Tag: contemporary fiction

#BlogTour #BookReview Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy @Doirepress @MidasPR

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy. My thanks to Francesca at MidasPR for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy.

Liberty TerraceAbout the Book

Liberty Terrace features a bevy of characters who reside in a fictional area of Cork City in the period 2016 to 2020. The inhabitants of Liberty Terrace come and go, and their lives occasionally intersect in stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes dark, often both.

The cast of characters includes retired Garda Superintendent Deckie Google, a young homeless squatter, the mother of an autistic child working part-time as a Census Enumerator, the dysfunctional Callinan family, an ageing rock star, a trio of ladies who visit a faith healer, a philandering husband, as well as a surprising number of cats and dogs.

These stories shed light on how we lived before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, on what we care about and on what, if anything, we can truly count on.

Format: Paperback (200 pages)          Publisher: Doire Press
Publication date: 28th October 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Short Stories

Find Liberty Terrace on Goodreads

Purchase links
Publisher | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

One of my favourite kind of short story collections is those where the stories are interconnected, with characters from one story turning up in another one, albeit often only briefly. Liberty Terrace fulfils that requirement completely. Not only is it fun spotting names you recognise from an earlier story but often it provides additional insight into a character you’ve met before.

In a short story collection there are usually some stories that resonate more than others and Liberty Terrace is no exception. Often they are not necessarily the stories that you enjoy so much as admire for their craft. ‘Quality Time’ is one of the darker stories in which the tables are turned and a man experiences what it is like to be powerless. The theme of power manifests itself again in ‘Dignity’ in which a woman becomes determined to exercise control over what remains of her life. There’s humour as well such as in ‘The Silence of the Crows’ in which a woman conducts a silent war against the crows that disturb her sleep and is rewarded by them depositing  ‘random splats of grey-white bird poop’ on her car. Unfortunately, as it turns out that’s the least of her worries as a doorstep encounter will prove.

Another story I liked was ‘Milo’s Book of Feelings’ in which the mother of an autistic child receives an unexpected and inspiring gift. My absolute favourite story was ‘Ezinna’s Flamboyant Tree’ in which a recent immigrant to the country buys a small tree because it reminds her of the colourful trees in her birth country. The tree in its too small pot becomes a metaphor for how she feels – constrained and living in an environment in which she feels she cannot prosper. However, when she finds the right place for the tree, she discovers friendship and a new sense of belonging.  The final story in the book, ‘The Great Lockdown Rescue’, not only brings things full circle by featuring characters who appeared in the book’s opening story but sees Liberty Terrace inhabitants coming together to perform a daring rescue, evoking the real-life community spirit evidenced in many places during the Covid-19 lockdown.

By the end of the book I felt I could walk along Liberty Terrace and recognise the people I passed in the street, know whose door I could knock on for a cup of tea – and whose I should avoid. Liberty Terrace is a fascinating collection of well-crafted stories that span the spectrum from dark to light and, I think, offer something for everyone.

In three words: Assured, insightful, imaginative

Try something similar: The Wooden Hill by Jamie Guiney

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Madeleine D'ArcyAbout the Author

Madeleine D’Arcy was born in Ireland. She spent thirteen years in the UK, where she worked as a criminal legal aid solicitor and as a legal editor in London. She returned to Ireland in 1999 and lives in Cork City with her husband and son.

Madeleine began to write fiction in 2005. In 2010 she received the Hennessy Literary Award for First Fiction and the overall Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writer. Her debut short story collection, Waiting for the Bullet (Doire Press, 2014), won the Edge Hill Readers’ Choice Prize 2015 (UK). She holds an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork, and has been awarded bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland and by Cork City Council.

Together with Danielle McLaughlin, she co-hosts Fiction at the Friary, a free monthly fiction event held in Cork City since 2017. (Photo credit: Publisher author page)

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#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

Find Oh William! on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

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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