A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in a Skip, by Alexander Masters

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finding vivian maier

An odd and quite wonderful little book. 

One day in 2001, a friend of the author found 148 diaries in a skip at a building site.

Some years later, the books were handed on to Masters, author of the multi-award-winning biography Stuart: A Life Backwards.

What followed was a five-year investigation into the identity of the person only referred to as “I” throughout.

There are strong echoes of the film Finding Vivian Maier, about a collector who came upon a box of Maier’s photos and negatives after her death and turned an unpublished and unknown street photographer into a celebrated artist.

Except that what Masters finds in his case is not necessarily a case of a lost genius.

The diaries begin in 1952 when “I” is 14 and continue into the ’90s, covering home and school life, love and disappointment.

Masters’ investigative techniques are eccentric at times and are complicated by the fact it’s not certain how much concrete detail he really wants to uncover.

Nevertheless, bit by bit he starts to find out who the mystery diarist was (with one final big surprise at the end).

This is a delightfully strange little book that is less about the content of the diaries as the path Masters takes to uncover what lies at the heart of this extensively recorded life.

This review first appeared in the Herald Sun’s Weekend magazine. The book was published in May 2016.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven, by Chris Cleave

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London Blitz, siege of Malta

A beautiful book, and in my opinion by far the best thing Chris Cleave has written.

This is a book about WWII – but it’s one that pays little attention to Hitler or the Germans or big-picture politics.

Largely set in the London of the Blitz and the siege of Malta, its sense of place is powerful and almost claustrophobic – people are being bombarded and killed, they’re starving and tired and barely able to cope, but still they keep going.

And they do it with cheek and wit – the conversation is sharp and funny and helps them forget they’re afraid.

Mary, the wealthy daughter of an MP, is determined to step outside her privileged life and accidentally finds her calling as a teacher.

Her class is a bunch of children – black, crippled, “different” – who were rejected by everyone when the school was evacuated to the countryside.

She falls in love with her contact at the Education Authority, Tom, until she meets his best friend Alastair, who joined up as soon as war was declared.

The love story, while having its predictable elements, is freshened by a range of unexpected twists, as befits the origins of this story.

The characters are loosely based on Cleave’s grandparents, and perhaps that is why they felt so real, and why we care so much what happens to them.

Cleave, who has won and been short-listed for several major book awards, focuses on courage, class, love and prejudice. The result is moving and funny and wonderful.

This review first appeared in the Herald Sun’s Weekend magazine. It was published in May 2016.

Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen, by Alison Weir

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henry VIII, tudors

This is clearly where the Real Housewives got started. Our fascination for these Tudor wives seems endless.

Henry VIII and his six wives must have spawned more books, films and TV shows that just about anyone else in history.

It’s hard to imagine there’s much new to say, but popular historian Alison Weir finds a way, as she usually does, in extensive and thorough research and meticulous detail.

She presents Katherine’s story deeply grounded in the England of the time – its everyday customs, morals and religious outlook.

The basic details of Katherine’s life are well known: she came from Spain as a teenager to marry Prince Arthur, Henry’s older brother, though he died not long after.

A few years later she married the several-years-younger Henry, and began what seemed a loving and passionate relationship, enduring many failed pregnancies while producing just one living daughter.

When it was clear there would be no male heir, Henry started on a campaign to end their marriage.

Katherine’s utter refusal to back down, her insistence that she was Queen and that Henry was her lawful husband right to the end, set England on a path that would change it completely.

For fans of the Tudors or historical fiction, this is a compelling read many will find hard to put down. I found it fascinating, while finding Katherine really annoying. CH

This review was first published in the Herald Sun’s Weekend magazine. The book was published in May 2016.

The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy

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detroit, national book award

Rich, chaotic and wonderful.

The Turners’ home, in a part of Detroit that was left desolate by white flight and the GFC, has 3½ bedrooms for the 15 members of the family – one for parents Viola and Francis, one each for the boys and girls, and the “half” for the eldest.

It is there that 14-year-old Charles (Cha-Cha) sees a “haint” – a glowing blue emanation that tries to drag him out of the second-floor window.

The haint never quite leaves him, and its arguable existence long remains a source of conflict in the family.

The Turner House looks at the early days of Francis and Viola’s marriage, and on the grown-up children trying to work out what to do with the family home, which now stands empty.

They are also planning a big family birthday party (there are so many, they are clustered into just four a year) that will principally celebrate Viola, now in her 80s and dying.

Cha-Cha has become obsessed about the haint, and the youngest, gambling addict Lelah, is trying to get her life back together, while next-youngest Troy has a secret plan to save the house.

This is a skillful debut from Flournoy, with writing that is sharp and precise and a big cast of clearly drawn, believable characters. It picked up several awards and was a finalist for the US National Book Award.

This review first appeared in the Herald Sun’s Weekend magazine. The book was published in April 2016.

My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout

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olive kitteridge, pulitzer prize

The one word that came to mind when I read this short novel was: exquisite. 

Lucy lies in her hospital bed, desperately missing her two young daughters.

She wakes to find her long-estranged mother sitting by her bed, and there she remains for the next five days.

She asks her mother to talk to her, and she obliges with tales about people Lucy once knew and the state of their marriages and lives.

Lucy’s childhood – abjectly poor, often frightening – is not discussed, nor is the rest of the family, who all show sigs of severe trauma in various ways.

Looking back on this time as an older woman, Lucy never dwells on her deprived childhood, or the terrors she faced.

The story she is telling is of her as a writer, and the things that shaped the voice she discovered in herself.

If this sounds dour, it’s not.

Strout, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, writes without a shred of sentimentality, and never gets bogged down in misery or bleakness.

Lucy lies in bed making sense of things, rediscovering and acknowledging her love for her mother with a wry and sharp-eyed humour.

This is only a short book, not much more than a novella, but it seems exactly the length it needs to be. It is a beautiful book, and I loved every word.

This book was published in March 2016. My review appeared in the Herald Sun Weekend magazine.