Books I've Read: Brotherless Night

 

My book club chose this book because it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize.  It's one of those books I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own, but I'm really glad to have read.  I know very little about the civil war in Sri Lanka, and while I've heard of the Tamil Tigers, I wasn't aware of exactly what they did, or their role in this conflict.

The book follows Sashi, a teenager whose dream is to be a doctor.  She's from a large, loving family who value education and encourage the dreams of their children.  Just as she's preparing for the exams that will decide her future, civil war breaks out and Sashi's life changes overnight.

One by one her beloved brothers disappear from her life - killed or joined up with the Tigers to fight for their people's freedom.  Her childhood friend K is also swept up in the madness and violence, rising through the Tiger ranks rapidly.

When K asks for Sashi's help, she can't refuse and soon finds herself working punishing hours in a field hospital helping an organisation she is becoming increasingly disillusioned with. So when her favourite professor invites her to take part in a women's movement, Sashi jumps at the chance even though she knows it will change everything for her.

 This is a powerful book about people who are traditionally without power - women.  Yet here, the women are the ones who demand and ultimately succeed in creating change.  But there are prices to pay and Sashi's journey vividly evokes both the bravery and the sacrifice required to force positive change.

I learned a lot about Sri Lanka and its history through reading this book which is a good thing. The politics and history of that part of the world are not things I knew a lot about - my history class studied South Africa the year the other history class studied India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - so I came to the subject matter without much prior knowledge.  I used to run films for the local Tamil society, but those were rarely political; they were usually just the same as Bollywood films, just in the Tamil language.

So I recommend this one.  it's powerful and speaks volumes to how different the world would look if women ran everything...

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

In this searing novel, a courageous young woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor as civil war devastates Sri Lanka.

Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K's invitation to work as a medic at the field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever.

Set during the early years of Sri Lanka's three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman's moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.

Weekly Goals 14-10-24

It's Jazz Festival week so it's going to be a busy one with very little time available for me to do anything much outside of work.  Especially since I start teaching at the gym this week.  Contract is signed and everything!

Which is kind of a shame because I had an awesome writing day yesterday and managed to write 2.5 chapters.  I haven't re-read what I wrote, so I'm hoping it's okay...   Getting into the really meaty part of the book now, so it's been fun to write.  I'm very much looking forward to writing the ending. I have a wonderfully emotional scene to write toward the end which it the kind of stuff I love to write.

I also think I may need an epilogue in this one too - Standing Too Close has one and it's the only time I've ever written an epilogue, but this book feels like it needs one too.

But next week will be the week to focus on that stuff.  It's a long weekend and I'm going to take an extra day so I have 4 days to myself.

So that's my week...  What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 11-10-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Well, kind of.  I am going to be working for a few hours on Sunday as we head into Jazz Festival week.  I'm not going to get much in the way of writing time this week, but I'm hoping for a couple of hours on Sunday.  I'm right in this book at the moment and I don't want to fall out of it while I'm so there.

I'm having my team from my old job over tomorrow evening, which should be fun.  It's been a while since I saw them all, so it'll be good to catch up.  I need to clean the house and do some cooking before they arrive too.  I have a delicious dish planned....

I've had some great feedback on the new book from my critique group.  They are getting out of each chapter so far exactly what I was hoping them to, so I'm feeling good about that.  I just hope it continues.  I'm not so sure that some of the stuff I've written 100% works, so I'll be looking forward to that feedback.

I've had a few more rejections for Guide Us this week.  I'm really baffled by the lack of response this one's been getting.  I haven't had a single request!  I kind of got it a little bit with Standing Too Close because the query did hint at a plot point some people might find too challenging for YA, but there's nothing like that in Guide Us.  I wonder if it's the whole religious thing.  Maybe the current climate isn't open to people questioning the church.  It's frustrating, because I know it's a good book.

On the plus side, if I manage to get it right, I think the new one is going to be even better...

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: Harlem Shuffle

 

I'm late to the whole Colson Whitehead thing, I know....  I picked this up at the library because I've heard so much about this author and it seemed wrong that I hadn't read anything from him yet.  Maybe I picked the wrong book to start with, but I really am not sure what all the fuss is about.

There's nothing really wrong with this book, but I didn't love it.  It took me almost three weeks to read which is VERY unlike me.  I just wasn't into it so much that I was compelled to get back to it any time I had a spare moment.

Set in 1960s Harlem, it's about Ray Carney, a guy who is kind of a crook.  Only kind of though.  Outwardly he's a respectable business owner trying to do right by his family and get ahead.  His cousin Freddie is a career criminal and has a bad habit of getting Ray involved.  And Ray can't say no to Freddie.

The book follows Ray across many years as he tries to balance these two sides of his life, keep his family ignorant of his more shady dealings and keep himself form getting himself killed.

The book has a colourful cast of characters as you'd expect from a story about the criminal underworld.  It also paints a vivid picture of Harlem at the time, the power players and racial tensions that seethe beneath the surface of the seemingly thriving community.

Yes somehow this book didn't quite work for me.  It wasn't gripping enough to satisfy as a crime novel, yet wasn't quite a character study or an examination of the society at the time.  It was all three and it didn't quite work as any of these things entirely.

It's a hard one for me to talk about because I didn't dislike it.  But I didn't really like it either.  I think I was actually a little bored by it, if I'm being honest.  There were some wonderful lines, but overall, I didn't find the writing to be that extraordinary.  I think I'll need to try another one of Whitehead's books - I hear The Nickle Boys is good - before I cement my opinion.

So I'm not sure if I should recommend this one or not...  Make your own mind up!

But don't take my word for it...  Here's the blurb.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

Weekly Goals 7-10-24

I had another pretty good writing weekend and managed to get through a couple of pivotal scenes.  Hoping they're as good as I think they are when I go back over them...  They're tricky ones to write because I want the reader to glean some idea what's going on, but the POV character is blind drunk at the time and doesn't know what's happening. 

I swear this book is the most challenging I've ever written....  I have really made it hard for myself!  But if it works out the way I want it to, I think it's going to be pretty powerful.  My critique group have read the first six chapters and are enjoying it so far.  And they love the characters which makes me so happy.  I love them too!

Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get any time to write over the next couple of weeks because the Jazz Festival is almost upon us and I'm working the next two weekends.  But the week after is a long weekend and I might take a day or so on either side to write.

So this week I need to get all my ducks in a row so I'm organised for the Festival week ahead.

What are your goals for the week?

Celebrate the Small Things 3-10-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I had a busy week at work this week, so I'm looking forward to having a bit of a break this weekend.  I don't have anything planned, so hoping to get some reading and some writing done.  I'm kind of itching to get back to Harley and the shenanigans he's getting up to.  Things are going to go downhill fast for him from here....

I haven't got much else to report this week.  Things will start getting busy from next weekend with the Jazz Festival, so I'm not anticipating having a lot of free time until after 20 October now.  But after that, I'm hoping to be able to take a few days off to write and finish this book.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - October

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question has me scratching my head...

Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

I don't really read ghost stories.  I mean, I know I have in the past, but other than A Christmas Carol, I can't remember any that have really chilled me.  Maybe The Woman in Black? I remember being quite creeped out by that when I read it many, many years ago.

Most of the ghost stories I've read aren't really chilling in the sense of being scary - the ghosts tend to be in the story more as a literary device than to scare.  I mean, you could call The Lovely Bones a ghost story in that the narrator is dead, but it's not the first thing I think of when someone wants me to recommend a ghost story.  Nor is Beloved, which could also be considered a ghost story.

I guess The Shining is a ghost story although I tend to think about it more as a story about a child with supernatural gifts.  But at its heart, it is a ghost story.  The hotel is definitely haunted and that's what makes the people trapped in it go mad.  

I read The Shining when I was about twelve and probably way too young to read it, but back then, there wasn't much in the way of YA books available, so once I'd read my way through the children's section of the library, I started trawling through the adult section.  And horror was what I gravitated to at that age.  I read a lot of horror for a few years there consuming all of Stephen King's books and a whole lot by an author called John Saul and books by Graeme Masterton, George R R Martin (before he wrote the Game of Thrones books), Peter Straub, Dean Koontz and others.

Yet amongst all those books, I don't remember there being many ghost stories.  But it was almost 40 years ago, so I may have forgotten... And even if they were ghost stories, I don't really remember ever being truly scared by them.  Maybe by Christine...  I know my friends and I watched the film of that one for my 13th birthday and then terrified ourselves by going outside and watching cars go by, certain they'd leave the road and come to slaughter us.

Kids!

What's your favourite ghost story?  I could use some recommendations for the spooky season.