Novels where I have not skipped a word
This year I have found myself with quite a bit of quiet time on my hands, and I've used this time to luxuriate in the art of reading. I have delighted in novels that sit by you in every part of your life; those books where every word counts and you tell yourself to slow down because you don't want the book to finish.
Here are three captivating novels that you, like me, will be unable to skip a single word.
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop
'The exquisitely paced narrative reminded me how delightful it is to be kept on your toes in a novel. Did she? Did he? Did they?'
Novelist JB Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Her one-time professor he is much older than JB. A maverick when they met, he seemed somehow ageless. He is a film director. A cult figure. But now his success is starting to wane and JB is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art, that has been forever overseen by Patrick, is starting to overshadow his.
For days they sail in the sun. They lie about drinking, reading, sleeping, having sex. There is nothing but dark water all around them. Then a storm hits. When Patrick falls overboard, JB is left alone, as the search for Patrick's body, the circumstances of his death and the truth about their marriage begins.
Wifedom by Anna Funder
'Oh the joy of reading a novel in a novel in a essay in a commentary on what it means to be married.'
Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own. When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it's a revelation. Eileen O'Shaughnessy's literary brilliance shaped Orwell's work and her practical nous saved his life. But why - and how - was she written out of the story?
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell's private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer - and what it is to be a wife.
Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
'Take my hand and lead me through the orchard. Talk to me abut parenting and love. Share contentment and then discuss.'
In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
A rich and luminous story Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics.