10:04 by Ben Lerner

I've read one book by this author before Leaving Atocha Station and I began my review of it with the words "Probably the most compelling first person narrative I have read. " Here again it is written in 1st person. Its title is from the time on the clock tower in the movie Back to the Future and this book also does somersaults with time. It is about an author who has written a story in the New Yorker on the strength of which he has been given a huge advance to write his first novel. But he has much going on in his life including a potentially fatal health diagnosis, the prospect of becoming a father and in exactly what capacity following his female friend, Alex's request to him to help her conceive a child, another friend exhibits 'totalled art' , the art written off by insurance companies after damage, he has a course on Whitman to prepare for his students, he is on a writing retreat at Marfa in Texas from which he turns out a epic poem, and his thoughts are always being distracted . It is through these aspects that Lerner writes this book which essentially is about how writers write. It meanders, philosophizes, ponders the big and the small. It takes a bit of submersion to feel the book, to tease the different threads that are jumbled together, narrative not as we usually are presented with it. But hidden within are some writing gems - one for me was his story about The Challenger Disaster. If you've read Atocha and enjoyed it, read this one. If you've never read Lerner, read slowly, dont rush it, and immerse yourself in his images, lyrical descriptive analyses based on the fleeting glimpses of this that and the other.

Wandering Souls By Cecile Pin

This is one of the best first novels I have ever read! I wonder why they only longlisted it for the Women's Prize? Basically the story of 3 child refugees, 'Boat People' from Vietnam, an older sister and two brothers as they leave Vietnam and make their way first to Hong Kong and then to UK. There is tragedy and joy, racism and welcomes, innocence and experience, the whole migrant experience told through Anh the older sister but also through other voices. First there is the ghost of Dao, a much younger brother who left Vietnam with other family members, and a third voice the narrator unknown until much further into the book. This voice is researching and their passages are factual and shows the author's done her research ( I do not know whether any of this is biographical of her own family history) - 1979 Koh Kra incident ; Operation Wandering Soul ; and academic reference to Transgenerational trauma ( apologies I forgot to make a note of its details) and Joan Didion's book The White Album. In this way the author constructs her book - it is fascinating, creates layers and totally engages the reader. I read it in one sitting, very unusual for me. Stunning!