Benedict Wells: Vom Ende der Einsamkeit, detebe / DiogenesTaschenbuch,

Benedict Wells: The End of Loneliness, Penguin Books USA, 9780143134008, available and Sceptre/UK, 9781473654044 

German Review:
Benedict Well’s  “Vom Ende der Einsamkeit” war mir auf der Bestsellerliste aufgefallen, aber erst als eine Kollegin aus der Verlagswelt in England schrieb, wie wunderbar sie dieses Buch fand, (es wird jetzt gerade in England und den USA verlegt, s.o.) kaufte ich mir schließlich das Taschenbuch. Ich muss gestehen, die letzten 50 Seiten habe ich öfters geheult. Ich fand den Roman für meinen Geschmack zum Teil ein wenig melodramatisch, aber am Ende kam alles zusammen und ich war emotional voll im Bann des Buches.
 

Die traurige Geschichte der noch sehr jungen Geschwister Moreau, die ihre liebevollen Eltern viel zu früh durch einen plötzlichen Schicksalsschlag verlieren, bricht einem gleich zu Beginn das Herz. Jules Moreau, der mit seinen Geschwistern Marty und Liz nicht nur den Verlust der Eltern, sondern auch den der gewohnten Umgebung verkraften muss, leben die nächsten Jahre im Internat, wo jeder auf seine Art und Weise mit der veränderten Lebenssituation klar kommt. Jules tut sich am schwersten. Aus dem kleinen Draufgänger von einst wird von heute auf morgen ein in sich gekehrter, einsamer Junge.  Als Alva, eine Mitschülerin sich mit ihm anfreundet, kommt zum ersten mal wieder so etwas wie Hoffnung und Licht in sein Leben.  Das Buch erzählt eine außergewöhnliche, bewegende Liebesgeschichte, ein Coming of Age verbunden mit den Irrungen und Wirrungen der Erwachsenenjahre aller drei Geschwister und vor allem  von Hoffnung und Liebe.  Ein berührender Roman, der versucht auf die tiefen Fragen des Lebens, Liebe, Verlust, Tod und Einsamkeit, eine Antwort zu geben.  Und so schwingt das Buch noch eine ganze Weile in einem nach. 

English Review:

Benedict Well’s „The End of Loneliness was just published in the UK and the US which brought the novel to my attention again after a colleague from the UK publishing world mentioned how much she loved this book. I finally went out and bought the German edition and I have to confess, I cried several times during the last 50 pages. Occassionally the book seemed to melodramatic for my personal taste but in the end everything added up and I was fully hooked.

The moving story of the Moreau siblings who lose their parents overnight through a tragic accident breaks your heart right at the beginning. Jules Moreau with his brother Marty and sister Liz do not only have to overcome the loss of their beloved parents at a young age but also have to deal with the loss of their normal surroundings. Their new home is a boarding school for the coming years. Each of them handles the loss differently the next years, Jules suffering the most it seems. The former daredevil turns into an introverted, lonely boy. Only when Alva, a fellow student, starts to befriend him, does he feel there is light in his life again. The rest of the book is an unusual, moving love story, a coming of age with the trials and errors of early adulthood but it is primarily a book of hope and love.  It tries to answer some deep questions about life, love, loss, death and how to overcome loneliness, the reason why the book stays with you for a while.

I really like the Penguin cover, it does a lot more for my asthetics than the German one (I know the Diogenes design is iconic but very dated in my view). 

Jane Harper: The Lost Man ,9781408711835 , Little Brown UK , C format trade paperback, February 2019

(no German publication date yet)

So far I have read “The Dry”, “Force of Nature” and now “The Lost Man” by Jane Harper and the more I have read of her work, the more a fan I become.  She has a unique style of storytelling describing the Australian outback, the loneliness, sparingness and brutality of the landscape and that of some of its inhabitants with perfect precision.  I just could not put down “The Lost Man” once I started reading.

“The Lost Man” is a stand-alone mystery starting out very quietly and in an unagitated way as is Jane Harpers style. Cameron, one of the three Bright brothers, has been found dead near the Stockman grave in the outback. What makes this death so unusual is that no sign of a wound is found on the body suggesting murder. Cameron’s pick up is discovered some miles away full of water and provisions making this even more unexplainable as the victim was very familiar with the deathly climate of the outback. So why should he abandon his car and walk to the Stockman grave knowing the heat would send him to his death? 

Nathan, the middle brother and chief protagonist of the novel, has his property bordering a three hour drive away from his brother’s and family property where their mother Liz, his younger brother Bub, his sister in law Ilse with two daughters and Harry the stockman live. The brother’s lives have been overshadowed by a brute of a father who controlled all their life decisions with an iron fist.

Since then Nathan’s own life has been seriously damaged by one bad decision made years ago followed by a divorce and move of his ex-wife and son Xander to Brisbane.  With Xander by his side visiting during his christmas holiday, Nathan starts asking question trying to understand his brother’s seemingly unexplainable death and like an onion layers of skin are peeled away leading to the stinging truth.  Jane Harper is a master at unravelling small details of family dynamics and relationships always leaving room for interpretations.

One can virtually feel the misery, dust and brutality of the surroundings and the emotional agony of the characters in the novel. Great story, loved every page of it!

Liane Moriarty: Nine Perfect Strangers, 9780718180300, open market paperback, Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House UK

(no German translation yet announced, previous titles available as paperbacks)

Liane Moriarty has a huge fan base and a previous title, “Big Little Lies” was turned into a successful HBO series and has been a NY Times bestseller.  “Nine Perfect Strangers” sounded like a fun holiday read, downloaded the e-book and started reading on holiday in Kenia. I have to confess I had my problems with the novel, after a promising start I got bored in the middle, the story started to drag, I put it aside and only when I gave it another go when I was home with about 60 % on my Kindle read, did the book feel like this could become quite interesting and it delivered in the end.  All in all, one has to persevere and stay with the story but in my judgement one of the weaker books I have read lately. Despite a pacing 
ending, a three star rating from me, the novel as a whole feels terribly constructed.

Nine perfect strangers, all of different age with varied backgrounds but with some serious personal issues in common, check into “Tranquillum House”, a spa which promises to totally transform their lives in 10 days.  Masha, a former business executive who went through a personal crisis and transformation herself after living an unhealthy life and suffering a near fatal heart attack, founded the clinic to make a difference in other peoples lives and runs it together with Yao, the very paramedic who was responsible for saving her life several years ago.  But no one is prepared for the more sinister agenda Masha seems to have in mind after the benign health checks, fasting and psychological counselling are completed. She wants to take the mission of the retreat to another level and contrary to previous treatments the smoothies she hands out to her non suspecting clients are not only laced with nutritional fiber. …..

Without question the individual stories of the nine strangers have to be narrated thoroughly and were good fun to read (I particularly liked the character of Frances)  but I felt the book seriously dragging in the middle and nearly chucked the book aside. Given the entertainment it did provide in the end after the more sinister part started, this would have been a shame.  

Abir Murkherjee: Smoke and Ashes, 9781911215158, Harvill Secker, available

German Edition: Eine Handvoll Asche, 9783453423381, Heyne, Taschenbuch, Mai 2019

 

Abir Murkherjee’s stories set in the 1920 India still being ruled by the British Empire with the two chief protagonists, Captain Sam Wyndham and his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-not Banerjee, are currently my favorite historical crime series.  They have everything, tongue in cheek British humor, accurate historical backgrounds, social criticism of both Indian and British society and the plight of Sam’s opium addiction stemming from terrible physical and mental anguish during WWI. I always disappear into these novels with their tight plot and find myself longing for the 4^th sequel just having finished “Smoke and Ashes”.

Sam’s opium addiction is gaining the upper hand in this novel; he can barely conceal his sweats and tremor if he doesn’t get to an opium den at night. During one of these visits he is almost caught in a police raid ordered by none other than his nemesis, Major Dawson, but while escaping he stumbles over a badly mutilated corpse of what appears to be a Chinese man. When he is called to another badly mutilated body the next day, much like the one he believed to have dreamed up in his opium haze, he knows this is no coincidence.  Section H, the secret British police find reason to interrogate him as a warning. At the same time the Prince of Wales is about to visit India and the last thing security forces need is a killer on the loose. The British Secret Service are trying to frame Gandhi and his followers for the murders creating a delicate situation for Banerjee as one of Gandhi’s chief lieutenants on the march of independence is one of his uncles.  The situation escalates when a third victim, a native nurse working for a British government clinical project, is found murdered in the same fashion as the other two victims leading Sam and Banerjee in a completely different direction. And from here on I kept turning the pages even faster.

"Smoke and Ashes" guarantees fabulous historical crime reading and the all the books in the series have a very sound plot.  Please keep them coming Abir Murkherjee, I am addicted!

Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers, 9780708899137, Fleet, hardback,  paperback pub date: July 2019,9780735223530

A few months ago “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai was recommended to me by a friend from publishing, and then it appeared on the shortlist as a finalist for the National Book Award 2018 and was chosen as one of New York Times Top 10 of 2018 before I finally downloaded the E-book. I still think about this book and wholeheartedly agree with the praises “The Great Believers” received. Set in Chicago starting in 1985, it is a perfectly documented, fictionalized account of the beginning of the aids epidemic and the devastating affect it had on the gay community. Personally it brought back sad memories of a gay friend dying in New York, his very rapid decline and my conversations with him while he was dying.

The novel starts with the main protagonist handsome Yale Tishman, a development director of a Chicago gallery, attending the funeral of one of his closest friends, Nico, one of the first aids victims.  Doctors are only slowly beginning to understand this deathly virus with no cure in sight combatting the illness with conventional drugs.  Yale considers himself lucky having been in a monogamous relationship with his partner Charlie for several years while holding his breath that the epidemic might have passed them by. He is also on the upswing of a promising career in the art world after he established a connection with an elderly friend of Nico’s, Nora,  who is about to gift invaluable art work to Tish’s gallery from her time in 1920 as a model to famous Paris artists.  Nico’s sister Fiona is tirelessly caring for some of her and her brothers friends who are almost all diagnosed with having the aids virus, some of them close to death. Tish’s world comes crashing down when he finds out that his partner Charlie had cheated on him and is carrying the virus.

Alternating between the 1980ties and contemporary Paris, the other story is that of Fiona, now divorced trying to track down her estranged daughter who disappeared with her boyfriend into a religious cult a few years ago. Staying with her old gay friend Richard from Chicago who has become a famous photographer, her old life and memories of losing those she loved the most to aids surface and she has to acknowledge how these losses have overshadowed her entire life and her relationship to her daughter Claire.

Probably because this novel is set in Chicago which I know so well and knowing gay friends who were disowned by their family because of their sexual preference on top of having to live through the aids crisis before the discovery of life saving drugs, I was able to connect fully with this story. What a great book, my heart went out to Tish, his friends and Fiona. I particularly enjoyed the chapters where Yale’s drives up to visit aging adorable Nora, whose collection of art worth millions by now, will make the difference to his career and her family’s fight to prevent her bequest to the gallery.