Child 44

A serial killer is on the loose in the 1950s Soviet Union, but the authorities don't want to know. Individual police forces pin the crimes on marginalised outsiders – the mentally ill, homosexuals – or cover them up as accidents and there is no coordination between different jurisdictions. By-the-book cop falls out of favour with his superiors and gets exiled from his privileged position in Moscow to the wastelands of a factory town hundreds of kilometres to the east. Unsurprisingly he is the only person to connect the murders and, fighting against the system, he manages to unravel the crimes and find the killer.

I am being a bit unfair: there are lots of interesting aspects to the story. For example, the way the police's function is to protect the interests of the state apparatus without any pretense of protecting its citizens and the problem of reconciling the existence of crime within in a theoretically just and equitable society.

Unfortunately, too much time has been spent thinking through the twists and turns of the story, and not enough time spent on the writing. The suffering and hardship (of which there is plenty ...) doesn't feel real and the awful events don't connect emotionally. It reads like he wrote it as the screenplay for a movie. The plot and the action is all there, but the characters are lacking in depth and personality, as if waiting for the actors to add this dimension to the story.

Song for Sunday

British Sea Power – Living is so Easy

Band/artist of the week: Metric
Song of the week: Nerf Herder – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme

Song for Sunday

Metric – Sick Muse

Band/artist of the week: Darkstar
Song of the week: Darkstar – Gold

Song for Sunday

The Love Language – Heart to Tell

Band/artist of the week: British Sea Power
Song of the week: The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

I play the drums in a band called okay

There aren't many good novels about rock bands: plenty of good true stories, but not many made up ones. In fact, even after consulting my shelves I can only think of one other which I would put in that category. And that isn't even really about a rock band. It is all about the band's frontman – allegedly based on Fish the ex-lead singer of Marillion (who didn't get his nickname because of his drinking habits but because he used to spend so long in the bath when working as a forester in Fochabers) – and how his life has dissolved post-band.

Published twenty-one years apart the covers are spookily similar, but they don't have much else in common. (You can see how far cover printing technology has come in that time – the embossed vinyl effect on the more recent title is a lot more convincing.)

Toby Litt's okay are a moderately successful Canadian indie band and this is their story from school-days formation up to and beyond the death of guitarist crab twenty years later. The story is narrated by the drummer – clap (the other members are singer syph and bassist mono) – who is, handily for Litt, the most sober and self-aware of the group.

Although the book manages to stay entertaining through all the overdoses, break-ups and excesses, what really makes it a great read are the two or three key moments related, which bring a depth and humanity to the story. Plenty is borrowed and modified from well-known rock myths – the fishing obsessed band member and the giving away of a suitcase of money to name two I noticed – and half the fun is spotting the ones you know, but it only really works because of the skilful way he has created a bunch of people that seem real, not like rock stars.

Also smart is the way Litt neatly side-steps the key point of what they actually sound like, letting you hear your own soundtrack. For what its worth, I thought they would sound a bit like a cross between Coldplay and Snow Patrol. (Coldpatrol or Snow Play maybe?) Horrific I know, but don't let that put you off reading the book.

Song for Sunday

Suede – Stay Together

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

Song for Sunday

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

Band/artist of the week: Bruce Springsteen
Song of the week: Ash - Uncle Pat

Song for Sunday

Broken Records – A Darkness Rises Up

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Mogwai – 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong

Ordinary Thunderstorms

There is a great book in here waiting to get out. Unfortunately this isn't it. Don't get me wrong: I am a big fan of William Boyd and have read almost all of his novels. Unfortunately enjoying all the others more than this one.

My favourite of his novels is Armadillo and Ordinary Thunderstorms sounded like it came from a similar vein, so I was looking forward to this one. Literary thrillers usually work best with a certain amount of suspension of belief, but even allowing for that the plot is just too full of implausibilities and there are too many annoying little errors for it to be a complete pleasure like Armadillo.

Straight off we are confronted with the main character – climatologist Adam Kindred – behaving totally out of character. Or, to be honest, behaving totally unlike any rational person in the world would. And since the whole book flows from this one incident that is a bit of a problem. Boyd works hard and has clearly put a lot of thought into trying to justify Kindred's behaviour, but it still doesn't ring true. Things do improve from here, but there are too many convenient, clearly flagged events and situations which later turn into key plot devices and much of the plot seems forced and dependent on setting up an already mapped out narrative.

There are lots of great bits: the way he works the Thames throughout the book from the opening scene through two deaths and on to the very last pages, the Church of John Christ, Mr Quality and Adam's love interest – the (lovely) Rita, river policewoman who lives on a decommissioned navy vessel moored at Nine Elms Pier.

The innocent bystander caught in a big conspiracy and fleeing for his life isn't a new idea, but Boyd uses the contemporary London setting to bring a new slant, highlighting and raising lots of interesting points about society, politics and our global economic structures on the way. I have come to the conclusion that he isn't capable of writing a bad book, but it is a shame that the flaws and problems with this one means that it doesn't match-up to his best work.

Song for Sunday

Pavement – Here

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Keeping Warm

Song for Sunday

For a Minor Reflection – A Moll

Band/artist of the week: Mogwai
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Song for Sunday

Pulp – Babies

Band/artist of the week: Mogwai
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

Song for Sunday

Phosphorescent – The Mermaid Parade (Live in Copenhagen September 20 2010)

The nine-minute full on wig-out version is also superb and, if you so desire, you can download the full track here.

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

My holidays

 

Song for Sunday

Manic Street Preachers – Your Love Alone

This was one of the first videos on GoH way back in early 2008, but it never made a Song for Sunday. So remedying that fact and in anticipation of their new 'pop' album here it is again.

No band or song of the week because we are still at the beach, but they will be back next week.

Song for Sunday

The Concretes – Good Evening

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

Gone

Right we're out of here. Time for the GoH early-Spring Summer holidays. It has been a long winter and everyone is in need of some time off and a bit of warm weather.

Not taking the blue shorts because they are too bit heavy, but that means that there is room for at least one hardback and two other books –

If you look carefully you will probably see us here.

Song for Sunday

Yo La Tengo – Sugarcube

Band/artist of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall
Song of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall – Carry On

Song for Sunday

The Clientele – Bookshop Casanova

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The KLF – Build a Fire

Song for Sunday

Rose Elinor Dougall – Carry On

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: S Club 7 – Don't Stop Movin' (what happens when the offspring commandeer iTunes to help decide what their favourite song is for Show and Tell ...)

Turbulence

Giles Foden has a knack for unearthing fascinating side stories from real events and using them to construct novels and non-fiction. He's best known for his first novel, The Last King of Scotland, where a young Scottish doctor on a medical program in Africa ends up as the personal physician to Ugandan President Idi Amin.

Turbulence intrigued me for the most part, but was ultimately a bit of let-down. It is a literary thriller, based around solving one the most intractable scientific (or more specifically geophysical) problems of the Second World War: predicting the weather over six consecutive days to allow the D-day landings to be planned and executed.

Henry Meadows is a technical officer in the Met Office who is dispatched to Argyll in an attempt to retrieve crucial information from the reclusive Wallace Ryman. Ryman is an authority on turbulence whose work is viewed as crucial to aid the forecasters in providing accurate and reliable advice to the military top brass. Unfortunately Ryman is a rationalist and a conscientious objector who is indifferent to the project and whatever information he does share doesn't seem to be particularly relevant.

The first two-thirds, set in Argyll, when Henry is trying to befriend and get the information from Ryman works well. Then the story turns on a dramatic event which seems less traumatic than it should be. Henry's breakdown after isn't convincing and the book drifts off. Although events become more dramatic, they also seem less convincing and by the end very little seems to be real.

There is also the added distraction of a tacked-on, modern-day coda running throughout which doesn't shed any light on the historical events or add anything to our understanding of Henry or his actions. The final chapter is billed as an address to a conference about the forecasting for the landings and marking the fortieth anniversary. Again it seems unecessary and contrived, as if he didn't have the confidence in the core narrative and felt that it needed something extra. It is a great story and if Foden had concentrated on getting this right, ditching all the padding and authorial tricks then it would be a far more engaging book.

Song for Sunday

50 Foot Wave – Your Ghost

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall – Find Me Out

Song for Sunday

Wild Beasts – We Still Got the Taste Dancin' on our Tongues

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains)

Song for Sunday

Clogs – Last Song

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains)

Booker longlist

No Amis. No Rushdie. No McEwen. Hurray!

The Booker Prize longlist was published last week and, although I haven't really been interested in it as prize since I stopped working in the bookshop (circa 1996), I had to take a look anyway. Just so that I could be mildly outraged by the judges narrow view of what constitutes literature and chuckle condescendingly at their predictable choices.

The last Booker winner I read was Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty in 2004 and I didn't rate that much. Life of Pi in 2002 was the last one that I actually enjoyed and before that it was Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993.

So, this year's list brought on an attack of slight incredulity including as it does two books I have already read that are fantastic (The Slap and The Stars in the Bright Sky), another that I can guarantee will be excellent (and is already on my to-read pile next to the bed – The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) and another five which I quite fancy (C, February, In a Strange Room, Room and The Betrayal).

My take on The Slap is here and I will be banging on about The Stars in the Bright Sky at some point in the near-future. The bookies reckon Parrot and Olivier in America or The Long Song are in line for the fifty grand, but that only shows what turnips they are. My pick would have to be David Mitchell for The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet because lots of people reckon he should have won in 2004 for Cloud Atlas and although the judges say they 'put aside literary reputations and judge the novels on their individual merits' it is strange how often an author's past near misses help a book's chances.* And if I was a betting man I would put some money on Christos Tsiolkas for The Slap. I just have a funny feeling that it might be his year ...

*The fact that it is historical fiction won't hurt either.