Chairing it

When in Gothenburg in 2005, at our first event ever, we were both quite pleased that Son got a question in, quite early. I think it was to Toby Litt, and the young questioner obviously had the advantage of language. Didn’t necessarily have to be a good question, although I’m sure it was excellent.

Cough.

At the latest London Book Fair a couple of weeks ago, he finally got to sit in the chair’s chair. It was still down to language. The translators have their own stuff, and there was some last minute shuffling of who did what to whom.

And I didn’t even know until this photo appeared on social media. As always, the names on the sign behind them don’t match who’s sitting there, but I believe that they are Michele Hutchison, Paul Russell Garrett and Rosalind Harvey. I am reasonably certain that the one on the left is Ian Giles. He’s always been good at talking. I shall assume that here it was good talking.

(Photo by Lauren Fletcher-Harris)

Return to my roots

I loved Brinn mig en sol, by Christoffer Carlsson. If you recall, he’s the crime writer from my past, only thirty years after me. This is his second novel set in our shared home town, and it is so much better for that, rather than a great crime novel set anywhere else. Or do I think so because I can see just about every place where there is a dead body, where they work(ed), and I know the two police stations involved, and so on and so forth? I got to walk around somewhere familiar, with people behaving in a way I would expect them to behave.

(I gather there is already a translation into English; Blaze Me a Sun. I agree with one UK online reviewer that it comes across as very American. The US readers seem to have loved the book.)

The narrator is a person very much like Christoffer who, having moved back home, starts digging into what happened the night the prime minister was murdered, when there was also a murder in the woods outside Halmstad. Why does he do this?

Police officer Sven Jörgensson ends up dedicating the rest of his life to solving the several deaths, and his son Vidar trains to be a policeman too, and he also continues to dig. It takes well over thirty years to find the answer.

It feels very true to real life Sweden/Halmstad. I would have enjoyed the plot and the characters anywhere, but it’s the fact that they brought me ‘home’ that is so special. There is not enough fiction set in my past world, but until I read Christoffer’s first Halmstad novel I didn’t know how much I needed them. The title is a quote from a poem by Elsa Grave, who even features in the book. Just a page, but it rings true, because I also have Elsa knowledge.

As people say about momentous dates, I remember precisely what I was doing on March 1st 1986. I woke up with a migraine. And many years before that, I picked bilberries at the scene of the crime.

The Three Graces

This, the latest novel by Amanda Craig, has been sheer pleasure. About three 80-year-old women in Italy, The Three Graces is the first book by Amanda I’ve read. I don’t expect it to be the last, especially now that I know that she recycles her characters, and I can find some of her people in past books.

Just this thing of finding three older women is such an unusual occurrence. I’m not quite 80 yet, but I share so much with them. Not their money, nor their grandchildren, but thoughts about life. Although it begins when middle aged Enzo shoots someone, and this continues to worry and puzzle him. His opinions on foreigners and migrants are not the best, nor is he alone in how he thinks of people who are not from Tuscany.

Ruth’s grandson Olly is getting married, and with his intended bride vlogging all the wedding preparations, the whole world is watching. Children and grandchildren descend on Santorno. It – sort of – builds up to a Mamma Mia moment. You can see what must happen, but not necessarily how.

There are dogs. One of our ladies still has a husband, whom she’d quite like to kill off. Refugees are flowing into Italy, and there is no avoiding the effects of Covid or the war in Ukraine. Both are well done; for the characters as well as for us, but not too much.

Happy and sad, this is both an amusing tale, as well as offering up many pertinent thoughts on life in general, and especially on growing old, while not being too gracious about it. Amanda is doing that thing I approve of, which is to write about what you know. In this case there is Africa, Italy, Hampstead. You feel you are in good hands.