Grief

SMEDLEY HAS NO NEED TO BELONG FOR SHE HAS ARRIVED

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Inconvient Need to Belong CoverThe West Country is an area of south west Britain running from Gloucestershire in the midlands, down to Dorset on the south coast and is made up, largely, of the peninsula that protrudes out into the Atlantic, culminating at the UK’s most southerly tip of Land’s End. I have been there on holidays a number of times over the years, most recently two years ago when myself and Georgina went to Ilfracombe in Devon (see the Lancelot review on this blog in June 2018). Two years before that, we spent a week in Colyton in East Devon. It was while there on that trip, that we also spent a lovely day exploring the ancient roman city of Exeter, which features significantly in this month’s first book review. The book is The Inconvenient Need To Belong by Paula Smedley and published by Silverwood Book (www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk) in April 2020.

Alfie Cooper is an elderly gentleman living in a care home in England. Every Saturday he sneaks out of the home, while the other residents are enjoying the visits with their families. Alfie doesn’t have any family, well none he talks of. His Saturday routine takes him to the park where he meets Fred, a teenager he’s struck up a friendship with and there, while feeding the ducks, he shares his life story. From leaving his parents’ home in Fulham as a young man in post war England, with dreams of making a life for himself as a carpenter and setting up a cabinet making business to his loves, losses and friends he made Exeter during the dark days. There, he had to learn a valuable lesson, due to his lack of social skills. Then his adventures on the travelling circus and meeting his American wife Evie.  Eventually he will have to admit to a tragic of part of his life, one he hasn’t told anyone about, not even in the care home.

Fred isn’t the only person who he’ll have to cross this bridge with, as he’s just started corresponding with an online pen pal. Anne is a widow and single mum, living in the states. As well as that, Alfie’s solitary existence and Saturday disappearances have also come to the attention of Julia an Australian carer at the home. Soon she learns something about his past and starts digging a little deeper. What is Alfie’s big secret and will Julia’s digging bring closure or more upset?

Reading about elderly characters sometimes makes me conscious of, if not my own mortality, but what awaits me in my twilight years. Especially as I am due to leave my forties in three weeks’ time and as one friend put it a number of years ago, enter “Sniper Alley”. Considering I’m in good health, I’m hopefully fretting about nothing.

One book I read and reviewed previously, that did affect me negatively, was Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy. Although I’ve read a few books centred around elderly characters and loved them, including Fiona MacFarlane’s, The Night Guest.

With this book I was so bowled over by Alfie and the other characters, that I could have read it in one sitting. I actually had it read in three days and might have romped through the enthralling two hundred and ninety pages in two days, the only thing tearing me away from it was my daily afternoon ‘Lockdown’ walk, while listening to my favourite podcast.

What endeared me to the book, was the story of Alfie’s first tentative steps into the big wide world and the pitfalls associated with love, lust and how easily the young and inexperienced in life can come a cropper. But, also Smedley weaves a very lovely and richly told story of another time, when things were, if not easier, but simpler and whilst we endure a pared back life in the current pandemic, there are similarities.

Also, it’s the way the author draws you in to Alfie’s present and previous lives and then shows you a metaphorical bridge, with the mid-section shrouded in a mist. Which is revealed very subtlety, that left this reader at times fearful of what might have happened, not really wanting to see it visited upon such a sweet and gentle soul.

Yes, if I’d had a granddad alive now, I’d hope it was someone like Alfie.  As for the other characters, they’re fully rounded and very well depicted. They are also lost and struggling to find answers in their own worlds and with real and very believable existences. The whole story shows great promise from a debutant author.

Paula Smedley Author Pic

Paula Smedley

This is English author Paula Smedley ‘s (@_paulasmedley) debut novel. She started writing at a young age, winning acclaim for poetry and short stories. An extensive traveller, Paula has encountered vigilantes in Nigeria, escaped post-tsunami radiation in Japan, partied in a favela in Rio de Janeiro and left her debit card in a cashpoint in Sri Lanka. She currently lives in London with her husband.

Overall, this is a beautiful tale of love, loss, and regret. But in amongst all that, the author has mixed fun and happiness and rounded it all off with some very well-timed twists.  Overall this book makes an ideal book group selection as well as an excellent recommendation for just about anyone.

So, at the next opportunity pop into your local book shop or order a copy online and go feed the ducks with Alfie and Fred.

 

Reviewed by Adrian Murphy

 

This review is part of a Random Things blog tour, to see what the other reviewers thought, visit their blogs listed below. Then if you get a copy, comeback and tell us what you thought, we’d appreciate the feedback.

FINAL Inconvenient Need BT Poster

MARTELL DELIVERS THREE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL TALES FROM UP IN THE MOUNTAINS

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High Mntns of Portugal cvrI’m no stranger to the Iberian Peninsula, having been there numerous times with my family on holidays when I was growing up. Then with a good mate in my early twenties. After that a girlfriend dumped me midway through another holiday there in my early thirties, by a poolside in front of fellow sun worshipers stretched out on sun loungers – classy. Then, last year I went there on my honeymoon.

I’ve never been any further north than the Algarve not even to its beautiful capital city of Lisbon, often referred to as the San Francisco of Europe because of its Golden Gate styled bridge and cable cars. Neither am I acquainted with any of Portugal’s mountains. To be honest there aren’t really any. The highest Portuguese mountain isn’t even on the Portuguese mainland but in the middle of the Atlantic, on the Azores. The highest point on continental Portugal is Torre “Tower” at 1,993m and that’s the highest point in a mountain range, not an individual mountain so you can see why there was some smiles when we discussed this month’s second book at our recent book group. It’s the High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel – published by Canongate (www.canongate.tv)  in 2016.

The book is basically a compilation three novellas the first one entitled “Homeless” follows the exploits of Tomas a grief-stricken archaeologist as he goes in search of a religious icon, over his short Christmas holidays. The artifact in question is a crucifix with monkey on it brought from Africa by a long dead Portuguese missionary. To help him in his search, his wealthy uncle entrusts him with one of his prized new-fangled automobiles, something he has never encountered before, let alone driven. The second story tells of a Pathologist who is asked to perform an autopsy on a man by his widow, when  she turns up at his offices late at night with the deceased in a large trunk. Finally, a Canadian politician, retires to Portugal after the death of his wife with a monkey he bought from sanctuary, to start a new life in his ancestral home in the last tale.

If you’ve never read anything by Yann Martell, then this book is going to feel a bit weird. But if like me you you’ve had the experience of reading his work before, then it’s going feel a bit like par for the course. However, this book is straight out of left field even by Yann’s standards.

Yann Martell

Yann Martell

One thing you should be made aware of from the outset is that Martell has a fascination with Animals – especially monkeys. The Life of PI features a Tiger, Orangutan, Hyena, Zebra and boy in a life raft… Beatrice and Virgil, explores the relationship of a writer and a taxidermist and two of his prized works; a donkey and monkey. Then again, in the High Mountains of Portugal he places monkeys in all three stories.

Regarding the three stories, the first one is humorous  in the main – especially when we observe Tomas trying to get to grips with the art of driving after a very brief 5 minute lessen from his uncle and his manservant. His run ins with the locals who are both scared, bewildered and in awe of this new contraception. Then his exploits in making sure he can get fuel for the car is the wilderness that is the uplands of north eastern Portugal, the ending has a tragic event which had the book group divide as to whether it was deliberate or an accident.

After the brevity of the first story, the second one entitled “Homeward” is a real head scratcher and had me thinking I was reading the script to an episode of the British TV series “Tales of The Unexpected” or similarly, “The Twilight Zone”. But the twist at the end is fantastic and considering the first half of the story centres on a discussion between the central character and his wife on the parallels between Agatha Christie and the miracles of our lord, near the witching hour on new years eve. I was almost falling a sleep but the autopsy it self had me sitting bolt upright again and not knowing whether to laugh or cry after it.

As for the third and final story called “Home”,  which follows the ups and downs and the Every which way but loosewacky events of the previous two stories, this is straight out of the Disney school of how to write a heart wrenching and emotional feel good animal story. It’s ‘Lassie-esque’, with the theme of the film “Every Which Way But Lose” driven straight through it. Images of Clint Eastwood and Clyde were stuck in my head while reading it.

This is Canadian writer Yann Martell’s (www.yannmartel.ca ) 8th book, the others being The Facts Behind The Helsinki Racamatios(1993), Self(1996), Life Of PI(2001), What Is Stephen Harper Reading(2009), Beatrice & Virgil(2010) and 101 Letters To a Prime Minister(2012).

Just to add to the Twilight Zone feel of this book is the discovery gradually that all the stories are linked in a roundabout way, this in turn adds to the appeal of the book.

The thoughts of the book group, where divided. None of them bar one person, myself, recognised a  theme running  throughout, grief,  The whole book is an examination of how different people deal with it. Everyone at some stage in their life experiences loss, and no two people go through it the same way. Myself included. It was quite by coincidence that the 18th anniversary of my father’s passing occurred while reading the book.

It’s strange that this book had me feeling quite apprehensive at the start, going on the experiences left over from Beatrice and Virgil. It took me to heights and places I’d never felt Martel’s work could do. As a result, I now see his work in a new light, making me want to give his other unread works a go. So if you fancy tripping the light fantastic and finally getting into the mind of this author, download a copy or get down to your local bookshop and begin a fantastic journey.