Tag: contemporary fiction

The book just arrived at What Cathy Read Next is Train Man by Andrew Mulligan, the service from Chatto & Windus via Random Things Tours.  This service is comprised of 320 pages.  After leaving What Cathy Read Next, this book will call at Cosy Books, Rachel Read It and NB Magazine where this blog tour terminates.

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About the Book

Michael is a broken man. He’s waiting for the 09.46 to Gloucester, so as to reach Crewe for 11.22: the platforms are long at Crewe, and he can walk easily into the path of a high-speed train to London.

He’s planned it all: a net of tangerines (for when the refreshments trolley is cancelled), and a juice carton, full of neat whisky. To make identification swift, he has taped his last credit card to the inside of his shoe.

What Michael hasn’t factored in is a twelve-minute delay, which risks him missing his connection, and making new ones.

He longs to silence the voices in his own head: ex-girlfriends, colleagues, and the memories from his schooldays, decades old. They all torment him. What Michael needs is somebody to listen.

A last, lonely journey becomes a lesson in the power of human connection, proving that no matter how bad things seem, it’s never too late to get back on track. Journeys intersect. People find hope when and where they least expect it. A missed connection needn’t be a disaster: it could just save your life.

Format: Hardcover (320 pp.)    Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 4^th July 2019     Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Train Man on Goodreads

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My Review

Many of us have probably had the experience of travelling by train and idly wondering about our fellow passengers: where are they going, what’s the purpose of their journey? We may also have had the experience of being drawn into polite, inconsequential conversations with fellow travellers or of watching passengers struggle with luggage, unpack and repack belongings, and so on. Michael’s journey, and those of the other characters in the book, is punctuated by just such encounters.

In Michael’s case they prompt him to construct elaborate and often farfetched stories about the people he meets; perhaps they might become friends or be present at momentous moments in each other’s lives. In fact, Michael’s thoughts often involve him creating fictional versions of his own life in which he is a much more successful, better version of himself. In reality he’s something of a loner who tends to be overly intolerant of petty bureaucracy and breaches of rules by others when his own life, arguably, is littered with more significant failings. This might make him a slightly irritating or unsympathetic character was it not for what the reader gradually learns about his traumatic past.

The sudden switches between Michael’s journey, his memories and the stories of the other characters do require a degree of alertness on the part of the reader. If you like, the same alertness required to control the trains arriving and departing at a busy railway junction.

Despite Michael’s careful planning of his intended journey, in the end it’s a decision taken on impulse that changes everything for him, and for the reader as well. What initially seemed a quite dark story takes on an altogether different hue.

Train Man is a thought-provoking story about chance encounters, missed opportunities, the kindness of strangers and why, sometimes, living in the moment is enough.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Chatto & Windus, and NetGalley.

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In three words: Emotional, acutely-observed, thought-provoking

Try something similar…Drift, Stumble, Fall by M. Jonathan Lee (read my review here)

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About the Author

Andrew Mulligan was born in 1962 and brought up in London. He worked as a theatre director for ten years before travels in Asia prompted him to retrain as a teacher. Having taught in India, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines he returned to the UK and now writes full time. He is best known as a children’s author; his novel Trash (2010) has been published in thirty-two languages. He also writes radio plays and film scripts. Train Man is his first adult novel: ‘What was the starting point? I’m afraid it was when a colleague did the unthinkable, and all I could think about was what might have saved him.’

Connect with Andrew

Website  ǀ  Goodreads

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for A Modern Family by Helga Flatland, translated by Rosie Hedger.  Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate in the tour and to Orenda Books for my review copy.

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About the Book

When Liv, Ellen and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive in Rome to celebrate their father’s seventieth birthday, a quiet earthquake occurs: their parents have decided to divorce.

Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their childhood and family history.

A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for change…

Praise for A Modern Family

‘The most beautiful, elegant writing I’ve read in a long time. If you love Anne Tyler, you will ADORE this’ Joanna Cannon

‘Absolutely loved its quiet, insightful generosity’ Claire King

Format: Paperback, ebook (276 pp.)    Publisher: Orenda Books
Published: 21^st June 2019  Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Modern Family on Goodreads

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My Review

The announcement during a family celebration that their parents are to divorce after decades of marriage is not in itself the event that drives the story so much as their grown-up children’s varying reactions to this unexpected change. Described in the blurb as an ‘earthquake’, it does indeed cast light on fractures and stress points in other relationships – between the siblings and between them and their respective partners. An equally apt analogy is Liv’s observation that their decision ‘has seen consequences great and small rippling across the landscape between them like waves’.

Told from the point of view of the three children – Liv, Ellen and latterly Hakon – their responses are shaped by their different experiences, whether that’s their current domestic situation, their ‘position’ in the family hierarchy or their perception of the level of attention they received from their parents growing up. Their reactions run the full gamut of emotions: surprise, disappointment, a sense of rejection, disbelief. What one sibling sees as an unwelcome (and possibly selfish) disturbance in their life another sees as confirmation of a pre-existing belief in the nature of relationships.

The author’s spare, precise prose shines through in Rosie Hedger’s translation. Although the book includes aspects of Norwegian culture – a passion for outdoor activities, holidays spent in summer cabins – there’s nothing that would stop any reader, whatever their heritage, from identifying with the situations in which the characters find themselves.

The author skilfully explores family dynamics, including the customs, rituals and traditions that become embedded over time. For example, that each person takes their accustomed place at the table during family gatherings or that birthdays always mean pancakes for breakfast.

I also liked the structure of the book with the different viewpoints (sometimes of the same event) and that the ending had echoes of the beginning. However, I did find the characters rather self-absorbed – although I guess we all are if we’re honest. Having said that, I admired the skilful writing and the insightful exploration of family dynamics and what sustains (or doesn’t sustain) relationships.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Orenda Books.

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In three words: Insightful, acutely-observed, character-driven

Try something similar…Stories We Tell Ourselves by Sarah Francoise

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About the Author

Helga Flatland is already one of Norway’s most awarded and widely read authors. Born in Telemark, Norway, in 1984, she made her literary debut in 2010 with the novel Stay If You Can, Leave If You Must, for which she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Book Prize. She has written four novels and a children’s book and has won several other literary awards. Her fifth novel, A Modern Family, was published to wide acclaim in Norway in August 2017, and was a number-one bestseller. The rights have subsequently been sold across Europe and the novel has sold more than 100,000 copies.

Connect with Helga

Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads