Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury, 2011) This is an exuberant book, as funny and original as its 11 year-old narrator, Harrison Opuku. He has recently arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, leaving his father and baby sister behind ‘to sell the shop.’ Harri quickly picks up the ‘language’ of the sink estate tower block he lives in, with all the verve and curiosity of the smart kid he is. He goes to school, makes friends with a pigeon, and, secure in the strength of his mother and sister, observes - and accepts - the dysfunctional world around him. But in that external world of juvenile gangs, drugs and knife crime, his understanding of some important realities is imperfect. This is a super book for teenagers or adults - all the way to its moving ending.
Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor (Vintage, 2011) O’Connor skilfully imagines the life of Molly Allgood, former lover of the Irish playwright John Millington Synge, as she ends her days in poverty and loneliness in London in the 1950s. She thinks back to the transforming relationship of her life, and her times acting at the Abbey Theatre. O’Connor’s writing is supple, and he continues to experiment with different styles and themes in his fiction. Ghost Light was the One City, One Book choice for Dublin this year.
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber and Faber, 2010) The Lacuna follows the life and times of Harrison Shepherd through some of the seminal events of mid-20th century America, north and south. For all that, it is a quiet, reflective book - Shepherd is an observer, a companion to stronger wills than his own. He works for Mexican artists Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and the exiled Leon Trotsky, witnessing his assassination, and later lives in post Second World War McCarthyite America where, now a writer, he comes under threat for his communist associations and unrevealed homosexuality. The women are the vibrant characters in this book - his husband-chasing Mexican mother, Frieda Kahlo herself, and his American amanuensis, Violet Brown.
Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon (Random House, 2011) The latest in the ever-pleasurable Inspector Brunetti series, which we recommended last year too, all set in Venice and its hinterland. Perhaps the most unusual element of these detective stories is that the hero is not a troubled alcoholic middle-aged man with a catastrophic family life. He is indeed middle-aged, but is still deeply in love with his wife Paola (understandably, given what she cooks), and his vision of life is humane rather than cynical.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (Sceptre 2010) Much of this novel's wide scope takes place on the tiny Dutch trading outpost of Nagasaki in the 1799 Edo era of Japan: a world then closed off to the west, and a world that is almost lost to us now. A patchwork of characters (including the protagonist Jacob, a flame-haired Dutch man), cultures and languages intricately weave to create what is a finely balanced triptych of a novel. There is much to stay abreast of when reading this novel - but to do so is ultimately rewarding.
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