Polly Clark: Tiger

Published By: riverrun Books

Buy It: here

What The Blurb Says:

Set across two continents, Tiger is a sweeping story of survival and redeeming love that plunges the reader into one of the world’s last wildernesses with blistering authenticity.

Frieda is a primatologist, sensitive and solitary, until a violent attack shatters her ordered world. In her new role as a zookeeper, she confronts a very different ward: an injured wild tiger.

Deep in the Siberian taiga, Tomas, a Russian conservationist, fears that the natural order has toppled. The king tiger has been killed by poachers and a spectacular tigress now patrols his vast territory as her own.

In a winter of treacherous competition, the path of the tigress and her cub crosses with an Udeghe huntress and her daughter. Vengeance must follow, and the fates of both tigers and people are transformed.

Learning of her tiger’s past offers Frieda the chance of freedom. Faced with the savage forces of nature, she must trust to her instinct and, like the tiger, find a way to live in the world.

What I Say:

For those who know me, and for those who don’t, I absolutely adored Polly Clark’s first novel Larchfield.  To be given the opportunity to read and review her second novel, Tiger, was something I just didn’t want to miss.  I have to admit from the outset, when I heard it was about Tigers and central Siberia, I was sceptical.  I am not a fan of novels about animals, and wasn’t sure how I could relate to Siberian tigers or the terrain they inhabit.

What becomes clear from reading the novel is that although the tigers are absolutely at the heart and permeate every part of this epic and majestic story, it is also about humans, and how we want to feel part of the world around us.  To matter to someone, to have that bond with another human being is everything, and that sometimes we have to go far beyond our limits and experience to do so. It also unashamedly tackles issues of addiction, motherhood, love, loss and unresolved grief and is all the richer for doing so.

Tiger is about Frieda, a primatologist who is sacked from her job at the Institute for being caught using drugs, and is given a final chance as a zookeeper at Torbet Zoo in Cornwall. It is about Tomas, a Russian conservationist working with his father, who has given up everything to protect the tigers of Siberia.  We meet Edit and her daughter Zina, who has left her husband and her life in the Undeghe tribe to survive in a cabin in the wilds of Siberia.

All these people are linked by the tigers of Siberia, and have to reassess everything they know in order to survive. When Frieda is picked to observe the new tiger, Luna, at Torbet Zoo, she believes she is starting to form a bond with her. Frieda also has to deal with a fellow employee Gabriel, the son of the owner who resents Frieda for being asked to look after the new tiger, and is a mixture of bully and protector.  At the heart of it all, Luna is still a wild animal, trapped in a cage, whose instinct to attack when she smells blood means that Frieda ends up being a victim of the very animal she was attempting to help.

For Tomas, his compassion and understanding for the animals that surround his camp, means he is finely tuned to their needs and desires, but he has to face the fact that he is lonely and has rejected his chance of a family and a way to feel loved and needed.  He has prioritised his father and the tigers, and is drifting around the landscape, rootless and unsatisfied by his endless quest to ensure the tigers are safe.

Edit has tried to be the woman that her father and husband expect, she has struggled with her feelings for her husband, and come to realise she actually doesn’t love him and likes him even less.  Frustrated by the constraints others put upon her, and desperate to ensure her daughter doesn’t follow in her footsteps, she decides to leave the safety of her village and put herself at the mercy of the wild to learn to live and find herself again.

Polly has created a barren and starkly uncompromising landscape  – where you are never sure what is going to happen next, and you are absolutely aware the sense of isolation that the characters feel. It doesn’t matter what continent they live in, their loneliness is only magnified by the magical and poetic language that weaves its way through the pages and around them all. I always felt that the humans were at the mercy of the tigers.  The intelligence and survival instincts the humans have, mean that although they know the rules of the wild, and believe that they have the upper hand, in fact, as we discover, the tigers are the true rulers of Siberia, and the humans are subjects in their kingdom.

Tiger is a novel that moves stealthly along, that seamlessly moves between characters and continents, strong and sure like the animal itself.  Polly has achieved many things in this novel.  It is an education for someone like me who knew nothing of tigers and tigresses, or Siberia or even how a zoo works, and it gives the reader much food for thought as to our place and responsibilites to the world around us.  I have to say, that the overriding lesson I took away from my reading of Tiger, is that no matter how much we try to convince ourselves, every single one of us needs to feel a connection to both the natural world around us and to someone else to truly feel alive.

Thank you so much to Katya Ellis, Ana Sampson McLaughlin and Elizabeth Masters for asking me to be part of the Tiger Social Media blast in exchange for an honest review.

Why don’t you see what everyone else is saying about Tiger too…

Jill Dawson: The Language Of Birds

Published By: Sphere

Buy It: here 

What The Blurb Says:

In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched. According to Lady Morven, her estranged husband also has a violent streak, yet she doesn’t seem the most reliable witness. Should Mandy believe her?

As Mandy tries to shield her young charges from harm, her friend Rosemary watches from the wings – an odd girl with her own painful past and a rare gift. This time, though, she misreads the signs.

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women’s voices all too often went unheard.

What I Say:

At the moment, I am finding myself increasingly drawn to novels that place unheard people at the centre of them, which allow us to hear their voices and lives that might otherwise be silenced by the weight of more prominent ones.  The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson is one of those novels.

It recounts the story of Mandy River, who arrives in London in the summer of 1974 with her friend Rosemary.  Both are nannies (Rosemary is a Norland Nanny) and Mandy becomes Nanny to Lord Dickie and Lady Katharine Morven.  They have two children, a baby called Pamela and a young boy called James.

If you believe that this is simply a coming of age novel in the heydays of swinging London, filled with young women finding themselves and loving life, it is not.  That is a very small part of an intelligent and thought-provoking retelling of the infamous Lord Lucan case.  Lord Lucan is notorious for his alleged part in the murder of his nanny Sandra Rivett, and his subsequent disappearance.  His story has been told numerous times, and in all this, Sandra’s story has been lost. Until now.

Little by little, the story of Rosemary and Mandy before they came to London starts to unfold.  They meet while they are in The Poplars, a psychiatric unit, and their friendship grows as each tries to come to terms with their lives and what has brought them to this point.  Both have troubled relationships with their mothers, and have tried to be the daughters their mothers wanted, but with little success.  We discover that Mandy has had two children, one of whom lives with her parents as their son, and the other child was given up for adoption.

As the young women finally start to forge new lives for themselves, free from familial interference and guilt, Mandy is intoxicated by the life she has fallen into.  Lady Morven lends her clothes so she and Rosemary can go out nightclubbing, Mandy loves looking after Pamela and forms a close bond with James, and is instantly attracted to a young man called Neville who lives over the pub she visits.

The unnerving reality however, is that Mandy finds herself in the middle of a bitter divorce between Dickie and Katharine, both desperate for some sign of personal or parental failing which will strengthen their legal position.  Lord Morven no longer lives with his family, but has the house constantly watched, anonymous phone calls taunt them day and night, and he is determined to ensure that Katharine fails in her role as mother, so he can have sole custody of the children.

Mandy and her friend Rosemary find themselves drawn into this privileged world, as Lord Morven realises by charming those closest to Katharine, he can gain the evidence he needs to humiliate his wife and not only ruin her social standing but ensure his children are removed permanently from her care.  When Lord Morven asks them to accompany him with their charges to Scotland, Rosemary and Mandy blindly believe they will be treated as guests, as oppose to members of the staff. However, when they are there, Mandy finds herself reassessing her opinion of Lord Morven and starting to question her loyalty to Katharine.

The narrative switches between Mandy and Rosemary, and in understanding both of the women, we also see how Rosemary is haunted by the fact that as her mental health worsens, she is able to hear voices – the language of birds which taunt and torment her, and also foretell Mandy’s fate.  There is a sense of foreboding which only adds to the tension that underpins every page.

I loved the fact that this novel is filled with so many different ideas, of motherhood and what it means to be a mother.  It is a novel about class and privilege, and that just because you may have the financial means, it does not necessarily bring you happiness and fulfillment. It is also about language, and the power that it holds. Mandy cannot find the words to tell her son that he is hers, Rosemary is haunted by the language that she hears and cannot tell anyone else about, and both of the young womens’ Mothers cannot find the words to communicate with their daughters.

As the novel reaches its awful conclusion and the repercussions of the case for those who are left behind, instead of focussing on the man who is at the root of all of this, we are  look at the young woman.  As the reader, we are made to confront the reality of how an inquest like this is dealt with.  Mandy is fodder for the press, her attractiveness is a selling point that seemingly adds to the glamour of this case.  Lord Morven is portrayed as a dashing Lord with a penchant for fast cars, gambling and a plethora of aristocratic friends who are ensure he is able to evade the justice he should face.

What Jill Dawson brilliantly achieves is in The Language of Birds is to make us question ourselves and the ingrained social norm which is to see the woman as a faceless victim.  In creating a character like Mandy, and following her life, her hopes and dreams, we understand that she is a living, breathing woman. We all need to start looking beyond the sensationalist headlines and instead acknowledge that behind every victim is a life lived, a person loved and in this case, a world shattered.

I loved it.

Alys Conran: Dignity

Published By: W & N Books

Buy It: here

What The Blurb Says:

‘An Indian household can no more be governed peacefully without dignity and prestige, than an Indian Empire’ The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, Flora Annie Steel & Grace Gardiner

Magda is a former scientist with a bad temper and a sharp tongue, living alone in a huge house by the sea. Confined to a wheelchair, her once spotless home crumbling around her, she gets through carers at a rate of knots.

Until Susheela arrives, bursting through the doors of Magda’s house, carrying life with her: grief for her mother’s recent death; worry for her father; longing for a beautiful and troubled young man.

The two women strike up an unlikely friendship: Magda’s old-fashioned, no-nonsense attitude turns out to be an unexpected source of strength for Susheela; and Susheela’s Bengali heritage brings back memories of Magda’s childhood in colonial India and resurrects the tragic figure of her mother, Evelyn, and her struggle to fit within the suffocating structure of the Raj’s ruling class.

But as Magda digs deeper into her past, she unlocks a shocking legacy of blood that threatens to destroy the careful order she has imposed on her life – and that might just be the key to give the three women, Evelyn, Magda and Susheela, a place they can finally call home.

What I Say:

So, this is my blog, my space to be honest about what I read and why. I was sent my copy of Dignity by Virginia from W & N  books, I thought it was beautiful, but I put it onto my reading pile to pick up later on this year.

On March 20th, my Mum passed away.  It wasn’t unexpected, it was after a long battle with lung cancer.  One of the many things my Mum and I had in common was our deep love of reading and books.  She is the reason I cannot leave the house without a book in my bag, and there is not a day goes by that I don’t read something.  As I finally took the plunge and started book blogging, she was there every step of the way, loving the fact her daughter was talking about books and often told me how proud she was.  Mum loved seeing the books I was lucky enough to get sent, and I would always show her my bookpost.

When I showed her Dignity, she told me how beautiful she thought it was, and to read it next and let her know whether she would like it too.  I started reading it on Monday 18th March, and the reason I am so specific is because two days later, Mum passed away.  In the days after she had gone, I had to do all the things a grieving daughter has to do. I had to carry on, being the Mum, daughter, wife and sister that I needed to be until I could come back from seeing my Dad and sister and finally process what had happened.

When I was able to sit down, Dignity was there, right next to the pile of stuff I had brought back from my Mum and Dad’s house and I just picked it up and started to read. The thing was, then I couldn’t put it down again.

Dignity is the story of three women, Magda, Susheela and Evelyn.  It is a novel about love, of trying to find that elusive home that we all strive to belong to, and of finding a family.

Magda is a cantankerous old woman, confined to her decaying house and reliant on the care and support from the women who are paid to look after her.  Susheela is one of the young women who takes on this task, in spite of Magda’s constant attempts to belittle her and break her spirit.  Magda was born and raised in India until she was sent away by Evelyn, her Mother, and Benedict her Father, to a cold and desolate boarding school.

We meet Evelyn as she is being sent to India to marry Benedict.  She is perfectly packaged and preened, naive about many things, and reliant on the books she has taken with her on the voyage to try and make sense of the world she is about to enter.  Although slightly wary, you get the sense that Evelyn is going to relish this next stage of her life, and she sees her new life as a time of adventure and promise.  Indeed when she arrives, she is overwhelmed and in awe of the sights, smells and sounds of the world around her. 

Unfortunately, this is short lived, as she realises that being a wife in India comes with certain conditions, ways of behaving, and treating the servants who work for you as if they are there purely to cater to your every whim.  Little by little, Evelyn realises the world she was ready to embrace is slowly closing in around her. Her husband Benedict only sees her as a trophy to show off, to prove his virility and to establish his position in polite Indian society.  Evelyn’s hopes and dreams are ignored and quashed, as she realises her worth is purely measured in her ability to produce an heir and to conduct herself in a manner deemed appropriate by those around her. 

Even when she gives birth to Magda, her longed for child, she is not permitted to be the mother she truly wants to be, as almost immediately an Indian woman called Aashi is hired to be Magda’s wet nurse. Evelyn is slowly removed from Magda’s life and is told that when Magda reaches an appropriate age, she will be sent ‘home’ to the United Kingdom, while Evelyn and Benedict stay in India. Unfortunately, a life changing event happens, and Magda is sent home alone, forever apart from her parents.

Magda is a different kind of prisoner, trapped with her memories and dreams of her former life in the decaying family home at Victoria Road. Initially she seems resentful of the ever changing world around her and mired in outdated attitudes and beliefs especially towards Susheela. We know that Magda is fiercely intelligent and strives for independence, but now she has no one, and is seeing out her days in a cluttered and neglected home, a stoic reminder of her past glories. Magda reluctantly accepts Susheela’s help, but finds herself drawn to this bright young woman who has many issues of her own. Together, they form a unique and tender bond which changes both of their lives in ways they never would have dreamed possible.

Susheela is trying to balance so many things, she is trying to deal with her father who is grieving for his wife, while she grieves for her Mum and they are in danger of losing their home. Her boyfriend Ewan loves her but is fighting his own demons after serving in the Army, and on top of all this, Susheela has to deal with Magda. She may be the youngest of the women in the story, but her fierce determination to find her place in the world is just as engaging.

What elevates Dignity for me is not only the beautiful storytelling, and the sense of depth you get with each character, but that these women are bound together. This is not a novel of hopelessness, it is a novel of hope. Evelyn, Magda and Susheela are all looking for a sense of belonging, of being loved and being able to love too. They are all searching for a place to call home.

The writing is so engaging and smart, and you really feel that you are there with each character. The description of life in India, was a revelation for me- it brought home to me how much things have changed, and how much they haven’t. The novel draws you in from the first page, and as you fall deeper in, the changing narrative and evocative descriptions only serve to keep you willing the women to fulfill their dreams.

In Dignity, Alys Conran has written a novel that will captivate you from the first page, and will not let go of you until you turn the last. It is about love, loss, motherhood and home, and of a time past and a world where everyone is searching for their place in it.

Without a doubt, Dignity will be one of my books of 2019. I absolutely loved it, and I know that my Mum who understood the importance of home and belonging and would have truly loved it too.

Rose Macaulay: What Not

Published By: Handheld Press

Buy It: here

What The Blurb Says:

What Not is Rose Macaulay’s speculative novel of post-First World War eugenics and newspaper manipulation that anticipated Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World by 14 years. Published in 1918, it was hastily withdrawn due to a number of potentially libellous pages, and was reissued in 1919. But by then it was quickly overshadowed by Macaulay’s next two novels, and never gained the attention it deserved. What Not is a lost classic of feminist wit and protest at social engineering, now republished with the suppressed pages reinstated. Kitty Grammont and Nicholas Chester are in love, but Kitty is certified as an A for breeding purposes, while politically ambitious Chester has been uncertificated, and may not marry. But why? There’s nothing apparently wrong with him, he is admired in his field, and is charming and decisive. Although Kitty wields power as a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Brains, which makes these classifications, she does not have the freedom to marry who she wants. They ignore the restrictions, and carry on a discreet affair. But it isn’t discreet enough for the media: the popular press, determined to smash the brutal regime of the Ministry of Brains, has found out about Kitty and Chester, and scents an opportunity for a scandalous exposure. The introduction is by Sarah Lonsdale, senior lecturer in journalism at City University London.

What I Say:

“Humanity; the simple things; love, birth, family, life.  They’re the simple things, but, after all, the deep and grand things.  No laws will ever supersede them”.

I had heard a lot about Rose Macaulay’s novel, What Not, as Handheld Press had decided to reprint it, and the notion of a novel that anticipated Brave New World from a female writer was one I definitely wanted to read.

The sobering thing about this novel, that in today’s uncertain and inflammatory times, the premise behind this novel seems to be not as far fetched as we may hope to believe.  The country is returning to normality after the First World War, and that is what struck me about the opening pages of this novel.  Everything is just as it was, people are commuting to work, reading magazines, chatting and lives are carrying on, but it is only as we read on that we realise things are far from usual. From the minute you read of aero buses and street aeroplanes, you know that this is not the Great Britain we know.

The Government has decided the way forward for the country is to use social engineering to ensure that they control the population. People are certificated according to their intelligence, and a new Ministry – The Ministry of Brains has been established.  It has passed an act called the Mental Progress Act, where every citizen is categorized according to intelligence. The idea is that you must have children with someone of an appropriate intelligence level, and you are punished if you do not.  This is further complicated by the fact that if anyone in your family has mental disabilities, you are categorised as Uncertificated, and are forbidden to marry or have children.

This was something that was extremely chilling for me to read, as my eldest son has learning difficulties, and the implication that laws like this could exist are just devastating.  It was a sobering and frightening thought that anyone could deem this an acceptable law to live by, and it added a personal level of involvement in this novel for me.

Our main protagonist, Kitty Grammont, works for the Ministry of Brains, and she lives in a house in the village of Little Chantreys with her brother Anthony, his partner Miss Pansy Ponsoby and their child who is called the Cheeper. Her father is a vicar, and he is seeing the devastating consequences of the Mental Progress Act, as he knows that more and more babies are being abandoned for fear of punishment from the authorities for not fulfilling the relevant criteria.

Throughout What Not, you get the unnerving sense that the world has already survived a horrific war, and although it is over, there is still a sense of unease and foreboding.  The State is desperately trying to ensure their citizens have stability in their world, but they need to limit and control every aspect.  Knowing as we do that the world will see a Second World War, I wondered how the Ministry of Brains would react to another situation that was out of their control and what more extreme measures they would strive to put into place afterwards.

This is not an easy novel to read. The unflinching narrative is set against the seemingly idyllic notion of Britain’s victory and the unchanging English countryside, however the subject matter- that of social engineering, seems to be always present in the background of the story, and the notion of the state controlling everything is the reality for Kitty and the British people.

When she meets and is attracted to Nicholas Chester, the Minister of Brains, Kitty believes she has met the man of her dreams.  The brutal reality is that Nicholas is Uncategorized as he has siblings with a mental disability, so, following the legislation he oversees, he is unable to marry or have children.

This then becomes the crux of the novel.  What happens when the one person you love is the one person the state forbids you to?  Chester and Kitty are undeniably attracted to each other and after attempting to conduct their relationship in private, they are confronted with a hostile press and unsettled population who are starting to fight back against the Ministry of Brains – whatever the consequences for Chester and Kitty.

What Not is a biting satirical novel, that succeeds in its premise by drawing us in.  It is rooted in reality, and that is what for me, made its tone even more sinister.  In today’s political uncertainty, especially in a week where even Parliament seems to have no say over its destiny, a state attempting to control its population by extreme measures while ignoring basic human emotions such as love, suddenly doesn’t seem so far fetched.

Thank you so much to  Kate at Handheld Press for my gifted copy.

What Not was published by Handheld Press on 25 March.