| In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado – review |
[05 Jan 2020|07:00am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/05/in-the-dream-house-carmen-maria-machado-review Carmen Maria Machado’s account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ‘petite, blond, Harvard graduate’ lover is horrifying but beguiling “You’re not allowed to write about this… Don’t you ever write about this. Do you fucking understand me?” So said Carmen Maria Machado’s ex-girlfriend after she had unleashed a tirade of verbal abuse. Years later, Machado has written about her experience (“Fear makes liars of us all,” she notes) but perhaps not in a way anyone might have expected. It’s hard to describe exactly what this book is. Well, it’s a slightly mind-bending memoir about two young, ambitious writers whose passionate relationship sours when one begins to subject the other to emotional and, at times, physical cruelty. Continue reading...
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| Crisis of Conscience by Tom Mueller review – what drives a whistleblower? |
[05 Jan 2020|09:00am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/05/crisis-of-conscience-tom-mueller-review-whistleblowers-daniel-ellsberg-edward-snowden This study of Edward Snowden and others who exposed wrongdoing asks why things rarely turn out well for themThe whistleblower occupies an ambiguous and somewhat ghostly position in the pantheon of behavioural role models. Despised by the authority he or she betrays, the revealer of hidden corporate or governmental truths is seldom embraced as a hero by society at large. It’s true that film-makers are drawn to whistleblowers because their struggle – the little guy up against the establishment – can make for compelling drama: two fine examples being Michael Mann’s The Insider (starring Russell Crowe) and Gavin Hood’s recent Official Secrets (starring fictionalised versions of several of this newspaper’s journalists). Continue reading...
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| A Good Man by Ani Katz review – sordidly gripping |
[05 Jan 2020|11:00am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/05/a-good-man-by-ani-katz-review A man struggles to come to terms with how his perfect life has gone so badly wrong, but how credible is his story?Thomas Martin always thought he was a good man. But from the start of this debut thriller by the US writer Ani Katz, it’s clear he has ruined his perfect life and hurt “my girls”, as he refers to wife Miriam and teenage daughter Ava. That he uses this diminutive, possessive appellation is no coincidence: here is a man who considers his role to be that of protector, provider and ultimately controller of women. The term “unreliable narrator” seems like gross understatement: Thomas is slippery as an eel. He claims he’s trying to understand how things went so wrong in his successful career in advertising and life with his gorgeous French wife on Long Island. He delves into his disturbed childhood with an abusive father, suicidal older sister and creepy younger twin sisters, too. We meet these two, still living in the old family home in a state of arrested development (think The Shining meets Grey Gardens). Continue reading...
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| QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling review – a hit-and-miss riff on capitalist ills |
[05 Jan 2020|01:00pm] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/05/qualityland-marc-uwe-kling-review A scrap-metal merchant is unlucky in love and online shopping in this German dystopian comic satireA bestseller in Germany, this knockabout dystopia unfolds in the rampantly consumerist state of QualityLand, where mending is outlawed (“To make the markets fly, we just have to buy!”) and citizens are ranked by algorithm, dictating “the intensity with which the police will investigate if one is unlucky enough to be murdered”. Set against the backdrop of an election run-off between a far-right demagogue and a low-polling android advocating universal basic income, the plot turns on the Kafkaesque travails of a scrap-metal merchant, Peter Jobless, who struggles to persuade TheShop, “the world’s most popular online retailer”, to take back a pink dolphin-shaped vibrator delivered in error. Continue reading...
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