Grateful for small mercies

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

Chatto & Windus 2008, 176 pages

Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch smallholder, trader and adventurer.  Although he does not deal in “flesh” he takes a young slave girl, Florens, as  payment for a bad debt.  Florens can read and write and may prove useful on his farm, and so she joins his household of misfits – Rebekka, married off to a man she had never seen; Lina, a Native American whose tribe were wiped out by smallpox, and Sorrow, the peculiar daughter of a sea captain – all of whom are displaced and struggling to survive.

I came to this book with no expectation other than that it would be a quick read, and even in that I was wrong.  The story is told by multiple voices, some of which (for me) were easier on the ear than others.  This is a little book with big themes and I suspect that everyone who reads it will take something very different from it; a good choice for a reading group.

Shrink rapt

Trauma by Patrick McGrath

Bloomsbury 2008, 224 pages

Charlie Weir is a psychiatrist who earns his bread and butter treating the traumatized citizens of New York – Vietnam veterans and victims of child abuse. However, Charlie is not without his own personal baggage: a feckless father whom he despises, a successful brother he loathes and a depressive mother who, try as he might, he can never seem to please. Unable to come to terms with the end of his marriage (due to a professional blunder) he embarks on a relationship with the beautiful Nora, only to kick-start his own downward spiral.

Earlier in the year, this one was being passed around the blogs like a veritable hot potato with reviews appearing on Asylum, Lizzy’s Literary Life and dovegreyreader scribbles. I read it in August, but held back from putting it on this blog because to be frank, it touched a personal nerve. Now that it has been shortlisted for the Costa 2008 novel award, what the heck! Suffice it to say that for me, Mr McGrath has brilliantly nailed the misery and hopelessness of his damaged characters; there is light at the end of the tunnel but not everyone is able to see it, and next time the black dog cocks his leg up my lamp post, I’ll be ready with a bucket of water.

Swedish pine

Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti

Translated by Sarah Death

Short books, 224 pages

Benny, a bachelor dairy farmer and Desirée (Shrimp), a widowed librarian, meet in the cemetery where the graves of their nearest and dearest stand side by side. An initial period of mutual dislike is replaced by a powerful attraction as hastened by the ticking of biological clocks, they fall for each other.

Told in alternating her/him chapters, this light and somewhat offbeat story illustrates how opposites attract and that when it comes to head versus heart, it is sometimes what we want and not what we need that dictates the outcome. Benny & Shrimp has sold over 450,000 copies in Sweden and it is easy to appreciate why, especially when you are a minimalist library assistant who can’t cook (but at least I can make my own meatballs!)