Tag: Art

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

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Take What You Need by Idra Novey

Published by Daunt Books Originals

on 3rd August 2023

Available from All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition.

But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history.

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most, zeroing in on the joys and difficulties of family with great verve and humour, and illuminating what can be built from what others have discarded.

What I Say

There are novels that when published, seem to be everywhere, with so many people shouting about them, that often there are quiet novels of pure brilliance that don’t get the attention they truly deserve. I hope that Take What You Need really does find its way onto your bookish radar, because I think it should be front and centre on your reading lists.

In Take What You Need Idra Novey perfectly articulates the complexities and realities of living in modern America while the world beyond your four walls, and the people you love change beyond your control.

Jean and Leah are stepmother and daughter, who are now living in different parts of the country after Jean had to live the familial home when Leah was only ten. Although Leah’s father tried to discourage their relationship, they stayed in touch via sporadic emails and phone calls. Leah is now living in New York with her husband and young son, while Jean lives in Appalachia, a place ravaged by poverty and addiction. When Leah receives a phone call from a stranger, telling her that Jean has died and left her artwork to her, Leah and her husband undertake the journey to the Allegheny Mountains with their young son.

After a life of working, Jean had devoted herself to her art, and used steel and lots of different ephemera that she collected from flea markets and wherever she could to create her works she called her ‘manglements’ – a body of work that ranges from small boxes to huge totem pole sizes that she has inside her house.

When Jean’s neighbour asks to use her stand pipe so she can get water for her family after theirs is cut off, it is then she meets their son Elliott. Realising how little money the family has, she starts to offer him food and the use of her shower. After Elliott helps Jean when she has an accident making her art, they start a tentative friendship, and Elliott starts to help Jean construct her artwork. Jean sees a young man constrained by his environment, who has the potential to change his life – if only he can see it – and this is part of the backdrop of this novel, the very different lives that play out when you do or don’t have the financial means to survive.

All the time Jean is also thinking of Leah, and when a visit from her goes spectacularly wrong – with both women describing very different perceptions of what happened, the relationship breaks down again. Jean is alone, with only her art for company, and Elliott is becoming more and more distant as he becomes an addict, starts to turn to theft and is thrown out of his family home. Leah finds it difficult to understand how Jean can possibly want to speak to Elliott after everything he has put her through, but Jean instinctively understands that this is a young man who never stood a chance as the world around him collapses and pulls him under with it.

The narrative moves effortlessly between Jean and Leah, both women aware of the closeness they have lost, and realising that if only they can find the words, they could once again have the relationship they both miss so much. I felt it was also a way for Idra to show the reader two very different experiences of living in America, at a time when the MAGA movement and Donald Trump’s presidency is a reality, and we are constantly aware of the socioeconomic backdrop to the plot. Elliott’s trajectory is one that is all too familiar and harrowing, yet there is also a humanity and need for connection that means he cannot let Jean go, as he recognises that she saw him as a person with potential, and although he doesn’t always know how to deal with it, he eventually understands the emotional debt he owes her.

Take What You Need is a beautiful and thoughtful novel about how art intersects with so many parts of our lives, and how powerful and life changing it can be. This is also a novel about how sometimes family is not necessarily those people you are related to, but instead can be found in those people who understand and love you for what you are and the potential they can see in you. Jean understands both Leah and Elliott completely, and although they are seemingly disparate characters, it is Jean’s love and desire for both of them to fulfill their potential that unites them after she is no longer in their lives.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jimena Gorraez and Daunt Publishing for my proof copy

Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

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Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

Published by Bloomsbury Books

Available from All Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.

Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae’s life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her.

Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.

What I Say

I am always fascinated by fiction books that find their starting point in real events, and Nothing Special is the story of Mae, a young woman who finds herself working at The Factory – Andy Warhol’s studio in New York City.

Her job, along with another woman called Shelley, is to transcribe audio cassettes exactly as she hears them – every single sound and pause must be captured and typed, however insignificant they sound. This seemingly repetitive and cryptic task, was actually published as A, A Novel by Warhol in 1968. This forms the backdrop to Mae’s evolution emotionally and personally as she slowly falls under the spell of this cultural revolution, while attempting to navigate the difficult time in our lives when we are no longer children, but not yet an adult.

Mae has a problematic relationship with her erratic mother, who seems to go from no interest to an obsessive interest with her daughter. Home life veers between times of calm and times of chaos, as her mother deals with her own issues by drinking and dating, while at the same time keeping her ever present doting boyfriend Mikey hanging around – who in fact is perhaps the most stable parental figure Mae has in her life.

As Mae becomes more involved with her project, she starts to view the world differently, and feels that the life she has lived up til now has been so small and narrow. We see the power of celebrity and notoriety, and how much people want to be part of what is happening at The Factory, to be able to tell people that they are in some way connected to Andy Warhol – even if they are just famous for fifteen minutes.

Nothing Special is also about the notion of the artistic gaze, and how we view both the art itself and those who create and participate in it. Mae finds herself more involved with The Factory, and the reader become more aware of how important it is for those around her to be seen, and to be part of Warhol’s history whatever the cost. We see how many of the people – including Shelley, want to be immortalised by Warhol, and have no scruples in doing whatever he wants them to do on screen in order to be able to say that they have been filmed by him.

Mae and Shelley are only needed until they finish transcribing the tapes, and when A is published, they are not mentioned, so are eradicated from the history of the very place they were so desperate to be part of. Nicole Flattery’s understated style of writing works so well for me, in scenes like this, because when life changing and at times upsetting things do happen to Mae, they are made even more poignant by the fact the language used and the words chosen focus you explicitly on her.

Nothing Special captivated me from the very first page, and when I had finished reading it, I sat and spent time reading about Warhol and more importantly, the people who came and went from The Factory. The captivating thing about Nicole’s brilliant novel is that Warhol is a figure on the periphery, the enigma around which everyone else orbits, and Mae’s life becomes the focus. This is a novel which asks us to consider not only the notion of how art is made and the legacy of Warhol, but also makes us think about the people whose names we will never know, but without whom, Warhol would not have been able to create the art we admire today.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Tabitha Pelly and Bloomsbury Books for my proof copy.

The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson

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Published by Mantle

17th March 2022

Available from West End Lane Books and all Good Bookshops

What They Say

Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art – the first in many decades – and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good.

His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father’s biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . .

And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.

The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . .

What I Say

When Camilla at Picador very kindly sent me a copy of The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson, I knew right away that it ticked a lot of the boxes of things I love in a novel.

Obnoxious characters? Check.

All about love and marriage? Check.

Looking at women as mothers and wives? Check.

A plot about art? Check.

The fact is, The Exhibitionist has all these elements, and is also a very incisive and funny novel, filled with moments that make your toes curl, and nod your head in recognition.

The Hanrahan family live in a rundown house in North London. Lucia and Ray Hanrahan have three grown up children – Jess, who is emotionally and geographically distant, stepson Patrick, who is awkward and uneasy and has moved to a caravan in the garden, and the precocious Leah, who has appointed herself Ray’s guardian and protector.

Lucia and Ray are both artists, and on a weekend in February 2010, Ray is having an exhibition of his work.

Here’s the thing. Ray Hanrahan is quite frankly one of the most awful, self absorbed, narcissistic and controlling characters you will ever meet. He is so hideous to everyone around him – especially Lucia, that it is painful to watch.

His belief in himself as an artist and the adoration he demands, dominates everything in the Hanrahan household. Lucia is a successful artist in her own right, yet she has spent her life suppressing her own dreams and ambitions to ensure everyone else in the Hanrahan household can achieve theirs.

Now that the children are grown up, for the first time she is realising that not only do people recognise her artistic worth and prowess, but is also acknowledging that she has her own needs and desires. Her involvement with a local MP called Priya is making her see that underneath all those years of subjugation, there is a woman who has a whole world of possibilities just waiting for her. Lucia just needs to find the strength to assert herself.

As the weekend builds to an unexpected crescendo, Lucia starts to see her life through the gaze of others, and feels upset at what others may believe to be her life. All her children are struggling to articulate what they actually want as they are afraid of upsetting Ray in any way, while Ray blusters around behaving like the egotistical maniac he is. We also discover from Lucia’s narrative that Ray cheated on her when she was recovering from cancer – and has invited his former mistress to the exhibition.

The unveiling of the lauded exhibition provokes many different reactions from those who have been assembled by Leah and Ray, and to say too much would spoil your enjoyment. Suffice it to say that the grand reveal also seems to ignite something in Lucia and her children, especially Patrick and Jess, and it is as if being confronted with the reality of Ray’s work wakes them up and leads to them to making decisions they may never have believed possible.

The Exhibitionist is a brilliant and thought provoking novel, that I really loved. Charlotte Mendelson has created a character in Ray Hanrahan that will make your jaw drop and your skin crawl, but I think we needed to have a character like him to make this narrative so effective. Ray is emblematic of those men who believe that their creativity and talent is always superior to the women who love them, because the thought that their partner might in fact be the more talented and more lauded person is more than their artistic ego can handle. Watching Lucia slowly recognise the innate power she has had all along in the marriage and in her art is a joy to behold, and Charlotte Mendelson slowly and deliciously unfurls Lucia’s self awareness with incredibly satisfying results.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Camilla Elworthy at Picador for a finished copy of The Exhibitionist.

You can buy your copy from West End Lane Books here.

Still Life by Sarah Winman

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Published by 4th Estate on June 1st

Available from West End Lane Books, All Good Bookshops and Online.

What They Say

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening.

Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

What I Say

When I finished reading Still Life I was faced with a problem. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to review it because I had no idea how I could do it the justice it deserves. This is a novel that encompasses so much so effortlessly, and the sheer scale and intricacies of everything Sarah Winman talks about within these pages is impossible to distil into a review.

From the moment you turn the first page, Sarah Winman pulls you into the world of Ulysses, Col, Evelyn, Peg, Cress, Pete and Alys. They are all seemingly disparate individuals who are simply connected by the fact that Ulysses is part of their lives. This gentle, kind and truly compassionate man has fought for his country in Italy, stopped a man from committing suicide and on returning home, discovers that his wife Peg has had a relationship with an American called Eddie and now has a daughter. Ulysses and Peg try to make a life together, but Peg loves Eddie, and wants only him.

When Ulysses is left an apartment by the man he saved in Florence, he makes the life changing decision to move there with Cress, his friend from the East End, and Peg decides to let him take Alys too. They also manage to sneak Claude the parrot from under the nose of Col, who runs the Stoat and Parot pub, and together they start a new life far away from the lives they have known.

Moving to Italy is the fresh start they all seem to need. The apartment is beautiful, the life seems idyllic, and they decide to turn the apartment into a Pensione named Bertolini. This is the world in which our characters show themselves at their most real and vulnerable, and Sarah’s incredibly perceptive and immersive writing means that you feel you absolutely know and understand every character by the end of the novel.

It is as if when people come to the Pensione, they can be their true and authentic selves. Free from preconceptions and assumptions, they have the chance to live the life they deserve rather than the one that society tells them they should have. The group of people who live and visit there are family to each other, and for me that was one of the most poignant parts of the novel – that these people have met by chance, but that their love and connections to each other is absolutely unbreakable. I loved the way in which the world of London, the East End and Italy are constantly intertwined, as Col, Peg and Pete regularly come to visit, and the tantalisingly missed chances for Evelyn and Ulysses to reconcile when they initially keep missing each other purely by chance are simply devastating!

For me, the women in Still Life were incredible to read about because while you may not always understand their decisions, you absolutely know that they are striving against all odds to live the lives they want. Peg is brutally honest about her maternal instincts and disinterest in parenting and knows that Alys will flourish if she lives with Ulysses. Evelyn has had to hide her sexuality for years for fear of being ostracised and condemned, irrespective of what she feels and has to constantly prove her academic worth in a male dominated world. Alys is truly her mother’s daughter, and her dogged determination to forge her own independent path in life and also be open about her sexuality is portrayed perfectly. Still Life as the title suggests also talks about the depiction of women in art, how the academic gaze has always been predominantly male. Evelyn is a tireless advocate of the need to recognise the importance of female artists and their works in the history of art, and I found that a really interesting viewpoint throughout the novel.

To read this novel is to live it completely. Sarah’s exquisite and sensory descriptions of life in Italy mean that as a reader you feel that somehow you are completely in the heart of the action. You feel the heat of the sun on your neck, taste the incredible food that makes you yearn for a plate of pasta, and the look and feel of the town is so incredibly clear in your mind that you can picture every room in the apartment and every landscape that you read about. As Still Life moves through the decades, we are witness to what is happening in the world around them. We learn about the impact it has on those who live in this seemingly idyllic place, but in a cleverly layered turn of events, we also see the effect that Evelyn has had on the work of the novelist E M Forster too, and specifically his novel A Room With A View.

Still Life is an exquisite and totally compelling novel about lives lived, loves won and lost, and the incredible strength and resilience we discover within ourselves when we need it most. When I finished this novel, I was really sad that my time with these people had come to an end, such was my love for them all. It is a novel that absorbs you so completely that you truly feel that you are right there with the characters for every step of their journeys. Its enduring message for me is that it makes you understand the immense power of love and friendship that we often take for granted, and in recognising it and accepting it, we can perhaps finally find peace. One of E.M. Forster’s most famous quotes is ‘Only Connect’, and in Still Life this is what is ultimately right at the very heart of this incredible novel for everyone in it, and for those of us who read it, it is something we should always endeavour to remember.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Liv Marsden at 4th Estate for my gifted proof copy.

If you would like to purchase a copy from West End Lane Books, you can click here