This Must Be the Place
Maggie O’Farrell
June 2016 | $32.99pb ** BiP Price $27.99
Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel is a story about complicated, sometimes messy lives, with well-rounded characters that you either love or loathe, sometimes both at the same time. Daniel Sullivan, a linguistics expert from New York, was in Ireland to collect his grandfather’s ashes when he met Claudette and her son on a country road in Donegal. Claudette was a famous French film star until one day she disappeared from her screen life, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. She became somewhat of a recluse, living in the Irish countryside with her son. Ten years later Daniel and Claudette are happily married with two small children of their own. Daniel is about to return to New York, rather reluctantly, for his father’s ninetieth birthday. He has always had a difficult relationship with his father, preferring his mother’s company as a child and teenager. Claudette has encouraged Daniel, while he is in America, to make contact with Phoebe and Niall, the two children from his disastrous first marriage. The meeting goes surprisingly well, despite Phoebe’s initial fury at his abandonment of them so many years before. On his way back to Donegal Daniel takes a detour to London which causes great damage to his marriage to Claudette and his relationships with all his children. Reading Maggie O’Farrell is a bit like playing chess: you never quite know where the next chapter will take you. Highly recommended. BiP staff review by Leonie
Stefan Hertmans
July 2016 | $29.99pb
Shortly before his death in 1981, Stefan Hertmans' grandfather gave him a couple of filled exercise books. Stories he had heard as a child had led Hertmans to suspect that their contents might be disturbing, and for years he did not dare to open them. When he finally did, he discovered unexpected secrets. His grandfather’s life was marked by years of childhood poverty in late-nineteenth-century Belgium, by horrific experiences on the frontlines during the First World War and by the loss of the young love of his life. He sublimated his grief in the silence of painting. Drawing on these diary entries, his childhood memories and the stories told within Urbain’s paintings, Hertmans has produced a poetic novelisation of his grandfather’s story, brought to life with great imaginative power and vivid detail. War and Turpentine is an enthralling search for a life that coincided with the tragedy of a century—and a posthumous, almost mythical attempt to give that life a voice at last.
Zoe Morrison
June 2016 | $32.99pb ** BiP Price $27.95
Alice Murray learns to play the piano aged three on an orange orchard in rural Australia. Recognising her daughter's gift, her mother sends Alice to boarding school in the bleak north of England, and there Alice stays for the rest of her childhood. Then she is offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, and on a summer school in Oxford she meets Edward, an economics professor who sweeps her off her feet. Alice soon finds that Edwards is damaged, and she is trapped. She clings to her playing and to her dream of becoming a concert pianist, until disaster strikes. Increasingly isolated as the years unravel, eventually Alice cannot find it in herself to carry on. Then she hears the most beautiful music from the walls of her house… This novel's love story is that of a woman who must embrace life again if she is to survive. Inspiring and compelling, it explores the dark terrain of violence and the transformative powers of music and love.
Liam Pieper
June 2016 | $29.99pb ** BiP Price $26.95
Adam Kulakov likes his life. He is on the right side of middle age; the toy company he owns brightens the lives of children around the world; he has more money than he can ever spend, a wife and child he adores, and as many mistresses as he can reasonably hide from them. And he is not the only one with secrets. In 1944, Adam's grandfather, Arkady, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and given an impossible choice. Now, as he is coming to the end of his life, he has to keep the truth from his family, and hold back the crushing memories of his time with one of history's greatest monsters. As a mistake threatens to bring Adam's world tumbling down around him, the past reaches for Arkady. Everything he has spent a lifetime building will be threatened, as will everything Adam and his family think they know of the world. Bold, dark and compelling, The Toymaker is a novel about privilege, fear and the great harm we can do when we are afraid of losing what we hold dear.
The Hanging Club
Tony Parsons May 2016 | $32.99pb
Max Wolfe and his daughter Scout return in the third book of the series by Tony Parsons. London is in the grip of a heatwave when the body of a taxi driver is found in the middle of Hyde Park, in a significant historical location. The police know exactly who he is after a video of his murder by hanging goes viral on the internet. Everyone is horrified and the media is in a frenzy. It is going to be an eventful summer for Max and Scout, who has just finished her first year of school. While walking home they see a homeless man outside Smithfield Market. Max recognizes the man’s voice: it is his best friend from school. What could have happened to Jackson Rose during the intervening years? They invite Jackson home to stay for a while. Was this the right thing to do? In quick succession a drunk driver who killed a child and a hate preacher are kidnapped. The police are faced with what appears to be a paramilitary group who have appointed themselves judge, jury and hangman. What is the connection between all of the victims? Who will be next? The Hanging Club is intriguing and fast-paced with great characters. BiP staff review by Leonie
