#6Degrees 6 Degrees of Separation: From Beezus and Ramona to The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary.

I haven’t read the book (and hadn’t even heard of it before this) but I gather from the blurb that it features nine-year-old Beezus Quimby who has her hands full with her little sister, Ramona. Another character who has her hands full with her sister is Korede, the narrator of My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

My Sister, The Serial Killer was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019. Also on the shortlist that year was Circe by Madeline Miller. The book is a retelling of the legend in which Circe is banished by the god Zeus to a deserted island.

Another book which involves the exile of an individual to a remote island is An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris. In this case, the exile is Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.

An Officer and a Spy was the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2014. The most recent winner of the prize was The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey which features the artist Edward Hopper and his wife, Josephine.

Edward Hopper has a walk-on part in Artist, Soldier, Lover, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner which transports the reader to the art world of New York in the 1930s.

Staying in New York but fast forwarding forty years, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton is set in the New York City’s lively music scene.

My chain this month has comprised sisterhood, exile and the creative muse. Where did your chain take you?

#GuestPost The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves. My thanks to Najma Finlay at Cornerstone for inviting me to take part in the tour. Described as ‘a love story and a mystery, as well as a reflection on how to navigate a life in suspension’, The Ends of the Earth was published on 29th April 2021. I’m delighted to share with you a guest post by Abbie in which she reveals how the idea for the book came about. Personally, an author’s inspiration for a book is always something I find fascinating and I hope you do too.

The Ends of the EarthAbout the Book

Mary O’Connor has been keeping a vigil for her first love for the past seven years.

Every evening without fail, Mary arrives at Ealing Broadway station and sets herself up among the commuters. In her hands Mary holds a sign which bears the words: ‘Come Home Jim.’

Call her mad, call her a nuisance, call her a drain on society – Mary isn’t going anywhere. That is, until an unexpected call turns her world on its head. In spite of all her efforts, Mary can no longer find the strength to hold herself together. She must finally face what happened all those years ago, and answer the question – where on earth is Jim?

Format: Hardcover (416 pages)     Publisher: Century
Publication date: 29th April 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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Guest Post by Abbie Greaves, author of The Ends of the Earth

“I had the first seeds of the idea that would later become The Ends of the Earth while commuting. As any commuter knows, it’s hardly the most glamourous of times or tasks, but for me, it was certainly fruitful from a creative standpoint! Every day, as I flew through the ticket barriers, elbow to elbow with other passengers, I couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to come to a complete standstill in the midst of this.

What it would be like to stop moving and just wait.

What sort of person would have the fortitude to go against the grain? Why would they be stationary in a place of such motion? And most importantly – who were they waiting for and why?

From there, I began to sketch the character of Mary O’Connor, a forty-year-old woman who has been waiting outside Ealing Broadway station every evening for the last seven years with a sign that reads simply: COME HOME JIM. I knew from the outset that her patience would seem superhuman to most (I say this as a deeply impatient person myself!) so one of my main challenges in writing the novel was to find ways to help readers relate to her unique predicament. The more I wrote, the more I came to believe that her fierce loyalty and resilience is something that we all share, when it comes to the ones we love.

My second big challenge with Mary’s character was how I would go about unpicking it, especially given that privacy is paramount to her. Her family are in Belfast, unaware of her station vigil, and in terms of her friends, as she herself says they are all very much circumstantial – her boss at the supermarket where she stacks shelves and the handful of volunteers at the charity where she spends her long nights of insomnia. It isn’t a case that Mary doesn’t want to be close to these people, more that she feels she isn’t worthy and that she has other more pressing concerns.

But from the first chapter onwards, I was determined to see this attitude crumble away. When Mary receives a phone call from a man she believes is Jim, it’s the catalyst for her walls to begin to break down. It isn’t an easy process for her, letting others in, and in showing Mary’s struggles to open up, I hope I’ve done justice to the reality of that process for so many of us. It’s one thing to say we should accept help from others, quite another to actually do so.

I don’t want to give much away, but it’s not a spoiler to say that Mary’s journey from those first few pages to the last is a testament to both her tenacity and the value of having reinforcements at the ready. It isn’t a case of either/or – self-sufficiency or dependence. Mary has all the tools to construct a brighter future within herself, but she’s been reminded of them by the people who have seen that at close-range.

Mary has a place very close to my heart and I can’t wait to hear what readers make of her – do let me know.”

Abbie GreavesAbout the Author

Abbie Greaves studied at Cambridge University before working in a literary agency for a number of years. She was inspired to write her first novel, The Silent Treatment, after reading a newspaper article about a boy in Japan who had never seen his parents speak to one another before.  Abbie lives in Brighton.

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