Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, Audiobook narration by Christine Hewitt

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A member of my in person book group recommended this writer to me. Coincidentally I noticed that the editor of this book was Max Porter , who I have been reading and raving about recently, during his time at Granta.
Sarah Moss 's Ghost Wall has an unusual setting , Northumberland more, for an all to common issue, male domestic violence. its 150 pages are told in the voice of teenager Silvie who, with her mother and father , is on a experimental archeology trip to experience Iron Age life with an anthropology Professor and his students. Her father is a bus driver, self-taught and downright authoritarian , lording it over mother and daughter. While the students treat the exercise at the most semi-seriously, the father is fanatical, looking for authenticity and his 'British' roots. His Northern family are well used to camping and foraging in contrast to the students who skip off to the Local Spar for groceries, and in the case of one student Molly, a hot shower and the pub in the village. The tension is thus set and is escalated in the story. Silvie's stream of consciousness narration which is present for most of the book is gripping. The reader see her change from a youngster, happily walking with her dad on the moors, to an abused teenager and to cult victim in a almost 'Lord of the Flies' climax. It is unsettling yet superb. Sparse yet horrifically gripping. Character full, very filmic yet uniquely absorbing. Beautifully narrated by Christine Hewitt

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The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzi, translated by Rahul Bery.

The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Phenomenal book. Gothic psychological horror which begins with quotes from RLS's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, and which starts with RLS's cousin David Alan Stevenson arriving with a patient at the doors of a post WW1 sanatorium just outside of Edinburgh where the first and final, third, chapters of the book take place and which is managed by Dr Edward Pierce, a proponent of hypnosis as treatment as against the established Germanic school of psychiatry's treatments and protocols.
The patient is lighthouse Engineer David Bradley, whose diary forms the middle part of the book. Bradley had been set to assess lighthouses in southern Argentina and ended up being left alone with limited provisions on the Eye of Goliath lighthouse of Ushuaia, when his return boat was delayed by bad weather and where haunted by the story of its previous occupant murderer and taxidermist, Juan Evans, his mental state deteriorates to such an extent that he becomes delusional and a bit unhinged.
Both Bradley and Pierce had served in the trenches of WW1 and the novel is set at that notorious time when electrotherapy was used to 'cure' various psychoses. This book investigates the impact of war on people's psyche , how no one ever comes back from war unchanged and the various ways that dual personalities a la Jekyll and Hyde can be manifest.
The novel is comparatively short at 188 pages but punch way above its weight. It is a very well constructed novel, the detailed layering and linkage between the men and the chapters is exceedingly well done. I know horror is not everyone's genre but in my opinion this book is so well written that it is worth putting any bias aside and looking at it as a psychological treatise.
I will most definitely be looking forward to more of Diego Muzzio's books to be translated, Pushkin Press website gives a minimal bio as does the Royal Literary Fund site for translator Rahul Bery who I suspect is one to follow too.
Highly recommended.

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Not a River by Selva Almada, transl by Annie McDermott (4*)

Shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker and translated by Annie McDermott I've been wanting to read this since the English Translation came out . Also on my to be read list are her other books The Wind that Lays Waste and Bricklayers and although these are the first of this loosely connected trilogy I've always been under the impression they can be read in any order. In the UK it is published by the marvelous Charco Press from Edinburgh who produce the great Central and South American Literature in English. This edition includes a post note by the translator which is well worth a read. She was shortlisted also for Brickmakers.

This is a story of a weekend island fishing trip by 3 friends, which echoes a previous trip made some years before. Almada works her storylines back and forth, flowing like a river, and rivers we know can be smooth and steady, welcoming and also dangerous fierce raging torrents. So with this book. I read that the author was born and raised in Entre Rios which is a province to the north of Buenos Aires that is full of rivers dotted with lush islands. You feel that tension between water and land, between island and mainland in this book as Almada explore classic topics such as the bonds of friendship and family, the dangers facing women and girls, and the male urge to solve problems through violence.

One group consists of the fishermen from the mainland Enero and El negro and the younger Tilo, son of their friend Diana and now taking his father Eusabio's place in the fishing group. The islander group is led by Aguirre, his sister Siomara and her daughters Lucy and Mariela. Their backstories lap upon the reader as short sentences, short paragraphs as waves on the page. It is a beautifully constructed story, has an ease of reading, a great build up of tension and grand storytelling in under 100 pages.

The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter, narrated by Max Porter (3*)

I didn't enjoy this as much as Porter's other books, but then I suspect not many people will. Having said that it is a highly experimental work , even by Porter's standards. One which only covers 74 A6 pages, and the seven chapter title pages are in fact only picture medium and size labels. But again it is all about the voice - this time the author himself narrates this and he does it very well - in my opinion like a great actor can deliver with momentum, with speeds changes, employing tone and voice pitch, slow and soft, fierce and firm, brutal and blunt , without apparently taking a breath. As I read it and listened to it, it struck me I didn't know much about Francis Bacon's art and life, much less how and where he died. The book left me remembering the live, one man stage show that Simon Callow did of Dickens - a performance that required not only inordinate memory but total commitment to the part, the giving of 100% of the actor's life for that hour or so to be someone else, without the breathing space afforded by fellow actors playing their part. Here we do have the intermittent voice of the clinic's Sister and quotes from others like John Berger, but they are a tiny part. The rest is Porter's impressions of the final chaotic workings of a mind of the artist, its a homage in many ways as Porter transforms these scenes into the 7 text pictures and tries to catch the the torment of Bacon's artwork and the inevitable chaos of what was for most of his life an illicit love live, full of characters and full of violence. The range of topics that Porter has tackled in his 4 novels is broad. This is a great author in the making.

Lanny by Max Porter , narrated by Annie Aldington, Clare Corbett, David Timson and Jot Davies (5*)

This is the 3rd Max Porter book I have read. I am becoming addicted. He is the most exciting novelist I have read in recent times. I adore his writing and this one is the best so far, a gripping read. I love the way he uses words - 'Palette-knife smears of bad weather rush past the windows'; ' There is a moment like a cello note, then. Warm and wooden and full of other things. Nobody speaks but we are all listening' 'I'm more accustomed to the sound of the village now. I know a hedgehog making its way along the planted borders, I know the postman's early footsteps on the gravel. I know the alien hum of Mrs Larton's late-night tumble-drying.This isn't that. This is a human body moving. There is someone in my house.' The way the eavesdropped conversations of villagers, the sound bite of gossip and mundane minutiae of life are 'heard' on the wind, on the page they move like fluttering words - they are brought to life by excellent multi-voice narration. It really pays the hear Porter's novels read aloud, like listening to a Guillermo del Toro producing Pan's Labyrinth. This book will take you from realism, into the magical unreal, from folk tale into drama and twisting it walks backwards through them all.

Max Porter has a new book due out in Feb 2027 entitled Burn and Rave, I , for one, will be eagerly waiting for it.

Shy by Max Porter (4*) , narrated by Joe Gaminara (5*)

This is the second [author:Max Porter|13807841] book I have read. And I must highly recommend him as a writer, especially for people who love words, rhythm and rhyme. His plots are thin, sparse, but his language is rich, lush and exorbitant. Reading him is like lying in your favourite bubble bath, soaking it all in. In this book we have Shy a very troubled youth, now having his last chance at the 'Last Chance' school an unconventional rehab institution for delinquent, disturbed and violent offenders.

I would advice listening to the audio narrated brilliantly by Joe Gaminara alongside the textual copy. His narration captures the multi-voice way Porter writes, bringing the author's architectural style of producing words on the page to the narration. Gaminara brings the building bricks of the text - its spacing, loft and right justifications, italics etc - to life. So much added value.

Porter is incredibly innovative in in writing style - unique? You really hear the hip-hop, bass and drums that Shy likes, you experience the chaos of his mind, how he tries to handle his own frustrations, his ignorance, his questioning, his interactions with other, the noise, noise noise of his existence. This is a powerful book. Not easy subject matter. But you will know you have read it.

Assembly by Natasha Brown (4*)

My roll of short great novels continues.

Race and class in Modern Britain circa 2013 . Social climbing today for old money and new. Privilege and expectation versus work hard, work harder mantra or the migrant and the masses. Although some passages feel like creative writing exercises re-used, this woman can write. She makes the essence of her protagonist explode from the concise 100 pages of tight text into full bloom in your mind.

Deservedly on the Granta 2023 Best of Young British Novelists list

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, Translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (4*)

This book takes the concept found in Groundhog Day, and in The Time Traveller's Wife etc and runs with it in 1st person narrative of antiquarian book seller Tara. As she tells her husband about the repetition , each day's recantation getting longer and longer, we see her try to maintain then be a voyeur and then remove herself from his 18th, from his life, their house, their life. It was an addictive listen. Ive ordered Book 2 of the series from the library to see how she develops this and where she takes it.