Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground

Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground

When Dot dies from a stroke at the age of 70, she leaves her twins Jeanie and Julius behind. Even though both of them are well in their adulthood, they still behave like children and therefore are totally overstrained by finding their mother dead on the kitchen floor. The three of them have lead a decent life at the small cottage since their father and husband Frank was killed in an accident, they have never needed much and could rely on their garden and the small amount of money Julius could make in providing a helping hand with all sorts of craftsman jobs. Yet, Jeanie and Julius do not have much time to grieve before all sorts of people turn up from the village claiming money their mother allegedly had borrowed. They can hardly believe it; this does not fit to the image they had of Dot. But this is just the beginning, without the strong and determined woman in the house anymore, the twins become an easy prey and soon have to face an unexpected problem: they are being evicted from what has been their home for decades.

A couple of years ago, I already enjoyed Claire Fuller’s novel “Swimming Lessons” which presented complex characters and a challenging family structure. In “Unsettled Ground”, too, the reader is confronted with a couple of highly interesting characters and an all but usual family construct which slowly unfolds its real tragedy in the course of the novel. Neither Jeanie nor Julius or any other character is easy to sympathise with, the world they have created for themselves is undoubtedly quite unique and takes some time to understand.

The novel has been longlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction which is nevertheless easy to understand. It presents two characters at the critical point in their life when all they have known is threatened, when everything is about to fall apart and when all they have taken for granted and believed to be true has to be reassessed. Jeanie and Julius have a strong bond which nevertheless does not hinder them from coping with the threats they face totally differently.  Ultimately, it is the struggle of survival in a hostile world, the attempt to build a life on the broken pieces of the truths they have held to be true but turned out to be all but that.

Admittedly, reading “Unsettled Ground” makes you feel depressed more than once, the story is hard to endure at times. Yet, this surely can be attributed to the author’s skill of transmitting atmosphere and mood in a brilliant way. It’s one of those novels one does not really want to dig deeper in while at the same time one can hardly put down once started.

Anne Enright – Actress [dt. Die Schauspielerin]

Anne Enright – Actress [dt. Die Schauspielerin]

Norah erinnert sich an ihre Mutter Katherine O’Dell, eine legendäre, jedoch inzwischen verstorbene Schauspielerin. Sie zeichnet das Leben des jungen Mädchens aus Irland nach, das es an die Londoner Theater und bis nach Hollywood schaffte, den größten Ruhm jedoch durch den Mordanschlag auf den Produzenten Boyd O‘Neill erlangte. Katherine lebte für die Bühne und den schönen Schein, das reale Leben spielte bei ihr immer nur die zweite Rolle, wie auch ihre Tochter, der sie nie verriet, wer ihr Vater war und die in jungen Jahren bei ihren Männerbekanntschaften sich auch des Eindrucks nicht erwehren konnte, dass diese mehr Interesse an der schillernden Mutter als an der blassen Tochter hatten.  Ein Leben wie im Rausch, das ein tragisches Ende nahm. Doch wie konnte es so weit kommen?

Die Autorin selbst hat das Hörbuch eingesprochen, was oft ein Wagnis ist, aber Anne Enright hat eine wundervolle Stimme, der man gerne folgt und die hervorragend zu Norah passt. Mal verbittert, mal traurig, oft bewundernd aber letztlich überwiegend mit dem Gefühl, dem Menschen, der ihr am nächsten Stand nicht wirklich nahegekommen zu sein.

Katherine war eine öffentliche Figur, die die Rollen, in die sie beruflich schlüpfte, perfekt umsetzte. Aber auch in ihrem Privatleben hatte sie unzählige Gesichter und wechselte zwischen den Rollen, die sie selbst erschaffen hatte. Ein Leben als Performance, was unweigerlich eine Distanz zur Tochter schaffte, dieser aber in dem fiktiven Rückblick auch erlaubt einen neutralen und nicht durch Emotionen vorgezeichneten Blick auf das Leben der Mutter zu werfen. Als Schriftstellerin ist sie auch prädestiniert, die unzähligen Facetten angemessen wiederzugeben. Gleichzeitig wird die Biografie aber auch zu einer Analyse der Mutter-Tochter-Beziehung, die quasi auf den Kopf gestellt ist: die Tochter ist die realistische, nachdenkliche, die nicht spontan agiert und sich permanent um die Mutter sorgt.

Anne Enright ist eine klassische Erzählerin, die eine durchdacht konstruierte Geschichte erschaffen hat, die insbesondere als Hörbuch neben den Worten auch ganz viel von dem transportiert, was in den Figuren vor sich geht.

Deepa Anappara – Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

Deepa Anappara – Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

When Bahadur, one of his classmates, goes missing, nine-year-old Jai is determined to solve this case. He has watched so many episodes of Police Patrol that he knows exactly how such a problem is to be treated. Together with his friends Pari and Faiz, he starts to investigate around Purple Line and Bhoot Bazaar. Yet, more and more children and teenagers disappear from their basti and quite obviously, the police are not willing to do anything about it. The parents get either more and more afraid of their children being the next or angry as they feel helpless and powerless.

Deepa Anappara’s novel is a brilliant mixture of an oftentimes very funny plot and an absolutely serious topic. Daily, children go missing on Delhi’s streets without anybody taking notice of it. The life of a child, especially if she or he belongs to a minority, is worth next to nothing, not even the effort to take a note on it. Diverse cultures and religious racism play an important role in this, too. Boys and girls are treated differently and offered different chances in life. Born into the wrong family, you can only count on superstition for a better life since the boundaries are clearly set.

At the beginning of the novel, I totally adored Jai and his friends. They are vividly and wonderfully portrayed. Determined to find out what happened to their friend and equipped with their knowledge from true crime TV series, they start their investigation ignoring all warnings against the dangers that lurk around the bazaar. They take their job very serious and at the same time, just as kids do, ignore the facts that they live in the same slum but come from very different backgrounds.

With the number of children who disappear rising, the novel becomes increasingly serious and loses the light-heartedness of the beginning. The way a slum works becomes gradually more visible and thus, the novel grants insight in a world which is totally unknown to me.

The whole novel is sparkling with life, the characters are quite unique and lovable and it is totally understandable why the novel has been nominated on the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020.

Edna O’Brien – Das Mädchen

Edna O’Brien – Das Mädchen

Gerade noch ist die Welt der Schulmädchen in Ordnung, doch von einer Sekunde auf die nächste ist nichts mehr so wie es war. Die Milizionäre von Boko Haram überfallen sie und bringen die Schülerinnen in ein Camp im Dschungel. Dort erwarten sie Misshandlungen, Vergewaltigungen, Beschimpfungen und Verachtung. Sie sollen bekehrt werden, konvertieren zum rechten Glauben und Kindersoldaten produzieren für den Kampf der Gotteskrieger. Maryam und Buki sind zwei von ihnen, die die Qualen erdulden müssen, innerlich sterben, um das, was man ihnen äußerlich antut, aushalten zu können. Gemeinsam gelingt ihnen die Flucht und mit Maryams Tochter Babby begeben sie sich auf den langen und beschwerlichen Weg nach Hause. Die Mädchen sind nicht mehr, wer sie waren und auch die Überlebenden ihrer Dörfer sehen sie nicht mehr als die Töchter, die ihnen einst gestohlen wurden.

Edna O’Brien verarbeitet in ihrem Roman das Schicksal der 276 Chibok Mädchen, die im April 2014 von Boko Haram entführt wurden, was weltweit für Aufsehen gesorgt hatte. Sie schildert unverblümt das, was sie in der Gefangenschaft erleben, was sowohl die physischen Misshandlungen aber auch die psychologischen Indoktrinationen mit ihnen tun. Viele der Mädchen bleiben namenlos, beispielhaft für das Schicksal vieler folgt die Erzählung Maryam, die trotz aller Widrigkeiten einen Weg findet, die Situation auszuhalten, weiterzukämpfen und nicht aufzugeben, sondern auf den Morgen und einen besseren Tag zu hoffen.

„Es liegt nicht in unserer Macht, etwas zu ändern“, sagte sie (…).

„Warum nicht?“, fragte ich.

„Weil wir Frauen sind.“

Gerade wurde global der Weltfrauentag gefeiert, die Lebenswelt der nigerianischen Mädchen und Frauen ist weit davon entfernt, ihnen Rechte oder gar Gleichberechtigung einzuräumen. Die Grausamkeiten, die Maryam in Gefangenschaft erleidet, sind nur ein Teil der Erzählung. Nach ihrer beschwerlichen und gefährlichen Rückkehr muss sie erleben, dass sie auch in ihrem Heimatort, ja sogar in ihrer eigenen Familie nicht mehr wirklich willkommen ist. Man nimmt ihr ihr Kind weg, das das Blut des Teufels in sich trägt und macht Maryam selbst mitverantwortlich für das, was man ihr angetan hat. Die Umkehr des Opfers zum Täter ist fast noch perfider als die Gräueltaten der Entführer.

Bisweilen könnte man beim Lesen den Glauben an die Menschheit verlieren, so wie eine der Figuren resigniert feststellt, dass die menschliche Natur teuflisch geworden sei und die Welt nicht mehr die sei, die es mal gab. Aber Edna O’Brien liefert auch die Gegenbeispiele, Buki, die Maryam bei der Flucht nach Kräften unterstützt, der Hirtenstamm, der sie temporär aufnimmt und beschützt und letztlich die Nonnen, die sie und ihr Kind so annehmen, wie sie sind. Maryam fühl sich bisweilen innerlich tot, von jedem Lebenswillen verlassen und doch bleibt am Ende Hoffnung, dass sich alles zum Guten wenden kann. Auch wenn Maryams Mutter nicht an die Macht der Frauen glaubt, ist es aber vielleicht die nächste Generation, die vor dem Hintergrund ihrer eigenen und auch der kollektiven Erfahrungen die Welt zu einem besseren Ort verändern wird können.

Valeria Luiselli – Lost Children Archive

Valeria Luiselli – Lost Children Archive

A typical patchwork family: mother with daughter and father with son form a new unit after the parents got to know each other through work. For a new professional project of the father, they leave New York and their cosy home for the southern states close to the Mexican border. A very unique road trip of a family which is educating for their young children, but also brings them closer to the hot political topic: thousands of children are on their way to the border to come to the USA. As the family gets closer, the radio news become more and more a part of their life, too.

Valeria Luiselli’s novel was nominated on the long list for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction and you can quickly understand why it definitely earned a place there: the author masterly combines fact and fiction, mixes different types of materials to for something new and she has an outstanding capacity of using language.

There is so much one could say about the novel which makes it difficult to make a selection for a short review. The largest part is narrated from the mother’s point of view, a character who is highly poetic in describing especially her family relationships and who thoroughly analyses not only how the dynamics within the family shift but also how they interact with the outside world. I also liked this idea of having boxes in which each of the characters collects things with a certain meaning for them. Then, you have the American history – the past with the stories of the Native Americans which is contrasted with the present and its train of children moving towards the country.

The characters are not given any names, they are just mother and father, son and daughter. They could be anybody. They are you and me confronted with the real world and forced to understand that we live in a kind of multi-layered reality in which you repeatedly have to adjust yourself and your opinion depending on your current point of view and knowledge and experiences. The novel does not provide definitive answers, but it provides you with masses of questions to ponder about.

Jessie Greengrass – Sight

Jessie Greengrass – Sight

When is the best moment to have a child? Can you ever be ready to become a parent? And what does being a “good” parent actually mean? Jessie Greengrass unnamed narrator has to face these questions. Her husbands would like to have children, she is unsure. Her own childhood comes to her mind, her mother and grandmother, the way they treated her when she was a child, their complex family relationships and the fact that neither her mother not her grandmother is still alive. Yet, families and relationships are never easy, thus, Röntgen and Freud come to her mind as well as the beginnings of modern child birth.

Jessie Greengrass debut novel directly made it to the short list of the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction. It is an unexpected and uncommon combination of medical history, on the one hand, and a very personal reflection on the narrator’s own life and her feelings about motherhood. It starts with the narrator confronted with the essential question of becoming a mother or not when suddenly her rumination is interrupted by the report about Röntgen. Again and again, these two perspectives alternate which is interesting, but also difficult to follow since it often seems to lack a red thread. They are not isolated accounts, she cleverly combines the topics, e.g. her grandmother was a psychoanalyst like Freud, to give a reason for these interludes.

I can see why the novel made it to the Women’s Prize for Fiction’s short list. The topic tackles a core question of human beings and a deep wish we all share: knowing something for sure, being able to use medical precision for personal decisions and knowing that you do the right thing. Being able to look at something from a neutral and objective point of view, analysing and then making a decision – that’s what we often wish for, however, that’s not how life works.

Contradictory emotions, uncertainty – a lot of apparent opposites come together in the novel. Even though I found the narrator’s thoughts often easy to following and from a topical point of view most interesting, the novel as a whole did not completely convince me. I would have liked to stick with the narrator’s thoughts. Maybe it was all a bit too philosophical for my understanding.