . . . the hand large with long, splayed fingers that told of the size he once owned, gone now to a desiccated boniness. . . . His father slid out of bed and the kid could see the gauntness of him, his buttocks like small lumps of dough and the rest of him all juts and pokes and seams of bone under sallow skin.”
Eldon asks his son to take him cross-country, through the mountains to the place he wants to be buried, warrior-style, sitting up, facing East. In spite of the kid’s resistance, he claims he was a warrior once and promises to tell the kid more about their background along the way.
Franklin feels obliged, somehow, and the hard trek begins, with Eldon often tied onto the only horse as the kid walks with the pack and does everything that needs doing to camp, hunt, fish, cook, and care for the dying man.
As they travel and Eldon is reminded of his past, his stories emerge. The narrative outside of his storytelling reveals more of their origins and how the men crossed paths. Eldon’s childhood was horrific but his young adult life was something like the kid’s - hard work and little money.
Eldon and his best pal, Jimmy, worked in the logging camps and rode the logs down the river, dancing atop them and fooling around like the kids they were.
The wars – WWII and Korea – affected lives in ways that left men shell-shocked with little or no understanding or help. In Eldon’s case, he had more than a war or two to deal with.
On the trek, his father tells Franklin something about what he was taught.
“ ‘Our people just followed the work but most places wouldn’t hire a skin or a breed. Not regular, least ways. Get a day here, a day there sometimes, but there was never nothing fixed. So I scavenged wood. It’s all I learned to hunt when I was kid.’
His father shook a smoke out of the pack and lit up and smoked a moment. ‘Your grandparents were both halfbreeds. We weren’t Metis like the French Indians are called. We were just half-breeds. Ojibway. Mixed with Scot. Mcjibs. That’s what they called us. No one wanted us around.’ ”
When the kid shows that he has a lot of skills, his father asks if the old man taught him. Yes, says Franklin. Everything Franklin knows, which is considerable, is from the old man.
“‘At first he brung me out all the time when I was small. Showed me plants and how to gather them. Everything a guy would need is here if you want it and know how to look for it, he said. You gotta spend time gatherin’ what you need. What you need to keep you strong. He called it a medicine walk.’ ”
His dad understands, but he was not taught these things.
“ ‘All’s I’m tryin’ to say is that we never had the time for learnin’ about how to get by out here. None of us did. White man things was what we needed to learn if we was gonna eat regular. Indian stuff just kinda got left behind on accounta we were busy gettin’ by in that world.’ ”
It’s a long time before Eldon can get the courage to unburden himself of guilt and reveal the real story of who their people are and why the kid has grown up with the old man.
This is harsh and unforgiving but tender and poignant. There are no right answers. Just because something is understandable doesn’t make it acceptable.
This takes place in the Canadian wilderness of British Columbia, but the essence of this story of heritage lost and somewhat reclaimed is echoed in First Nations around the world. I hope more can be saved.
Ojibway author Wagamese died in 2017, too young, but he left a good body of work for me to catch up on.
I listened to some - the audio by Tom Stechschulte is excellent. It is a haunting story. ...more
5★ “In the tense silence, the shifting of the branches of the ancient yews in the churchyard sounded unnaturally loud. Sebastian could hear a trickle o5★ “In the tense silence, the shifting of the branches of the ancient yews in the churchyard sounded unnaturally loud. Sebastian could hear a trickle of unseen moisture and the rustle of some night creature –
And the metallic ‘snick’ of a flintlock’s hammer being carefully thumbed back.”
Sebastian and his young family are in the countryside of Shropshire to take a gift that had been bought for a grandmother by a grandson who had been killed. (I will say no more, in case you haven’t read the previous book.) Coincidentally, this is the village where Sebastian may discover something about his own family.
Of course their rural holiday is interrupted almost immediately by the discovery of the body of a lovely young woman with a bottle of laudanum conveniently nearby. The young Squire of Ayleswick, Archie Rawlins, is new to his duties as a magistrate. We meet him when the book opens.
“It was the fly that got to him.
In the misty light of early morning, the dead woman looked as if she might be sleeping, her dusky lashes resting against cheeks of pale eggshell, her lips faintly parted. She lay at the edge of a clover-strewn meadow near the river, the back of her head nestled against a mossy log, her slim hands folded at the high waist of her fashionable dove gray mourning gown.
Then that fly came crawling out of her mouth”
Poor fellow. But he has his wits about him enough to disagree with the constable, who calls it an obvious case of suicide.
“ ‘There's a Viscount staying in the village,’ said Archie. ‘Arrived just yesterday evening. l’ve heard of him, his name is Devlin, and he works with Bow Street sometimes, solving murders. I'm going to ask for his advice in this.’”
The constable has no choice but to defer to the 800 years of Rawlins tradition that Archie represents. But Archie is nervous about approaching a London lord.
Although the characters are a mix of nobility and simple country folk, this is a very different scenario from the London investigations. We are at the mercy of a country doctor who is no Paul Gibson.
The author blends history smoothly into her storylines. The young woman is not the only murder victim (yes, it was murder), and there will be several inquests before this is over. I enjoyed learning something about inquests, but I’ll hide it, in case you aren’t interested.
(view spoiler)[ “In English law, any sudden, violent, or unnatural death required an inquest. Sworn in by the country coroner, a jury of between twelve and twenty-four ‘good and honest men’ was impaneled to view the body of the deceased, hear testimony from relevant witnesses, and present its findings. More legal than medical in form and function, the inquest was a legacy from the days of the Norman Conquest, when the Crown’s main interest had been in taxing any Saxon populations that could be found responsible for the murder of a Norman.”
I had no idea. I remember learning about 1066, but here we are, almost a millennium later, still making use of the coroner and an inquest. But there’s generally no jury, so it’s up to the coroner to decide the results of the inquiry. (hide spoiler)]
Lady Devlin, Hero, continues to follow her interests in researching the poor, the downtrodden, those families who are losing their livelihoods, bit by bit. The Enclosure Act had been passed in 1801, closing lands that had traditionally been The Commons, where everyone could graze their dairy cow or let their fowls wander. The local lords absorbed a lot, and the small farmers couldn’t afford to fence anything, so they just lost their land.
The nobility cleverly didn’t enforce it everywhere all at once, so they avoided a general uprising. But it certainly didn’t go unnoticed. Hero interviewed villagers about the changes. I will put that under a spoiler as well, since I realise how long this is.
(view spoiler)[ “ ‘Don't seem right, somehow’, said Mary Beth. ‘To take the land that once belonged to everybody and give it to those who already have so much. Just so’s they can put a wall around it and arrest anybody dares set foot on it.’
‘It's not right,’ said Hero.
Mary Beth nodded, her lips pressed tightly together, the cords in her throat working as she swallowed hard. ‘There’s a little ditty my Nate used t' sing to my Julie, before she died. You ever heard it?’ And then she began to sing, her voice pure and sweet, but wavering now with the strain of her emotions:
They hang the man and flog the woman, That steals the goose from off the Common, But let the greater villain loose, That steals the Commons from the goose.
The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own, But leaves the Lords and Ladies fine Who take things that are yours and mine. And geese will still a Common lack. Till they go and steal it back.'
The aging chambermaid's voice faded away, leaving her staring at the cold hearth.
‘l have heard it, yes,’ said Hero, quietly closing her notebook and setting it aside. Although the truth was, she'd heard the first four lines, but not the rest.”
Like Hero, I had heard the first verse and understood the meaning, but I had not heard the rest. In fact, I’ve discovered there’s a bit more to it, but I’ve digressed too long already. (hide spoiler)]
The investigation eventually involves almost everyone in the region, including Lucien Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, “The Beast”, as the English call Napoleon. With England and France still fighting each other in a brutal, bloody war, it does seem odd that Lucien is living there with his young family. A spy?
There is nothing dry about the history, and the descriptions bring people and scenes to life.
“Sebastian watched the gardener wrap his strong, sun-darkened fists around the handles of his barrow and lean into it, the wheel squealing faintly as he pushed away.”
This is from one of Hero’s dangerous encounters:
“Rather than keep the pistol leveled on his chest, Hero readjusted her aim so that the muzzle now pointed at his crotch. ‘Let me assure you that I am an excellent shot. Now, turn around and go away. You are boring me.’
He didn't turn around. But he did back away from her, one step at a time, his dark, angry gaze fixed on her face. She waited until he'd backed all the way to his forge before she calmly walked away, the pistol still in her hand.”
I’ve said little about the actual story or the fact that, as always, the author has Sebastian and Hero hypothesising several scenarios as each murder takes place or as each major fact is uncovered, so that we are as much in the dark as they are. As they suspect someone, so do we.
It’s my favourite historical mystery series, and I know I am not alone.
3.5~4★ “The doctor’s waiting room, which was very small, was almost full when the Turpins entered and Mrs. Turpin, who was very large, made it look eve3.5~4★ “The doctor’s waiting room, which was very small, was almost full when the Turpins entered and Mrs. Turpin, who was very large, made it look even smaller by her presence.”
There’s an assortment of patients waiting for the doctor. Mrs. Turpin has to wait for a seat, and when she finally squeezes into one, she announces that she’s too fat.
“ ‘Well, as long as you have such a good disposition,’ the stylish lady said, ‘I don’t think it makes a bit of difference what size you are. You just can’t beat a good disposition.’
Next to her was a fat girl of eighteen or nineteen, scowling into a thick blue book which Mrs. Turpin saw was entitled 'Human Development'. The girl raised her head and directed her scowl at Mrs. Turpin as if she did not like her looks.”
I’m not surprised. Mrs. Turpin may claim to have a good diposition but has been giving everyone the once-over. A thin, leathery lady is wearing a dress made out of the material the Turpins’ chicken feed comes in. Mrs. T classifies all people into social strata.
“Without appearing to, Mrs. Turpin always noticed people’s feet. The well-dressed lady had on red and gray suede shoes to match her dress.
Mrs. Turpin had on her good black patent leather pumps. The ugly girl had on Girl Scout shoes and heavy socks. The old woman had on tennis shoes and the white-trashy mother had on what appeared to be bedroom slippers, black straw with gold braid threaded through them—exactly what you would have expected her to have on.”
Much of her internal monologue is about her kindness. When her husband brings their black farmworkers in from the fields in the back of the truck in the evening, she takes out a bucket of water with a block of ice in it and a dipper so they can all have a cool drink. Of course they are all call n*rs, not blacks, and of course they are all considered inferior.
“Idiots! Mrs. Turpin growled to herself. You could never say anything intelligent to a n*r. You could talk at them but not with them.”
When she is finally insulted herself, she is so shaken that, although she tries to justify herself to herself, she begins to crack under the pressure.
Of course there is plenty of deep and meaningful food for thought, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.
It is not a cheery tale, but it is an excellent picture of an ignorant bigot I wouldn’t want to know (but probably do).
It’s one of the Short Story Club Group’s selections that you can download here. Revelation PDF
5★ “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to 5★ “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind.”
This famous short story was first published in 1953, eighty years ago, and is also the title of a longer book of Flannery O'Connor stories.
The grandmother lives in Georgia with her adult son, Bailey, his wife and two children. She tries to convince them to go to Tennessee instead of Florida by carrying on, waving a newspaper article, and talking of a killer in that area.
“ ‘Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did.’”
She gets no support from the wife or the kids, who suggest she stay home, but they know she’d never miss out on a trip. The next day, she’s the first one in the car (sneaking the cat in as well), and they’re off across Georgia, headed for Florida.
She points out all the sights, including a “ ‘cute little’” black boy standing at the door to a shack who waves at them when they stare.
“ ‘He didn’t have any britches on,’ June Star [the girl] said.
‘He probably didn’t have any,’ the grandmother explained. ‘Little n*s in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,’ she said.”
During the trip and at a rest stop, “Red Sammy’s”, she carries on about how times have changed. Her grandchildren are not respectful the way children were in her day. He agrees. She says he’s a good man.
“ ‘A good man is hard to find,’ Red Sammy said. ‘Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.’
He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right.’ ”
When she suggests revisiting an old plantation house she thinks she remembers, the story really takes off.
Not the usual family road trip, but it is only short and worth your time!
Thanks to the Short Story Club for the link to a PDF of the story online:
4.5★ “Karim kept his eyes firmly away from his grandfather’s corpse and pointed to the wall by the side of the fireplace, there were two nails in the w4.5★ “Karim kept his eyes firmly away from his grandfather’s corpse and pointed to the wall by the side of the fireplace, there were two nails in the wall but nothing hanging on either one. . . . ‘The medal’s gone. And the photo.’ ‘What photo?’Bruno asked. ‘His soccer team, the one he played on when he was young, in Marseilles.’”
This begins as a reasonably cheerful country-cop story in a small French village, where everyone knows each other – for better or for worse – and there seem to be no great surprises. Bruno seems a nice enough representative of the law, established as a well-liked member of the community.
In his van, he carries his fishing rod, his rugby boots, his tennis racket, and various items of local produce, eggs, cheese, etc. Some are his to give away or trade, and some are what he’s been given. He doesn’t wear all the usual police gear, but he knows where it is.
“There was a pair of ancient handcuffs somewhere in his van, but Bruno would have to conduct a search to find them. He had a flashlight but it could use a new set of batteries. The van’s glove compartment held a notebook and some pens, but the notebook was full of various recipes, the minutes of the last tennis-club meeting and a list of the names and phone numbers of the ‘minimes’, the young boys who had signed up for his tennis lessons.”
Recipes, tennis, kids. Nothing to see here. That is, until the aforementioned young Karim goes to his grandfather’s house and discovers his disembowelled body with a symbol carved onto his chest. Horrifying and unexpected in this village.
With only the medals and photo missing, Bruno has little to go on, but because of the nature of the murder, the fact that Hamid was Algerian, and the possible political fall-out, the higher-ups are called in, and Bruno has to take a back seat. Bruno is less than happy with the magistrate who arrives.
“The magistrate, a dapper and visibly ambitious young Frisian named Lucien Tavernier, who might just have reached the age of thirty, had arrived on an early morning flight down to Perigueux. . . . Tavernier studied them all through his chic black eyeglasses. His suit was black and clearly expensive, as was his knitted silk tie, and he wore a shirt with thick purple and white stripes. Lined up neatly on the conference table before him were a black leather-bound notebook and a matching Montblanc pen, the slimmest cell phone that Bruno had ever seen and a computer small enough to fit into his shirt pocket that seemed io deliver his e-mails. Phone and computer had come from black leather pouches on his belt. To Bruno, Tavernier looked like an emissary from an advanced and probably hostile civilization.”
As well as the magistrate and investigation team, we meet many of the townsfolk and visitors – this being a tourist destination – and Bruno is adept at keeping everyone reasonably comfortable. But wartime memories are long, and France struggled with Nazis, collaborators, and resistance fighters, meaning some families have remained enemies for decades.
“ ‘Do you keep a political list?”’ Duroc asked. ‘Fascists, communists, Front National types, activists, all that?’
‘No, never have and never had to,’ said Bruno. ‘The mayor usually knows how everyone votes, and they usually vote the same way they did last time, the same way their fathers did. He can usually tell you what the vote will be the day before the election and he’s never wrong by more than a dozen or so.’”
But there are some questionable young people, including ‘visitors’ to the region, and it looks as if there could be drugs involved. There seem to be a lot of tentative suspects, but no evidence, and nothing specific to suggest the motive for the grisly nature of this crime.
Bruno’s backstory crops up now and then, so we can see why he is alone and particularly sensitive to this kind of brutality. His background gives scope for more depth to his character than the day-to-day baskets of eggs and tennis lessons. Still, tennis and wonderful meals and interesting female companions feature throughout, which balances the grim mystery well.
Something I appreciated was how smoothly the author introduced the wartime history as part of the story. For someone like me, who didn’t grow up in a part of the world where war was on my doorstep, it helps me understand why memories endure and why people find it hard to forgive or forget.
Now, I’m hooked and hope to see Bruno again.
P.S. I imagine fans of Louise Penny might enjoy the atmosphere, the tone, and the food in Bruno’s world. He is no Gamache, but he has his own appeal. ...more
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