Vanessa

Staff Review: Vanessa writes: Margaux first met Peter at a public swimming pool when he was fifty-one and she was seven. When Peter invited Margaux and her mother to his house, Margaux discovered an exciting world far removed from her lonely days at school and her violent and unpredictable father. Soon Margaux was spending all her time with Peter. Margaux's mother suffered from a debilitating mental illness and she too viewed their visits as an escape from her oppressive life at home with an abusive husband. Fragoso eloquently depicts her 15 year relationship with Peter as he slowly manipulates his way through the role of playmate, father, and eventually, lover. Brutally honest and beautifully written, Tiger, Tiger is a brave and unflinching memoir. While this is a very difficult read, it provides a frightening insight in to the way paedophiles work. This book will be talked about for years to come.

Staff Review: Vanessa writes: As I was reading the opening of this book, which begins with a mother telling her daughter about the day, as a 10 year old girl, she found her mother hanging from the rafters, I knew I was in for a dark ride. And that's exactly what Vann delivers in Caribou Island, his first full length novel since the short story collection Legend of a Suicide. Gary and Irene are a retired couple with two grown children. When Gary, a "champion of regret", wants to build them a log cabin out on the remote Caribou Island, Irene is reluctant but is afraid Gary is going to leave her if she doesn’t do what he wants. Meanwhile her daughter Rhoda is trying to convince herself she is happy living with her selfish, philandering boyfriend. Worried about her parents but helpless to do anything about the situation, she has nobody to turn to apart from her pot-smoking brother Mark. Mark's hapless friend Carl provides some light comic relief but it is only fleeting. There is not a lot to laugh at in this book. In fact, I found myself suffocating almost as much as the characters. This is an emotional ride as harsh as the beautiful, but unforgiving landscape of Alaska, which Vann depicts so vividly. I was gripped right up until the dramatic climax (which made me feel like I'd been kicked in the stomach). I loved it!

Staff Review: Vanessa writes: Tory Pace is a dutiful English wife, working in a gelatin factory while her husband is away at war. Her life is thrown into turmoil when she receives a letter from him requesting sexual gratification in the form of "dirty letters". Hilarity ensues when in an attempt to produce an appropriate response, she consults medical textbooks, romance novels and illegally produced pamphlets in order to satisfy his request. The second half of the novel takes on very different tone when Tory's husband, Donald, returns home from war a remarkably different man to the one he was before. This is at times a very sad novel but Woodward's writing style maintains its whimsical air throughout. While it may not be as meaty as his previous works, it was a pleasure to read.

Staff Review: Vanessa writes: Set in Istanbul between 1975 and the present day, this is the story of a rich young man's obsession with a poor shopgirl. Kemal, the narrator of the story is the son of one of Istanbul's richest families. While engaged to a suitable and respectable woman, he begins an obsessive love affair with Fusun, a beautiful but poor, distant relative. This painful relationship, while doomed from the start lasts 30 years in its various stages. Throughout the novel, Kemal draws the reader's attention to a number of objects, from the mundane to the precious, that collecting for a museum dedicated to his lover. While this is a rather laborious read, Pamuk’s evocative descriptions of the minutest details of life in Istanbul compelled me to keep reading. At times I found myself frustrated with Kemal's obsessive behaviour, at other times I was mesmerised by his ability to see beauty in what we might perceive as ordinary. This is not for everyone, but if you have a little time and patience, it's well worth it.

Staff Review: Vanessa writes: Mervyn Peake's gothic masterpiece, The Gormenghast Trilogy, is dark, strange, hilarious, and unlike anything you have every read. The first two books in the trilogy (Titus Groan and Gormenghast) follow the growth of Titus, the heir to an ancient, rambling castle and the antics of Steerpike, a conniving kitchen boy and Titus' arch nemesis, and his ploy to infiltrate the castle's hierarchy. While the plot is not very complex, Peake's eloquent prose immediately draws you into the lives of these colourful characters and the castle they inhabit. From the sinister Steerpike, to the sleazy Swelter, from the melancholy Lord Sepulchrave to the ludicrous Prunesquallors, Peake has arguably created some of the most memorable and unique characters in literary history. Sadly, Peake died before he could complete the third book in the series, Titus Groan, so it is a little patchy. The castle in the first two books is a character in itself, so when Titus leaves his insulated world to explore unknown territory, a little bit of the brilliance of the first two novels is lost. But this in no way detracts from what a sublime, absurd and wonderful work of fiction this is.