Lacey's House - Joanne Graham

'I wanted to walk right out of my life and leave it behind.'

Sometimes one way I can see how much I loved a book is by how many sentences or paragraphs I tab with little sticky notes to come back to and think about again once I've finished. There were a lot of places I marked in this book. There were parts of the prose that resonated with me, that moved me, and parts where the use of language particularly appealed to me. In summary, I thought this was a very special book. 

Rachel Moore has suffered a sad loss and moves from Birmingham to the countryside, to get away and start afresh. She is a solitary soul, having grown up in care, though having a brief period with some loving foster parents. She meets Lacey Carmichael, the older lady living next door. Lacey is another isolated soul, teased by the local children, labeled as the mad woman down the road, she is misunderstood and lonely. Then she is accused of a terrible crime.

A connection forms between them, and they begin to trust each other, and to share painful things with each other that they have never told anyone else. They've both experienced such sadness and from sharing their secrets a friendship blossoms despite the difference in their ages. The development of this friendship between Rachel and Lacey over the course of the book is wonderful and fascinating to observe. As time passes, Rachel thinks about how she feels about Lacey: 'I found that I cared for her very deeply, that her vulnerability had somehow pulled me closer and I carried her words, her story, like a heavy cloak about my shoulders.' Rachel attempts to express the pain and sorrow in Lacey's past through her artwork. 

'Her memories came home with me. Walking straight into my studio, I mixed them with acrylics; different shades of blue and deep, swirling turquoise that I threw at the huge canvas as I painted her sorrow, a raging, tumultuous thing that, when I was finished, left me breathless and empty.'

The chapters alternate between the two of them, Rachel's in the first person and Lacey's in the third, and the story progressed and worked really well written in this way.

Rachel likes and trusts Lacey, but doesn't yet know the whole truth; she, and the reader, are kept in suspense. Rachel fears that in the future she too might experience the depths of isolation that Lacey has;

'In fifty years time would it be me standing where Lacey was, with the past eating into me from the inside? I recoiled from the idea of experiencing for myself the stark loneliness that had been so apparent in Lacey's eyes.'

Joanne Graham writes with immense insight, empathy, warmth and poignancy about these women's lives and pasts, and writes sensitively and honestly about themes of mental health, loneliness and loss of a child, about damaging things that happen in people's lives which they are scarred by and understandably spend much time and energy grappling with. I felt emotional as I read, I was angry at the cruelty in Lacey's past, at what people could get away with. So much of a person's past can be hidden away, unknown, unvoiced. I empathised with and liked both Rachel and Lacey, and they both felt very real to me as I was reading. As Lacey thinks to herself, 'How sad for them both that they had to grow up without loving families.' As well as creating engaging, rounded characters, the author tells a powerful story. 

For me, Lacey's House is a wonderful, incredibly moving and very special story of female friendship across generations. It has stayed in my mind since reading it and it made me think. Beautifully, sensitively written, perceptive and touching, I think it was a very worthy recipient of the Luke Bitmead Bursary, a superb debut novel and I'd say it's one of my reading highlights of the year so far.


Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel for an honest review. 

Author links - twitter @YarrowH | website

Published by Legend Press

Rory's Boys - Alan Clark

‘My story was more complex than I had known it to be...'

Rory Blaine is a very successful advertising executive in London who discovers the grandmother he has been estranged from for many years is now close to death. He reluctantly visits her and whilst there meets Vic d'Orsay, a popular singer now in his seventies but still going strong. When his grandmother passes away, Rory is surprised to inherit his grand familial home, Mount Royal in Hampstead, a place that holds many memories for him, but which he has also not seen for many years. When he takes possession, Vic appears again and suggests an idea for the future role of the place, and a brilliant plan is born; 'Mount Royal was about to become Britain’s first residential home for gay men.’

Rory has turned 45 and when he experiences unexpected rejection in his personal life he begins to think about his life, what happened in the past, where he is now and what might lay ahead. Openly gay, he wonders if there will ever be a man who he can spend his life with, whether he can move beyond promiscuity and brief affairs and short-lived (albeit very pleasurable) gratification, on to finding something lasting.

This novel has a first person narrative from Rory throughout, in the form of a record of thoughts and events as suggested by his therapist. This allows the reader a very intimate look at his life, his innermost thoughts and fears, and his relationships, throughout the story, and has the feel of a very personal tale. 

I enjoyed this novel a lot; I thought the writing was very honest and moving at times, and also funny, entertaining and witty; some bits really made me laugh and reading other parts I felt very sad. It is frank and open about sex, casual encounters and gay relationships.

This story felt so real, at times Rory's pain was strong, the loneliness after being disowned at a young age by his grandmother, the only family he really had left, and his difficulties in coming to terms with himself, as well as with getting older, finding his place in the world, and accepting his past if he is to move onwards. Vic offers him valuable advice about forgiveness that was based on his own very difficult experiences, which are revealed in the novel through a very well written encounter that exposes the awful bigotry and ignorance of some in society.

                                  

Vic is a charismatic, affable and layered character. Rory observes of him that ‘he certainly wasn’t like elderly men were supposed to be. It had obviously never occurred to him to disengage with the world, to step back and leave life to the younger generation. He never stood on his dignity either so somehow, however he behaved, he kept it.’

There are some very touching friendships that grow and evolve over the course of the novel, with some characters, especially Elspeth, coming into their own as the story progressed. In fact, when I had finished reading the book, I realised I really would miss some of these characters, so vividly had they been drawn by the author.

Some of the elderly gay characters have evidently had to hide their sexuality from most of those around them for much of their lives, indeed, as mentioned in the novel, for some of them, they could remember when their love was considered a crime. I had never thought about the lack of places for older gay people to be able to live where they would be accepted and cherished rather than judged and questioned, and I thought it was brilliant to see this idea being discussed in fiction. 

The wealthy older men who come to reside at Mount Royal in its new life as a residential home are the 'Rory's Boys' of the novel's title. There are some fascinating, entertaining and endearing characters amongst them. One of the larger-than-life residents remarks that ‘we are each of us surprising and fascinating till our last breath', a line that I loved.

There are plenty of twists and turns within the plot too, some that I guessed at and some that certainly took me by surprise.

This is a really good first novel; the author imbues his prose with honesty, compassion, poignancy and humour, and has crafted an entertaining plot and some great characters.

Source - I was kindly sent a copy of this novel to read and review.

Publisher - Bliss, an imprint of Arcadia Books
Visit the author's website here

The Hunger Trace - Edward Hogan - Guest book review

When David Bryant, owner of a Derbyshire wildlife park, dies unexpectedly he leaves his young widow Maggie struggling to keep the business going, whilst also caring for his troubled teenage son of his earlier marriage, Christopher. David’s old friend Louisa is a falconer who also lives on the estate. The Hunger Trace explores the gradually evolving relationships as first a stranger and then torrential rain and floods changes the emotional and physical landscape.

This is a confident and assured novel. The Derbyshire setting is dramatic, the characters are interesting, the plot is intriguing, the outcome uncertain. Does that make it a good read? Well, I’m not sure.

For the first hundred pages I was uncertain where the story was going. Initially Hogan evokes an underlying sexual tension between the women, despite their previous heterosexual histories. But then, a third of the way through the novel, Adam is introduced and it becomes clear that the women’s relationship is emotional rather than physical. Rather than adding interest, the early ambiguity feels misleading.

Both Maggie and Louisa have difficult relationships with Christopher. Some readers have suggested that his eccentricities are unbelievable in a teenager, but anyone who has had experience of dealing with an autism-spectrum adolescent will disagree. Hogan’s observation of detail is sufficiently accurate to make this extremely uncomfortable reading in places.

Adam too has been described as difficult to believe. Why, readers ask, would a young, physically attractive man be drawn to an older woman who can be crabby and hostile? That may be a valid question, but since it’s one that many of us may have asked in ‘real-life’ I don’t see that as a problem in a novel, so long as the attraction is apparent.

Of all the characters, I had most problem with David. His is always a defining presence, either by his impact on major life-decisions or by the legacy of his death, but the ‘idea’ of him was difficult to engage with. Described as self-centred, controlling and a womaniser, yet weak and spineless in a crisis, he is hardly likeable. I found his conversations with Christopher, told in flashback, particularly disturbing given the context of an autistic teenager’s emerging sexual awareness.

Hogan includes a lot of technical references to training and hunting with hawks, and it is one of these that provides the novel’s title. Hunger Traces are the permanent fault lines in the plumage of a falcon due to neglect and undernourishment. The image is a powerful metaphor for the scars left on Maggie, Louisa, Christopher and Adam by previous emotional encounters and failed relationships; perhaps more could have been made of the parallels.

As a study of loneliness and isolation its sometimes melancholic tone may deter some readers, and its plot isn’t as tight or gripping as it could be. However, despite some doubts I would recommend this unconventional novel, which establishes Hogan’s credentials as a serious new talent.

Reviewed by Angi Holden - guest reviewer

Published by Simon and Schuster

Thanks very much to Angi for kindly reading and reviewing this book for The Little Reader Library. Angi is a full-time student, a part-time teacher, a part-time writer, a full-time Mum and an avid reader. 

Human Remains - Elizabeth Haynes

‘I wanted to go home and lock the door and not open it again.’

This is the third novel from crime writer Elizabeth Haynes and for me this is her darkest yet. Annabel works as an analyst for the police. She is lonely, with just her cat Lucy for company at home, and a few visits a week to her housebound mum to separate her days. She works hard, and doesn’t have any other close relationships, seeing the friendships amongst others at work go on around her without being part of them, feeling rather disconnected.

Having made a grim discovery in the house next door to hers one day, she realises on her return to work that similar deaths are happening in an alarmingly high number in the locality, and takes this information to her bosses at the police station. Why are so many people dying alone at home, not being discovered for some time after their deaths? Though seeming unsuspicious and raising little interest at first– these are deaths after all, not murders, aren’t they? – not least a local journalist, Sam Everett.

Through other lonely, troubled voices that are heard briefly in the story, and primarily through Annabel, this novel examines loneliness and the vulnerability of it, whether society should do more for those living alone, making us question our duty to others, and it makes you wonder about both choosing to be alone and ending up that way. As the neighbour of someone who has been found dead and alone comments ‘I think it’s terrible that in this day and age nobody notices you’re gone…People should take more care of each other.’ This is not to say that the novel offers no hope in this regard; in fact there are people who demonstrate the very opposite and offer kindness and friendship just when it is most needed.

Haynes has created a cold, chilling character for the criminal in this novel. She takes us into his mind; we know that from the outside he looks just like anyone else, he goes to work, goes about his life, no one would know what else he does in private: ‘If you met me in the street I dare say you would not be unduly worried by my presence…’ But inside that twisted mind are the thoughts of man playing with the lives of others and relishing what he does, even believing he is helping them to escape, using his own particular methods: ‘You want to know how I do it, don’t you? I can imagine it, your fervent interest, your curiosity that others might describe as morbid: I can see it in the sparkle in your eyes. Well, ask me, then. Go on. I know you’re dying to…’ The language here is so apt – ‘morbid, dying to’ – in keeping with the subject matter of the book.

Elizabeth Haynes established herself as a must-read author for me with Into the Darkest Corner. This novel confirms her talent for getting to the heart of the darkest minds and imagining the awful horrors they might commit. She has crafted another compelling story, with characters that get under your skin, a mystery and investigation that keeps you turning the pages, and with a dark, creepy air pervading it all.

Published by Myriad Editions

You can follow the author on twitter @Elizjhaynes and visit her blog here.

My reviews of Into the Darkest Corner and Revenge of the Tide. 

Thanks to the publisher for kindly sending a copy of this novel to read and review. 

Three super reads! Don't they look good together!

Heft - Liz Moore

'I would remind myself of how many people there were like me, & how many people fall into the despair of loneliness...'

This is a review where I have to be careful not to be over the top, because, plainly said, I loved this book so, so much.

Arthur Opp, at around 550 pounds, is extremely overweight, and he hasn't left his large home in Brooklyn in ten years. He was an academic, but no longer works, supporting himself through money from a father he never sees, and ordering everything from food to books online and having it all delivered to his door. He tells us his home was once 'very lovely inside and out', but has now fallen 'into a sort of haunted disrepair', and he hasn't seen the upper floors in a decade. His only real friendship, since his friend Marty passed away, is an infrequent correspondence with an ex-student of his, Charlene Turner, and the novel commences with a frank letter that he is composing to her. 

Kel Keller is a talented baseball player in his last year of highschool. His mother, Charlene, wants him to consider college, but he is not academically minded and is instead aiming for a place with a major league team straight out of school. His life isn't the seemingly easy, privileged existence of his fellow students at Pells Landing. He lives in Yonkers, and commutes to the prestigious school everyday, having a place there only because his mother used to work there. But his mother not only no longer works, she can no longer cope with life, and spends her days drunk for the most part, something which Kel has had to live with, and hide. Charlene writes to her old acquaintance Arthur Opp, asking if maybe he could advise her son Kel about colleges. 

The story is told alternately by Arthur and Kel, both of whom are endearing and wonderful voices. Arthur and Charlene connected as two lonely souls. She told him once how she felt she was invisible. He tells us 'I am one of the world's lonely', and that he 'felt destined for solitude' right from the beginning of his life, before then even, he was 'very certain that one day it would find me, so when it did I was not surprised & even welcomed it.' He has ways of consoling himself, through food especially, and has imagined that there is 'an oversoul of loneliness', a way that all those who are lonely in the world are somehow connected, and there is a reason for it.

'There was a delicious romance in being utterly alone, & I told myself I was nobler for it, & that there was a purpose to my solitude, O there must be.'

Liz Moore has captured how loneliness feels. How a person can withdraw from the world and years can pass by, spent in this solitude. In Arthur and Kel, she has created two wonderful, damaged, loveable characters whose lives are gradually drawn closer together through the strand that connects them; the life of one woman, herself lonely and destroyed. Slowly, their lives begin to shift. The appearance in Arthur's life of Yolanda signifies his first real contact with the outside world for a long time. An unlikely but wonderful friendship begins.

Meanwhile, the huge change in his life, partway through the story, takes Kel full circle, sees him spiralling down into despair, and leaves him longing 'to collapse into myself until I no longer exist, I want to live in my mother's house and never go out.' This passage sounds like Arthur. Kel wants to isolate himself from the world now. Are these two very different people actually rather alike? What has happened to make Kel feel this way? What will happen to them both?

The story moves along beautifully, it gripped me from the very start; it has surprises for us along the way, and is enjoyable and very poignant. I felt that the author really cared about these characters. It is a story filled with sadness and hope, and told in an intimate, warmhearted way. I loved, cared about, rooted for and was thoroughly convinced by Arthur and Kel and their lives throughout.

Thank you for a really brilliant book Liz Moore. The characters have stayed with me, and this story is certainly in my top reads of the year so far. 

Published by Hutchinson.


5/5

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The Language of Flowers - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Victoria Jones lives in San Francisco, where she has grown up in group care homes and has been passed from foster home to foster home, never managing to stay in one place for long. She has no family of her own. When she is ten years old she has her last chance at securing a foster placement, with a woman named Elizabeth. Moving forward several years, Victoria is leaving her last group home aged eighteen, and is now completely on her own in the world, without the support of her long-term care worker Meredith. In chapters alternating between the younger Victoria’s time spent living with Elizabeth, and what happens to Victoria from being eighteen and leaving the last group home, we learn about the experiences that have shaped her troubled youth and about how she now spends her days as an adult, including experiencing homelessness. As suggested in the title, the language of flowers plays a huge role in the novel. It is, or has been, a means of communication between various characters. For Victoria, flowers are the only things that she feels comfortable with, and through them she connects with life and with others. At the back of the novel is a brief flower dictionary for the reader, compiled by the author. This is a welcome addition to the book for the reader and I referred to it several times whilst I was reading the novel.

This is a moving, emotional novel. There is much sadness, but there is also hope. In particular, in Elizabeth and Renata, Victoria meets some kind souls who give her opportunities and chances to make steps into the world where it seemed like there would be none for her. I like the fact that the author has tackled motherhood from this angle, and her portrayal of how Victoria reacts. I also like the way she demonstrates through Victoria how hard and terrifying it can be to grasp potential future happiness and kindness if you have you not been used to it in the past and have come to feel that you must be undeserving of it.

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