Posted on

Shadow, by Karin Alvtegen

In a nondescript apartment block in Stockholm, most of the residents are elderly. Usually a death is a sad but straightforward event. But sometimes a resident will die and there are no friends or family to contact. This is when Marianne Folkesson arrives, employed by the state to close up a life with dignity and respect. Gerda Persson has lain dead in her apartment for three days before Marianne is called. When she arrives, she finds the apartment tidy and ordered. Gerda’s life seems to have been quite ordinary. Until Marianne opens the freezer and finds it full of books, neatly stacked and wrapped in clingfilm, a thick layer of ice covering them. They are all by Axel Ragnerfeldt, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, with handwritten dedications to Gerda from the author. What story do these books have to tell, about Gerda, and more importantly about Ragnerfeldt, a man whose fame is without precedent in the nation’s cultural life, but seldom gives interviews?

( Courtesy of GoodReads,  311 pages )

Posted on

Marie-Claire Blais, Mad Shadows

A harrowing pathology of the soul, Mad Shadows centres on a family group: Patrice, the beautiful and narcissistic son; his ugly and malicious sister, Isabelle-Marie; and Louise, their vain and uncomprehending mother. These characters inhabit an amoral universe where beauty reflects no truth and love is an empty delusion. Each character is ultimately annihilated by their own obsessions.
Acclaimed and reviled when it exploded on the Quebec literary scene in 1959, Mad Shadows initiated a new era in Quebec fiction.

( from the sleeve,  125 pages )

Posted on

The Kalahari Typing School For Men, Alexander McCall Smith

A beguiling mystery and lyrical novel of Africa — the fourth in a series that the L.A. Times calls “thoroughly engaging and entertaining.”

Now that The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (the only detective agency for ladies and others in Botswana) is established, its founder, Precious Ramotswe, can look upon her life with pride: she’s reached her late thirties (“the finest age to be”), has a house, two children, a good fiancé — Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni — and many satisfied customers. But life is never without its problems. It turns out that her adopted son is responsible for the dead hoopoe bird in the garden; her assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband and needs help with her idea to open the Kalahari Typing School for Men; yet Mma Ramotswe’s sexist rival has no trouble opening his Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency across town. Will Precious Ramotswe’s delightfully cunning and profoundly moral methods save the day? Follow the continuing story of Botswana’s first lady detective in the irresistible The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

( Courtesy of Penguin Random House,  from the hardcover )

Posted on

Aftermath, by Anne Cameron

In this powerful, shocking and highly absorbing new work, Anne Cameron picks up a thread from her prize-winning novel Dreamspeaker, in which an eleven-year-old abuse survivor and runaway named Peter Baxter is taken from his adopted family – two reclusive Native elders – only to be destroyed by the child welfare system that supposedly exists to protect him. Cameron asks why more and more kids are at risk, in spite of official inquiries, public outcries and millions of taxpayer’s dollars. She finds part of the answer in the “ordinary” nuclear family, presenting a technicolour nightmare of hand-me-down dysfunction spiked with the black humour reminiscent of her 1995 bestselling novel The Whole Fam Damily, and another part in the child welfare system that covers the butts of everyone except the kids.

Cousins Fran and Liz are children of parents who came from violent families, then grew up and started new violent families. By the time Fran has had a few children and a long procession of “difficult” fosters, she has begun to write down her family history and to realize just how deeply troubled her family is – back through who-knows-how-many generations. While Fran struggles to work out her past, Liz concentrates on her violin and music career and tries to forget her own traumatic childhood. But when Peter Baxter’s tragic end hits the headlines, the story affects more people than just his family members and social workers. Everyone becomes involved, from his peers at the reform school to Fran and Liz and their families.

What’s to be done? It’s too late for Peter Baxter, but in the aftermath, one by one, people can stand up to the system and make a difference. Fran and Liz, who choose different ways to survive the horror of their childhoods, remain friends and allies as they repair the damage visited on their children and grandchildren. Anna Fleming, a social worker with an impossible case load, shows what caring really means. And Jackie, a kid who’s never had a break, just keeps on running. Their story makes Aftermath both deeply moving and profoundly hopeful.

( Courtesy of Harbour Publishing,  398 pages )