February Culture Wrap Up

03/03/2021

I only began writing this blog last year, during our first lockdown (at the time I just called it ‘the lockdown’) so, generally, my reviews or wrap ups tend to be very book based. If I were writing in the before times the blog would instead be chock a block with theatre trips or stand-up comedy nights. I watched a little of the livestreams and recorded shows made available in the past year and have been impressed with the speed at which creatives got up and running. However, for my husband and I, often they were a reminder of what we’d lost and sent us hurtling down a rabbit hole of pondering what the future of our careers might look like. So, although I earmarked numerous shows to support and ones I’d missed live and was elated to see offered digitally, ultimately I only watched a handful of them. Now, perhaps it’s the fact that live shows don’t feel too long away or maybe it’s simply that I miss theatre all the more after so many months away that I’ll take whatever I can. Either way I’m dipping my toe back into the digital world and feeling excited about it! I’ve got a few things lined up to watch but do pop any suggestions my way! In the meantime, here’s February’s wrap up!

BOOKS:

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor - ★★★

My husband’s 2021 resolution was to get back into reading. He used to be a huge reader but doing it as a hobby has been decimated by his work schedule over the last couple of years. So he bought two copies of Reservoir 13 (Jon McGregor is one of his favourite authors) and we hacked away at reading it together, sometimes out loud and sometime setting a certain number of pages to read separately before discussing. It took a bit of getting used to but we’re now onto our fourth book and it’s been a lot of fun. Though this was the first book we began together, we did actually put it aside to read Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte before returning to finish. Although McGregor’s writing is beautiful, it’s not plot driven which means we didn’t find ourselves rushing to pick it up each night. Reservoir 13 bemused us for a while. The descriptions of the village through the seasons were gorgeously lyrical and the way in which McGregor dropped us in and out of different characters’ situations over time was uniquely intriguing to me. However the inclusion of so many storylines meant that I struggled to really connect with any one character. Every time something intrigued me we were soon whisked away to someone else’s life. At the time I often found this intensely frustrating, as though the author was actively railing against me getting absorbed into his book! Weirdly though, now finished with reading it, I keep finding myself thinking of the novel with pleasure, recollecting this village I spent so much time in. I see the people and the place spread out before me and I feel almost as though I too lived there, grew up with these kids and still wonder about the mystery of the missing Becky Shaw.

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward - ★★★

On paper this book was everything I like. A family saga, an actress, sexuality, relationship drama. And set on a cruise ship! Plus, it was a Reese’s Bookclub Pick and I’ve only previously had one dud from her choices. But alas it wasn’t to be. For me The Jetsetters fell quite short of what I was hoping for. The first couple of chapters I was there for, absolutely, 100%. Ward sets up the story really well and I thought the formatting of the book over each day of the cruise was great too. A cruise ship is at once a pleasure dome and a painfully claustrophobic arena and Ward really ekes out all the tawdry glamour and forced confrontations that such a location offers up. Each sibling is deeply impacted by their unpleasant childhood (due to their now deceased alcoholic father Winston) and each is also struggling with their own present day lives while their mother is desperate to reunite her family and find herself a lover. So juicy! Ultimately though there was just way too much going on for me to feel that Ward explored any one aspect of the novel in sufficient detail. There were some really exciting set-ups that fizzled out, huge moments that felt underplayed and so often parody was offered up in the same breath as genuine drama.

The Evidence Against You by Gillian McAllister - ★★★★

This was my second Gillian McAllister book and she has such an individual style. She writes thrillers with solid twists that I never see coming and her novels always have such a family-centric setting that I love. In The Evidence Against You Izzy’s father is released from jail after serving time for the murder of her mother. Having since married a police officer and cut herself off from anything to do with the crime, Izzy suddenly finds herself examining the evidence and fostering a new relationship with her father. I thought this was a really good examination of familial ties and love, with Izzy a lovely, likeable and realistic central character. Though the twist wasn’t quite as shocking as in How To Disappear, it was really intriguing and I found myself trying to puzzle it out right up to the end.

Luster by Raven Leilani - ★★★

Since reading Luster it’s made the Women’s Prize 2021 Longlist. This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, not because I particularly loved it but because I do think that there’s something unique and exciting about it. Though I personally struggled with numerous aspects of the book, I couldn’t fault the writing which I found consistently precise and galvanising. On numerous occasions I stopped to savour a turn of phrase, luxuriate in a certain description or, just as often, wonder if I correctly understood what the author was saying. Really, it was the story that I didn’t much care for. Edie, a young black girl, finds herself in a relationship with a married, older, white man - Eric. When she’s evicted from her property she finds herself living at his family home, along with his wife and adopted black daughter. I think that the story is very far from anything that I understand or see myself in, and this may be part of why I didn’t particularly love it. There were moments when I found myself intrigued and wanting to read on, to know more but these were infrequent. Generally I felt like Leilani’s style of telling the story kept me on the periphery of it, never quite privy to enough of the relationship between her and Eric to understand enough of the attraction or developments. I really liked the relationship that evolved between Edie and Eric’s daughter Akila and I also loved the importance of Edie’s art within the novel. I’ve seen a lot of reviews that said the book was, amongst other things, funny. It wasn’t for me. Mostly I found it quite a depressing read and it’s this sadness that’s stayed with me. I did however enjoy the author Raven Leilani’s Radio 4 interview with Elizabeth Day and definitely think I’ll be listening to more discussions of the book now that I’ve read it.

A Place for Everything: My Mother, autism and me by Anna Wilson - ★★★★★

My favourite book of the month! I’ve written a full review about how much I loved it so I won’t witter on here again. You can read the review HERE. Suffice to say that it wasn’t an easy read, it was very very sad at times but I found it a really interesting and shockingly in depth exploration of mental health and illness as well as a love letter to carers and the work they do.

THEATRE/LIVESTREAM:

Hymn by Lolita Chakrabati, Directed by Blanche McIntyre - Almeida Theatre

This was such a delight. Blanche McIntyre’s direction of Hymn was exactly what I was jonesing for. In opposition to the recordings of National Theatre shows it was stripped back, simple. On an almost bare stage two men (played by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapani) meet at a funeral and one makes a shocking confession. Over the next 90 minutes they talk, argue, play piano, sing and dance as family secrets unravel and relationships rebuilt. At the end they bow to silence in the empty theatre space, don masks and dance offstage. There’s no pretence that anything is normal but that’s fine. The understanding that these two actors are turning up night after night to perform to an invisible, international audience in real time is magical in itself. More please!

PODCASTS:

Well, I was going to recommend The Test Kitchen, a series produced by the team at Reply All about the racism behind the scenes at Bon Appetit magazine. However it has been discontinued after two episodes after, as yet unexplained, allegations about the hosts themselves were exposed. All very confusing and very dramatic. So, I mean, you can listen to the first two episodes but there’s probably no point.

Garrett Millerick, Jayde Adams and Red Richardson have a new podcast called Laughable where they discuss ridiculous news stories that joyfully have nothing to do with Covid. I listened to the first episode and laughed as Jayde attempted to explain well, most things, to Garrett.

My Dad sent me the link to BBC’s The Food Chain episode about sourdough starters and it was surprisingly lovely. Well worth a listen.