Summertime Blues

I have two stories in People’s Friend publications this week – and I'm really delighted with the artwork they have given to each of them.

Telling Stories is in the weekly magazine (dated 25 June). A story about telling stories … my protagonist is Dorothy Mackintosh (‘Auntie Dot’ to her niece), a retired head mistress who gives literary tours of Edinburgh to small groups of tourists. For this particular group she has arranged a visit to a book festival – with unexpected consequences. I think she’s a character I might revisit.

Summertime Blues is in the Summer Special (No 125). This one is rather dear to my heart. I wrote a version of it years ago, long before I was Writing. It was around a thousand words then; now it’s three thousand. It was told from the first person point-of-view; then I did a third-person version; now it’s back in first. The setting and the era have always been the same though – an island off the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1971.

It’s about feeling uncertain when you’re eighteen and are quite sure that you’ve failed your exams and that the boy you fancy doesn’t fancy you. I hope that all readers will empathise with these perennial problems and, for those of a certain age, that the story will conjure up happy memories of cheesecloth smock tops, purple flared jeans, Aqua Manda perfume, Maggie May and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Oh, and for readers of all vintages there’s also a ruined castle under the moonlight ...

Is any of it autobiographical? You might think so – I couldn’t possibly comment.

Five in May

I read five books in May.

A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close

Read on Kindle for book group. Set around the movement for women’s suffrage in Scotland and the hard core of militant Scottish suffragettes prepared to fight for the vote with any weapon to hand, it’s mainly the story of Donella and her troubled marriage to a doctor who has been force-feeding suffragettes in prison. The descriptions of force-feeding are not for the squeamish … but this is brilliantly written with some great characters.

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy

If you have never read Elaine Dundy’s first and most famous book The Dud Avocado, then I would urge you to – it’s a treat. The heroine of The Old Man and Me is as quirkily individual as Sally Jay Gorce (‘hellbent on living’) in TDA, but while Sally Jay was an American girl in Paris in the 1950s, Betsy Lou Saegessor is in London in the swinging 60s. 

Her pursuit of the ‘old man’, the reclusive rich Englishman C D McKee (‘fat and ugly – but boy is he sexy’), has a very ulterior motive, stemming from her troubled childhood. Their relationship is sparky – great dialogue – and believable and Betsy Lou tells her first-person story in a most original style. ‘There isn’t a dull line in it,’ P G Wodehouse, no less, said in a review.

But how can C D McKee be an 'old man' when he's younger than I am ... ?? That's one perspective that means that for me the book hasn’t stood the test of time as well as the The Dud Avocado. Or  perhaps it's because C D has more health problems than you’d expect a man in his mid-fifties to have now (the book was first published in 1963; my copy is in the Virago Modern Classics series); or maybe it’s the swinging 60s thing that make it seem a period piece. But I’d still recommend it for the brilliance of Elaine Dundy’s writing and because as Jilly Cooper says of this edition it is ‘a gloriously funny novel … ’

Basil Street Blues by Michael Holroyd

I read an extract from this online somewhere and thought his writing was wonderful. He’s best known for his biographies of literary greats (none of which I’ve read) but this is an autobiography.

Tolstoy’s famous quote ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way' was never more apt than in Michael Holroyd’s case. When his parents died in the 1980s he felt the need to find out more about them and their immediate ancestors. His father and his mother had each been married and divorced three times and young Michael spent a lot of time with his father’s family, the only child in an eccentric and often very unhappy household.

He’s very amusing about his own perceived shortcomings and accident prone-ness. Once, when he was an articled clerk for a solicitor, he was spending a boring afternoon in court and somehow managed to unleash (fortunately tepid) water from a radiator over some witnesses.

Loved it.

Katherine’s Wheel by Rebecca Gregson

First of this year’s haul from Christian Aid. Published in 1999, it’s about four friends, now aged thirty-five, who met at university and are planning a big party for the millennium. Didn’t really take to it, unfortunately. There were so many viewpoints, not just those of the four friends, that it wasn’t ‘Katherine’s’ story any more than anyone else’s. It was all like looking through a glass darkly – if there was something interesting happening in there I couldn’t make it out.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

This Robert guy – he can write. I loved the first book in this series, Cuckoo’s Calling, and the second, Silkworm, but this one is even better; what a joy to know that s/he’s planning another four. Slightly disturbed though to read that there’s going to be a TV series – who will be cast as Cormoran and Robin??

In which I acquire xx books

Christian Aid Book Sale 2016. Yes, purchases were made (haven’t dared to count them), and if I live to be 101 or 2 (or 3) they will all get read, as well as the others waiting tbr. 

Purchases, in no particular order:

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon (published 2016).

Set during the UK drought of 1976. Lovely hardback edition.

Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (2011)

A Vera Stanhope novel.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (1984)

Set in 1906, small-town Georgia, USA.

Year of the Tiger by Lisa Brackman (2010)

Thriller, set in modern-day China.

The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan (2014)

‘Whoever you are, why ever you bake, this story’s for you’.

Katherine’s Wheel by Rebecca Gregson (1999)

Four college friends reunite for a millennium party in Cornwall.

A Bit of Earth by Rebecca Smith (2006)

Author is ‘the perfect English miniaturist’ says Barbara Trapido no less.

Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg (2007)

More small-town America, this time by author of Fried Green Tomatoes

No Second Chance by Harlan Coben (2003)

Missing child thriller.

Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White (1947)

An unhappy young girl discovers a race of Lilliputians

A Winter in China by Douglas Galbraith (2006)

Thriller, set in China, 1937.

A Writer’s World: Travels 1950-2000 by Jan Morris

‘a vivid evocation of the late 20th century’.

Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill (1994)

A Dalziel & Pascoe novel. May have read before.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (2012)

Italy, Hollywood, and ‘the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’ …

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (2009)

With a ‘sassy, straight-talking heroine’ born in Texas, 1901.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (first pub. 1937)

Virago edition 1986. Author has been recommended by several friends.

The Virago Book of Food: The Joy of Eating edited by Jill Foulston (2006)

Foodie extracts from books. Yum.

Diana Annual 1966

The Best of Girl

These last two to add to girls’ annuals collection.

Seven in April

I read/finished seven books in April.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

Read for book group (my choice). I hadn’t read this before I suggested it for the group – but I’d read about it and chose it because I like books set in the Depression (see Nine in November) and books set in Canada so this ticked boxes. It wasn’t the straightforward narrative I’d been expecting but nevertheless evoked the time and place through a handful of unforgettable characters both human and (sort of) canine. As in Elizabeth is Missing this book has a young author who seems to have got inside the head of her very elderly protagonists.

Austerity Britain 1945-1951 (Tales of a New Jerusalem) by David Kynaston

I finished this book in April, can’t remember when I started it, probably a couple of years ago. It's 692 pages, including the index. I have the next two volumes but haven’t yet embarked on them. Believe it or not I found it rather soothing if/when I was worrying about something last thing at night (I’m a worrier) to dip in and read about post-war industrial relations and statistics on the coal industry. Plus, as well as quoting from eyewitness accounts and newspaper reports the book has extracts from both published and unpublished diaries including Mass Observation diaries which I love – see this post here.

How to get hitched in ten days by Samantha Tonge

Novella, read on Kindle. Mikey is ‘every girl’s best friend – he bakes the creamiest cheesecake, loves movie nights and is a great dance partner.’ He shares a flat (and sometimes a platonic bed) with Jasmine, who is having second thoughts about her commitment to her boyfriend Dave after he bungles a proposal. When Jasmine gets offered a job transfer to New York Mikey comes up with a plan to get Dave to pop the question more romantically. Love the sound of Mikey’s diner – mine’s a chocolate milkshake please.

We that are left by Juliet Greenwood
Read on Kindle. 'Elin lives a luxurious but lonely life at Hiram Hall. Her husband Hugo loves her but never recovered from the Boer War. Now another war threatens to destroy everything she knows. With Hugo at the front, and her cousin Alice and friend Mouse working for the war effort, Elin has to learn to run the estate in Cornwall, making new friends – and enemies.'  Liked this a lot, for its characters and for the vivid descriptions of Cornwall, Wales and the battlefields of France.

Caught up with some recent best-sellers this month:

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

I’m a fan of Sarah Waters and I enjoyed this –not quite as much as The Night Watch which I loved especially for its structure; and it doesn’t have, as Fingersmith does, a terrific twist. But she is hard to beat for conjuring up an atmosphere and here it’s 1922 ‘and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.’

It’s a long book (570 in my hardback copy) and I see that some Amazon reviewers thought it slow but I thought all the detail was necessary to whisk the reader to a different but completely believable time and place and situation – which they would be glad to leave but would think about for a long time afterwards.

Us by David Nicholls

Terrific. Douglas’s wife of almost twenty-five years, Connie, has told him she wants to leave but she agrees to go ahead with their planned and paid-for holiday visiting European art galleries in the company of their moody teenager Albie. Douglas is a scientist, a research chemist. A certain person in my family is not a scientist yet the similarities between him and Douglas were remarkable – I suspect David Nicholls of hiding in my hall cupboard. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s – well, if you haven’t read it yet do find out for yourself.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

An unreliable narrator is always interesting – and tricky to write I expect.
10, 418 reviews on Amazon at the time of writing this (5983 5* and 471 1* with the rest in between). Is that a record? I thought it lived up to the hype – certainly kept me turning the pages. It will be interesting to see how they do the film as so much of what happens/doesn’t happen is the narrator’s head.

Six in March

I read six books in March.

 Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood by Gwen Raverat

Bought at Christian Aid Book Sale last year. This memoir by Gwen Raverat (1885-1957) is illustrated by her own delightful line drawings.

Gwen’s mother, Maud, was American, sociable and strong-willed, and her father was one of Charles Darwin’s five sons. Childhood was a dull time for late-Victorian girls but Maud gave her daughters more freedom than most. However there were conventions that could not be disregarded. It’s sad that when she was an old lady Gwen Raverat said ‘it fairly makes my heart bleed’ to remember beautiful summer days when she and sister were not allowed to discard their thick black woolly stockings and high boots.

When she was eighteen, skirts were worn down to the ground – even an inch or two above would have been very improper. Round the bottom of her skirts she had to sew on two and a half yards of ‘brush braid’ which to some extent saved the skirt from getting muddy (no tarmac roads). Then, back home, she had to spend an hour or more brushing off the mud – as she says ‘no more futile job, imposed by idiotic convention’.

My Two Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt

Bought at Christian Aid Book Sale last year. Another memoir – this time by the grand-daughter of the great Pre-Raphaelite painter. Having drawn a couple of poor straws in the parent department, young Diana lived mostly in the country with her lovely cosy maternal grandparents – and had to spend a rather terrifying couple of weeks every so often with her other grandmother, the widow of William H-H, in London. Mrs H-H was parsimonious (Diana went hungry for those two weeks), set booby traps for imaginary burglars and lived entirely in the past with her memories of her (very unfaithful) husband. Luckily Diana was a resilient, feisty and amusingly naughty child who coped very well with this eccentric household.

Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti

Read on Kindle. The first novel in the bestselling Glen Avich series set in the Scottish Highlands – with an incredible 2050 5* reviews on Amazon. ‘A poignant story about letting go and moving on: with a little help from beyond the grave.’ A very enjoyable read.

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfield

Another purchase from the Christian Aid Book Sale last summer (hoping to clear a bit of shelf space before this year’s). I am a big fan of Curtis Sittenfield (she’s written three other books including the touching and funny fictional life of Laura Bush (yes, really! do try it) called American Wife. This one is about identical twins Kate and Vi and their volatile relationship – their disagreements mostly having to do with their psychic abilities. Loved it.

Waiting for You by Catherine Miller

Read on Kindle. Fliss longs for a second baby, a sibling for Hollie, but the negative tests have a detrimental effect on her marriage. Against her husband’s better judgement they sign up to take part in a TV programme called Baby No 2. A light, easy read.

The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger

From the Christian Aid sale last year – but I liked this so much I don’t think I’ll part with it just yet. Amina from Bangladesh meets George from New York State online and moves to America to marry him. She is an only child and her secret intention is that when, three years down the line, she gets her citizenship she will be able to bring her parents over to move in with them; however, she begins to realise that that is not the way American families live.

George is a little dull and not particularly handsome. When Amina first sees his photograph she finds his face ‘flawed rather by a certain compression of features leaving large, uncolonised expanses of cheek and chin’. He has a secret too but he’s a decent man; as the Observer review says ‘With great sensitivity and psychological subtlety, Freudenberger charts the misunderstandings experienced by the couple in their first years together.’ 

The novel was inspired by a chance meeting Nell Freudenberger had on a plane with a Bangladeshi woman who’d just arrived in America to marry a man she’d met on the internet. NF subsequently visited Bangladesh with the woman – the last third of the book is set there.

Highly recommended.

A bit of a spree

The annual conference of the Scottish Association of Writers was held 18-20 March, at the Westerwood Hotel, near Cumbernauld, a place that may not strike you as the most glamorous destination for the weekend but the hotel is out of the town in a hollow surrounded by hills and it was hard to believe that the M8 (I think – road numbers not my strong point) was only a few hundred yards away. The food was scrumptious and the young staff efficient and friendly.

‘But what about the “Writers” bit?” I hear you cry. “You didn’t go there just to scoff apple crumble tart with vanilla custard, did you?”

No, but that crisply pastried, lightly cinammoned confection was certainly a bonus. Yum.

Ten members of Edinburgh Writers Club including our Honorary President Alanna Knight attended, got nine places in the competitions and won the quiz on Friday night.

I had been asked to judge the Women’s Short Story Competition. The thirty-eight entries were wide-ranging in their topics – abseiling, dancing bears, suffragettes, selkies, a yellow car, DNA tests, Christmas angels, the bedroom tax and the Bell Rock Lighthouse to name but a few.

The winning story was full of excellent fishy puns while still being a very touching story. Magazine editors (and competition judges) always say they don’t see enough humorous stories so I do hope Chipping Away will be submitted and accepted and in print before long.

On Saturday afternoon I gave a workshop on structuring a story for women’s magazines (if this is something you are interested in there are a few spaces left in The People’s Friend story-writing workshop in Dundee 29 March:

http://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/fiction/fiction-editors-blog/2016/february/16/story-writing-workshop/

There was a bookstall and I took along some copies of of my recently published story collection ... may have mentioned it before ...

I attended two excellent workshops myself – one by crime writer Caro Ramsay called From Pen to Publisher and Beyond, and Putting the Fiction into Face and the Fact into Fiction by journalist/non-fiction writer turned crime novelist Douglas Skelton. If you get the chance to hear those writers talking about anything I recommend you take it. And read their books of course ...

The crime theme continued on Monday night back home when Russel MacLean came to talk to Edinburgh Writers’ Club and to adjudicate our crime-writing competition. His enthusiasm for and knowledge of the genre was brilliant and we came away with writing tips (he uses a five-act structure) as well as a list of other crime writers to look out for.

And on Tuesday … more crime. The launch in Blackwell’s of Michael J Malone’s book Bad Samaritan (isn’t that a great title?). An advance review said the book ‘Hits you like an express train.’ I look forward to being hit.

Eight in February

I read eight books in February, or at least I finished eight books.

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

The first of the Hundred Years Trilogy. A fascinating concept – Jane Smiley aims over three books to cover a hundred years of American history told through the story of one family; one chapter covers a year. Not only that – she’s given herself another challenge: the first chapter of the first book covers 1920, so the last chapter of the whole trilogy (which has been published) will be set in 2020. So of course she had to invent history for the last five or six years. I shall be interested to find out what she predicted especially with the unpredictable US election coming along this year.

She does something else I haven’t seen before – some of the early chapters in Some Luck are seen through the eyes of a baby/small child, very convincingly. A page turner.

Chinese Characters by Sarah Lloyd

This is the one I finished in February but started some time ago; I like having a non-fiction book on the go I can read bits of between novels. I’m a little obsessed with China since I visited it in 2011 (see this blog post) and read a lot about it. Sarah Lloyd taught herself Chinese and travelled on her own in the country in the 1980s (which was pretty brave as tourists were rare then) in a bid to understand the way of life. As one reviewer said ‘Hers is neither the China of the revolutionary poster nor of the tourist snaps.’

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

‘The Tea Planter's Wife is a story of guilt, betrayal and untold secrets vividly and entrancingly set in colonial era Ceylon’ says the blurb.

A mega-best-seller. Didn’t take to it myself. Right from the start unlikely scenarios occur for the sake of the plot. Gwen and Laurence get married in England but he goes back to Ceylon by himself. She’s going to wait to go out with her cousin Frances – which seems odd anyway. Then at the last minute Frances calls off her (long-planned and expensive) journey because she’s got a routine appointment with her solicitor … so Gwen has to travel on her own.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

Her latest, read for book group, but would have read it anyway. Vintage fly-on-the-wall Tyler – the book group discussion sounded as if we were talking about a real family, the Whitshank family in this case and their lives spooling backwards and forwards across three generations.

So then I felt inclined to re/read some more AT:

If Morning Ever Comes

Ben Joe Hawkes (fiction’s loveliest brother) has six sisters and he worries about them now that he’s left home for university. He can’t quite trust his mother and his paternal ‘Gram’ to look after the household so one weekend he turns up unexpectedly to see them all. A domestic setting but very far from being cosy.

Earthly Possessions

Blackly funny – Charlotte Emory is out of love with her husband and tired of her mundane life. But her life is about to change in a dramatic way – in the bank a young robber takes her hostage and they head for Florida in a stolen car. As the Observer reviewed: ‘A skilful novel by a writer in full flight from the obvious.’

Family Matters by Gillian Villiers

‘When Hope Calvert's best friend and business partner runs away with most of their money, she has no choice but to close their shop and return to Scotland. The only work she can find is as a carer, which is challenging, but surprisingly fun, and she's pleased to find she's getting more involved in village life. She particularly wonders if this extends to Robbie Mackenzie, the handsome farmer's son, but first she must sort out some long-hidden family secrets.’ Beautiful Scottish rural setting; a good read.

The Whitehall Mandarin by Edward Wilson

‘British intelligence has a deep penetration mole in the KGB. When that mole reports that a Soviet spy ring in London is no longer sending intelligence to Moscow, MI6 are worried. Catesby is sent on a mole hunt that leads him through the seamy sex scandals of 1960s London to the jungles of Vietnam.’

I like a good spy story – the vicarious thrills of the chase. Was a little disappointed in this much-hyped one though; in places it read more like non-fiction.