I don’t know about anyone else, but September has felt like both the longest and the quickest months on record. Here are some of my cultural highlights as we move into my beloved autumn season…

There must be something in the publishing water, as this month I read three doorstopper novels from three big name authors, all with differing degrees of success.

The Unfolding by A. M. Homes

Turns out the idea of a perfect family is like the idea of the American dream—it’s all a fantasy, a story we tell ourselves so we can feel good.

I was optimistic for The Unfolding by A. M. Homes, her first novel in almost a decade. When the novel opens, it’s 4 November 2008, and Barack Hussein Obama has just been confirmed as the nation’s 44th president. Set during the liminal period between Obama’s election and inauguration, the novel follows The Big Guy, a wealthy Republican donor and his friends, who try to make sense of this election loss by hatching a plan to retake control of the country and values that they love.

At the same time, the Big Guy’s family life is falling apart, with an alcoholic wife and a family secret that has finally come to the surface. The novel goes back and forth between the public and the private, exploring ideas of history, self-awareness and privilege. AM Homes has a great ear for dialogue (you can tell she writes for television) and I enjoyed the fun she had skewering political players and wealthy donors, but I felt that the book was too long (over 500 pages) for starters and that the political strand of the narrative and the family strand of the narrative never coalesced into a satisfying whole.  Despite being a relatively enjoyable read, I also felt that the novel got somewhat overtaken by real life events, leaving it feeling out of date before it had even begun.

Lessons by Ian McEwan

…our beginnings shape us and must be faced.

In my late teens and early twenties, I read everything by Ian McEwan that I could get my hands on but it is telling that I haven’t had the inclination to read anything by him since Saturday, which was published in 2005. For a writer often known for his brevity, Lessons is another novel that clocks in at over 500 pages, but what an enjoyable 500 pages it is.

Lessons follows the journey of one man – Roland Baines – through seventy years of his life, exploring how the global and the personal are intertwined and how small moments and rash decisions can come to define a life. The book centres on Roland’s formative experience of having a sexual relationship with his piano teacher when he was fourteen and she was twenty-five. This relationship has cast a long shadow over Roland’s life, and to some extent has defined it. His life has also defined by the disappearance of his first wife, who abandoned Roland and their baby to pursue a literary career. The theme of lives lived and lives not lived permeates the novel.

The novel generally proceeds in a linear fashion, from Roland’s childhood to his seventies, but moves back and forward through memory throughout. There is a backdrop of political, global and social events throughout, which both grounds and defines the narrative and events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Falklands War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Brexit are a key part of the narrative. The novel is also very autobiographical. Roland is the same age as Ian McEwan and like the author; he grows up in Libya, attends boarding school and discovers that he has a brother later in life.  

Some of the political events feel forced into the narrative, but overall, this feels like a novel where McEwan is enjoying himself, taking his time and exploring themes that are key to his work – dark sexual tension, social history and gentle comedy making it feel in some ways like a culmination of all his past novels.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose.

Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel is another long one – 560 pages this time – but in her case, she has an excuse, as Demon Copperhead is a retelling of the Charles Dicken’s classic David Copperfield, reset in the Appalachian Mountains of the early ‘90s.

Demon tells the story of his life, from birth to adulthood and his journey through losing his parents, foster care, painkiller addiction, death and redemption. The plot points follow the narrative of David Copperfield, with some changes and it is not necessary to have read David Copperfield to appreciate this novel. As with Dickens, the narrative explores social and political themes, like the opioid crisis, the difficulties of the foster care system and the demonisation of people living in poverty. The plot is packed and the characters are dense and Kingsolver has great fun renaming and reimagining Dicken’s classic characters. Uriah Heep becomes U-Haul Pyle, while Steerforth becomes Fast Forward.

However, the book is really long and after a while, I wondered what exactly Kingsolver was trying to say by retelling this story. Her work has always focused on the political and the social, but I didn’t feel like there was any depth of insight into the opioid crisis or how poor orphaned children are treated beyond the idea that both are bad. However, at its heart is the story of one boy, let down by family circumstances and the system, fighting to make something of himself, with one dream to see the ocean and Kingsolver pulls the book back in her depiction of Demon himself, who, like David Copperfield is an unforgettable character.

Fresh

I am such a sucker for a horror movie and Fresh is a relatively enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable entry into the genre, elevated by the charisma of its two leads.

Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is ready to give up on the online dating scene when she happens to meet handsome, funny and intelligent stranger Steve (Sebastian Stan) at the grocery store. After a whirlwind few weeks, she agrees to go away with him for the weekend but gets more than she bargained for. What initially makes Fresh so, well, refreshing is the first half hour, which plays out like a traditional romantic comedy, buoyed along by the charisma and great chemistry of the two leads. The bravura decision to delay the title sequence also works well to unsettle the viewer before the movie shifts tone completely and enters more pulpy territory. Once we realise that Steve is not all he seems, the movie loses any subtlety it once had, but Sebastian Stan is having so much fun and Daisy Edgar-Jones is such a winningly sharp presence that Fresh just about gets away with it. As s skewering of the modern day dating game, it has bite. In more ways than one!

Intouchables

I’ve been meaning to watch Intouchables for ages, and turned it on thinking that it might be a nice distraction, as I’d heard it was a smash feel-good hit when it originally came out in France. Oh how I underestimated this movie.

This is the age-old story of an odd-couple friendship between Philippe (François Cluzet), a rich, handsome, cultivated quadriplegic, and his new carer, Driss (Omar Sy), an intelligent, charismatic, uneducated young working-class West African who has done time for robbery. What draws them together is Driss’s total honesty, a shared sense of humour and the fact that Driss does not patronise his boss for his disability and nor does Philippe patronise Driss because of his poverty. Although based on a true story, there is nothing fresh about the plot, but what makes this such an enjoyable film is the charisma of both leads, the joyful focus on the importance of kindness and friendship and some very accomplished set pieces.

If you are looking for something to cheer you up, Intouchables is just the ticket.

Bad Sisters

I am only five episodes into Sharon Horgan’s new show for Apple TV – Bad Sisters – but so far, it is a deliciously dark comedy centred around four sisters who plot to kill the overbearing and cruel husband of their fifth sister, who is losing herself in her abusive marriage.

Horgan is great at mixing the dark with the comic and so far, Bad Sisters is an enjoyable guessing game of whodunit. Claes Bang, so good in Dracula and The Square, is wonderfully evil as patriarch John Paul and the ever reliable Sarah Greene is having a lot of fun as one-eyed sister Bibi. The insurance storyline is not really working for me at the moment, but I’ll still watch to see who and how is responsible for John Paul’s death. Added points for the presence of Michael Smiley and that excellent title sequence…

This month, I reviewed two new albums for No More Workhorse, the 70s inspired pop delights of Spark by Whitney and a gorgeous album of contemporary classical music called Player, Piano from legendary producer Daniel Lanois. However, the album I am most looking forward to in October, is the new one from Courtney Marie Andrews, who has the voice of an angel.

Monthly Miscellany am homes bad sisters barbara kingsolver Courtney marie andrews daniel lanois fresh ian mcewan intouchable Monthly Miscellany whitney