I very rarely give 5 star ratings. For me 4 stars is a fantastic book but this time I couldn’t resist. This absolutely deserves it. It’s over 600 pages long but doesn’t feel like that as you’re reading it. It goes by in a flash. I never got restless, I just wanted to know what happened next. The whole story just flows effortlessly. It has lots of twists and turns that will keep you turning the page. It’s a really compelling family drama. Morton’s characters are so vivid & complicated. They are flawed but you also root for them. There are a lot of characters included in this novel but some how Morton manages to make them all feel fully fleshed out and completely human. There are so many strands but somehow she ties them all together.
I’m a little nervous of giving too much detail because I don’t want to ruin anything or give any spoilers but basically Jess is an Australian journalist living in London. She gets a phone call one day that her beloved grandmother Nora, suffered a fall and is in hospital. Now Jess must return to Sydney after many years away. Once home she discovers a true crime investigation into a long-buried tragedy and the connection it has to her own family. I was so impressed by now many different characters and stories Morton wove into this story yet none of them fell flat or felt unexplored. When Jess returns home she discovers a book written years ago that tells the story of unsolved murders and so begins the unravelling of a gripping mystery. The discovery of this book means that Morton writes a book within a book and it is truly impressive storytelling. She made a very intricate story feel effortless. The pacing was very well done. It kept my attention the whole way despite its considerable length.
It’s an ideal read for this time of year. Perfect for a holiday because once you start you just won’t want to put it down. This was my first Kate Morton book but it defiantly won’t be my last. I want to read them all now. This book has everything, a sweeping family drama, crime, mystery, intrigue and so on. A truly fantastic read!
I read this book a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Bits of it keep coming back to me. The Cassandra Complex, (t’s called Cassandra in Reverse in the U.S.) tells the story of Cassandra Dankworth. A young woman who is living and working in London. She works for an advertising company and has had a series of flat mates. She just can’t find the right fit. Cassie it seems, has never really fitted in anywhere. She doesn’t fully understands why but people are constantly telling her that she is not a people person and that she is a bit odd. She is consistently saying the wrong thing both in her work and personal life. So when she gets dumped, fired and her local café runs out of banana muffins – all in one day it feels like the end of the world. But then Cassie discovers she has the power to go back in time and change things. Now that she has endless chances to get it right she thinks that she can finally fix everything.
This book was chosen as the Reese Book pick for June and I can see why because it’s a great summer read. The author Holly Smale is originally a YA writer and this is her first adult novel. Smale was diagnosed with autism as an adult. So she has written a character who is having a similar experience to her and is living with autism. It was really fascinating getting to know this character.. Smale was able to write a first hand account of what it’s like to be autistic and to receive a late diagnosis. Although not everyone living with autism has the exact same experience this novel made me really see the need for stories written by people living with various conditions, illnesses or disabilities. We need to tell our own stories and share our own experiences instead of letting others tell them for us. As a person living with a physical disability I really related to the way in which Cassie has to constantly shape shift herself in certain environments in order to try and fit in with other people. As I was reading I thought a lot about why being ourselves is so complicated and why others can find it so jarring.
The time travel element was a fantastic devise because it showed that no matter how many times Cassie had the opportunity for a do-over it was never enough and it never pleased everyone. She could never get it “right”. This did frustrate me after a while but it only made me mad at the other characters for making Cassie feel like she was the one with the problem. They made her feel like she was the problem. I began to wonder if many people who are autistic or neurodivergent are constantly being made to feel this way. It seemed like these “endless chances” were actually endless opportunities to make Cassie feel as though she was failing, failing to be “normal”. I was also grateful to this story for challenging some of my own preconceived ideas about autism. I found it very informative and insightful. A line towards the end of the novel that really stayed with me was “I do not have to weave my story over and over again and it is not and never should be told by other people.” Originally I was going to give this novel 4 stars but in the end I changed my mind. It reminded me how important representation really is and made me question some of my own internal biases as well as making clear my constant need to people please. It also showed me that everyones story matters and that some social conventions are utterly ridiculous, especially for women. I wondered wether if Cassie were male would others care as much about what she wore or her blunt responses. For all these reasons I thought it deserved 5 stars.
Outside of the representation factor it is also just a great fantasy novel. It is very funny and the characters are well developed and entertaining. One or two of them absolutely stole my heart. I loved the fact that Smale didn’t go out of her way to try and make Cassie more likeable, she just let her be herself. That’s what in the end, makes her loveable in my opinion. I couldn’t believe that this was Smale’s first novel for adults. It is very well constructed and a really enjoyable read. I know some people weren’t sure about the ending and I did have some misgivings about it at first but after sitting with it for a bit I actually understood Smale’s reasoning for it. I realised that it was a nod to being yourself and not trying to change or be what others want you to be. I liked it because it made me feel like we’re all enough as we are and overall I found that message kind of hopeful. I look forward to reading whatever Smale writes next.
I recently started watching “Tiny Beautiful Things” on Disney. This new series is based off of the book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed. It is a compilation of letters and responses from Strayed’s advice column “Dear Sugar”. I read this book years ago and loved it as I adore Cheryl’s writing. She has such a beautiful, unique way with words that get’s inside your heart. The third episode includes excerpts from a letter entitled “The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us” where Dear Sugar is advising a man who is wondering whether or not to have children. As I was watching the episode the words of this letter and the poem she refers to came back to me so vividly. The poem is called “The Blue House” by Tomas Transtromer. In this poem Transtromer writes, ” I am grateful for this life! And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real… We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route.”
In her reply Dear Sugar looks at this idea that we all have a sister ship that follows a different route that we did not take in our lives. The one we didn’t choose but instead opted for a different path. I love this idea of a sister ship because it is so brilliantly and devastatingly true. Similar to the old adage “when one door closes, another opens.” or vice versa, it implies that choosing one thing means letting go of another. These other lives that we do not live sail along beside us just out of our reach. Strayed replies “the people we might have been live a different, phantom life than the people we are.” She also explains that whatever we choose contains some loss. We miss out on the other option, that door closes and we are forced to move along wondering if we made the right call. I have been turning this idea of a “sister ship” over in my head since revisiting this essay. I have a disability and have had since birth. I was born into this body but every now and then I wonder if there is a sister life where I do not have this condition. I meditate on what that life would look like. I didn’t choose to be disabled or to travel this path, that choice was made for me but I still ponder, would I be happier? Would I have accomplished more? Would I be in an entirely different place at this stage in my life? These are all questions I don’t have answers to. Although my questions are very different to the man who wrote in to “Dear Sugar” to ask advice about becoming a parent they are still full of a similar uncertainty. We will never know if another life would be better or worse. We just have to live the life we have and accept the choices we made that brought us here. “Undecided”, as Dear Sugar calls him doesn’t know which path to choose and asks for help in deciding the right road but perhaps neither one is better than the other. Perhaps they both contain as much joy and sorrow as each other in different ways.
Dear Sugar suggests that this man ask himself the question, what is a good life? I suspect the answer is different for everyone. Sugar instructs “undecided” to write down everything he associates with a good life, lay it all out on a sheet of paper so that the sketches of his real life and his sister life, are right there in front of him in order to help make this decision. She also tells him that no matter what he decides this sister life will remains. The uncertainty does not disappear just because we pick a route. All the other things you could have been and done still hang there. Although there is no decision I could have made that would have meant I could have lived in another body, there are still decisions I made and continue to make, that effect my reality. I must continue to choose to live into this body no matter it’s complications or what the world thinks of it.
The writer and painter Emil Sands writes “I am still grappling with the ways I have been made to feel that my body does not belong, and with the conviction that it is easier for everyone that I be a failing normal rather than a normal disabled.” The truth is that I do belong. It is not a mistake or some error in judgement. This life belongs to me and so does this body no matter how I, or anyone else might feel about it from day to day. That sister body that is not disabled and is without imperfections was not the ship I boarded at the beginning of this life. She does however linger in the background occasionally, like a phantom. We are all haunted by the choices we made and didn’t make, after all not deciding is a decision in itself. As I grow older and have to contend with ageing in a body that is more complex it seems I must continue to salute that life, that sister body, the ghost ship that didn’t carry me.
This book is an unusual little gem. I discovered it while listening to the author Katherine May on The Shift with Sam Baker podcast. I love Katherine’s writing and so I take her recommendations very seriously. I must admit I was not previously aware of Jenny Diski and so I went in to this completely blind. It is part travelogue, part memoir. I adore travelogues so I was hooked from the beginning. It is not however your typical travelogue, if there is such a thing. It follows Diski’s trip to Antarctica as well as delving into her past and traumatic childhood. Some of the details of her life are harrowing yet the author still manages to remain funny and witty while discussing complex and difficult topics. It’s as if she takes you to the edge of the trauma but never too far in. Her skill as a writer is that she knows exactly the point at which the reader needs a break and she can shift almost instantly without it seeming clunky or too abrupt. Her keen observations are always enthralling and insightful to read.
Diski really drew me into the landscape of Antarctica, making it feel magical and other worldly. Her descriptions of the environment around her and the animals that occupy it are truly engrossing. It made me want to read more about this wondrous place and it’s inhabitants. Her descriptions of her fellow travellers are not always as kind but often hilarious. This book was written back in 1997 and the absence of social media or smart phones is really striking. Ironically Diski is already commenting on how removed from real life experience passengers are just from taking pictures with their cameras. I kept thinking as I was reading, if you only knew what’s to come. With the exception of this observation the story feels very fresh and as relevant today as it was over twenty years ago.
In some ways this book is the work of a detective. Her daughter, who is trying to find out the whereabouts of her estranged grandmother, Diski’s mother and then Diski herself are all seeking something throughout the book. Diski instructs the help of her former neighbours to learn more about her parents relationship and the parts of her childhood that she has forgotten or were not known to her. Although handled with precision, this investigation uncovers intimate and upsetting details that will make the reader re-think the idea of family and memory. I found her thoughts on depression and mental health very insightful and down right stunning at times. She has a very direct, unsentimental approach to her writing.
“No one can sit through a depression for you and no one can write a book for you. Why not? yells the child. Because then you wouldn’t have done it. So what? screams the child, stamping her foot.”
The transitions between her Antarctic adventure and look back at her childhood are seamless. Diski’s style of writing is absolutely beautiful. Her command of the English language is at times breathtaking. I found myself underlining certain words, turning them over and savouring them as I read. I also loved her approach to what some of us would call the heroes journey. She does not need to accomplish or complete anything on her trip in order for it to be worthwhile. She doesn’t even need to leave her cabin on the ship on some occasions. It’s as if making the trip is enough in itself. Her cabin is her sanctuary and that is good enough. Author Katherine May describes it as an anti-accomplishment book that is quite subversive and challenges the more traditionally masculine idea of completing the journey in a triumphant way. That is one of my favourite aspects of the book, the notion that she travelled all the way to Antarctica and was completely unapologetic about her lack of interest in exploring her surroundings. She did what she had come to do and had nothing more to prove. She has no desire to deliver a neatly packaged ending that would perhaps satisfy the reader more. Her contained cabin, floating along on the water had everything she needed. This refers back to the beginning of the book where Diski discusses her search for white space. “What I really wanted: a place of safety, a white oblivion.” This search for blankness is a theme throughout the book and she describes it with dazzling beauty. I couldn’t possibly do it justice here but it is really stunning.
At the start the reader might think they are about to accompany Diski on an exciting adventure to Antarctica and they are but actually we are her companion on an even more compelling inward exploration of her past and difficult childhood. The location and external surroundings of Antarctica merely serve as a metaphor of her own isolation and descent into depression and mental illness at a young age. This was my first Jenny Diski book but it won’t be my last. I have my eye on “Stranger On A Train” next. This is another travelogue that follows the authors trip across America. I am already packing my suitcase for the next adventure.
Strictly Come Dancing 2022 has kicked off it’s 20th series. Fifteen new couples took to the floor last weekend hoping to dance their way to the glitter ball trophy. It would seem though that there are a few critics out there who believe the show has become too “woke” because it includes one contestant with a disability and two same-sex couples this year. Apparently that’s a “quickstep” too far for some people. In an article that appeared in The Telegraph last week columnist Allison Pearson writes that the BBC are merely box-ticking by including these contestants in this years line up.
As a huge Strictly fan, I have been for many years, I can’t help but think that she’s missed the point of the programme entirely. Full disclosure, I myself have a disability and I am a wheelchair user so this kind of response hits differently. It also disappoints me because I must admit that I too felt nervous when the class of 2022 was announced out of a fear of this response. I have been conditioned to expect certain things from some people outside the disabled community and to value others comfort level over my own. I am ashamed to admit I let the worry of possible negative feedback get to me. In her article Pearson writes that this series the BBC are “pushing indigestible quantities of diversity down viewers throats”. She compares last seasons pairing of John Whaite and Johannes Radebe, the first male same sex couple in Strictly history to this years Giovani Pernice and Richie Anderson saying that John and Johannes “felt natural” whereas, in her opinion Giovani and Richie are “mis-matched”. In truth her opinions feel more rooted in Pearson’s very own narrow view of what masculinity really is. Don’t get me started on her use of the term “red-blooded male dancer”. Now I don’t think I should say too much more on this because I don’t want to speak on behalf of a community I’m not apart of. John Whaite does however tackle this issue beautifully on his Instagram if you want to check it out.
Pearson goes on to compare last years winner Rose Ayling-Ellis, Strictly’s first Deaf contestant who like I said went on to win the show to this years Ellie Simmons who has Dwarfism, saying that the participation of Rose felt “groundbreaking” and “required no allowances to be made” but that including Ellie Simmons is a step too far due to the height difference between her and her partner Nikita Kuzmin. Ellie is a Paralympic swimmer who has won two gold medals for Britain so I’m sure she has faced scarier critics than this. Never the less this particular comment really gets under my skin. I would hazzard a guess that Rose and Giovani’s dances did require many adaptions, both on the part of Giovani who was choreographing them and Rose who had to work twice as hard as the other contestants in order to learn the routines. What really annoys me about this type of commentary is that what Pearson seems to be getting at is that she didn’t have to see those adaptions last year but this year she does. In other words it’s OK to be disabled as long as it’s not too visible and it’s OK to be LGBTQ as long as it’s not too obvious. It’s OK as long as you are not making people outside those minority groups feel uncomfortable. Disabled people are not here solely to make non-disabled people feel at ease or to figure out what is just disabled enough in order to make it digestible for others. Why do we have to compare these two ladies or John and Richie and pit them against one another when we could just root for them instead?
Pearson calls Ellie amazing and inspiring yet she still doesn’t deem her worthy of a place in the competition because it might make some viewers uncomfortable or concerned as to how she will manage certain types of dances. There can be many parts of having a disability or a long term illness that involve feeling uncomfortable sometimes. So let me assure the nay sayers that discomfort doesn’t kill you and it will pass, as soon as we all get used to the idea that there are people in the world that don’t look like us. Also if feeling uncomfortable was the real issue here then I think we would all have changed the channel years ago. There is some times nothing more discomforting then watching non-dancers attempt to get their limbs to cooperate in time with the music particularly during the first few weeks of Strictly. I have watched some routines through my fingers over the years or in certain cases from behind my couch. If Pearsons concerns were really about the quality of the dancing then she would have reviewed the other celebrity contestants during the course of her article. Instead her comments, with the exception of one disparaging remark about English football manager Tony Adams, were reserved for the three “diverse couples” only.
I feel as though all the “adapting” is always left up to those of us in minority groups. It might be nice if occasionally its the audiences job to adapt to seeing people on screen who don’t always look like them. Maybe think about, particularly the young audience members watching at home seeing people like them being included and celebrated on national television. That can makes a huge impact and help people to feel less alone. I remember feeling so proud to watch Rose lift the glitter ball trophy last year. Even though we both have very different challenges it felt like a win for all of us. That’s the power of representation and why it matters. If you don’t believe me all you have to do is watch the reaction videos online of the young black girls seeing the new trailer for “The Little Mermaid” for the first time. It’s not like we want to take up all the room, but maybe if others could just move over a little and allow us to share the space for a change that would be nice.
Pearson describes herself and many of the Strictly audience as middle aged and says that she feels as though they are being “struck over the head with a diversity mallet.” Personally I give the public more credit but might I suggest if you have reached middle age and the inclusion of three “diverse” couples out of fifteen is all together too much for you than perhaps it’s high time you were figuratively, hit over the head with it. We regularly hear celebrity contestants on Strictly being asked why they wanted to take part in the competition, often they will say they wanted to step outside of their comfort zone. I recommend that Pearson and those who share her opinions do the same thing while watching the show this series. You never know as well as being entertained we all might learn a thing or two about humanity. Or alternatively, if it is as Pearson writes and “valuing inclusion” is a bridge too far for some then they can always change the channel. The search for programmes that don’t represent minority groups is unfortunately not a difficult one. As for me if anyone needs me, I will be found glued to my television set every Saturday night willing them all on and receiving my weekly dose of much needed joy. I look forward to seeing what the class of 2022 has in store for us. It is my hope that most of the viewers will leave their judgements at the door and just enjoy the show.
Word of the Day 