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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

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I knew Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (2017) by Gail Honeyman had been successful, but I’d no idea how successful until the book stats came out last year. This was a runaway bestseller, getting hundreds of thousands more purchases than the next novel in the list – at least according to the list I read. When my book group chose to do it, I was a little dubious. Other mammoth bestsellers of recent years have definitely been low on quality – i.e. The Da Vinci Code. Well, I was happy to be proved wrong. This is a case where I think the hype was pretty justified.

In case you’re one of those others who’ve yet to read it – the novel is from the perspective of Eleanor Oliphant, who works in finance administration and lives alone. She isn’t very at ease socially, largely because she doesn’t understand the ways that people choose to spend their time. She has very little popular culture knowledge, and tends to speak as a mix between an eighteenth-century novel and a computer manual. (Her dialogue – never using abbreviations; overly elaborate sentences – never quite made sense to me as a concept, but we’ll leave that be.)

It’s also clear that she is not completely fine.

Gradually we piece together that something traumatic happened to her as a child, and it has continued to affect the way she engages with other people. She also longs for a way out of the loneliness she experiences. It was an interesting coincidence that the epigraph was from Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, which I’m reading at the moment. Living alone definitely doesn’t have to mean loneliness, but Eleanor feels isolated from the rest of humanity. And her attempts to cross this divide are usually frustrated by her inability to understand social codes – and often not particularly liking the range of options in front of her.

This changes when she sees a handsome young singer. She realises she is in love, and destined to be with him. He will be the solution to her problems.

Honeyman takes us on a compelling journey with Eleanor, as she tries to orchestrate ways to get closer to the singer. At the same time, she has made her first friend – Raymond, a colleague who can see past her off-putting traits. At the same time, we continue to learn more about her past. Honeyman gives us enough info to guess and make assumptions, and little enough that we’re desperate to get more answers. It’s really impressively judged. So often, this sort of bread-crumb-dropping is just annoying, whereas Honeyman knows exactly how much info to give, and when. And even when I thought I’d worked it out, I hadn’t.

It’s a relatively long book, but very compelling – I raced through it in a couple of days. As mentioned, I’m not sure all the verbal tics quite made sense, but I did like that Eleanor is an anomaly but not repellent. Plenty of people in the book think she’s being funny when she’s really just answering their questions differently from how they anticipated. Her colleagues find her hard to talk to, but warm to her when she tries different approaches.

Oh, and there is the most wonderful CAT!

For a debut novel, it’s very impressive. I’m intrigued to see what comes next – and what the film will be like. It’s good to be a part of the zeitgeist sometimes!

The Overhaul #1

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One of my favourite varieties of blog post to write, or to read, is a book haul. It’s always interesting to see what sorts of books people select when many are on offer – and I love writing and receiving the comments that cheer on one of the books, or ask what a book is about.

But what happens next?

Well, I decided to start a series looking at previous book hauls, called ‘The Overhaul’. It’s a really clever pun if you don’t think about it for too long and discover that it’s kinda meaningless. In this intermittent series, I’ll be looking back at previous ‘haul’ blog posts, seeing what I have and haven’t read (and why), and generally chastising myself, I suspect. IS my brother correct that I should read the books I have on my shelves rather than buying more? All that to come. FUN.

Feel free to borrow the idea and the image, if you fancy doing anything similar. I’ll keep doing it if people like the idea and/or if I enjoy the retrospective.

The Overhaul #1

The original haul post is here.

Date of haul: July 2011

Location: Hay-on-Wye

Number of books bought: 19

Now let’s take a look at the books individually…

  • Jenny Wren by E.H. Young

I have yet to read this, though I have read a handful of other EHY books over the years since 2011.

 

  • The Vicar’s Daughter by E.H. Young

Er, see above. I should totally read some more E.H. Young. A couple have names in the title, so maybe they’ll come next.

 

  • Through a Glass Darkly: the life of Patrick Hamilton by Nigel Jones

Not only have I not read this, I haven’t even read another novel by Hamilton since 2011. C’mon, Si!

 

  • The Letters of Evelyn Waugh ed. Mark Amory

Erm, I’ve used it to rest my laptop on. Does that count?

 

  • The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Hurrah! One I’ve read! Though sadly I hated it. Lots of people really rate this many-centuries look at a nunnery, but I’m afraid I found it really dull. I held onto it, because I want my STW collection to be in tact, but I’m not sure it’ll stay forever.

 

  • Jill by Philip Larkin

Ermmm ok, I might read this for Project Names.

 

  • The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Arthur Wing Pinero

OK, I’d actually read a library copy of this before I bought it, but I’m still putting it in the ‘read’ pile.

 

  • The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski

I’d already read this too. This was a Penguin edition, which I have since discarded in favour of the Persephone edition.

 

  • The Swan in the Evening by Rosamond Lehmann

Not read it – but I have read two of her novels now, whereas I was accumulating her in 2011 and earlier without having read a word she’d written.

 

  • Safety Pins by Christopher Morley

I read this one, and in 2011 too! It’s delightful.

 

  • Shaving Through the Blitz by G.W. Stonier

AND I read this one in 2011 – observational essays from WW2, from a very unusual character.

 

  • The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

I read this one in 2012, during the Muriel Spark Reading Week that Harriet and I held (maybe it’ll be time for another before too long?) It’s Spark on strong form, about a man who arrives in town and may or may not be the devil.

 

  • A Reckoning by May Sarton

I haven’t seen this for a while, but I’m going to assume it’s on my shelves somewhere… unread.

 

  • Messages From My Father by Calvin Trillin

I’ve read three books by Trillin since 2011, but this was not one of them.

 

  • A Baker’s Dozen by Llewelyn Powys

While I never got around to blogging about this, I did read and very much enjoy Powys’ reflections on life growing up as the son of a Montacute vicar.

 

  • The Shakespeare Wallah by Geoffrey Kendal

Unread. I did start watching the film and it was terrible.

 

  • The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks

There are plenty of unread Sacks books on my shelves, but I *have* read this one! Not my favourite of his, but very interesting nonetheless – looking at an island where a high percentage of the inhabitants are colourblind.

 

  • Gin & Ginger by Lady Kitty Vincent
  • Lipstick by Lady Kitty Vincent

I think I read these almost immediately, and they’re great fun. When a book starts “No, my dear, I cannot say that I really know the Bishop of Runnymede”, you know you’re in for a treat, don’t you?

 

Total bought: 19

Total still unread: 9

Total no longer owned: 1

Marriage of Harlequin by Pamela Frankau

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Look, I try not to be the envious type. But when I discovered that Pamela Frankau had oublished 20 novels before her thirtieth birthday, I confess I was rather incensed. Checking the maths, I had zero novels published by the time I was 30. Or, indeed, subsequently.

I’d only read one of her novels – A Wreath for the Enemy, published quite late in her career. It’s brilliant. Are all her books brilliant? I decided to rewind by almost three decades, and read her very first novel, Marriage of Harlequin (1927). So, over the course of a few lunch times sat in the Bodleian, I read it.

Well, I really enjoyed it, but it does feel like an entirely different writer. I suppose that isn’t hugely surprising, since she was only 19 when she wrote Marriage of Harlequin, and didn’t have the nuanced and wry look at life that charactertised the later novel. In Marriage of Harlequin, instead, we are thrown into the whirlpool of a first love – along with a heavy dose of 1920s gaudy cynicism.

Sydney is the heroine, and we first meet her as a teenager at school. She is queen of her circle, and expecting much from life. Part of this expectation is met when she inherits a large fortune – making her quite the eligible match on the marital market. At the same time, she is writing a novel. This is where things doubtless get a bit autobiographical, and it was fun to read about this ingenue writing a novel that is snapped up by publishers – at the hands of a writer about to experience the same thing. Her novel is a big success, making her still the more eligible. In the background is her protective cousin Gerard – in her foreground, though, is a cynical 30-something man who works for the publisher. He is tired of life, has disappointed his father, and badly needs money to cover his debts. His name is Lionel de Vitrand, but he is also the Harlequin of the title. He proposes to her, and is accepted.

“I’m not going to be polite, de Vitrand. I’m warning you – I can’t stop my cousin marrying you if she wants to, but the very second you behave badly I’ll come round to your house and knock your head off.”

“How crude.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“That’s my business.”

“It’s mine too.”

Lionel yawned behind his hand. “My unworthy father’s port must be stronger than I’d imagined.”

“You’d better be careful.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

Silence. Lionel stepped from the fender on to the hearthrug, and bowed elaborately. “Well, have I your permission to retire?”

“No, you haven’t,” said Gerard bluntly. “You’re marrying Sydney for her money, and you don’t intend to be faithful to her. You couldn’t even if you did intend to, because you aren’t that sort. I’ve done all I can do to stop this business -“

He paused. Lionel said, still unmoved: “I don’t want to hit you in my house but I’m afraid I shall have to if you don’t shut up.”

“Come on, then. Hit me.”

“Unfortunately, I have a few manners. They linger, an expiring force, in uncongenial surroundings. What else have you to say?”

“Only what I’ve said before.”

You get a sense of the style, I suspect. It’s on the tightrope between melodrama and Wildean callousness. Nobody has ever spoken quite like this, but it is controlled so well that it feels deliberately stylised rather than poorly judged. Some of the weaker passages are when we are supposed to feel genuine sympathy for Sydney (because the truth, of course, comes out – though you can doubtless anticipate what happens after that). She is a bit too flimsy to warrant empathy, but certainly sturdy enough to be the heroine of a frothy, mildly melodramatic novel.

Taken on that level, Marriage of Harlequin is very fun, amusingly and skilfully written, and quite an astonishing achievement for a 19 year old. By the 1950s, she was writing much more complex, subtle novels – so I do wonder what the trajectory of her writing career was like in between.

Holidays are an exception to book-buying bans. Right?

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I’ve just been away for a wonderful week in Dorset, staying in a beautiful Georgian mansion with 24 other people. It was the best. It also involved little trips to Bridport and Lyme Regis, and those places have secondhand bookshops. I decided that holidays were exempt from my ban on buying books (that was already, let’s face it, a pretty flimsy ban). And so I bought fourteen books…

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford
I’ve been keeping my eye out for this book for years. It’s quite easy to get online, but I’d decided to wait to find it in the flesh. Thank you, Bridport charity shop.

The House by the Sea by May Sarton
I’ve got a few unread Sartons on my shelves, but this is a memoir about staying alone in a house by the sea – and that sounds irresistible to me.

Interim by R.C. Hutchinson
R.C.H. is one of those names from the early-to-mid 20th century that I have seen pop up all over the place, but have never read. (Have you?) I liked this little paperback edition, and Interim is hopefully as good a place to start as any.

The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
Again, I have quite a few Sharps unread, but I’m always happy to add to that number – and was intrigued by this one being a ‘services edition’. I wonder what an exciting life this copy has led?

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham
There is a definite theme to this haul – of finding books by authors I like, when I already have books by them waiting. I don’t have that many by Cunningham unread (one or two), so… better? Maybe?

The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau
You may remember that I wrote a blog post asking if book recommendation sites worked – and LibraryThing’s #1 recommendation was The Winged Horse. Where LibraryThing advises, I listen. Thank you Sanctuary Books in Lyme Regis for aiding and abetting.

Carnival by Compton Mackenzie
Look, yes, I have lots of Mackenzie unread. This is another. I will not be judged!

The Women’s Side by Clemence Dane
I didn’t know anything about this – though Dane is another author I have on my shelves unread, and I read a lot about her when I was researching The Book Society. This is a short book about women’s rights in 1926, from education to the vote to ‘sex and the business women’. Sounds so interesting! Totally up my street.

The Man on the Pier by Julia Strachey
I love Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Strachey. This is her only other book, so hopefully it’s just as good.

Lions and Shadows by Christopher Isherwood
I have SO many unread Isherwoods, but I couldn’t put this one back on the shelf once I’d started to flick through it. It’s a fictionalised account of Isherwood’s early writing career, and the literary scene of the 1930s. Fun, no?

Novelists in Interview ed. John Haffenden
This collection of author interviews from 1985 includes people like Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, Iris Murdoch etc. It should be an interesting look at the 1980s literary scene! So many literary scenes.

The Glass of Fashion by Cecil Beaton
The lady in Bridport Old Books was laughingly cross that I was buying this – she has a rule that she leaves everything on the shop floor for a week before buying the books she has her eye on, and I swooped in during that week. It’s a history of fashion in the first half of the 20th century through the eyes of Cecil Beaton, so how could I leave it?

Life Among the English by Rose Macaulay
English Country Houses by Vita Sackville-West
Two slim and rather lovely books by authors I love, in a series called ‘Britain in Pictures’. Er, yes please.

So I’m very happy with this haul, even if it breaking all sorts of self-imposed rules! And now I do need to give proper consideration to where all my new books can fit… or come to the realisation that they can’t.

Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake

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My friend Clare bought me Mr Pye (1953) by Mervyn Peake, and I added it to my wishlist after I saw it being compared to my beloved Miss Hargreaves – a comparison I will look into more thoroughly later in this post. Project Names seemed like a good opportunity to pick it up – and what an intriguing world and character Peake creates

I only really knew Peake’s name in connection with the Titus Groan books, which I have not read, and had assumed he was exclusively a fantasy writer. While this novel incorporates elements of the fantastic, it is set firmly in the real world – specifically Sark, one of the Channel Islands. Here’s the opening of the novel:

“Sark.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man in the little quayside hut. “A return fare. Six shillings.”

“A single, my friend,” said Mr Harold Pye.

The man in the little hut looked up and frowned at the unfamiliar face.

“Did you say a ‘single‘, sir?”

“I believe so.”

The man in the hut frowned again as though he were still not satisfied. Why should this fat little stranger be so sure he wanted a ‘single’? He was obviously only a visitor. A return ticket would last him for three months and would save him two shillings. Some people, he reflected, were beyond hope.

“Very well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“And very well to you, my friend,” said Mr Pye. “Very well indeed -” and with a smile both dazzling and abstracted at the same time he placed some silver coins upon the table and with a small, plump, and beautifully manicured forefinger he jockey’d them into a straight line.

Mr Pye is extremely warm and friendly with everyone, almost disconcertingly so. He doesn’t seem to quite understand the rules governing social interaction, as his slightly uptight landlady Miss Dredger soon discovers. He bustles into her life, keen to improve her through cheerfulness and advice from God – whom he refers to as the ‘Great Pal’. It’s rather endearing, and yet we understand how Miss Dredger might feel rather unsettled by the whole thing.

A mainstay in Miss Dredger’s life is her enmity with another local – Miss George. There is a very funny scene when they squabble over who will use the island’s transport to get down the steep hill – where Mr Pye’s luggage is waiting to be collected. His attempts to find a compromise do not go down well, but his personality is so forceful that they find themselves doing as he says. And then he invites Miss George to move in with them…

But while Mr Pye is having a dramatic effect on the island, there is also an effect happening to him. I shan’t say what it is, but a physical metamorphosis starts to cause him great alarm – and fans of Miss Hargreaves will notice a definite similarity at this point. Birds of a feather, and all that.

And are they birds of a feather? I can see many things they novels have in common – chiefly that an extraordinary being appears and disrupts a community, unaware that they are quite as unusual as they are. But the tone feels quite different at times, and I really liked Mr Pye where I love Miss Hargreaves.

Peake does have a great way of creating a strange dynamic and seeing what will happen next. His illustrations are also delightful, enhancing the novel’s quirkiness and charm. I can’t quite put my finger on what stopped this being an absolutely-loved-it read, because all the ingredients are certainly there. While it probably won’t be on my Best Books of 2019 list, it’s certainly a great example of imaginative character creation, a Bensonian community of genteel feuders, and exactly the right splash of the fantastic.

Candlestick Press

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I’ve been meaning to write about Candlestick Press for ages, ever since they sent me a selection of their poetry collections. And then I moved house and it didn’t happen, and here we are a whole bunch of months later. Luckily my friend Lorna gave me a copy of Ten Poem About Tea for my birthday a while go, and I’ve finally gotten around to mentioning them. (And no, she didn’t give this to me during Lent – that would be too cruel during my tea fast.)

Candlestick Press market their little collections as being ‘instead of a card’, and I think that’s a great idea. Cards have become so bizarrely expensive, considering they’re just a piece of card folded in two – and I suspect the designers and illustrators (who do deserve to be rewarded for their work) are not the ones seeing the bulk of the profits. Sending something like a Candlestick Press poetry book gets the greeting message across and won’t end up in the recycling after a few days.

They’ve done a nice job in selecting poems. I didn’t know most of the names in this one, but that is offset by Thomas Hardy and John Betjeman. I don’t know if any poems are written specially for this collection, but I love the idea of all the poems being inspired by Britain’s favourite drink. Some are funny, some are philosophical – and Hardy’s is a moving and cleverly simple snapshot of a love lost.

They do any number of topics, from bicycles to birds and breakfast to brothers. And even some things that don’t begin with ‘b’. Have a look for yourself, and see if your bookshop stocks them – I think they’re a great alternative to a card, and useful for a poetry novice like me to have a low-stakes way of reading some poems.

Some new British Library Crime Classics

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I love the British Library Crime Classics, but haven’t read one for a while – though three recently arrived through my door, and I wanted to highlight them! They all look really intriguing, and I think I might go for Death Has Deep Roots on the strength of that intriguing title…

Below is what the British Library have to say about them. And, while you’re here, you can enjoy also looking at some of my Richmal Crompton and EM Delafield novels forming a backdrop for the photo!

Death in Captivity

A man is found dead in an escape tunnel in an Italian prisoner of war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse – or was this murder? Captain Henry ‘Cuckoo’ Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case.

This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the camp, as the Second World War nears its endgame and the British prisoners prepare to flee into the Italian countryside.

Death Has Deep Roots

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. The cause of death? A stabbing reminiscent of techniques developed by the Maquisards.

While the crime is committed in England, its roots are buried in a vividly depicted wartime France. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine’s child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo.

A last-minute change in Lamartine’s defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence, with the highest of stakes should he fail. The proceedings of the courtroom are interspersed with Rumbold’s perilous quest for evidence, which is aided by his old wartime comrades.

Smallbone Deceased

Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients reaching to the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm’s reputation – especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a watchful and suspicious eye on their colleagues, as Inspector Hazlerigg sets out to solve the mystery of who Mr Smallbone was – and why he had to die.

Written with style, pace and wit, this is a masterpiece by one of the finest writers of traditional British crimenovels since the Second World War.

Which one most appeals to you?

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Is it spring? Is it not? I guess maybe? The weather as been very up and down recently, and it’s pouring with rain as I write. Hail, the other day! Oh well, books will never let us down, even if we have to heap ourselves with blankets and cats while reading. You know what else won’t let you down? The weekend miscellany. Here’s the usual trio of things to enjoy!

1.) The blog post – is Ali’s announcement of the upcoming Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, 13-19 May. Judging by the number of comments on that post, it should be very popular. I have lots of unread Daphnes on my shelf and, because of #ProjectNames, might go for Julius. Though I am a bit chary of reading it because of its reported anti-Semitism…

2.) The link – is a great article at Vulture about trying to live like Virginia Woolf, which also discusses Katharine Smyth’s brilliant All The Lives We Ever Lived (currently high in the running for my book of the year).

3.) The book – is Limbo by Dan Fox. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that I covet all of Fitzcarraldo’s non-fiction. I’ve only read one (Kate Briggs’ This Little Art, which was one of the best books I read last year) but I know I want to read more – and this one starts with a description of the Headington shark. If you don’t know what the Headington shark is, have a google – I used to live a few streets from it.

1965 Club: reminder!

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Hope you’re getting ready to pull those 1965 titles off the shelf! Karen and I will be running the #1965Club from 22-28 April – feel free to use the badge below.

For the uninitiated – every six months, Karen and I get readers across the internet to read books published in the same year, and we put together all the reviews to create an idea of what the scope of the literary year was. Post your reviews on your blog, LibraryThing, GoodReads, Instagram, wherever – in the comments of our blog posts, if you don’t have anywhere else – and put the link on our announcement posts. Once the week is over, I’ll do a round up here (and Karen is usually better than me at keeping track of all the reviews!)

If you’re in need of ideas, the Wiki page is a useful starting point – or take a look at the books I own from 1965! I’ve got three lined up that all have names in the title, killing two birds with one stone by incorporating #ProjectNames.

Happy selecting, and join us in a few weeks when the club starts properly!

Noah’s Ark by Barbara Trapido

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Ten years ago, Bloomsbury sent me a set of Barbara Trapido books for review. Ten years ago! And, yes, I read and reviewed (and really liked) Brother of the More Famous Jack back then, but it has taken me a decade to read my second Trapido – Noah’s Ark (1984). And I’m still rather unsure what I thought about it.

My first thought, as I read the opening, was how good the writing was. Here is most of the first paragraph, which I’m going to quote at length because I think she does such a good job of throwing you into an intriguing and unconventional world:

Ali Glazer was stitching up her husband’s trouser hems, but had paused to glance up at the kitchen pin board in some fascination. The photograph of a man, bearing a disconcerting resemblance to Thomas Adderley, had been torn from a Sunday magazine advertisement and pinned there by Ali’s older daughter Camilla. The girl herself had had no awareness of that resemblance which now so forcibly struck her mother and had fixed the picture there merely because she liked the man’s collarless Edwardian shirt. The man – in keeping with the clichés of capitalist realism – was manoeuvring a white stallion through a dappled glade of redwood trees and was advertising cigarettes. Ali noticed that Camilla had fixed him rather high on the pin board where he beamed out, as from a higher plane, above the two postcards pinned side by side below him. This hierarchical arrangement struck her as altogether suitable given that she had always elevated and revered Thomas, while the postcards had come from people to whom she felt predominantly antipathetic. 

I say ‘unconventional’, but I suppose Ali’s world is rigorously conventional. It is only her outlook, or the perspective that Trapido gives us, that makes it feel quirky and unusual. I was completely beguiled by that writing, and keen to immerse myself in whatever came after the first few pages – would Ali reconnect with Thomas? What would this mean for her marriage to the benevolently controlling Noah, who obviously doesn’t think that Ali is capable of very much, and mistakes her imaginative eccentricity for something inferior to his rational good sense?

Then Trapido did the thing that so many novelists do, and which always puts me off. We go back into the past. That was one scene in the present, to set a stage that we will work our way too. I never know why this is such a common trope, as I always find it deadens a novel. Oh well, I suppose I’ll put up with it.

We skate back to Ali’s past – between marriages. She has split up with her obnoxious ex-husband Mervyn, and is trying to work out how best to live life as a single mother – when Noah walks into her life, besotted and determined to sort out the disordered way in which Ali has allowed herself to become a doormat. Having seen how Noah treats her in the present day, we do get some benefit of hindsight, as it were, but it also removes some of the tension of wondering what will happen.

And the novel continues to be eccentric. We jump forward in time, or across continents, with very little warning. Trapido’s own eccentric authorial gaze refuses to let us get settled. Her writing style is never unduly odd, and certainly never breaks with the conventions of grammar etc., but the things she chooses to highlight often keep the reader on his/her toes. We spend more time being shown how different characters react to the prospect of head lice than we do to major life events. Everything is slightly off kilter. And I think that’s good?

I have to admit that I was a bit thrown by the novel. That started when one adult character starts lusting after an 11 year old Camilla, openly and in front of others, and nobody says anything. The hints of paedophilia are infrequent and never followed up in any way, but elsewhere, Trapido writes about sex in a jarring way, with sudden and momentary explicitness. And then I found the disconcerting way she puts together sentences and scenes was building together into something I couldn’t quite grasp. Much of the time I really admired it, but it made it difficult to identify the centre of the novel – to have anything concrete to hold onto.

Perhaps it’s a case of needing to be in the right mood for Trapido. I was definitely in that mood when I started the novel, and was loving it. The writing was really wonderful. By the time I finished it, the mood was faltering. Had I read it at a different time, I suspect I’d be writing an unadulteratedly glowing review of Noah’s Ark. I still think she is a richly inventive and unusual writer, but I’m going to be selective about when I start reading her again.