Of Stone And Sky by Merryn Glover
understanding of the actual act of surfing, though, which really jar. During a wipeout Sharkey is “dragged down until he reached and slipped the leash over his foot” but leashes are attached by means of a velcro cuff.
In the event that you were able to get your hand anywhere near your ankle while being tumbled around underwater during a serious, big wave wipeout, you wouldn’t “slip” your leash off, you’d grab the tab on the velcro and yank it hard. (There’s also a question mark over why a surfer in this situation would want to detach himself from his surfboard in the first place – a flotation device that could well save his life.)
I could go on – and I suspect that, were he ever to finish reading the book, Warshaw, a revered surfing historian, would have a few things to say about its chronology.
Out of the water, Sharkey’s laborious journey towards enlightenment does have its moments, but without a convincing aquatic core the story feels about as authentic as plastic leis.
Of Stone And Sky is a rich stew of a novel, one with a Victorian complexity of plot, a family saga which is also a socio-economic survey of Highlands history over almost 300 years. It has an unfashionably large cast of characters and if there isn’t quite a missing heir, there is a plot twist which comes close to offering that. Over-written in parts, slow to get going, it rewards the reader’s perseverance.
One reason for this is that Glover has fully imagined her characters and cares about them without slipping into sentimentality. Indeed, she is at times unfashionably cold, extracting comedy from an old woman slipping into dementia. Admittedly this character has never been agreeable or likeable.
The novel opens with a eulogy, giving thanks for the life of Colvin Munro. Always described as a shepherd, though more accurately a sheep-farmer, he has walked away into the hills and disappeared. No body has been found, but over the months things he owned are discovered on stages of his walk. The setting is an estate in the Cairngorms and the huge cast includes tinkers, war-wounded veterans, foresters, gamekeepers, alcoholics, lairds, lawyers and conservationists.
The narrative is presented to us partly through a thirdperson authorial voice, partly through first person narratives or monologues.
Such a dissipation of interest means that the novel loses the intensity that can be provided by a single point-of-view; but any such loss is here redeemed by the author’s inventiveness, zest, intelligence and sympathy for her characters.
The ending is a touch Hollywood-sugary, but I suspect that most readers will have become so involved in the story and the characters that they will welcome it.
Stronger: Changing Everything I Knew About Women’s Strength by Poorna Bell
Poorna Bell is a journalist, formidable public speaker and author. One lesser known string to her bow is her sideline in competitive amateur powerlifting – a hobby that helped lift her out of the deep malaise following the death of her husband in 2015. Stronger contains the lessons Bell has learned since then. She can now lift over twice her own body weight, but the most striking account contained in the book is the holistic effect lifting has had on her mental health. Aimed at female readers, Stronger charts her journey in starkly person terms – but there is something here for readers of any gender or age: that strength comes in many forms.