August 25, 2025

More Summer Reading

If someone wrote a book about MY summer, it would be awfully boring to read about—all glory, no drama—but oh how lovely it’s been to experience. Last week we spent another beautiful holiday lakeside, and there was so much time for everything—being a little bit bored, even. We watched a movie every day and one day even watched two (Jaws and Puss in Boots—an incongruous mix but the latter was a nice palate cleanser). And of course, there was reading.

I started off with THE HOMEMADE GOD, which is the first book I’ve ever read by Rachel Joyce, and while it didn’t blow my mind, I enjoyed it, and the depiction of the lake in particular (and swimming) made this a very good book with which to kick off my holiday, even though my lake was in Haliburton instead of Italy. It’s the story of four adult siblings from London whose lives have been defined by their father, a middle-brow but very famous artist, and how their messy arrangements and understandings are turned upside down when he marries an enigmatic woman in her 20s, and then winds up dead at his Italian villa not long after, and his purported final painting is nowhere to be found.

Next, I read THE UPSTAIRS HOUSE, by Julia Fine, which came into my life in the most beautiful way. I happened to be in a bookshop a few weeks ago and picked up this book for absolutely no reason at all, and ITS PREMISE WAS A POSTPARTUM WOMAN WHOSE HOUSE IS HAUNTED BY THE GHOST OF MARGARET WISE BROWN. I mean, WHAT?? Could there BE a more perfect premise for a book? And how did I never hear about it, and can you imagine if I’d never picked up that book at all and shared a timeline with a novel about a postpartum woman whose house is haunted by the ghost of Margaret Wise Brown and never ever read it? I cannot imagine a greater tragedy. Even better, the book was WONDERFUL, dark and literary, about an academic whose thesis on Margaret Wise Brown and her influence by modernists like Gertrude Stein is put on hold by the birth of her first child, and things get weird after that, the novel itself haunted by Good Night Moon (itself a ghost story, if you read carefully) and The Runaway Bunny, and like any good writer herself influenced by Margaret Wise Brown, Fine resists an ending that doesn’t unsettle somewhat. This book was terrific.

And then I picked up REAL TIGERS, by Mick Herron, the third novel in his Slow Horses series, which I’m really enjoying (and it’s been reported to me by reputable sources that the TV show is even better than the book!). The series subverts spy tropes (among many tropes) and is so interesting for that, though sometimes the narrative gets very in the weeds and I’m a bit lost, which doesn’t bother me so very much (this is the case for me and any spy or mystery novel, to be honest). Anyway, I’m a fan and will keep reading—though my husband is two books ahead of me and maybe read too many at once, and suggests I space them out a bit, because it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

And then GOD HELP THE CHILD, by Toni Morrison, which kind of cemented the theme of moral ambiguity in my reading list, as all of Morrison’s works do, blurring firm lines adhered to by people who are too fond of certainty. It’s the story of Bride, born to a mother who is shocked by the blackness in the hue of her skin, and brings her up with emotional deprivation to train her for a world that is going to be hard on her, another novel that subverts the readers understanding of good and evil (that last line! Absolutely haunting…) and maybe this is the first time a reviewer has compared Toni Morrison with the Slow Horses books, but both are utterly uninterested in making their readers comfortable or confirming anything.

And then I read MS. DEMEANOR, by Elinor Lipman, whom I’ve never read before, but I found this one in a booksale earlier this year and have been saving it for a holiday. Unlike THE UPSTAIRS HOUSE, this is a not a novel whose central appeal lies in its premise, if only because the narrative is all over the place (which is kind of ironic for a story about house arrest). It’s about a woman who gets caught having sex with a junior colleague on the rooftop deck of her Manhattan apartment, subsequently losing her job and being sentenced to six months of house arrest, but it’s also about love, Polish aristocrats, 19th century cookbooks, twins and sisterhood, and the possibilities for redemption. I devoured it, and it reminded me of Laurie Colwin, which is the highest literary praise I know how to deliver.

Next up was THE BOARDING HOUSE, by William Trevor, whose novels have been a summer staple of mine ever since I bought a used copy of his 1971 novel MISS GOMEZ AND THE BRETHREN for 10 cents in the Presquille Provincial Park park store. His works are so wicked and irreverent, his earlier books in particular, a bit of a Muriel Spark presence of the devil sensibility (Toni Morrison would concur). This 1965 novel was his third book, the story of a ragtag group of tenants in a London boarding house whose plans go awry when the owner of the house suddenly dies and his will leaves two very incompatible tenants in charge of everything—a surefire recipe for chaos, which transpires. My one reservation about this book was the single character of colour, a Nigerian man called Mr. Obd, who is not gifted the same complexity as his fellow characters, who is rendered simple and childlike (and his physical features drawn in racist terms). It made me think a lot because ALL the characters in this book were hideously flawed, so in a way Trevor’s portrayal is a kind of equality, but Obd doesn’t get to be human in the same way, is a collection of cliches (and also the novel’s ending doesn’t serve him). This is not a reason to not read this book, which is such a wickedly good one, but it’s definitely grounds for thoughtful critique (and this is a problem I find it almost any British novel from its time which acknowledged that Black people even existed).

And then the sweet treat of a book by Mhairi McFarlane, who is one of my favourite romance novelists, her books having a wonderful complexity and depth of character. Between Us was published in 2023, the story of a school teacher whose writer boyfriend’s TV series has been enormously successful, and she wonders if this is part of the reason why their relationship feels stale, or if it would have happened anyway after a decade together. And then she watches the pilot of his new show and discovers painful details from her personal life have been included in the story, and other details make her wonder if she really ever knew him at all—but also a break-up would destroy their longtime friend group and she might be left with nothing. All of which is complicated when she’s called back to her hometown to help out in her mother’s pub, stirring up the same memories provoked by what she’d seen in the show, and making her face things she’s been hiding from since her childhood.

Followed by WE ARE LIGHT, by Gerda Blees, which I bought on impulse at a bookshop in Bancroft while we were away, and it’s a fascinating book, translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison, based on a true story about a commune whose members attempt to live on light and air, foregoing food, which leads to one member’s death, which is where the book begins, and the narrative uses the language of the commune of collectivity and oneness to tell a story where each chapter begins with “We are ——”, beginning with “We are night” and concluding with “We are light,” the story told from that precise point of view (which includes that of a pen, a pair of socks, the scent of oranges, the neighbours, the dead woman’s family, the detective investigating whose own daughter is suffering with anorexia which gives her work a personal edge). There is a whimsical element to the approach, but the care and precision of the perspective means there is nothing “light” about it. This is a novel about truth, understanding, perspectives, meaning-making, and also connection, the necessity of the WE (but also it’s limits). Did I buy this book because the cover fit into the very orange palette of most of my reading (DAMN YOU, MICK HERRON.) Perhaps I did, but I’m so glad I did. This was an illuminating and surprising read, and a reminder that reading off the beaten track is so often incredibly rewarding.

And my ninth book was THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, by Agatha Christie, our audiobook for the car journey, which (as usual, being no Poirot) I was completely confused by before the big reveal, but I enjoyed the ride all the same.