The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Newcomers to the fore but old hands still have much to say
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY EL JAMES
2011
What the Wolf Hall trilogy did for Henry VIII’s fixer, Fifty Shades of Grey did for BDSM. Born out of a Twilight fan fiction series, this erotic novel inflicted pain on the English language, but went on to break records and propel bondage into the mainstream. Centred on the relationship between college graduate Anastasia Steele and businessman Christian Grey, Fifty Shades sparked a boom in sales of sex toys and erotic literature. Eight years on, it has sold hundreds of millions of copies and been adapted into a film starring Jamie Dornan and
Dakota Johnson.
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND ELENA FERRANTE 2012
The identity of Elena Ferrante was the great literary mystery of the decade. Ferrante is the pseudonym adopted by the author of the Neapolitan novels, a series of four Italian books about female friendship, which have sold in their millions across the world. A sort of literary Banksy, Ferrante insists her anonymity is fundamental to her work. This has not stopped a succession of sleuths trying to unmask her against the wishes of her devoted fans. There is little doubt all the intrigue has worked in her favour. In 2016, Ferrante was named in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people.
HIS BLOODY PROJECT
GRAEME MACRAE BURNET 2015
Literary awards can bring huge prestige, transforming fortunes overnight. When Graeme Macrae Burnet’s novel, His Bloody Project, was short-listed for the Booker in 2016 it was a game changer both for him and Saraband, the tiny publisher that took a punt on his work. The book tells the story of Roddy Macrae, a teenager who killed three people on the Applecross peninsula in 1869. It didn’t win, but went on to sell more copies than Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, which did. It raised the author’s profile and helped Saraband secure international rights deals.
MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME REBECCA SOLNIT 2014
BAD FEMINIST
ROXANE GAY 2014
The 2010s produced a new clutch of feminist writers whose radical work foreshadowed and paved the way for the #MeToo movement. Among the most prominent was Rebecca Solnit, whose collection of essays, Men
Explain Things to Me, became a rallying cry for women no longer willing to tolerate harassment. Also hugely influential was Roxane Gay, whose book of essays Bad Feminist provided a counterpoint to Solnit’s. Gay argues for a feminism that adheres to the ideals of equality and reproductive freedom but recognises the contradictions embedded in humanity.
GO SET A WATCHMAN HARPER LEE
2015
The “discovery” of a prequel to Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird was a sensation, though later transpired it was an early, rejected draft unearthed by Lee’s lawyer Tonja Carter. Lee released a statement suggesting she had given her consent to publication, but there were suspicions her declining health might have made her vulnerable to exploitation. Released to huge fanfare, it stirred mixed emotions in readers as Atticus Finch, a liberal hero to so many, was revealed as a racist.
LANDMARKS
ROBERT MACFARLANE 2015
In the vanguard of a climate changedriven resurgence of nature writing is
Robert Macfarlane, whose book Landmarks – a celebration of the British landscape and the evocative terms used to describe it – was a clarion call to protect these endangered treasures from extinction. Macfarlane’s passion for the lyrical precision of words such as “coachan” – “a slender moor-stream obscured by vegetation such that it is virtually hidden from sight” – was contagious. A version of the book’s first chapter went viral, and the book became a Sunday Times number one bestseller.
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME TA-NEHISI COATES
2015
Ta-Nehisi Coates was already an established writer with the Atlantic and the author of a highly-acclaimed memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, when he penned this seminal work on racism in the US. He sought only one endorsement: from Toni Morrison, who said he filled the intellectual gap left by James Baldwin. Like Baldwin’s 1963 masterpiece The Fire Next Time, Coates’ book takes the form of a letter. Drawing on his own youth in Baltimore, it explores the ways in which the police, the schools and street culture compromise the lives and identities of black men and women. The book won the National Book Award and was ranked seventh on the Guardian’s list of the 100 best books of the
21st century.
THE WOLF HALL TRILOGY HILARY MANTEL 2009-20
Given Wolf Hall was published in 2009, and we have spent the last years of the decade waiting in vain for The Mirror and the Light, I am cheating a bit here, But the 2010s marked the point at which Mantel’s re-casting of Thomas Cromwell reached its zenith and her genius was universally acknowledged. In 2012, the second book, Bring up the Bodies, won both the Man Booker and the Costa Prize and, in 2015, it and Wolf Hall were turned into a Golden Globewinning drama. Such is the popularity of Wolf Hall that the announcement of a publication date for The Mirror and the Light (March 5, 2020) was greeted with the kind of social media frenzy normally reserved for pop combo reunions.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY COLSON WHITEHEAD 2016
This ambitious book is the story of
Cora, a teenage slave who escapes from a plantation in Georgia. In reality, of course, the underground railway was a network of secret routes and safe houses that helped runaways reach the north. But in Whitehead’s book, which combines grim realism with swashbuckling fantasy, it is transformed into an actual railway with gleaming tracks. Cora jumps on board a train and embarks on a semi-allegorical journey, experiencing different aspects of slavery in southern states. The Underground Railway was endorsed by Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
THE TESTAMENTS MARGARET ATWOOD 2019 GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER BERNADINE EVARISTO 2019
Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale was the subject of almost oppressive hype. Retrograde developments in the US, courtesy of the lurch to the right spearheaded by Donald Trump, had given her 1985 masterpiece renewed relevance while the HBO drama series won it new fans. In the event The Testaments met with mixed reviews and a feeling it had been written to serve the TV audience rather than readers.
Nevertheless, Atwood’s 17th novel won this year’s Man Booker, sharing the accolade with Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, the first black woman to win the title. The decision was controversial, as it led to the overshadowing of Evaristo’s achievement. However it has opened up a conversation about the function of awards which will doubtless continue into the coming decade.
THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT FOR BOOKS
The last decade ended as the one before, with doom-merchants forecasting the death of the book. Our love affair with technology would shorten our attention spans, while e-readers would make the printed word obsolete. Yet the book has stubbornly refused to yield to its fate.
In fact, the 2010s saw a resurgence in enthusiasm for reading. More than 16 million books were sold in Scotland last year, with a 2.5 per cent increase in spending. New awards were set up, new independent bookshops opened, new publishing ventures such as 404 Ink and Charco Press launched and literary festivals sprang up from John o’ Groats to Boswell. With First Minister Nicola Sturgeon evangelical on the subject, social media became a hot-bed of literary debate.