Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 A brilliant idea, a strong start, but the final 75 % are more or less a mess: This debut could have been so much bLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2020 A brilliant idea, a strong start, but the final 75 % are more or less a mess: This debut could have been so much better. Zhang tells the story of a Chinese-American family during the gold rush, thus adding a part to the vast territory of Wild West narratives that has yet been missing (by the end of the 1850s, Chinese immigrants made up one-fifth of the population of the four counties that constituted the Southern Mines - you can read more about Chinese immigrants and the gold rush here). The novel opens with the siblings Lucy and Sam finding their father dead in his bed - as their mother has already passed, the kids are now on their own, first trying to provide a proper burial and then trying to survive. Their childhood and the lives of their mother and father are told within the text, painting a wider picture of the time and the destiny of Chinese-Americans.
Zhang clearly made an effort to give different perspectives: The mother has arrived on a ship as a worker, the father, a man with Chinese roots, was already born in the area. Lucy, the main character, and her androgynous sister Sam grow up in a family that struggles to make a life for themselves - indeed, "home" and all its meanings are a central theme in the book. The mother dreams of going back to China, the father claims the title-giving hills as his home - while the many fortune seekers and workers who arrive discrimate against him, the foreign-looking local. As a backdrop, the Native American genocide, the exploitation of nature, and the hunt for buffalos play an important role - the siblings themselves ponder what the term "home" even means in these surroundings.
While at the beginning, the novel has a strong Faulkner-As I Lay Dying-vibe, thus playing with a classic American tale, it later incorporates magical realism: The hills are haunted by tigers, Chinese symbols of luck, but also dangerous creatures. While I found this to be a wonderful idea, the problem with this and, honestly, the whole text is that it is overly descriptive. The second flaw of the book is its messy structure - the flashbacks do tell interesting stories, but instead of communicating with the main narrative thread, the whole thing starts falling apart into multiple texts - and when the narrator suddenly changes, that doesn't help either. Plus, lastly: After the first quest, the burial of the father, the main therad starts meandering as well - of course you might say that this fits the bill of two lonely kids wandering around, but we all know by now that meandering texts drive. me. nuts!
So all in all, a highly interesting topic and an inspired mixture of Wild West mythology with Eastern elements, but it starts to fall a little short as the story progresses. To me, this is no Booker winner.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Ward's debut is an experimental novel that cleverly merges philosophical investigations into the nature of love anLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Ward's debut is an experimental novel that cleverly merges philosophical investigations into the nature of love and reality with literature or, to be more exact, with narrative games on how our decisions and random destiny plot the storylines of our lives. Each of the ten chapters is themed after a famous thought experiment like the prisoner's dilemma, the philosophical zombie or the ship of Theseus. The characters, much like test persons in a trial, act under the conditions of the experiment - the reader takes on the role of a scientist studying human behavior.
But there is also an overarching plot: Rachel and Eliza are a lesbian couple, and Rachel is firmly convinced that an ant has entered her body through her eye - which leads to contention in their relationship because Eliza, the scientist, has trouble believing her. Nevertheless (or maybe to overcome their problems), they decide to have a child with their gay friend Hal. From this basic premise, Ward extrapolates: She changes narrators, dives deeper into different characters (not all of them human), and seemingly alters plotlines that have already been established in other chapters. What is love? What is real? What does it mean to be human? The more the story of the little family progresses, shifts and morphs, the more the topic of artificial intelligence takes center stage, questioning the nature of the future a.k.a. utopia/dystopia we are all approaching.
Ward holds degrees in philosophy and literature and is currently studying for her PhD on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind- and in her book, she puts these qualifications to work. She wrote a novel for readers who enjoy pondering philosophical questions and like authors who turn stories into puzzles - in the Booker context, "Love and Other Thought Experiments" reads like the antidote to the chick lit entry Such a Fun Age, as Ward's novel would also be bona fide material for the Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mould. There will be readers who complain about the complexity of this (although the wording will be more like "I don't understand what's going on" or "The characters are not likeable and I couldn't connect with them"), but readers who came for the postmodern extravaganza will rejoice: This is wild, daring, ambitious writing.
A fascinating debut that shows why reading the Booker longlist is fun if the judges do their job right: The Booker has the potential to shine a light on new, fresh, challenging authors. Sophie Ward is one of them. ...more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 This short, accessible novel tells the story of of Micah Mortimer, a 43-year-old handyman and tech specialist who Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 This short, accessible novel tells the story of of Micah Mortimer, a 43-year-old handyman and tech specialist who ponders why he has failed to build a lasting relationship with a woman. Mind you, Micah is a nice, quirky guy, but he tends to be inattentive to social clues, he aims for perfection and doesn't know what he's got until it's gone. During the course of the story, he meets the son of his college girlfriend who assumes that Micah is his father, and his current girlfriend Cassie breaks up with him. Micah, always a close witness to other people's lives as he is in charge of the upkeep of an apartment complex and constantly called as the "Tech Hermit" when IT disaster is impending, he wonders how much of his own life is destiny and what he can do to change it for the better.
Tyler gives us a quiet story about an everyman living in a basememt and struggling to find happiness. It is certainly well-written, but it's not very challenging or suprising - granted, not every book has to be, but this is a Booker entry and as such, it falls a little short. This year, the judges seem to have split the list in mainly two categories: Heavyweights Hilary Mantel, Colum McCann, Anne Tyler) and wild, daring debuts (Sophie Ward, Gabriel Krauze, Douglas Stuart) - and in comparison to the newbies flexing their vision and ambition, this seems extremely tame.
A worthwhile, moving read, but maybe not a good pick for this (or any) Booker list. ...more
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 DNF @25 % The topic - the Second Italo-Ethiopian War - is certainly interesting, but I just can't bring myself to Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 DNF @25 % The topic - the Second Italo-Ethiopian War - is certainly interesting, but I just can't bring myself to care about this novel, so I'll do what I rarely resort to: I'll abandon this text. Life is short, my TBR is long. ...more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 "Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides" - not the worst idea for structuring a book about tLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2020 "Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides" - not the worst idea for structuring a book about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. McCann's work is semi-fictional, as it is based on the real life stories of Rami Elhanan, Israeli and Jewish, and Bassam Aramin, Palestinian and Muslim. Rami's daughter Samadar was killed in the conflict in 1997 - she was 14. Bassam's daughter was killed when she was 10, in 2007. The fathers joined forces and decided to use their grief as a weapon, to promote forgiveness and understanding by telling their stories: "Nobody can listen to me and stay the same."
McCann's book has 1,001 chapters - yup, you read that right, and there are plenty of other references to The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1 of 3. Just like Scheherazade tells stories to save her life, Rami and Bassam tell their stories trying to save the lives of those who might fall victim to the conflict in the future. The first 500 chapters are numbered chronologically, the next 500 count backwards; in the middle, there are two chapters numbered "500", and they capture the speeches Rami and Bassam give in their public appearances.
This narrative concept is the real star of the novel. Many of the chapters are very short, and similar to the approach played out in Frankenstein in Baghdad (which, IMHO, is a much better, more daring book), they appear like the explosion / gunshot that killed the children: Smashed into different narrative particles of different lengths, they convey aspects of the lives of the kids and their families, but also extrapolate. We read about birds migrating over the war zone, about Jorge Luis Borges who visited the area ("Borges wrote that it only takes two facing mirrors to form a labyrinth"), and also get some info about weapons and how large parts of the world are connected to the conflict in one way or another.
Social media is currently debating whether this novel should have been excluded from the longlist for two reasons: For one, Colum McCann is an Irish dude, so some are stating that him telling the story of Israelis and Palestinians is cultural appropriation. To that I say: The Great Believers is a fantastic book, although I'm under the impression that Rebecca Makkai is not a gay man. The main problem with books like American Dirt is not that the author is not a person of color, but that they are badly written. And then there are allegations brought up by Roxane Gay that McCann assaulted her friend. The Booker and the author have not commented.
Looking purely at the novel, I have to say that my problem with it is that it carries its intention on its sleeve - subtle this is not, it's a very blatant manifesto, and I think that's exactly what McCann intended to do here. Obviously, it's a valid argument that a conflict like this does not call for subtlety, but for activism. But to me, this was a very long piece of activism, executed in a highly artificial textual structure that became tedious after, let's say chapter 329. This book is in-your-face.
And it's not a bad book at all, but IMHO, it's overwritten and burdened with narrative intention. To me, this is not a Booker winner....more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 In this semi-autobiographical novel, debut author Gabriel Krauze works with his own experiences coming of age as Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 In this semi-autobiographical novel, debut author Gabriel Krauze works with his own experiences coming of age as the son of Polish immigrants in the brutalist public housing estate of South Kilburn, London, and making money as a drug dealer and criminal - while also completing a degree in English literature. Our protagonist - also named Gabriel, but called Snoopz by his peers - is terrified of the idea of having to work a nine-to-five job and uses every chance to point out how easy it was for him to get the degree despite his poor work ethic because, hey, he is so smart - and it's ironic that at the same time, the book makes his life as a criminal living on the edge in gritty London seem not only bleak, but most of all dull. There are robberies and gangs and drugs and sex, there is love and friendship and betrayal and alliances - and most of all, it's dull. How the hell is that possible?
It is of course commendable that Krauze paints an authentic picture of South Kilburn that illuminates the difficult situation many people who live there are in - many of the residents are immigrants without many resources who live in a dangerous environment, as the concrete blocks have been plagued by crime, drugs, shootings, stabbings and gang wars (Krauze refers to some real incidents in the novel). By centering on these issues, Krauze points out many social problems he himself was a part of, and he employs the specific dialect spoken in the milieu. Unfortunately though, his text is highly descriptive and sometimes even feels enumerative, like a set of very common bleak scenes rhythmically interrupted by people smoking cigarettes (I swear, the repetition of the "I have to smoke a cigarette now" motif was driving me up the walls - not because I mind my fictional characters smoking, but because it is in there ca. 63384353 times).
And there are of course great novels about the relentless side of postmodern London, like GRM: Brainfuck and - the obvious comparison - In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne's epic masterpiece set in the decrepit housing blocks in the north of the city. Gunaratne was nominated for the Booker 2018 and went on grabbing the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Jhalak Prize instead. His book is full of music and lyrical perfection, he conveys emotional intensity and offers a captivating plot - not one dull second here. Even though Krauze is marketed as an authentic voice (and with the made-up label of "estate noir" which, let's face it, is a very clumsy attempt at trying to frame a text), it's Gunaratne's story that finds the words to open up these realities to readers.
This is not a bad book at all, but it's also not a great book - it's just not enough to say "I've been there, I've seen it", an author also has to be able to turn the descriptions of reality into art. And while I have to admit that going up against Gunaratne is a tough call, it's also true that Krauze's book can't compete with this stellar entry from 2018. But would I read whatever Krauze comes up with next? Definitely....more
Now Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Avni Doshi's debut is a feminist novel set in modern-day IndNow Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Avni Doshi's debut is a feminist novel set in modern-day India that ponders motherhood, memory, and the change of roles from being a daughter to becoming a caregiver for an elderly mother. The main character and narrator is Antara who is faced with the fact that her mother Tara's memory is starting to fail her. While the young woman is trying to figure out whether her career as a visual artist will ever take off and where her marriage is going, she ponders what to do with her mother, a strong-willed, free-spirited and often selfish woman with whom she has always had a strained relationship. When Antara finally gives birth to a daughter of her own, she struggles with post-partum depression...
Doshi has split her book in two alternating storylines, one about the events outlined above and one chronologically re-telling Antara's childhood, especially the time she spent in an ashram after her mother left her father to become the lover of a guru. The author does a great job evoking a particular cultural and social climate, and she cleverly shows a protagonist who suffered under her mother's self-centered version of self-actualization without declaring that a more conservative approach is the solution - in fact, there is no general solution. None of these characters are flawless; I would even claim that none of the characters are particularly likeable (which is not a deficit of the text: It's often the less likeable characters who can be deeply interesting).
Still, the story failed to completely captivate me and about halfway through, the text started to drag. The pacing is uneven, the construction is not particularly elegant (the two storylines simply alternate) and the story relies on a myriad of well-known themes: Classism? Check. Religious tension in India? Check. Beggars and gurus in India? Check. The overbearing mother-in-law? Check. The emotionally stinted husband? Check.
What I really appreciated though was the fearless portrayal of the complicated feelings a caregiver can experience if trying to care for a person they have a difficult relationship with, and the anger and helplessness that stems from the feeling of being inadequate in this role or from being taken for granted while the sick person is showered with understanding and pity (many caregivers start to suffer from depression and exhaustion because their needs tend to get ignored). Also, the portrayal of post-partum depression is effectively harrowing in its directness (unfortunately, the author herself has suffered from this condition).
So all in all, this is a promising and interesting debut and I'm glad that I read it, but I'm not sure whether this should be shortlisted (I haven't read the whole longlist yet) and for me, it's definitely not a Booker winner.
Update: While I was right about the Booker, the novel sold over 150.000 copies worldwide, and the translation rights have been sold to 26 countries (German translation: Bitterer Zucker). Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta is currently working on a movie adaptation....more
Winner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2021 Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 First of all a major shout-out to this year's Booker judgeWinner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2021 Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 First of all a major shout-out to this year's Booker judges for including a novel from Zimbabwe - needless to say, the prize is often way too Euro-centric. By including texts like this, the Western readership gets duly challenged, because the story is not easy to understand and appreciate for people who are more or less unfamiliar with the country and its history. Our protagonist is Tambudzai Sigauke, a traumatized woman nearing 40 who struggles in a sexist, racist, post-colonial and post-war society. Tambu has two degrees, but abandoned a job as a copy writer because she could not deal with the fact that her white colleagues took credit for her ideas. Now she is descending into poverty, trying desperately to find a constant, affordable home, even contemplating to build security via marrying the son of a landlady or a foreigner - and she does not give up: Applying for jobs, fighting severe mental health problems brought about by trauma, trying to preserve her optimism in a hostile environment facing humiliation again and again. In the end, colonialism and capitalism culminate in eco-tourism targeted at (mainly) Europeans, a field in which Tambu gets a job. And the shocking core of the story is this: How do you judge people from a moral point of view when they are in situation where they are trying to survive? As Brecht put it in The Threepenny Opera: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral." (First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.) This is a dog-eat-dog society, and if you're a Black woman without a man, you're in serious trouble.
The whole book is written in a detached "you"-voice, thus underlining the alienation Tambu feels - she constantly seems to wonder whether the person who is undergoing all of these experiences is still her, how all of this could happen and keeps on happening. While "This Mournable Body" is the final installment of a trilogy and reading the first two parts would probably help understand the whole ordeal, the main challenge really is to get some information about Zimbabwe and what it must be like to live through such times. This is a very, very dark historical novel. The story alludes to the colonial era, the war of independence and its victims, the brutal agricultural reforms, corruption and institutionalized racism, a system that is designed to hold certain people back.
The book is set in the late 1990s, so during the dictatorship of Mugabe when the economic decline and hyperinflation started to take a toll on the young nation that had only gained independence from Britain in 1980. Quick personal story: When I studied in the States in the mid-2000, I had a fellow student from Zimbabwe who spoke the Queen's English (educated in a British school in Harare) and utterly refused to tell us any stories from his home country: He said it was so terrible that we wouldn't believe it. I have to admit that this book gave me a better idea of what he might have referred to.
Which brings us to the fact that Tambu's experiences are beyond anything that we might imagine, and some reactions to the novel give me flashbacks to The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, where a number of readers complained that the whole thing was a mess and not understandable although the book was clearly written for an Indian audience that was able to recognize all the political circumstances portrayed - so not everything Westerners do not immediately get is badly written, sometimes Westerners are just badly informed. This also goes for Tsitsi Dangarembga's book.
So I'm glad I read the book and learnt something new, although I could not really find access to the text. Maybe I should be grateful for that....more
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 The main idea of the book sounds amazing, but the novel suffers from three major flaws: The whole set-up makes noShortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 The main idea of the book sounds amazing, but the novel suffers from three major flaws: The whole set-up makes no sense, there is not enough intellectual depth, and the character development is more or less non-existent. Cook intends to write a climate dystopia in which a group of people leaves the urban areas to live in the wilderness. The whole endeavor is described to be an experiment orchestrated by the authorities - but to what end, especially considering that the group is regularly visiting checkpoints and receiving mail and parcels, thus creating a situation that does in no way represent what it means to survive in the wilderness without interference from the civilized world? The reserach aim of this experiment is pretty dubious.
Then, the author apparently wants to investigate human urges unrestrained by the rules of civilization, or, as The Guardian excitedly puts it: "One of her most compelling concerns in The New Wilderness is the corrosive force of individualism, and how pedestrian the human tendency to destroy really is – how the hardwired urge to self-preserve erodes the possibility of fellowship and forward thinking." People who have seen a school from the inside or have generally wondered why laws exist have probably heard about Thomas Hobbes vs. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Cook ponders this continuum on a very superficial level. There is nothing new or challenging to see here.
And then there's the pacing and the characters, and both aspects are just not rendered intriguing enough. It's hard to tell some of those people apart as they are not distinctively drawn. Plus there are really bad sex scenes - granted, I've just read Kink: Stories, which was envisoned by experts in the field, but Cook just doesn't offer enough psychological depth. Above that, the whole thing could have been more concise.
I wish I could have loved this more, because I am convinced the story has potential, but it wasn't thought out and developed well enough. As my GR friend Roman Clodia has rightfully stated, the novel is a cross between "The Hunger Games" and "...I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!" - but it could have been so much more....more
Now Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 This debut novel tackles some important and fascinating issues, but it's still chick lit: A group of predominaNow Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 This debut novel tackles some important and fascinating issues, but it's still chick lit: A group of predominantly black twentysomethings and a group of predominantly white thirtysomethings "oh my god" the hell out of each other, drag each other in bathrooms to discuss men and lead pseudo-kinky conversations that make you want to pierce your eardrums to make the stupid stop. Our protagonists are Alix, a blogger and public speaker, and Emira, who at 25 is around 10 years younger and whom Alix hires as a babysitter for her little daughter. Alix feels stuck und unfulfilled in her role as a mother and becomes obsessed with Emira, trying to take on the role of the "white savior" who helps the young college graduate to figure out what to do with her life. Meanwhile, Emira starts dating Kelley, a white guy who seems to be equally obsessed with black people, and as it turns out, that's not the only connection between him and Alix...
Reid shows white people trying to project wokeness and performing virtue signalling without ever really empathizing with Emira or respecting her agency and personal decisions - they envision Emira mainly as a tool to curate their own image. This is of course an extremely interesting topic, but Reid's characters - all of them - are so clichéd and lacking depth and finesse that the satire becomes silly rather than sharp. The storyline is as contrived as it gets, and on top of that, you can see the twist at the end coming from miles away.
The faulty execution is particularly disappointing because the theme of "white wokeness" is so timely and could make for a captivating read, but unfortunately, Reid does not deliver on the narrative potential....more
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Taylor's debut novel is strong when it focuses on the subtle dynamics of social interactions, when it conveys whaShortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 Taylor's debut novel is strong when it focuses on the subtle dynamics of social interactions, when it conveys what it means to live in a white world as a black, homosexual man. Wallace, the protagonist, grew up in Alabama and is now enrolled in a graduate program for biochemistry in the Midwest - the only black student in his year. He falls for his white friend Miller who presents as straight and/or isn't sure whether he is gay. They start a relationship on the low, but, much like Wallace's interactions with his other friends, it is again and again troubled by reactions and behaviors Wallace has to deal with because he is black, and by his inhibitions fuelled by experiences. One main focus is on the fact that the people who do not speak up, who do not take his side but tell themselves that they carry no responsibilty are as much the problem as those who discriminate against Wallace.
The author himself is black, queer, from Alabama and studied science in the Midwest, so in a way, this novel discusses real experiences in a fictional format. While there is loud, obvious racism, it's the quieter kind that unfolds in everyday conversations that underlines what Wallace is up against, how deeply ingrained racism is in the structures he has to inhabit and in the heads of people he has to deal with - and how hard it is to react without becoming the person who ends up being blamed. Taylor makes his readers feel the desperation and claustrophobia that comes with it, and thus gives us a new rendition of the genre of the campus novel. Spanning over just a few pivotal days and interspersed with recollections of childhood trauma, the text packs a real emotional punch.
But please, dear authors: When you write a German into a novel, don't make them a chiffre and name them Klaus - it will be extremely hard to find a guy in the year and age group Taylor depicts who is actually named Klaus. It just seems like Taylor carelessly slapped a random name that appeared to be typically German on the character, which reveals a serious amount of cluelessness.
This is a book about the struggle for dignity and to find a place for oneself, and how these strifes are made even harder through the effects of trauma and systemic injustice. A fascinating read that requires close attention.
You can learn more about the book in our latest podcast episode (in German, as the German translation of the novel is available now!). ...more
Well-deserved winner of the Booker Prize 2020 This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true gem, a wonderfully empathetic, but also tough novel about the son oWell-deserved winner of the Booker Prize 2020 This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true gem, a wonderfully empathetic, but also tough novel about the son of an alcoholic mother growing up in Glasgow during the Thatcher era, and this debut might become all the rage this award season. Stuart's novel centers on young Shuggie, whose beautiful mother Agnes left her first husband - a steady and honest, but not very exciting man - because she dreamt of a more glamorous, affluent and adventurous life with her lover Shug. Caught up in her own want and daydreams, she marries the womanizing and abusive taxi driver and has her third child with him (Hugh, called Shuggie), but when Agnes realizes that he will not live up to her ideals and turn her life around, she starts wrecking herself with alcohol - and Shug leaves. Shuggie grows up feeling responsible for his mother, desperately trying to support her while feeling utterly helpless - at the same time, he struggles with his queerness, faces abuse and suffers under the oppressive poverty that surrounds him.
Stuart introduces us to a child who tries to take responsibility for overstrained grown-ups, his siblings who find different ways to cope, a woman whose happiness is fully dependent on the men she is with, a whole neighborhood going down with the collapsing industries, and working-class men and women who see their pride dwindle. Until today, Thatcher is a much-hated figure in Scotland, as during her time as Prime Minister, heavy industry pretty much collapsed, mines closed, the financial market was deregulated, and unemployment rocketed. Many workers felt like not only their livelihood, but their dignity was at risk (see the miners's strike 1984-1985), and Glasgow University found out that the rise in drug deaths in the 1980s was linked to the rise in inequality - the study talks about an "erosion of hope".
This "erosion of hope" is exactly what the characters in the novel experience. Stuart's writing is strongest when he paints individual, bleak pictures, grim vignettes about fear, brutality, surrender and self-hatred. Drunk and helpless, Agnes faces sexual assault, Shuggie is bullied and attacked, and the equally poor neighbors are fighting all kinds of demons, but they can all hardly find the strength to act in solidarity - they are overwhelmed by the cards life has dealt them. Meanwhile, Agnes' parents blame themselves, and especially her father, a worker of a different generation, has trouble stomaching what has become of his daughter - not that unworldly, selfish Agnes doesn't carry responsibility for her actions, she clearly does, but the reality that surrounds her makes it a lot harder for her to get up again, become sober and take another chance. Still, there are also glimpses of hope, there is love (although love is sometimes not enough) and the power of empathy and forgiveness.
A lot of dialogue is written in Scottish dialect, which gives the text an even grittier, more authentic feel. Stuart crafts elaborate scenes to illustrate (but never openly explain) his points, adding lots of atmosphere and giving intricate descriptions of people's looks, movements and behaviors: Agnes in a wet fur coat, shaking from withdrawal; Shuggie in his wellies stealing copper with his brother; balding Shug driving through Glasgow in his taxi - there are so many memorable scenes that shine through their almost visual quality and emotional intelligence.
This is a novel about a ravaged family in a desperate neighborhood, a story about addiction, and an evocation of a period of Scottish history that still reverberates. It is a compassionate text by a writer who knows what he is talking about, a companion piece to Trainspotting (not although, but because it is so different), a book not to be missed.
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