First novels: Catherine Taylor's roundup - reviews
Splithead by Julya Rabinowich, Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes, My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliviera and The Ground Is Burning by Samuel Black
Splithead, by Julya Rabinowich, translated by Tess Lewis (Portobello, 12.99)
Mischka is seven years old when her family leaves 1970s Moscow for Vienna and the west, in Rabinowich's charming Goodbye Lenin-type debut. Accompanying Mischka, her warring parents and grandmother Ada, is Splithead, an unseen intangible malaise "who lives off the thoughts and feelings of others, an impassive vampire, watchful, invisible". This wilful presence also has echoes in Mischka, with her heart in the Soviet Union, head in Austria. Wry and disruptive, initially her only two words of German are "petrol" and "wolf". Soon she is top of the class, but her parents find life without communist rule disorienting and overwhelming. Eventually her father returns to Moscow and the now teenage Mischka has to fumble her way through the chaos and exhilaration greeting the end of the cold war. A clever, snappy novel suffused with comedy, proverbial wisdom and fairy tale.
Into the Darkest Corner, by Elizabeth Haynes (Myriad, 7.99)
From its uncompromising prologue a young woman being bludgeoned to death in a ditch Haynes's powerful account of domestic violence is disquieting, yet unsensationalist. It is 2007 and Catherine is living alone and paranoid in a London flat. Her chronic OCD means she constantly checks that the doors are locked and the windows secured. The narrative flashes back to 2003 and a different Catherine is revealed outgoing, vivacious, clubbing with her girlfriends in Lancaster every weekend. Her quickly all-consuming relationship with Lee, the perfect romantic, gradually turns into a horrifying tale of abuse, isolation and attempted murder. Now, in 2007, Lee is being released from prison, just as Catherine begins to build a future with new partner Stuart. Haynes won't be winning any prize! s for li terary style but this is a gripping book on a topic which can never be highlighted enough.
My Name Is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliviera (Fig Tree, 12.99)
Despite her worthily declarative title, Oliviera delivers a superior, well-researched piece of historical writing, strongly controlled and short on sentiment. It's the eve of the American civil war in Albany, New York, and the wealthy Sutter family is poised to participate. Headstrong Mary is already a renowned midwife, yet she aspires to be a surgeon unheard of for a woman. Both her former sweetheart Thomas, now married to Mary's enticing stay-at-home twin Jenny, and brother Christian are joining Lincoln's call to arms. Mary runs away to Washington to throw herself into the war effort. With the reluctant help and eventual admiration of army surgeons William Stipp and James Blevens she and we become embroiled in a sweeping, graphically detailed saga of amputations, epidemics and unspoken romance.
The Ground Is Burning, by Samuel Black (Faber, 12.99)
Black deserves plaudits for attempting an epic for which the adjective "ambitious" seems too mild. In 1502, in an Italian castle, a plausible, explosive interaction occurs between three men who will shape the Renaissance Cesare Borgia, Niccol Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci. Borgia is the inspiration for Machiavelli's The Prince, Leonardo an immortality-seeker whose most enigmatic masterpiece lies ahead of him. To a heady mix of sex, violence, intrigue and treachery is added Dorotea Caracciolo, a noblewoman kidnapped by Borgia who becomes his lover and spy. Some readers may find Black's insistent use of modern vernacular a jarring irritation, but it's a spirited, enthusiastic read, enjoyably combining evidence-based history with considerable creative licence.
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