A song of praise for Carys Bray

The third and final in a series of articles on the novels shortlisted for the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize discusses A Song For Issy Bradley, written by my now-Twitter-pal Carys Bray. Spoilers as always.

I picked up Bray’s novel in a library. My first library book since university, I stared at the cover and decided to read a few chapters before I checked it out and made any real commitment. 

Instantly I knew this was a very different book to the other two shortlisters I’d reviewed. The content was drastically different. It was less female-centric, for starters, and it was going to teach me about something I really had very little grounding in before. The Mormon faith.

The religion and its practices almost take on a character of itself in the novel. You see how it behaves and what its features are, how it affects people – whether it’s a hero or an anti-hero is open to interpretation. Does it save or capture? Who can tell?

The thing that shone through in this novel is the first-hand experience of it all. The fears, experiences and thought-process all seem to come from a very real place. So when the worst happens, my grief to what was a fictional event, felt very, very real. And when expressing that fact on twitter, I got a very real response from the woman responsible.

Great community spirit Carys. 

What I liked so much about this was how I really wanted these characters to be OK. I didn’t feel particularly strongly that I liked or didn’t like any of them, I just felt the human will of community driving my wish that they’d be OK, they’d make it through their grief and their heartbreak and they’d be a family again. And, more than that, how I was fascinated by how they dealt with it in terms of their faith.

I finished Bray’s the quickest out of all the Desmond Elliot shortlisters, and that stands as a testament to how much I enjoyed it. Touchingly sensitive and emotionally compelling, A Song For Issy Bradly was my favourite of all three.

Read my opinion on representations of women in the competitor for the prize, Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing, or check out what I thought of 2015’s prize winner Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller.

Claire Fuller's endless enrichment of female character

The second in a series of articles on the novels shortlisted for the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize discusses another debut, Claire Fuller's award winning Our Endless Numbered Days. Spoilers as always.

The story of my connection with Our Endless Numbered Days begins in June 2014, eight months before it's UK launch. That month, I received an email inviting me to a job interview, which I aced, accepted the job, and began working. The woman who emailed me was on holiday when I started the position, but two weeks later I met the person who originally vetted my application – Claire Fuller.

Which puts me in a rather unique position, one which I haven't been in before when talking about, well, anything. But, if my literature degree taught me anything, it's that the author doesn't really have much impact on a book. Except the writing part, of course.

Our Endless Numbered Days: title inspired by an obscure band's album (how very Winchester), winner of the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize, and dramatic, genre-bordering thriller.

Quick plot summary: when Peggy is eight, her father – essentially – abducts her, taking her to an abandoned Hütte in the middle of absolute nowhere, or somewhere in Europe, as far as we can tell.

The novel is told entirely from Peggy's point of view, firstly from her eight year old self, up until she's 17. And for me, this is what I found most gripping.

Firstly, I like to think that Fuller (can I call her Claire? I know her as Claire) Claire chose her protagonist's gender based on more than personal experience. Take a moment to imagine if the abducted child was a boy.

The differences aren't vast at first – male and female eight year olds are quite similar in their physical and behavioural development – but I wonder if the father would even have taken a boy? Boys aren't as vulnerable as girls, or as delicate. With a female protagonist, she can remain under her father's rule no matter what. He will always be physically superior. With a male protagonist, he will eventually grow stronger and become an alpha. No matter the bond, a boy is far more likely to dominate eventually. And, if it was a boy, the ending would be very different.

Secondly, the development of the character would have taken a different turn indeed. Let's not forget, Peggy is in the woods during the most intimate physical development of her life – puberty. As a female reader – who's a practical thinker even in the most fictional of times – I couldn't help but think of questions like, what happens when Peggy gets her first period? Foliage sanitary towels?!

In this sense, readers are a lot closer to her sheer vulnerability and the extent of how feral her father has forced her to be. It's a far more impactful passage to read rather than a sentence about an awkward morning boner.

And finally, let's talk hair. Well, by that I mean enforced standards of beauty in the Western world.

Claire really effectively paints a portrait of the importance of beauty standards through what Peggy has missed out on. When she returns home, choosing clothes is a subject which absolutely baffles her. Peggy doesn't have any idea about beauty or about all these standards for women, because she hasn't learnt them. She hasn't needed to know how to brush her hair to survive, or how to accessorise. They weren't skills which would keep her alive throughout cold winters. In fact, they're entirely unnecessary. But only when she's in the Western world that she's subjected to comments on her appearance. There's a lot of this kind of comment on YA fiction at the moment, just take a look at The Hunger Games. In fact, I'd like to think Peggy and Katniss could be friends.

It's really refreshing to tear into a novel which so breaks the convention of women, especially young women, in literature. And following Peggy's development is more than fascinating, it's a complete breath of fresh air to see her emotional, mental and physical progression in such a unique environment. Despite the novel's self-limited environment, number of characters and subject matter, Peggy's character is so rich and unique, it's no wonder it won the Desmond Elliott Prize.

My copy looks like this. Yes it's signed. Yes, I went to the book launch. #humblebrag

Read my opinion of other representations of women in competitor for the prize, Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing.

Elizabeth is Missing; or just prone to the female condition

The first in a series of articles on the novels shortlisted for the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize begins with Emma Healey's debut bestseller, the wonderfully acclaimed Elizabeth is Missing. Spoilers as always.

Praise for Emma Healey is exactly right. Like everyone says, for her to so intricately imagine, and write, from the perspective of an elderly woman with advancing dementia is incredible. And frightening.

To reach out to an audience of younger people who are increasingly frustrated and fearful of the elderly and becoming old, and make them see the other side in such a plain way is really something special. And is doubtlessly the most fascinating and important thing to take away from Elizabeth is Missing.

When it comes to plot, it isn't necessarily the most complicated but how can it be when the protagonist can't remember her own name? I regret to say that the endings are a little more predictable than I would've liked, however maybe this is intentional, there's a good chance Maud has known all along about the fate of the missing women.

Which brings me onto my next point. Missing women. Healey seems to really shine a light on female vulnerability in this novel, in so many ways. Portrayals of vulnerable youth, elderly, mental, physical, social situation.

Healey demonstrates how women are prone to physical decay, mental trauma, and even death. In fact, three women die in the novel, one presumably at the hand of her husband, one of physical health and another knocked down in the street – each death centre to the plot. Considering that women are supposed to live longer than men, this seems like a lot.

But then again, Healey presents a very female-centric world, with the main character's immediate family consisting mostly of women. Women are represented as the centre of the family, dutifully bound to look after their mothers, sisters, daughters, whether they like it or not. While the men seem to leave and live as they please, disobeying the law, migrating to other countries, dying of old age, etc. It's a world that doesn't seem fair, and yet it seems accurate – so it's hardly going to be the feel-good novel of the year.

It's not that the men are ever portrayed as evil, or the women even particularly downtrodden, it's just a saddening portrayal of the human condition. It's sad to see Maud as a young girl while the reader knows she can barely remember her identity in the present. It's sad to see Helen struggling with caring for her while still trying  – singlehandedly  – to raise a family of her own. And it's sad that this exact scenario is happening to so many families as I type.

It's easy to see why Healey's debut became a bestseller. It's relation to crime fiction, readability and portrayal of dementia is at times comic and always heartwarmingly charming. It challenges first-person narration in a topical light and for that I would recommend it to anyone having to deal with dementia – in any shape or form. So let me try and forget that this novel reinforces the vulnerability of women, because that's not the point. Right?

Gilligan's desert: barren of women

Spoiler alert, as we take a look at the women - or lack thereof - in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

It's a man's world. Well, it certainly is with Netflix's greatest hits so far.

Let's take a look at the IMDB summary pages for the cast of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (respectively) and play 'Spot the Women':

Breaking Bad series cast

Better Call Saul series cast

Women make up 18.75% of these screenshots: out of 16 lead characters, only three are female.

Vince Gilligan, then, does not believe the genres of crime and drama, and subject matter including law and a meth-empire, are feminine topics.

But if you scrap that and look at the women that we do have, we would see only dependent figures. Junkies, girlfriends, wives.

Marie Schrader is the perfect example of this. She's dependent on her family - her husband Hank and her sister Skyler for companionship - and on her own addictions: shoplifting, therapy. As an independent character, she doesn't contribute much to the plot, aside from being Skyler's sister.

And look at Jesse's trail of girlfriends, either dependent on drugs or depended on by their children.

Skyler White, long-suffering wife of her self-absorbed, bitter husband, is the only female who really bites back. The power struggle between Walter and Skyler is something that really needs to be examined in greater detail, but ultimately breaks down to this: Skyler still loses.

Skyler is silenced by Walt, overpowered, beaten down. And in the end, she acts on instinct to save herself and her children. We learn that in a world where men like Walt rule, nobody wins.

Did Gilligan think twice about this in his more recent series?

Better Call Saul presents another idea of women. Opening with a line about "talking dirty", Kim Wexler is the beauty with a brain. Lawyer extraordinaire, Kim appears in every episode of the prequel, but I struggled to remember her name when asked. Her sexual/intellectual persuasive ability is something we're more used to seeing in a female character. But again she seems to have little affect on the overall plot of the series. And seems to be the only active female character in a desert of men.

So, where are all the women? Probably prepping for the launch of Orange Is The New Black, but hopefully they're all doing something sensible, law-abiding and staying well out of the way of these pricks.