July Picks
Paul, Daisy Lafarge
Reviewed by Ruby Conway
Paul follows Frances, a medieval history graduate spending her summer volunteering on French farms following a research project cut-short in Paris, with hints of a relationship gone awry with her supervisor. Frances immediately falls under the influence of yet another older man, the owner of the ‘farm’ Noa Noa, set under the shadow of the Pyrenees mountains. Under the domineering nature of Paul, combined with the inherent people-pleasing, submissive nature of Frances, the latter’s sense of self begins to wane. She literally loses her voice, and Paul begins to take on her narrative, speaking for her, mapping out her future and their relationship. Paul fits neatly into the modern literary trope of uneven relationships and self-deprecating, passive young women. The novel was compelling and consumable, but it lacked the depth of human insight other authors have brought to this genre. It was the picture Lafarge created of Southern France, rustic and enticing, alive with the hum and heat of summer, that got me, as well as the rich artistic, historical, and mythological references, that added a new dimension to the novel’s exploration of gender and anthropology. Paul nods to the artist Paul Gauguin, Lafarge acknowledging Gauguin’s journal Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal (1901) as an inspiration and reference point. The novel becomes increasingly dark as it nears its end; everything clicks into place, and the novel takes on a renewed depth and significance.
Ruth & Pen, Emilie Pine
Reviewed by Amy Cousins“Intimate, Heartfelt and Important”
Ruth &Pen by Emilie Pine is a beautiful character-driven novel that truly immerses the reader into the lives of Ruth Ryan, a counsellor, and 16-year-old Pen who lives with her mother Claire and younger sister. Pen is autistic and is someone who finds words more challenging than others. The story is told over the space of 24 hours in Dublin, and there is something so immensely impressive about how Pine manages to capture the minutiae so perfectly. I’m finding myself increasingly drawn to authors who are able to write about the mundane everyday so well. Both women struggle to express themselves but know that they must. The book is full of pain, sadness and the difficulties of showing who we are even to the people who we love and love us in return.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien
Reviewed by Ruby Conway“In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Her name is Ai-Ming.
As her relationship with Marie deepens, Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao's ascent, to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989.”
Madeleine Thien lyrically interweaves past and present narratives in this epic of modern Chinese and familial history, creating a liminal space in which tenses are blurred. Delving into what it means to record, or not record, narratives and history, the work is metatextual, reflecting on its own nature and the functions of language and translation (focusing on both English and Chinese). Thien questions how other mediums can reflect those lost to history and oppression - music, writing, and uniquely, mathematics - and what can be found in these spaces of transcription and symbols. How do we record, copy, and inherit ideas and selves? What is truly ours and only ours? Brutal and deeply saddening, Do Not Say We Have Nothing looks at mob mentality, collective ideology, and oppression during and after chairman Mao’s leadership, with staggering intellect and insight.
Common Decency, Susannah Dickey
Reviewed by Madeleine KnowlesOn first glance, Common Decency may sound like yet another modern novel set in Belfast that focuses on the inner angst of two millennial women, but – rest assured – Dickey’s latest novel is a truly unique exploration of our modern world as one in which, despite living in such close proximity to one another, honest human connection is not always easy to find.
It is this yearning for connection and empathy that unites the two women at the centre of this story; Lily and Siobhán. Since her mother’s death, Lily has retreated from life and fallen into a cycle of grief and anger. Her upstairs neighbour, Siobhán, builds her days and very existence around the sporadic attention of the married man she is sleeping with. Dickey skilfully follows the internal unravelling of both characters, whose lives slowly begin to intertwine.
While Common Decency exudes humour, empathy and perceptive insights into two women’s psyche, there is also a certain darkness to its revelations that is sure to linger in the minds of readers.
