dark

The Power by Naomi Alderman

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PREMISE: Women develop the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, which allows them to become the dominant sex.

Aaaaah. Why do I do this to myself? I knew what Goodreads would be like on this one and yet in I dove anyway, just to see how much I would drown myself in it. And yet, I’m starting to feel that my forays into the Goodreads 1-starrers are actually benefitting me and giving me this unique take on humanity and it’s gargantuan propensity for difference.

Hahaha…just joking…I do it so I can find the nutjobs on there. However, the sheer hatred that some people have towards books (and there’s a shitload who clearly don’t like this one) has made me start wondering whether I’m actually investing the right amount of emotion and energy into each book I read. And, perhaps more importantly, whether I’m taking them seriously enough.

I’ll be honest, when I read a fiction book I tend to not believe it’s true. Because it’s fiction. And, conversely, when I read a nonfiction book I usually err on the side of believing what is written under the assumption that the author has researched the book and, in general, you’re not supposed to lie in nonfiction. But man, some people take fiction as if it’s the actual gospel (an ironic sentence, I know) and then delight in spewing hatred towards what is ultimately a made up story. I genuinely fear for the health of some of these people if they are able to conjure that much anger and hatred towards a make believe tale. And what’s worse is that they nearly all have additional anger at how they personally have interpreted the book.

It’s just a book. It’s just a made up story. Calm the fuck down.

A few Goodreads reviewers have lambasted the book for not covering/including transgender characters. So what? Don’t take it personally, the author just didn’t write about them. I’m curious as to why Tolkein didn’t include a single unicorn in Lord Of The Rings but I’m not going to lose my shit over it.

I guess ultimately I just enjoy reading. I have books that I like more than others and a few books I haven’t got on with but rather than dwelling on these I just move on to the next. There’s so many out there, why waste time with all that negativity when you could be spending that time reading your next favourite book?

The Power – an interesting idea, very violent in places, definitely thought-provoking and ultimately a really enjoyable and entertaining book. What more do you want?

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

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PREMISE: A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. 

Look at me, being all professional and writing this literally straight after I’ve finished it. It’s almost like I do this shit for a living. I say ‘straight’…it’s been 24 hours or so. I kind of like to let a book settle in after I’ve finished it. Like letting a big meal go down before I hit the gym or go out fell running. Hahahaha…like I do either of those things. But I do like to digest a book (like a big meal or a solitary scotch egg) and kind of figure out how much I liked it and why. And when books are as tasty as a scotch egg (your bog-standard scotch egg that is, none of this artisan shit where they make it with black pudding or chorizo) they are worth savouring.

This one was actually a slow-burner for me and, weirdly, I find myself thinking about it now much more than I did whilst I was reading it. It’s fantastically written, but understanding a lot of the language – particularly the native American terms – is all part of that slow burn. It’s probably not for everyone as it’s graphically violent and, ultimately, is a horror story at heart but it’s vastly different from any horror story (and most non-horror stories) I’ve read and I really enjoyed it.

All Involved by Ryan Gattis

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PREMISE: At 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force to subdue a black man named Rodney King, and failed to reach a verdict on the same charges involving a fourth officer. Less than two hours later, the city exploded in violence that lasted six days. In nearly 121 hours, fifty-three lives were lost. But there were even more deaths unaccounted for: violence that occurred outside of active rioting sites by those who used the chaos to viciously settle old scores.

All Involved vividly re-creates this turbulent and terrifying time, set in a sliver of Los Angeles largely ignored by the media during the riots. The novel tells seventeen interconnected first-person narratives with characters that capture the voices of gang members, firefighters, graffiti kids, and nurses caught up in these extraordinary circumstances.

Holy shit, I’m learning a lot whilst doing this blog. Today, whilst doing my usual Goodreads look at what others think about this book (I really don’t know whether it can be considered research or whether I’m now genuinely just looking for people to take the piss out of), I learned about ‘#ownvoices’. Now, I’d not heard of this before but Denise let me in on it with this:

“Book has 17 different POV’s. All of them diverse and most of them dark, raw and hideous. It matters that the author is a white male from Colorado. To be fair my reading experience may have been different a couple of years ago. I would have still found it raw, gritty and disturbingly violent, but now I am concerned about #ownvoices”. Which Google AI explained to me means this:

“OwnVoices is a movement that emphasizes the importance of authors writing about stories that align with their own lived experiences and identities, particularly marginalized ones. It highlights the authenticity and credibility of narratives when authors have a personal connection to the characters and issues they represent”.

I’m not going to add anything new or particularly earth-shattering to the actual debate (and whether I agree with it or not is largely irrelevant). However, my issue is with Denise’s comment “my reading experience may have been different a couple of years ago”. Why? Why does it matter who wrote the book? And if we start taking the stance that a book should only be written by someone who has the relevant life experience, then where the fuck does that leave us? Can a white writer not include a black character? Can a straight black writer not write about a gay Asian? Please explain to me what is wrong with someone taking time to learn about a subject in order to write about it? I’m pretty sure Ryan Gattis didn’t just make all this up? His research must have been pretty staggering and I think – in all his books – his characters are so well-rounded and very much real. In fact, if I hadn’t stumbled across ‘#Ownvoices’ I wouldn’t have questioned the authenticity of this book at all.

This book is fantastic and everyone should read it. Which is what I will also say about Safe and The System whenever I get around to adding them here. Ryan Gattis is an awesome writer.

Green River Rising by Tim Willocks

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PREMISE: After three years’ hard time, minding no-one’s business but his own, Ray Klein wins his parole and chances his hand at a romance with prison psychiatrist Juliette Devlin. That same day, tribal war erupts and the prison – and its infirmary – falls into the hands of its inmates. Klein must choose either to claim his freedom and leave the ones he cares for to die, or risk everything and fight.

I’m not entirely sure when I read this so I’m going to assume it was the year it came out, 1994. Man, 1994…the year of the first Playstation and the year Kurt Cobain died. The first U.K. National Lottery was this year too, and having wasted more money only last night on trying to bag the £200m Euromillions, my lottery luck hasn’t changed at all since 1994. I swear it’s rigged.

On the book front, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom was published along with – more significantly, for me anyway – Volume 1 of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. An utter classic. Other books published that year: Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor and Denis Lehane’s A Drink Before The War, which I actually read last year and loved. If you ask Goodreads to show you the top 200 books of 1994, Green River Rising isn’t on the list. And this is a list that has (albeit scraping in at number 196) a book entitled “When God Writes Your Love Story: The Ultimate Approach to Guy/Girl Relationships”. A book that I ought never read for fear of breaking my promise to keep this blog negative-free.

My point (if I even have one) is that Green River Rising, for me, was one of the best things of 1994 and although I haven’t read it since (I’m hoping to very soon) I’d imagine it will still be one of the best things of any year. A great book.

The Long Take by Robin Robertson

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PREMISE: Walker, a young Canadian recently demobilised after war and his active service in the Normandy landings and subsequent European operations. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and unable to face a return to his family home in rural Nova Scotia, he goes in search of freedom, change, anonymity and repair. We follow Walker through a sequence of poems as he moves through post-war American cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

I have a thing for poetry, albeit an annoyingly fleeting one that comes and goes every few years. For example, around five years ago I decided to start a poetry blog containing a few poems I’d written and was writing at the time for no reason whatsoever. So I did this – https://davegoldingpoetry.wordpress.com/ – and have done nothing more with it since. A true artist…

Similarly, I haven’t read any poetry since reading this book and now I’m talking about it here I can’t understand why I don’t do more of both. There’s something pretty magical about stories being told through poetry and The Long take is a fantastic example of that. Note to self (which I hope to remember and do a lot more with than my poetry blog): find more of this stuff out there and enjoy.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

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PREMISE: January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…

I reckon horror is the toughest genre to write. That is, if you’re writing horror to scare people that is, rather than shock them. Any idiot can write something down that shocks people and nowadays violence is pretty much everywhere so to really shock with brutality and gore you have to go to extreme extremes, but to properly scare (or at the very least, make someone feel uneasy) with words alone is a toughie. Michelle Paver without doubt knows how to do that and, for me, Dark Matter is still her best book. Beautifully written, completely absorbing and is genuinely unsettling throughout.

Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford

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PREMISE: Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.

This book blew me away (so much so that it’s my Portland Award winner for 2020). Sooooo (the more O’s, the bigger the emphasis) beautifully written and a really unique premise and story. It stayed with me for ages afterwards too, floating around the largely blank space of my mind and coming to the forefront every so often. It’s one of the few books that I know I will find time to read again at some point when all this ‘new novels’ malarkey calms down and there’s no new releases for a year or two. Bound to happen at some point, surely.

We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson

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PREMISE: When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970’s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he’s made a mistake when it becomes clear that he’s replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script—a script the director now claims doesn’t exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.

But what the actor doesn’t realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerrillas are all fighting for South America’s future—and the groups aren’t as distinct as one might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he’s worried he won’t survive it.

Best book name ever? Maybe not, but it’s certainly up there. I like to think that Kea Wilson originally had an extra word at the end of the title but decided to drop it last minute. We Eat Our Own Biscuits? Pets? Faeces? Assholes? There’s a novel in each one of those. I imagine We Eat Our Own Biscuits is an historical drama written by Hilary Mantel. We Eat Our Own Pets is obviously a Stephen King novel; he’s got that whole pet thing sewn up. We Eat Our Own Faeces is probably a Gwyneth Paltrow self-help book. And We Eat Our Own Assholes by Ivana Sukyuov, the Russian contortionist gymnast turned porn star.

Anyway, back to the book with no fifth word in the title. It’s fantastic. I get a real joy discovering books like this. An author I’ve not heard of, an intriguing premise, a rivetingly addictive read. There was something really fresh and unique about this book that I’m not a good enough writer to explain so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Six Stories series by Matt Wesolowski

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PREMISE: The Six Stories series by Matt Wesolowski is a collection of interconnected thriller novels that focus on true crime investigations, often with a dark, folkloric or supernatural edge. Each book follows a central case where six individuals connected to the event share their accounts via interviews on a podcast hosted by journalist Scott King.

In my blog manifesto (copies available by request) I state that I don’t write anything negative on here. Not because I’m a good person or that I’m trying to attract sponsorship from the Church (the constant swearing may have put paid to that) but mainly due to the fact that who am I to judge someone’s work? All book reviews (you’ll find none here) are completely subjective and ultimately one person’s view on whether they liked the book or not. One man’s Dr. Zhivago is another man’s Dr. Shipman. Or something.

Anyway, with all that said…sometimes to explain how good something is you have to compare it to something shit. And there are two authors I’ve previously read who are insanely popular but whom I will likely never read again who could benefit from reading Matt Wesolowski’s books and see how proper plotting and pacing, twists and reveals, suspense and pure page-turning addictiveness is done. All six of these babies are top notch.

The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins

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PREMISE: Audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness. But Henry, eager to escape a troubled past, quickly becomes obsessed with the fascinating nature of Sir Edward’s business: spinning silk with a rare and magical breed of spiders. The extraordinary silk shields sound, offering respite from bustling streets and noisy neighbors. The result is instant tranquility, as wearers experience a soothing calmness. Yet, those within earshot of the outward-facing silk are subjected to eerie murmurs that amplify with proximity. Bystanders suffer the consequences of this unnerving phenomenon, manifesting in physical and mental afflictions ranging from headaches and drowsiness to severe cases of madness.

As Henry becomes entangled in the allure of the silk and Sir Edward’s charm, he glimpses a more sinister family history. The closer he ventures into the inner circle of Carthmute House, the more he unravels the horrifying underbelly of the silk business.

One of the reasons I love reading is due to the relationship you can have with a book. Providing it’s a belter, it becomes something you love and get totally lost in while you’re reading it and something you miss when you’re not. Which is exactly what this book is. As are Bridget Collins’ other two books. Loved it.