Pick of the writing crop: our top critics’ guide to the best reads of 2017
Unwrap a book this Christmas. A variety of reading tastes are catered for as our discerning critics select the finest titles in literary and popular fiction, crime, memoir, politics, history, art and fashion
LITERARY FICTION Madeleine Keane
MARRIAGE and its countless complexities permeated a lot of my reading this year. One of 2017’s finest novels was Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty (Jonathan Cape €12.74) which followed a retired couple, Stella and Gerry, spending a weekend in Amsterdam. With great tenderness and insight, MacLaverty peeled back a marriage creaking under the weight of longevity, drink and violence. Brilliantly crafted and richly deserving of the acclaim it won, including recently, the Eason Novel of the Year award.
Another Northern writer also turned his gimlet gaze on marital disharmony. Nick Laird’s Modern Gods (Faber €15.40), told the tale of two sisters, Liz and Alison Donnelly, and interwove two tribes — Ulster Protestants and a cult in Papua New Guinea. Though it slightly fell away in the last quarter, it was still a funny and fascinating novel. Should be read even if just for Laird’s depiction of a hellish honeymoon.
A dynamic trinity of American contemporary female writers observed the fraught dynamics of relationships. I devoured Commonwealth (Bloomsbury €12.60), Ann Patchett’s moving exploration of an affair’s aftermath. Two characters, married to others, cannot resist temptation and the devastating fallout in both families is observed over five decades. Anything is Possible (Penguin €18.20), Elizabeth Strout’s companion piece to her much-lauded My Name is Lucy Barton , is a series of linked stories about the inhabitants of Lucy’s hometown Amgash. Outstanding.
Always a joy to discover a new author, it was great to stumble on Maile Meloy earlier this year. In Do Not Become Alarmed (Penguin €12.60) two Los Angeles families go on a cruise in Central America: on a trip to shore, freak events separate the children from their parents. What follows is a heart-stopping narrative which, coupled with Meloy’s insightful observations on how clans work, while she ratchets up the tension, panic, guilt and remorse, makes for a magnetic read. A book for which the adjective unputdownable was coined.
Aptly, libraries the length and breadth of the land have long waiting lists for Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, the debut of librarian Gail Honeyman (HarperCollins €11.24), a beautiful and deeply touching story about Miss Oliphant who lives an unbearably circumscribed life until a random act of kindness on her part to a stranger sends her life off in an unexpected direction. As I keep telling people, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fabulous.
And still so many I didn’t get round to that are piled up for that lovely post-Christmas lull: William Boyd’s new collection of short stories, Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land, Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Min Jing Lee’s Pachinko and The Locals by Jonathan Dee and on and on and delightfully on.
NON-FICTION Hilary A White
FORGET the tired old line about truth being stranger than fiction. What is far more wondrous to consider when looking back at non-fiction highlights of the year is how areas completely beyond one’s normal sphere of interest can be rendered wholly engrossing in the hands of a skilled writer.
The post 9/11 garage rock revival that made New York City once again the world capital of pop culture seemed too recent a history to be pieced apart effectively. Lizzy Goodman proved us wrong with Meet Me In the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 (Faber €28) as she plotted a timeline that begins with the Strokes and ends with LCD Soundsystem’s final (well, sort of ) show in Madison Square Garden. Goodman gets to all the key players and lets them recount the coke-dusted wildness and scuzzy inspiration of arguably the last great rock ‘n’ roll movement we’ll see. The year’s best music book.
A universe away, down the winding lanes of pastoral Wicklow, actor Philip Judge sat down to relate his observations on country living with his wife and young family. The result was In Sight of Yellow Mountain (Gill Books €14.99), a criminally underrated Irish non-fiction release. Judge emerged as a writer of real melody and dexterity in this debut memoir as he folded lessons and wisdom about the changing seasons and all they encompass in rural Irish life with laugh-out-loud anecdotes, recipes and some beautiful nature writing to boot. A cornucopia awaiting discovery.
Non-fiction plays a role in awakening us to more serious realities that need facing up to. I was regularly gobsmacked along the way by Rowan Somerville’s Beat (Lilliput Press €16.00), another work that seemed to come and go without its due fanfare. Somerville — a former winner of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award — set off to Israel to uncover the truth about a heart transplant that bridged one of the most bitterly divided territories on the planet. As a primer for the poisonous complexities of Israel-Palestine relations, it was excellent, but when Somerville turned his gaze inwards to combat his own conflicts and prejudices, Beat blossomed into something extraordinary. Hard truths were also confronted in A Crime In The Family (Quercus €15.99) by its Hungarian author, Sacha Batthyany. He wades into his family’s dark past by way of an incident from 1945 when his great-aunt hosted a party for German elites and SS officers that ended in the massacring of 180 Jewish slave labourers. A startling work of self-discovery and exorcism.
Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami (Jonathan Cape €23.79) mines a similarly sobering vista — the 2011 tsunami that claimed 18,500 lives on Japan’s east coast — to utterly astounding effect. The ghosts of the title were omnipresent in Japanese society following this unimaginably destructive natural disaster (at times brought to shocking life by The Times’ Asia Editor). Anchoring Lloyd Parry’s lyrical, immaculately structured examination is the case of one school that suffered a terrible toll. As close as we may come to making sense of such a thing, as only brilliant non-fiction can do.
CRIME Eilis O’Hanlon
THERE are so many thrillers being published these days, it’s impossible for the casual reader to keep up, or know where to begin when it comes to sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Worry no more, because these gems from the past year are well worth a place on any lastminute Christmas list.
Ali Land’s Good Me, Bad Me (Penguin, €11.29) had a genuinely original premise. Annie’s mother is a serial killer; she turns her in, and is then given a new identity as Milly, and a new home with a nice family as this damaged child is schooled by a team of experts to give evidence at her mother’s trial. What could go wrong? Quite a lot, as it happens, which made for a tense, gripping read.
Imran Mahmood is a defence barrister. His debut novel, You Don’t Know Me (Michael Joseph, €18.20) begins with a young man, on trial charged with murder, sacking his brief before the closing statements in order to defend himself. The barrister has told him to leave certain things out, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to tell the truth, which is always a radical and potentially dangerous act. So he tells his story, and the reader is placed in the position of the jury, having to decide if he’s innocent or guilty.
The London gang patois may not be to everybody’s tastes, and it was a little implausible in places, but it’s good to see courtroom dramas making a comeback.
Every new thriller is hyped as having a dazzling twist you won’t see coming, and they usually disappoint. Sometimes I Lie (Harper Collins, €11.20) by Alice Feeney was different in having an ending so intriguing that it sent you right back to the beginning to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. Narrated in part by Amber, who’s lying (no pun intended, or maybe it is) in a coma, it was a chilling, brilliantly executed debut from an author to watch.
The problem with each new John Le Carre novel is knowing when to read it. Devour it too quickly and it just makes the wait longer until the next one. A Legacy Of Spies (Viking, €13.49) was a follow up of sorts to his 1963 classic The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, as Alex Leamas’s son seeks to find the truth of what happened to his father, played so memorably in the film of the book by a dour, downcast, cynical Richard Burton. No one conveys the seedy, unnerving world of espionage better than le Carre, and his latest illuminated how the Cold War games played by his characters continue to reverberate.
Last, but definitely not least, comes Sleep No More (Faber, €12.99), a collection of six “murderous tales” by the late PD James, previously published only in hard-to-find anthologies, including the felicitous Murder Of Santa Claus. Fiendishly clever and elegant as all her work, it’s a pity the creator of Adam Dalgliesh didn’t write more short fiction, because this is perfect fireside fare for the season.
HISTORY JP O’Malley
WITH my interest in Russian history bordering on the obsessional, I was enthusiastic to read The Last of The Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution (Macmillan, €20.99) where Robert Service asks: who gave permission to assassinate the Romanov family? Service didn’t disappoint my high expectations. His life-long experience documenting Soviet history is self evident in this brilliant book, which depicts the final crestfallen days of Russia’s last royal dynasty.
If the Russian Revolution is one of the most important events of 20th Century history, the systematic murder of six million Jews in the blood-lands of Eastern Europe is undoubtedly its most tragic. In The Holocaust (Viking €19) Laurence Rees arrives at the conclusion that there was no one single defining moment that ensured this evil act took place; believing instead that it was a connected series of events that led the Nazi leadership from 1942 onwards to implement the Final Solution. Using 25 years of his own primary research, as well as sound scholarly sources, this comprehensive compendium must surely now stand as the most well-rounded study of the Shoah in the English language hitherto.
BBC broadcaster and writer Fergal Keane is someone who understands the complexities and horrors of organised state violence: having reported on the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In Wounds: A Memoir of War (William Collins €20.99) Keane tries to understand what makes seemingly rational individuals — under certain circumstances — become cold-blooded killers? The journalist concentrates on three characters who served as volunteers during the War of Independence of 1919-21: Hanna Purtill, Keane’s grandmother, her brother, Mick, and his friend, Con Brosnan. The family memoir is as much a search for understanding how Keane’s ancestry informs his own life, as it is a philosophical insight into the nature of war itself. If ideology and violence were two bedfellows that went hand in glove as the 20th Century progressed, the zero sum game of political theatre that accompanied Cold War politics was like nothing the world had ever seen before, as Odd Arne Westad points out in The Cold War: A World History (Allen Lane €33.99). Highlights of this extraordinary study of global 20th Century history include the year-long Berlin Blockade in 1948-49; the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961; the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962; the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in November 1989; and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. More than any other US president before or since, Richard Nixon’s hatred of communism was pathological and irrational in nature, as John A Farrell convincingly argues with great style and attention to detail, in Richard Nixon: The Life, (Doubleday, €28.99). Moreover, it led to a presidency of pure paranoia against his enemies. The historian claims that Nixon most likely didn’t order the break in at the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters in Washington DC in June 1972. It was the illegal cover up that followed, however, which resulted in the president paying the price with his political career. The historian makes great use of 3,700 hours of newly available White House tape recordings; Nixon’s grand jury testimony from Watergate; and, most importantly, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s White House telephone transcripts with the president. All of which portray a deeply troubled human being.
‘Richard Nixon’s hatred of communism was simply pathological’
POPULAR FICTION Margaret Madden
MARIAN Keyes (left) delighted fans with her latest offering, The Break (Michael Joseph, €14.99); a humorous and astute look at family -life, friendship and identity. Amy is shocked when her husband announces he wants to take a ‘marriage sabbatical’, flying to south east Asia, leaving his wife and three teenagers behind. The family dynamic shifts and well-wishing friends offer some insightful (and often hilarious) advice. With plenty of shenanigans, tons of laughter and observant commentary on contemporary female life, the novel also deals with serious issues.
Rowan Coleman brings us 1970s nostalgia in her delightful time-travel tale, The Summer of Impossible Things (Ebury Press €16.99). In a strange twist of fate, Luna finds herself transported back to the summer of 1977, where she meets her mother and faces an opportunity to change both of their futures. A magical and atmospheric read, where the Brooklyn air is full of Saturday Night Fever and altering the future is a real possibility.
The realities of caring for the elderly in their own home is addressed in an honest and touching novel from Kate Beaufoy. In The Gingerbread House (Black and White, €9.99), Tess struggles to keep it together while caring for her elderly mother-in-law, who is suffering from dementia. Narrated by Tess’s 14-year-old daughter, Katia, we see Tess enforce restraint as she battles with her patience and attempts to preserve the dignity of the older woman. A beautiful little book, with a huge heart.
Break away from the herd. This is the message from journalist, writer and broadcaster, Dawn O’Porter, in The Cows (Harper Collins, €15.99), a savvy tale of feminism and the world of constant judgment. Tackling women’s reproductive decisions, unequal pay and trial by social media, this is a lighter look at the hurdles young women face today. Just who is judging whom? A sharp and sassy read which combines regular prose alongside emails, tweets, Instagram posts and text messages; delving into the lives of three young women, all searching for their own true voice.
From feminism to racism, with Small Great Things (Hodder, €11.99) by Jodi Picoult who is always guaranteed to address a topical issue head-on, from alternative perspectives, and this courtroom drama is no different. Ruth, an African American nurse is accused of the murder of a new-born baby, by the child’s parents, Turk and Brittany Bauer, white supremacists, who have left instructions that “No African American personnel to care for this patient” on their son’s medical chart. Kennedy McQuarrie, the white, middle-class lawyer representing Ruth, is also a major character, with racism becoming the real issue behind the tragic death. Picoult has delivered a stunning and revealing examination of race relations in American society today.
ART & FASHION Deirdre Conroy
AS a child, aside from devouring books by Enid Blyton, Anna Sewell and Louisa May Alcott, my favourite pastime was making ball gowns for my dolls. My grandmother was a talented seamstress and I avidly followed fashion through her pattern books. The history of fashion conveys more than luxury, in its distillation of a journey to success. Coco Chanel is already in my library, so for an alternative history of French couture, I recommend Dior Catwalk by Alexander Fury and Adelia Sabatini (Thames and Hudson €55) a spectacular publication to mark the fashion house’s 70th anniversary, or All about Yves by Catherine Ormen, (Laurence King $50), celebrating the illustrious history of Yves Saint Laurent.
From this year’s vast selection of art publications, I loved Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonne of The Monotypes by Jennifer L Roberts (Yale University Press $150). Johns, in his 87th year, is arguably the most important living American artist. The place to find it — Rizzoli Bookstore in New York, a venue that is style personified itself.
The London bookshop of choice is at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and their latest publication, New Design for Old Buildings (€40) by Roger Hunt and Ian Boyd, is an inspiring collection of photographs, drawings and technical data on how to salvage historic buildings with contemporary intervention. It would be great if our Government Housing Department ordered lots of these and gifted them to local authorities. There is a foreword by Grand Designs TV presenter and designer, Kevin McCloud, himself an inspiring advocate of building conversation.
In Dublin, the newly renovated City Assembly House on South William Street is home to the Irish Georgian Society, where there is a stock of fascinating books on architecture, art, craft, furniture and Ireland’s great houses. The Country House Library by Mark Purcell (Yale University Press, €60) includes photographs and fascinating histories of exquisite libraries in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales while Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II by Tarquin Blake (The Collins Press €24.99])documents forgotten stately homes, including Elsinore in Co Sligo where William and Jack Butler Yeats spent many childhood summers. Making Majesty by Myles Campbell and William Derham (Irish Academic Press €29.99), explores the significance of the Throne Room at Dublin Castle in a collection of essays by leading Irish art and architectural historians.