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#BookReview Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

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Small PleasuresAbout the Book

1957, south-east suburbs of London. Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and – on the brink of forty – living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape.

When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn’t mean to fall in love with Gretchen’s husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness – and when she does fall, she falls hard.

But he is married, and to her friend – who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness…

But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.

Format: Hardcover (352 pages) Publisher: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date: 9th July 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Longlisted for the Womens Prize for Fiction 2021, I’m pretty sure Small Pleasures is going to be one of my favourite books this year. For that I have to thank the team at Waterstones in Reading for selecting it for their first post-lockdown book club and making me pluck it from my bookshelves.

From their first meeting, Jean senses something in Gretchen’s husband Howard that makes her feel she can unburden herself to him despite the relatively short time she has known him. ‘She was aware that Howard was hardly an appropriate confidante, but he was so sensible and safe and unlikely to do anything at all except sympathize, that she couldn’t restrain herself.’  I loved the way their relationship progresses in small, tentative steps: a glance or touch of the hand, a compliment, a hitherto unspoken secret, a gift that is the product of ‘careful and loving workmanship’.

Clare Chambers shows such insight into the loving relationship that develops between Jean and Howard. Yes, there is passion but there are also ‘the small acts of domestic intimacy – sharing a bath, preparing a meal side by side at the stove, putting clean sheets on the bed..’ Can’t you just imagine how Jean, who has often felt lonely and the highlight of whose evenings has frequently been listening to the Light Programme on the radio with her mother, could savour such moments.

I also enjoyed the relationship that developed between Jean and Gretchen’s daughter, Margaret. Jean enjoys taking on the role of ‘unofficial aunt’ and taking Margaret on outings. Jean is constantly surprised by Margaret’s ‘charming and unexpected comments – at once innocent and profound’, even if such comments include complex words that would not usually be in the vocabulary of a young girl, and which she claims are whispered to her by angels.

Jean’s relationship with Howard gives her a glimpse of a different future, one she could never have imagined or thought she deserved. This is brought home by a holiday Jean and her mother take. In the hotel they are staying at, Jean sees another mother and daughter and the mother’s obvious complete dependence on her daughter gives Jean an uncomfortable insight into what perhaps awaits her. Despite this, Jean suffers a constant sense of guilt about her relationship with Howard, what it might do to Gretchen, and more importantly Margaret, and how this can be combined with meeting her mother’s needs. This leads Jean to make an act of great sacrifice, one which will involve giving up everything she has come to hold dear.

For me the playing out of the relationship between Jean and Howard was so completely enthralling, I almost forgot about the event that brought them together, Gretchen’s claim that Margaret is the result of a virgin birth. Whether you believe it is a possibility or are sceptical from the start, the process of trying to establish the truth will keep you enthralled and amazed at what was scientifically possible even back in the 1950s. In the end, it is Jean’s journalistic instincts and tenacity that leads to uncovering the truth.

Readers for whom, like me, the opening page of Small Pleasures remained at the back of their mind whilst reading the book, will have experienced a growing sense of unease as the months go by and a particular date draws near. I’m not ashamed to admit that the ending of the book – and a bunch of roses – reduced me to tears but I like to think the opportunity for miracles survives even in the darkest places.

There was so much I loved about Small Pleasures that I’m not going to say much more other than to encourage you to read it for yourself. However, I will share my favourite line from the book: ‘I love him, she thought with a kind of wonderment. I never intended to, but now I do’.

In three words: Tender, intimate, heart-breaking

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Clare ChambersAbout the Author

Clare Chamber’s first job after reading English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford, was working for Diana Athill at Andre Deutsch. Clare’s first novel Uncertain Terms was published by Diana at André Deutsch in 1992 and she is the author of five other novels. Small Pleasures, her first work of fiction in ten years, became a word-of-mouth hit on publication and was selected for BBC 2’s ‘Between the Covers’ book club. (Bio/photo credit: Publisher author page)

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#ThrowbackThursday #BookReview The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

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Today I’m revisiting my review of The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2020. The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is one of the most prestigious awards for young writers, aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide, and celebrating and nurturing international literary excellence.

The Far FieldAbout the Book

In the wake of her mother’s death, Shalini, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him.

But upon her arrival, Shalini is brought face to face with Kashmir’s politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.

Format: Paperback (464 pages)        Publisher: Grove Press
Publication date: 2nd January 2020 Genre: Literary Fiction

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My Review

The book switches back and forth in time between Shalini’s memories of her childhood and the visits of Bashir Ahmed, and her journey to Kashmir to try to track him down following her mother’s death. It’s skilfully plotted so there’s always more to be revealed and there is a tantalising sense of tension throughout. I expect I’m not the only reader who had a disturbing sense of history potentially repeating itself at certain moments.

The author brilliantly conveys the tensions within Shalini’s family, in particular her mercurial mother who can change from charming to disdainful in a moment, what Shalini refers to as her mother’s ‘lightning switch from one self to another.’ It’s something her father finds difficult to handle.  With Bashir Ahmed and her mother, it’s a different matter. Shalini recalls, ‘Looking back, I can see that something powerful occurred in that moment and it still astonishes me all these years later: Bashir Ahmed understood in about five minutes what took my father decades‘.

Like some three dimensional chess game, Shalini recalls her younger self’s struggle to make sense of ‘these shifting, traitorous pieces – mother, visitor, father – trying to keep track of their masked sentences, their mutable moods, waiting for a clear sign of what my next move should be.’ The burden of keeping secrets is also evident. Shalini reflects, ‘I thought of all the secrets I had carried as far back into my childhood as I could remember. I felt them pile one on top of another, suffocating me.’ However, perhaps some secrets are best left buried.

The author’s acute observation of the way in which people interact is memorably displayed in a scene depicting what must surely be the most ill-judged dinner party in history.

I loved the descriptions of the small Kashmiri village where Bashir Ahmed’s family live and the details of everyday life. ‘…The houses were flung wide upon the mountainside, like a handful of brightly coloured toys tossed by a careless hand, separated by narrow rocky ridges and terraced cornfields.’ The generous hospitality offered to Shalini both by Bashir Ahmed’s family, and earlier by Abdul Latief and his wife, Zoya, shows how this is embedded in Indian culture. However, the tension between the different religious communities and the shadow of past events are always in the background, as Shalini will discover as she faces difficult decisions about her future and comes face to face with the realities of life in Kashmir. The contrasts are stark: ‘...this place, these people, this life, with its secrets and its violence, its hardness and its beauty.’

One of the question the book poses is whether the impulse to act is always the wisest option, even for the best of intentions. “Isn’t that the important thing, to do something?” Shalini insists at one point. On the other hand, is the price of not acting just as high? Shalini’s experiences lead her to conclude that, in her family at least, ‘Ours has always been a story of cowardice, of things left unsaid.’ The book also reveals the unintended consequences on others of our actions. In Shalini’s case, this is manifested in a quite devastating way.

The Far Field is the sort of book I love: great writing, a compelling story that immerses me in the lives of its characters, and that gives me an insight into the culture and history of an area of the world about which I knew little.

In three words: Assured, acutely-observed, compelling

Try something similar: The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan

Madhuri-VijayAbout the Author

Madhuri Vijay was born and raised in Bangalore. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, and her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Best American Non-Required Reading, and Narrative Magazine. [Photo credit: Goodreads]

Connect with Madhuri
Website | Goodreads