Tag: contemporary fiction

#BookReview Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout @VikingBooksUK

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Oh William!About the Book

Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband – and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership.

Oh William! captures the joy and sorrow of watching children grow up and start families of their own; of discovering family secrets, late in life, that alter everything we think we know about those closest to us; and the way people live and love, against all odds. At the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the mystery of existence. ‘This is the way of life,’ Lucy says. ‘The many things we do not know until it is too late.’

Format: Hardcover (256 pages)         Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 21st October 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

At one point in the book William tells Lucy, ‘You steal people’s hearts, Lucy’ and it’s clear Elizabeth Strout has found it difficult to part with the character who first appeared in My Name Is Lucy Barton and more recently in Anything Is Possible. Oh Willam! definitely feels like the final instalment in Lucy’s story.

The book is narrated in the first person by Lucy in a conversational style, without chapter breaks, shifting back and forth in time to include memories of her traumatic childhood and the early years of her marriage to William and its subsequent breakdown.  As Lucy reflects on her own actions, things she could have done differently, and missed opportunities, it feels like something of a confessional. At one point, William accuses Lucy of being self-absorbed; it’s a fair accusation but then aren’t we all self-absorbed to some degree?

Although William and Lucy’s marriage involved much disappointment, including infidelity, what comes across is the continuing affection they have for each other.  The phrase ‘Oh William!’ occurs frequently, sometimes reflecting Lucy’s exasperation with William, at other times her feelings of pity, of tenderness or of understanding of what he’s going through.  After a period apart, during which much has happened in both their lives, they quickly return to being close confidantes.  And, of course, their daughters, Chrissy and Becka, provide a lasting link between them, evoking memories of happier times.  At one point, Lucy wonders, ‘What is it that William knew about me and that I knew about him that caused us to get married?’ The journey they take together to investigate a secret involving William’s family history left me disappointed that they couldn’t have made their marriage work. However, as Lucy reflects, ‘This is the way of life; the many things we do not know until it is too late.’

The most striking part of the book for me was the final section in which William and Lucy visit the area where William’s mother, Catherine, grew up and he learns more about his mother’s early life. It was here that I got the most sense of Lucy being a successful novelist as she imagines Catherine’s journey to a new life with William’s father. ‘Oh, I could see young Catherine half-running, half-walking down that windswept November dark road, and getting to the train station without her boots, just her shoes and snow on the ground…’ 

Oh William! demonstrates Elizabeth Strout’s trademark careful dissection of the way people act and interact, their hopes and regrets, and their struggles to come to terms with loss and disappointment.

In three words: Tender, insightful, acutely-observed

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Elizabeth StroutAbout the Author

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge, as well as The Burgess Boys, a New York Times bestseller, Abide With Me and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. She lives in New York City and Portland, Maine. (Bio credit: Publisher author page/Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

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#BookReview House of Beauty by Melba Escobar, translated by Elizabeth Bryer

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House of BeautyAbout the Book

House of Beauty is a high-end salon in Bogotá’s exclusive Zona Rosa area, and Karen is one of its best beauticians. One rainy afternoon a teenage girl turns up for a treatment, dressed in her school uniform and smelling of alcohol. The very next day, the girl is found dead.

Karen was the last person to see the girl alive, so the girl’s mother is desperate to find out what Karen knows. Most important of all: who was her daughter going to meet that night?

Format: Paperback (247 pages)     Publisher: 4th Estate
Publication date: 7th March 2019 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literature in Translation, Crime

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My Review

Told from multiple points of view, initially I found it hard to distinguish between the different narrators, especially Lucia and her friend Claire, although it helped that Claire’s sections are written in the first person, whilst the others are in the third person. The story also skips forwards and backwards in time meaning, although billed as a crime novel, it’s not long before it becomes less of a ‘whodunnit’ but more a ‘will they get away with it?’

The House of Beauty of the book’s title not only provides a connection between many of the  characters but is also a place of work for beauticians like Karen and a place of indulgence.  ‘House of Beauty takes me in, I’m submerged in the silence and the expensive perfumes, the rosewater, oils and shampoo.’ In the case of Claire, the intimate services performed there are a kind of substitute for the affection that is lacking in her private life. It’s also an almost exclusively female environment, causing one of the male characters to refer to it as ‘that place, off limits to men, where there was room for all kinds of conspiracies and secrets’.

If it’s secrets and conspiracies you’re after, there’s no shortage of them amongst the male characters and there’s certainly little beauty. Take your pick from a rapist, a drug addict, a corrupt politician, a dodgy taxi driver, and any number of unfaithful husbands. The only male characters who display any integrity are Cojack, the private investigator hired by Consuelo, the mother of the dead girl, and Jorge, Consuelo’s ex-husband.  They find themselves pitted against corruption in high places and a bureaucratic legal system that moves at a snail’s pace.

As the book progresses, Karen becomes the dominant character in the story, finding herself in situations that force her to make increasingly more desperate and risky choices and casting her in the role of victim. But is Karen’s story true or is her life a fiction constructed by herself or others?

At one point, Lucia observes, ‘Life is a fabrication, don’t you think? Something we make up from start to finish.’ Whilst ostensibly about the search for the truth about a young girl’s death, House of Beauty exposes the corruption at the heart of Colombian society but also explores the notion of artifice, whether that’s the double lives led by many of the characters, the cosmetically enhanced faces and bodies presented to the world, or the external beauty that hides ugliness within.

In three words: Intriguing, thought-provoking, dark

Try something similar: The Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Melba EscobarAbout the Author

Melba Escobar is a fiction writer and a journalist. She lives in Bogota, Colombia with her children and husband. (Photo credit: Goodreads suthor page)

Connect with Melba
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About the Translator

Elizabeth Bryer is a writer and translator from Australia. Her translation of Claudia Salazar Jiménez’s Blood of the Dawn was published by Deep Vellum in 2016. In 2017 she was a recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant.