Month: January 2016

River of Ink, by Paul M. M. Cooper, (Bloomsbury USA), 304 pages, release date 26 January, 2016

Paul M. M. Cooper’s River of Ink is a remarkably beautiful book; it is also thought-provoking. The book tells the story of Asanka, once a poor boy from the countryside, now court poet for the kingdom of Lanka. Asanka spends his time writing, conversing with the king, and teaching his lover, a palace maid named Sarasi, how to read and write.

The book’s action takes place in the 13th Century and opens at the moment when Asanka’s mostly idyllic life (he is also unhappily married) is torn apart. An invading army is approaching the palace; the king decides to surrender, rather than put his people through the devastation of war. The new ruler, Kalinga Magha, comes from the mainland and has little respect for Lanka’s island culture. In an effort to “civilize” the Lankans, he assigns Asanka the task of translating a an epic Sanskrit poem, the Shishupala Vadha, into Tamil, the local language. The new ruler will then distribute copies of the translation throughout the country to be read aloud to all his subjects.

In many ways, Asanka isn’t much of a hero. He has little empathy for his estranged wife. In the chaos of the conquest his only thoughts are for himself and Sarasi. He reads every word and gesture from Kalinga Magha as a possible omen of punishment or death. While he does not like the new ruler, Asanka is eager to serve him if this will guarantee his safety.

Nonetheless, Asanka becomes a hero in the eyes of the Lankan people. They take the first installment of his translation of the poem as a critique of the new government, conflating the vicious ruler Shishupala with Kalinga Magha. With great trepidation, Asanka attempts to become the man others see him as. In the second installment, he deliberately suggests parallels between the two rulers. Then terrified by what he’s done, he translates the third installment without any revolutionary additions. As the translation project continues, Asanka receives a series of unusual poetry manuscripts containing pieces retelling the tale of the Shishupala Magha from the perspective of its different characters. The literary bravery of this unknown poet, who casts aside the expected forms of Lankan poetry, inspires Asanka to continue his efforts at undermining Kalinga Magha.

While Asanka frets and compromises, Sirasi is more sure of her own stance. She identifies with the Lankan  villagers and spends her time away from the palace among them. She urges Asanka to take advantage of his position to help the island nation.

Because Asanka isn’t much of a hero, he is a character with whom mordern readers can identify. In our own lives, we often take the cautious, self-preserving route chosen by Asanka, rather than challenge injustice. We may wish for more from Asanka, but we can certainly empathize with him.

The beauty of the book’s prose contrasts starkly with Asanka’s uncertainty and willingness to compromise. It simultaneously offers the pleasures of finely crafted prose and the discomfort of critical self-reflection. Even if 13th Century Lanka seems greatly removed from our current world, A River of Ink has much to offer present-day readers.

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The Children’s Home: A Novel, by Charles Lambert, (Scribner), 224 pages, release date 5 January, 2016

Charles Lambert’s The Children’s Home is a fever-dream of a novel. The recently disfigured Morgan Fletcher lives on a huge estate that he shares with his housekeeper, Engel. One day, a baby appears at the back door. After that, infants and children continue to arrive without explanation, and Engel and Morgan welcome and care for them.

The world outside the walls of Morgan’s estate is volatile, with shadowy government bureaus, a mysterious factory (run by Morgan’s estranged sister, Rebecca), frequent violence, and grinding poverty. One day, a pair of men from the welfare department appear, determined to take the children. Though it’s not stated directly, the implication is that they’ll be taken to the factory—as workers or, perhaps, as raw materials.

Add in a friendly doctor, an attic containing unnerving medical waxworks, and Morgan’s back story, and you have a tale that is both engaging and full of gaps. One of the pleasures of The Children’s Home is the uncertainties it contains, which force an active reading. Is it allegory? Science fiction? Alternative history? This novel is a puzzle without a picture to work from, which allows readers to see it in multiple ways. We’re at the start of the year, but I fully expect The Children’s House to appear on my “ten-best” list at the year’s end.

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Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel, by Benjamin Black, (Henry Holt and Co.), 304 pages, release date 12 January, 2016

Quirke, the pathologist protagonist of Benjamin Black’s series is one of those characters who is fascinating on the page, but who would probably be much less pleasant in person. He’s a brooder who speaks little—and is blunt when speaking. He’s a chain smoker and an on-the-wagon, off-the-wagon drinker who’s mostly on. He’s deeply disappointed everyone close to him. Nonetheless, Black makes him a believable voice for justice in this series of novels.

The Quirke novels are set in Dublin in the early 1960s (which at least partly explains all the smoking). The Catholic church is not just a religious power, but a political one as well, backed by a cadre of very wealthy men whose “do-good” projects tend to result more in profits for themselves than in good for anyone else.

Quirke’s family life is complicated, though he has long been a widower. He’s the adopted son of a wealthy judge, now deceased, and brother to the judge’s biological son. Quirke was romantically involved (or wanted to be) with his brother’s first and second wives. His family history unfolds along with this series of novels, so I don’t want to reveal any more. You can read Even the Dead as a stand-alone or begin at the beginning—in which case you’ll want Christine Falls.

In Even the Dead, Quirke and his friend (though that’s not really the right word, given the kind of person Quirke is) Inspector Hackett are investigating the staged suicide of a radical politician’s son and the disappearance of that son’s girlfriend. Quirke is recovering from head trauma, doesn’t quite trust himself, and hasn’t been to his pathology office in months. It’s his assistant’s discovery of a suspicious head wound on the “suicide” that pulls him back into work.

The case once again leads Quirke into the dark side of Dublin’s elite religious networks—and also reveals one more complication in his already-complicated personal history.

Black is an exceptionally good writer. The reader of “literary fiction” is just as apt to draw pleasure from Even the Dead as is the reader of detective novels—and also the reader of historical fiction with more modern settings. As winter days grow shorter, it’s oddly comforting to settle back into Quirke’s bleak world, sharing in his all-to-infrequent moments of success protecting the needs of Dublin’s less wealthy and powerful.

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Mr. Splitfoot, by Samantha Hunt, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 336 pages, release date 5 January, 2016

For much of the time I was reading Mr. Splitfoot, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the novel. The characters were interesting, but not necessarily likable, so time spent with them was uneasy. But this dis-ease is really what the novel is all about. The characters aren’t people I’d want to spend real-world time with, but they don’t seem to want to spend time with themselves either. And there’s no easy choice that would suddenly turn any of them into a companion one would enjoy.

This novel takes place along two timelines that slowly draw together. In the earlier one, Eleanor and Ruth are sisters placed in the Love of Christ! Foster Home. When Eleanor ages out, Ruth finds a new sister in Nat, a boy her own age. In their volatile surroundings, their cross-gender sistering provides a steady, if troubled, sort of anchor.

Nat claims to be able to speak with the dead, and Ruth plays along with him, not entirely sure herself whether his contact with spirits is real or a scam. First, the pair earn money from other children in the home, contacting their dead relatives to deliver comforting messages. Then a mysterious Mr. Bell appears, takes them under his wing, and helps them perfect what is now most decidedly a con.

The novel’s second timeline follows Cora, daughter of Ruth’s sister Eleanor. Cora has a dead-end job and a dead-end boyfriend, gives her life meaning by doing on-line shoe shopping—and wrestles with the question of how she’ll handle her unexpected pregnancy.

Ruth appears at the home shared by Cora and Eleanor, refusing to speak, but making it clear that she wants Cora to follow her. Cora leaves with Ruth, expecting a journey of a few hours at the most, but Ruth drives them further and further away—and when their car breaks down, she silently makes it clear that she expects Cora to follow her on foot.

Ruth and Cora’s journey takes the pair across much of the territory of Ruth’s vagrant days, when Ruth, Nat, and Mr. Bell set up seances in houses they’d break into while the owners were vacationing. Ruth remains silent; Cora continues to follow. Once the two arrive at a large, remote home on a snow-covered mountain, the reader finally comes to understand the intersection of their two stories.

As the title might suggest, the devil is a constant presence in the story, but his identity isn’t clear. At times the author suggests he’s Mr. Bell, at other times he may Ruth’s short-term husband Zeke, even Ruth and Nat seem to embody him at times.

Ruth, Cora, Nat, and Mr. Bell aren’t necessarily companions one might willingly choose, but once you find yourself traveling alongside them, you’ll want to finish the journey.

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Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Timbuktu, by Vasudev Murthy, (Poisoned Pen Press), 270 pages, release date 5 January, 2016

A little less than a year ago, I read the first of Vasudev Murthy’s “Missing Years” novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and, of course, his companion Dr. Watson. I enjoyed that read, and I’m glad to say that Holmes and Watson are back again, this time visiting Venice before traveling the Sahara Desert.

The prize they’re searching for is of unimaginable value: the missing half of a parchment that originated with Marco Polo and that contains the secret to eternal life. Later the parchment (one half of it, anyway) was associated with the great Moroccan explorer, Ibn Battuta. Of course Holmes and Watson aren’t the only ones seeking the parchment: the last surviving descent of Ibn Battuta himself seeks it—as does Holmes’ nemesis Moriarty. Meanwhile, the “great game” is afoot with both Britain and France struggling for power in Morocco.

Holmes shows his usual respect for and quick adoption of different languages and cultures, learning first to speak Arabic and then the language of the Tauregs, a tribal people living in the Sahara who worship the long ago female founder of their society and who serve as his guides in the desert. At other times, Holmes poses as an accountant-priest, sent to Morocco by the Vatican.

One of the pleasures of this book is the multiple voices in which it’s narrated. We hear not only from Holmes and Watson, but also from Battuta’s descendant and Marco Polo himself (by way of a previously unknown travelogue). At first the changes in narrator felt unsettling, but the further I read, the more I enjoyed them. Not only did they allow Murthy to present readers with multiple perspectives, each of the different voices was distinct, reflecting a personality as well as relating events.

I’m waiting for volume three now, and hoping it won’t take longer than another year for it to appear. I’m eager to see where Holmes and Watson—and Murthy—will take me next.

 

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The Door by the Staircase, by Katherine Marsh, illustrated by Kelly Murphy, (Disney-Hyperion), 288 pages, release date 5 January, 2016, publisher recommended for ages 8-12

The Door by the Staircase is Katherine Marsh’s riff on the Russian tale of the witch Baba Yaga. The book has all the creepiness and unworldliness of the folk tale, but Marsh expands on it, giving us a cluster of engaging characters who all draw our sympathy—including the witch herself.

Young Mary Hayes is happy to be adopted by the mysterious Madame Z, a woman who appears “hunched, with a long nose and big ears that had clearly continued to grow while the rest of her shriveled.” Anything’s better than continued life in an orphanage. Yes, Madame Z is a bit odd, but Mary is willing to overlook her eccentricities. The home Madame Z takes Mary to is also odd. It’s located not far from Iris where “save for a few ordinary establishments such as a hotel and bank, the town was filled with storefronts that advertised the occult—from mind reading to magic to communicating with the dead.”

The novel has foreshadowing galore: Madame Z wants to fatten Mary up; Mary discovers she’s not the first girl to be adopted by Madame Z, though none of the previous adoptees remain; work gets done in Madame Z’s house as if by magic; there’s also the floor-to-ceiling brick over in the kitchen.

Mary and her new friend Jacob need to uncover the truth about Madame Z, and about the town of Iris, before it’s too late. Which of the town’s magical residents are the real thing, which are frauds? Can Mary and Jacob get the help they need before Madame Z gets hungry? Why can’t Mary get into the door by the staircase? (When she tries, the lock bites her finger!)

The Door by the Staircase‘s mix of terror and humor should prove a real delight for grade school aged readers.

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The Herald of Hell: A Brother Athelstan Novel of Medieval London, by Paul Doherty, (Severn House, Creme de la Crime), 240 pages, release date 1 January, 2016

Paul Doherty’s The Herald of Hell is a fun, quick read that brings to life an interesting moment in English history. In 1381, London, its population still reduced by the plague epidemic of forty years earlier, finds itself on the brink of an uprising of the Upright Men, the poor and disenfranchised, heavily burdened by taxes and eager to wreak violence on those with more comfortable, secure lives.

At the heart of the mystery is an encrypted document that may (or may not) tell the day of the uprising and that many factions are eager to obtain. England is under the rule of a child-king, Richard II, who is manipulated by his uncle, John of Gaunt. As is often the case during such minorities, England is riddled with factions, each hoping to use the uprising for its own purposes. When the clerk of Gaunt’s “fixer” is found hanged in a brothel, Brother Athelstan finds himself on the case. Meanwhile, the Herald of Hell blows his trumpet outside the homes of the wealthy in the night, threatening them with death and damnation.

For anyone with an interest in English history, particularly those fascinated by the role religious tensions have played in the nation’s politics, The Herald of Hell is a delightful read offering both mystery and a well-grounded depiction of life in the late 14th Century.

 

 

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