Number 50 - If Cats Disappeared From the World - Genki Kawamura

Anyone who knows me will know exactly why this book practically threw itself off the shelves at me in Waterstones at the weekend.  Look at that cute lickle kitty!!!

It doesn't really show in the picture but the writing and the circles round its eyes are reflective so they glint in the light.  I think it's almost as purpose built as a cover could be to catch my eye.

Anyway, I'd never heard of Genki Kawamura before but the storyline seemed interesting and it's really quite short - two points in its favour.

The story concerns our narrator, a young unnamed postman in an unnamed town in Japan.  He's told he has an inoperable brain tumour and only weeks to live at the very most. He gets home from the hospital to find the devil waiting for him with an offer.  He can have an extra day of life if he agrees to let something else disappear from the world.

So begins a week of Faustian bargains with different things being taken each day in payment for his next.  As it says on the back cover though, he never thought the bargains might affect his cat - Cabbage.

Whereas Gilead tried to be deep and meaningful but forgot to put a story in to weave the philosophical musings around, this manages the deep and meaningful without letting go of the storyline, and manages to keep the tone of the story breezy and fresh regardless of how potentially depressing it could be. 

It's a very funny book, as well as being a deeply moving and enjoyable meditation of what it is that actually makes our lives worth living. I was genuinely wiping away a tear or two by the end of the book.  Although the prose isn't as accomplished as Gilead (possibly due to the translation), it's a much easier and lighter read without the sense of self importance that pervaded Marilynne Robinson's alleged masterpiece.

Thematically it covers a lot of the same subjects - parent/child relationships are front and centre in this story.  As well as feline/human servant relationships.  It's even written in the form of an extended letter, just like Gilead was. The story bounces through the narrator's memories, building a powerful and real picture of his life.

Even the supporting characters are well drawn.  If I was to make any negative criticism of this book, it's that the things he removes are guaranteed to impact harder on his close friends and family members, but this is an issue that's never really touched on.

I will definitely be reading more by this author, and looking for a copy of the film I just found out exists.

an easy 8.5/10

Number 49 Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

This was this month's book group book.  I'd never heard of Marilynne Robinson before this was named for this month's read.

Apparently this took 24 years to write and won her the Pulitzer - the book starts with three pages of ecstatic reviews of this book. It must be the masterpiece the Sunday times claims it to be on the front cover then...

There certainly is a lot to admire about this book.  The prose is genuinely good.  It flows smoothly and reads easily. The characterisation of our narrator is excellent and totally believable.

However, and this is a huge however, it's not a particularly fun book to read.  There is no real story.  The lead character is an elderly pastor in small town America.  He's only apparently left the town of Gilead twice, once with his father to fnd his Grandfather's grave in the depths of Kansas (one of the most interesting segments of the book) and his time in seminary. Now he's old and close to death and writing a letter to his young son to read after his death.

Ninety percent of this book is his philosophical musings on the nature of god and the meaning of life and why are we here and is this young man (his Godson) who has recently returned to town after a twenty year absence getting too friendly with his wife?

I have no objection to books where very little happens.  Jon McGregor writes these all the time and I love them.  Jon McGregor can make the mundane seem like the most important thing in the world.  He manages to discuss the bigger questions in his books by concentrating on the small.  Marilynne Robinson goes straight for the big stuff for most of the book and IMHO the book suffers as a consequence.

There are good bits, any time he's telling stories about his grandfather, the interest quotient increases exponentially. There are occasional flashes of humour - nothing laugh out loud funny, but a few wry smiles.  And, as mentioned, the writing is good.  She can tell a good story if she wants to.  So why doesn't she?

There are hints of a wider plot, of things happening that the narrator is building up to telling us, but he never does. Is John Ames Boughton actually his biological son.  He might be.  But there's no clarity given on the issue.  Is John Ames Boughton too close to the clergyman's wife.  He might be.  But there's no clarity given on the matter.  Did he know the clergyman's wife before she came to town?  He might have done, but....

The lack of clarity becomes extremely frustrating for this particular reader.  The lack of anything resembling an actual storyline is particularly frustrating.  We get a very nice insight into the life of this man in his tiny outpost in a practical ghost town. It's all very worthy.  There are some bon-mots to be found.  But no frigging story.

I was glad I finished this book, there was one section when we heard JAB's backstory where it looked like something particularly interesting might happen.  but it didn't.  Our narrator simply rethought his feelings about JAB and all was good with the town of Gilead - well all was good in the narrator's head at any rate and all was forgiven.

A disappointing 6/10 - for the prose alone,

Number 48 - And Cannot come Again - Simon Bestwick

I seem to be only reading books with great covers recently.

This one is the new short story collection by an ex-local writer to me - the rare talent that is Mr Simon Bestwick.

Due to issues with the publishing house - just google ChiZine Publications if you want an idea of what those problems are - this book may not be particularly easy to get hold of for a while. Simon has asked for people not to buy the ChiZine edition because of the issues - and he is seeking a new home for the collection.

I hope he finds one soon, or that ChiZine can clean their house sufficiently to be trusted, because this is a fantastically good collection of stories that deserves a much larger readership.

It opens with an introduction by one of Simon's greatest influences and mentor - the one and only Ramsey Campbell - who offers his own insight into the stories without any spoilers - something I hope to emulate.

You may have noticed the front cover reads "Tales of Childhood, regret. and innocence lost. And these are themes that recur throughout the 15 stories in this book. It's not an upbeat selection of tales by any stretch of the imagination although it's certainly not without a smattering of humour where needed (usually almost as black as humour can be before it's indistinguishable from something entirely different). A couple of stories feature plot twists that, in lesser hands, would have seem trite and cliched, but in the assured hands of Mr Bestwick they work.  They scare us, move us  and disturb us.

On to the stories then...

Dermot - this story is one of the sickest openings to a collection I've seen in a long long time. The locations are drawn perfectly.  I know the bus stop where the story begins very well. We're introduced to our title character, sitting, first waiting for and then on, the bus to his destination. Something about him makes people queasy and dirty.  The first couple of pages left me wanting to wash my hands, or my brain. The scene then shifts to a strange unit at the local police station, the officers are waiting for a visitor with some information. The end of this story is pretty much the definition of horror.

Beneath the Sun - A boy grieving the loss of his mother has a strange encounter with something not human on the moors near his home.Again the landscape is fantastically well realised, distorted through the boy's grief as it is. This is one of the shortest tales in the book but is just as effective as any of the longer ones.  The ending is poignant and shocking.

The Moraine - In this one, the landscape IS the bad thing.  Our unlucky bickering couple are lost on the moors when they hear a dog barking in the mist. From that point on the terror is unstoppable.  This one is so tense that my fingers almost left gouge marks on the cover.  A variant on Tremors (although we never know exactly what is under there) that works brilliantly well

Comfort your dead - a moving story of love that can't be allowed to happen.  as this story moves on we feel glimmers of hope for the narrator - but this is a Simon Bestwick story and the ending pulls the rug out from under our feet.

The School House -  the longest story so far. A nightmare that flits between a mental hospital where a junior member of staff reluctantly agrees to help with a new guest - an ex schoolfriend - and flashbacks to the school they both attended.  Both locations are equally horrific and the gradual reveal of the plot is excellent. This is by turns moving and difficult to read (for all the right reasons) and downright scary.

Left Behind - A young man is offered a chance to leave the neighbourhood he grew up in, but what will he need to sacrifice to leave this place behind? The answer was... unpredictable. This one completely blindsided me.

Hushabye - I do have an issue with this story.  The geography of Salford is wrong.  You can't turn off Langworthy road directly onto Brindleheath. Other than the geographical error, this is a strong tale of a man who stumbles across a weird creature that's been attacking local children, and his subsequent hunt to catch it and save any other children.

A Small Cold Hand - a deeply emotional story of grief and how it haunts people. I can't say much more in case of spoilers, but this is one of my favourites in the collection.

The Proving ground - proving that less is more, this tells more in the gaps in the narrative than in the details we're given.  Extremely unpleasant and disturbing - which as usual - that's a good thing here. 

Angels of the Silences - a pair of dead girls roaming the streets of Manchester watching out for and protecting the gang they hung with before they were murdered. The two ghost girls are great company to ride along with in this novella.  The story does follow a fairly predictable route but is no less fun for that.  We feel happy and sad and whatever else that arch-manipulator Simon wants us to feel on behalf of the two goth ghost girls.

And Dream of Avalon - A man goes on a trip down memory lane - not the right thing to do in a Bestwick story, even if the memories are, remarkably, fairly positive in this one. This is one of those stories that demonstrates that fresh talent can breathe life into an overused trope.

Winters end - A heartwarming love story, except for the strange things that haunt the narrator's beloved and throw possibly insurmountable barriers into the relationship. This features the central character from Hushabye, having slightly more fun than he had in his first outing - well at the start of the story at least.

They Wait - the terror of growing old and the terror of disenfranchised youth meet in this story.  Another powerful and moving tale.

The children of Moloch - A truly nasty story, set in another horrific public school.  Two children turn to the supernaatural for help to escape their tormentors. The misery inflicted human to human in this story is easily as shocking as any supernatural revenge that gets dished out.

And Cannot Come Again  - our title story has all the trappings of a ghost/supernatural monster story. A man is called back to the town where he spent his summers as a child to face the repercussions of his actions twenty years earlier.  Again this story uses a fractured timeline between the events of the past and modern day. Again the gradual reveal of the story is masterful. The use of foreshadowing and backshadowing (is that a thing?) is a real pleasure to read, and the ending is as emotional as it is scary.

The writing is clear and concise throughout,  and occasionally deeply metaphorical but without ever risking alienating a casual reader. These stories often feature deeper resonances and layers of meaning without ever bogging down the surface stories. That takes real talent.

I really hope that the issues behind this publication can be sorted out.  This is a fantastic collection without a single weak story.  A Small Cold Hand and They Wait were the standouts for me from a very good collection indeed.

Number 47 - The Reddening - Adam Nevill

First of all, check out that cover.  This book is an object of dark beauty, as are the other books from the Ritual Ltd range.  The binding and the even the paper used is of top quality on this hardback edition. For a book lover, this really is the sort of quality workmanship I love to see and feel. Books like this are the reason that kindles can never be good enough.

On to the story.  Is it as good as the cover promises?

I first became aware of Adam Nevill a few years ago through his novel The Ritual (you may have seen the film last year if you haven’t read the book). I immediately placed that book in my top ten horror reads of all time.  Nevill displayed he could capture perfectly the horror of being chased by an unseen thing, and, in the second half of the book, of being held captive.  I quickly sought out and read his back catalogue. Since then it’s a frustrating wait between books.  He doesn’t churn out three per year like Stephen King.  These books are honed to perfection.

I’ve never been less than impressed with any of his work.  This one is no exception.

It starts with something I’ve never seen in any of Adam’s books before – in the first three chapters we have a selection of Shreddies. I’m not sure if that’s official terminology in the publishing world or not but a Shreddie (in my world) is a character who appears for one chapter and exists for no other reason than to be killed horribly by the bad thing. This being an Adam Nevill book, these aren’t your typical shreddies and their deaths do have repercussions, helping draw the attention of the central characters to what’s going on.  

The story begins at a slow burn after the initial bouts of violence (and indeed even those bouts of violence are set years apart).  We’re introduced first to Kat and her boyfriend Steve, a journalist at a local magazine and a photographer, looking at a cave system recently uncovered by a rockfall where gruesome discoveries from history have been made.

Next we’re introduced to Helene, whose brother has also gone missing in the ominous countryside surrounding the towns of Redstone and Divilmouth.  He’d recorded some weird noises in the caves and quarries in the area shortly before his death.

The characters meet and their fates become inextricably entwined as they get pulled one by one into the conspiracy surrounding the caves and the local towns. The net closes around the three of them, and hope is slowly but surely extinguished as the scale of the forces around them becomes clear.

Around the halfway mark we see one of the most nightmarish scenes yet in a Nevill book (and that is truly an achievement) followed by a gear shift into a fast paced and gruesome thriller.  The hope so cruelly denied in the first half is teasingly offered, but is it for real?  The Red Folk have a long reach, and what are those creatures beneath the ground?

This book is a shining example of why I read horror fiction.  Adam Nevill builds atmosphere better than any other writer that springs to mind immediately and in this book proves he can ladle in the gore with the best of them as well.

Easy 9/10

This book is available via Amazon or through the Ritual Ltd website. 

/https://www.adamlgnevill.com/ritual-limited-shop/