"One Good Turn," by Kate Atkinson

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Having read "Case Histories," I was in the mood to carry on to the next Jackson Brodie novel.

"One Good Turn" takes place about 2 years after the events of "Case Histories."  Jackson Brodie is at the Edinburgh Festival to support his actress girlfriend, Julia, who is opening in a new (dreadful) play that he has been talked into financing.  In his eventful stay, Jackson witnesses a road rage incident and also finds - and loses again - the drowned body of a young woman.  Jackson gets further drawn into events, and he finds it hard to adjust to his unaccustomed role as witness and suspect.

I have a strange relationship to Kate Atkinson's Brodie novels so far, and I have been trying to work out why.  I have a theory, but it is more a comment on my reading tastes than it is any criticism of Atkinson's style.  It comes down to my feeling that her style of storytelling is quite episodic; she jumps between different stories and character threads.  Now, I know that she is not unique in this and neither is it new - I remember being aware of Dickens changing focus between different sets of characters in "Bleak House" when I read it - but I find that the lack of central focus precludes my complete involvement.  When I start to become interested and involved in the story of a particular character, and then find that the next chapter has reverted to another strand, the book becomes easier for me to put down.  I normally find that I enjoy that chapter when I do read it but, because it doesn't focus on the character who has held me at that moment, I don't feel the immediate pull to read on.  Hence my feeling that I enjoy the books as a whole, while still paradoxically finding her books easy to put down.

I also felt that this episodic structure doesn't allow for a focal figure: even Jackson Brodie doesn't seem to play an appreciably larger part in this novel than any other character (if anything, ill-fated author Martin Canning seems to get rather more page-time).  Atkinson makes up for the shortage of Brodie with the introduction of a new character, Louise - policewoman, single mother of a teenage son, owner of a collapsing house and elderly, ailing cat -  whom I found very appealing.  Louise is called out to investigate Jackson's discovery of the drowned woman, and she develops a little, wholly understandable (let's face it, he's Jason Isaacs) crush on Jackson.  Atkinson is particularly good at creating interesting, strong yet vulnerable, female characters and, of the many examples of this in "One Good Turn," Louise is my favourite.  This might be something to do with cat-owners solidarity, and I am slightly ashamed to admit that I found it harder to read the poignant sections about Louise's elderly cat than I did any description of human-on-human violence.  I'm a bit worried what that says about my personality.

I think that I enjoyed this book more than "Case Histories" because, although I have made much about her episodic structure, I felt that the strands of this book came together more cohesively and effectively (but then, "Case Histories" was far more 3 different investigations that intersect rather than one narrative coming together).  I do have a copy of the next Jackson Brodie waiting to be read, but right now I feel like moving on to something else and returning to him a few books down the line....

"Case Histories," by Kate Atkinson

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

It's taken me a while to get around to it but, after reading "Emotionally Weird," I decided that I wanted to read more by Kate Atkinson.  As I enjoy mysteries, the Jackson Brodie series seemed like the obvious choice.  And, because I am a little bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to reading (and my husband would probably say in other things also), it, of course, had to be the first in the series.

"Case Histories" finds ex-policeman Jackson Brodie working as a private detective.  Kate Atkinson's narrative has Jackson involved in three different cases, all of which have a common strand running through them in the relationships between parent and child: he is hired by two sisters who want to discover what happened to another sister who disappeared when they were children; a solicitor who wants to find the killer of his daughter, and a woman who wants to find the niece who was lost to her following a tragedy involving the child's parents.  In parallel with this, Jackson is struggling with the imperfections of his own life, including trying to maintain contact with his beloved daughter now that his ex-wife has found a new relationship and turned into a Stepford Wife.  Oh, and someone seems to be trying to hurt him.

I came to this book having seen the BBC adaptation starring Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie.  This meant that I was reading with the image of Jason Isaacs in my head.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like Jason Isaacs a lot, so in many ways it is a pleasant experience to have him inhabiting my head for a while.  But I do feel a little bit sad that I didn't discover the books first and have the chance to find my own Jackson Brodie.  I generally find it is a far more fulfilling experience to read a book and be able to form my own ideas of the character, than to have had it handed to me in a film or TV image - and it is more usual for me to have read the book first and be shouting at the screen* if I disagree with the casting ("Shutter Island" being another exception where I came to the book after the film).

Having used the word "sad" in the previous paragraph, I do have to say that this seemed to me to be a rather melancholy read.  There are very few happy characters, although that could be said of many mysteries as the genre feeds on the various dissents, tensions and simmering emotions that can lead to violence.  This feeling of melancholia might have arisen because the character who I felt was most strongly and memorably written, Amelia, is someone who is deeply discontented with where she is in her life.  Once again, though, I wish I had read the book first because I was reading Amelia and seeing Fenella Woolgar who played the part so well in the television adaptation. 

I am developing quite a strange relationship to Kate Atkinson's writing.  This is going to sound contradictory, but I find her books very putdownable - and yet I enjoy them.  It takes me a while to read one of her books, because I do so very sporadically.  I don't find them compulsive mysteries where you can't stop reading because you need to find out what happens next; they are more of a slow burn thing.  As it it usually a compliment to call a book unputdownable, the converse must sound like a criticism - but I think I just mean that I need to be in the right mood for her writing.  While I'm still in the mood, I think I'm going to move right on to the next in the series...


P.S.
As Jason Isaacs also played the wizard Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film franchise, I was amused by the following in the novel about his reaction to his daughter's Harry Potter fixation: "Jackson tended to close his ears to her incessant Harry Potter chatter (he had had a wizard-free childhood himself and failed to see the attraction.)"

*Obviously I wouldn't shout at the screen if I was in a cinema because that would break one of the entries in Mayo and Kermode's Moviegoers Code of Conduct.
Oh, and hello to Jason Isaacs.

An insight into the (dis)order of my mind, courtesy of Kate Atkinson

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

"Right up until the end Victor's mind had been as methodical as an efficient library, whereas Amelia felt that hers was more like the cupboard under the stair where ancient hockey sticks were shoved in beside broken hoovers and boxes of old Christmas decorations, and the one thing you knew was in there - a 5-amp fuse, a tin of shoe polish, a Philips screwdriver - would almost certainly be the one thing you couldn't lay your hands on."  - Kate Atkinson, "Case Histories"

Yep, I recognise that feeling.

"Emotionally Weird," by Kate Atkinson

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

A combination of reading "Emotionally Weird," set in Dundee University, and listening to the audiobook of Deborah Harkness' "A Discovery of Witches"(Oxford) is making me feel nostalgic for university and academia. It has to be said, however, that neither book is really typical of my time at university. I tended to write essays, unlike Effie, the protagonist and narrator of "Emotionally Weird," who rarely hands in any work. And I'm fairly sure that the university that I went to wasn't populated with vampires, witches and demons like the Oxford of Deborah Harkness' imagination.

This was my first Kate Atkinson book. I have friends who like her books, but I'd never tried one - so, I put out the question to my Facebook friends to find out where I should start. "Emotionally Weird" didn't even get a mention, but fate, conspiring with other library users who had borrowed all other Kate Atkinson books, meant that this was my first experience of Kate Atkinson. Usually when I write a review I try to have the book by me for reference. Another library user has confounded me by reserving this book, so I am writing this freefall without a net.

The heroine and narrator of "Emotionally Weird," is Effie, a student of literature at Dundee University. Effie is directionless, perpetually being chased to hand in essays that she has not yet written, and she has slipped into an accidental relationship with a stoner called Bob. Effie is telling her story to Nora, her mother, in their remote, derelict family home in Scotland. Effie's story is detailed, digressive and loaded with colourful peripheral characters; Nora is a more reluctant and sparse storyteller as Effie tries to coax her into reciprocating by telling her their family history. Nora is as much a reluctant listener as storyteller, interjecting critical comments on style and structure into the narrative, and even going to bed at one point to let the story carry on without her audience.

Reading "Emotionally Weird," in the best possible way, reminded me how much I enjoyed reading Graham Swift's "Waterland" when at university. Both novels are pre-occupied with the storytelling impulse and with history. Where Graham Swift grapples with the idea that history is nearly always his-story and not her-story, "Emotionally Weird" is very much her-story. Kate Atkinson's narrative is rounded, abundant with fertile detail. Unlike a historical text which tries to filter out extraneous detail to present a cause and effect narrative, Kate Atkinson's novel overflows with the minutiae of life and with supporting characters who may or may not prove to be significant. Like Effie's life, her narrative sometimes seems to lack purpose and focus, following a picaresque path before Nora finally reveals the family secrets to Effie.

I enjoyed the fun that Kate Atkinson has with genre. The main thrust of the story is interspersed with snippets of writing from Effie's creative writing class. Effie herself is writing a crime novel - one of the more debased and disreputable genres, according to her disapproving creative writing lecturer - and there are substantial extracts from her creative writing project. There are also short segments from the sub Lord of the Rings fantasy magnum opus being written by another member of the creative writing group, as well as from the interminable, pretentious postmodern tome being written by one of the university lecturers. The segments from Effie's crime novel are deliberately hokey in a way that implies that Kate Atkinson knows the genre well, and there is fondness in her mockery of its tropes and cliches.

Like my experience of recently discovering Graham Greene, it baffles me that if has taken me so long to get around to reading a Kate Atkinson novel. I liked the richness of her writing - which, to my shame, sometimes had me reaching for a dictionary - and the eccentricity of her characters. In her narrative words have a life of their own, spilling out and escaping. Words can prise themselves off the page, "hanging around like bored flies." Kate Atkinson's self-aware writing style embraces the playful side of postmodern writing. I definitely want to seek out more of her books and, as I too enjoy the crime genre, I plan to read her Jackson Brodie novels, and - like the good little book geek I am - read them in order.