Two reviews for #ReadIndies 2022
Well, I think it is fair to say that my blogging mojo has vanished during February! It’s been a busy month and the effects of Covid are still lingering, so I haven’t had much time or inclination for posting, which doesn’t bode well for Reading Ireland Month next week!
Still, I couldn’t let Lizzy and Kaggsy’s #ReadIndies initiative pass by without taking part, so here are two mini reviews of books I’ve recently read from independent publishers Sternberg Press and Charco Press.
Bedlam by Jennifer Higgie
I first read about the artist Richard Dadd when I read David Seabrook’s odd yet beautiful All the Devils Are Here last year.
Jennifer Higgie’s beautifully produced novella is a fictionalised account of a year in the life of Victorian artist Richard Dadd. In the late 1830s, Dadd was an extremely promising painter who had exhibited with the Royal Academy when he was still in his 20s. In 1842, he was invited by Sir Thomas Phillips – a Welsh lawyer and politician – to join his on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East to document their travels. Within a year, suffering either from heatstroke or a mental breakdown, he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and on his return to England, murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor.
Bedlam follows a year in the life of Richard Dadd, from the beginning of his trip with Sir Thomas, to his incarceration as a ‘criminal lunatic’ in Bethlem Hospital, or Bedlam as it was known.
But why should a son slay a father? Why should a father be slain to make him a god? He was a man, then a hero, then a god… Where is the right and wrong in all of this? Who is right and who is wrong?
Jennifer Higgie, herself an artist, writes in a poetic and engrossing manner. Her prose is fragmentary, giving the reader snapshots into Dadd’s increasingly confused mind. This is a short book, but is to be read slowly, filled as it is with striking metaphors and vivid imagery. Dadd’s mental breakdown is presented in a subtle manner, with clues to what might happen appearing at various intervals. His anger starts to grow in Venice and as their travels continue into the Middle East, the never-ending heat and the shock of such different cultures combine to make Dadd very ill. Higgie’s work also raises very interesting questions about travel, appropriation, language and art.
Sternberg Press is a London-based publishing house of art and cultural criticism, creative nonfiction, and literary and experimental fiction. Founded by Caroline Schneider in New York in 1999, it aims to support both new and established writers and nourish lasting editorial relationships. The press is committed to publishing books with an interdisciplinary focus on contemporary visual culture and related critical discourse.
Brickmakers by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott
Brickmakers is the third of Argentinian author Selva Almada’s books to be translated as part of a series of contemporary Latin American literature published by the Edinburgh-based Charco Press. Its predecessor, Dead Girls, was a non-fiction novel that investigated the killing of a trio of young women in provincial Argentina in the 1980s. Almada used her exploration of these murders to explore the issue of femicide in a country where murders of and violence against women are horrifically commonplace. She shone a light on a society and a political system where violence against women goes not only unpunished but generally unnoticed.
Brickmakers feels like the B-side to Dead Girls, where Almada turns her attention to the nature of masculinity in Argentina. The novel opens with two mortally-wounded young men who are dying in the shadow of a Ferris wheel at a travelling fair. The rest of the novel explores how the two men, once friends, came to kill each other.
If he could choose, he’d choose the two of them on the bike again. The hot wind in his face, the asphalt shining in the clear night. The feeling that they were masters of their destiny.
In stark, rapid prose, beautifully translated by Annie McDermott, Almada depicts a culture where men are conditioned to act in a certain way, women and animals bear the brunt of their anger and grudges pass down from generation to generation never resolving, but always festering. She is a subtle writer, never forcing a point or pontificating on the behaviour of her characters, rather she creates a tragic, inescapable world that has echoes of Faulker and McCarthy in its epic scope.
Charco Press publishes the very best of contemporary Latin American literature in English translation for the first time. Their websites states that ‘We’re changing the current literary scene and making room for a kind of literature that has been overlooked. We want to be that bridge between a world of talented contemporary writers and yourself. We select authors whose work feeds the imagination, challenges perspective and sparks debate. Authors that are shining lights in the world of contemporary literature. Authors that have won awards and received critical acclaim. Bestselling authors.’
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I am a 40 something book buying addict trying to reduce the backlog one book at a time!
I too added Bedlam to my wishlist after reading All the Devils Are Here! I think I’ll actively search out a copy now you’ve read it and got so much from it.
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It’s beautifully written Annabel.
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Poor Richard Dadd! Higgie’s novella sounds like a fascinating exploration of his story. I’d not come across Sternberg Press before. They sound an interesting publisher.
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I think you’d like this one Susan – it’s also beautifully published which always helps 😊
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Two great indies, Cathy – and Sternberg is new to me. If that one is typical, their books look lovely!
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Right? Gorgeous silver page edges too.
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I think I have a different Sternberg on my shelves – at least the covers look from the same designer.
Despite your workload and health issues you’ve still done much better with Read Indies than I managed.
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I hope you feel better soon. Cathy!
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Thank you Laila, I’m getting there. just not as quickly as I’d like!
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Bedlam sounds excellent, and a really beautiful little edition too. Brickmakers sounds like a pretty tough story, I avoided Dead Girls (although I was interested in it) because I thought it would be too brutal.
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Dear Girls was a tough read Ali and Brickmakers is too, although in a very different way. Bedlam is a lovely edition alright.
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Bedlam sounds wonderful, thank you I’m going over to have a look right away!
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I liked it very much. It’s very poetic.
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Two great-sounding publishers there though the books don’t sound my kind of thing. Well done for keeping on reading and blogging. I’ve been struggling as had too much work for a couple of weeks, getting in the way of my reading (tsk).
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It’s such a pain when life gets in the way 🤣
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Oh no, I’m sorry to hear Covid is lingering! That was my biggest worry when I caught it in January. Hopefully, you’ll be feeling 100% soon! xo
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