Fiction Reviews – Books, Brews & Banter

Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift

Reading British author Graham Swift’s short stories in Twelve Post-War Tales is a little like eating a small bowl of dulce de leche ice cream. Each bite is rich and complex, leaving an intriguing after-taste, calling us to read and re-read. To savor each story.

A paradox of literary fiction is that its extreme specificity is what allows it to feel universal. I, for instance, have nothing in common with seventy-year-old Dermot, a Cork man from York, who banters in a pub with his mates on a rainy night about a sweet girl he once knew who worked in chocolate. Innuendo, wink-wink, laughter. But who among us can read the closing passage of the story “Chocolate,” without sighing Ah yes. I have felt that way. Surely everyone has felt that way. Thank God we can feel that way.

Everything had an inky sheen. On the strip of pavement, on the kerbstones and gutter, on the surface of the street and the droplet-covered bodywork of parked cars, the reflections from the streethlights shone and shimmered. From inside looking out, before you had to go back out into it, and with two pints inside you, it all had a way of even looking quite appealing.

Who can read “Hinges” without recognizing Annie’s grief, the pointless ubiquity of the best poems to read at a funeral, and the mother’s limp, unresponsive hand Annie tries to hold? Who hasn’t had bizarre memories pop up at such times, like the one Annie has as her dad’s funeral begins, of Joe Short, a man she “fancied” when she was little, who fixed a door she later realizes has similarities to the coffin in which her dad lies.

Who, of a certain age, hasn’t imagined losing their mind (and their memories) as Anna-Maria Anderson does on her eighty-second birthday in “Passport?” Swift treats this character—and all his characters—very tenderly, but uncompromisingly.

It was 6:30 a.m. Still dark. She sat, looking forward, braced and prepared, clutching the proof of her identity, but she was really somewhere else already and she knew, as well as she ever would, who she was. She sat and she waited. She waited. She waited for the light to flash.

Our group spent three weeks discussing these twelve tales, having our favorites and least favorites, but we agreed each story was, in its own way, a remarkable capture of what it means to be a human among humans. To grow older, to be formed by memory, to wait—knowing who we are—for the light to flash.

We equivocated a little over the title and cover since—together—they imply the stories will be about the aftermath to World War II, and that’s not true of all of them. But Swift touches on various other times of turmoil (the Cuban missile crisis, North Ireland, President Kennedy’s assassination, the riots of the sixties, the pandemic) as if to argue it’s always post-war somewhere, thus a tale may be told.

— Sharelle Moranville

Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym

The comic novel Excellent Women by Barbara Pym immerses the reader in a time long past, an unfamiliar country and a unique culture. It’s 1952 post-World War II London. Rationing is still in effect and various structures, such as parts of churches, remain in ruins. The male population has been much reduced by the war, and the female population appears to be divided into marriageable women – young, attractive with the feminine wiles to know how to attract men and then the “excellent women ” – those who actually know how to run a household and address the common tasks of everyday life, women who are always open to serving others, regardless of how presumptuous the task or clueless the originator. The protagonist is one of the latter.

Excellent Women is a comedy of social manners in the style of Jane Austen. The plot, such as it is, is driven by a cast of fascinating characters whose personal foibles and everyday activities comprise the narrative. There is a great deal of tea drinking, going out to lunch and participating as helpful and productive members of an Anglican parish where jumble sales and Christmas bazaars require hours of planning, quibbling and execution. This placid, comforting way of life is disrupted by a married couple representing and introducing a new social order and a conniving, marriage-seeking female.

The book opens with the main character and narrator Mildred Lathbury, a thirty something single woman of just sufficient independent means, welcoming new neighbors to the flat below hers in very much not the best part of London or the most desirable house, since she must share a bathroom with the new tenants, married couple Helena and Rockingham (Rocky) Napier. The Napiers are totally outside the normal orbit of Mildred’s quiet, solitary life. Rocky is a flamboyantly charming naval officer, and Helena is an anthropologist, currently focused on marital kinship mapping in some foreign clime with her fellow anthropologist Everard Bone, an acerbic and socially inept unmarried male. Helena is a drama queen and a domestic slob – quite a contrast to Mildred who is a fastidious housekeeper with a quiet social life and part time job aiding distressed gentlewomen – an occupation that remains a mystery to the reader. Everard seems to take an interest in Mildred though his invariably dismissive communication style motivates Mildred’s sacrifice for Lent – trying to like him.

As the book progresses, Helena and Rocky split, dragging Mildred into writing letters between them and even arranging furniture transfers for both these self-centered, presumptuous moderns. But – Mildred is one of those excellent women, always ready to step in and help sort out other people’s problems.

The book’s other main characters are Mildred’s good friends, brother and sister Julian and Winifred Mallory. He is the unmarried parish Vicar, and she, an excellent woman, runs his household. Winifred is given to wearing items from the parish’s jumble sales that Mildred describes as drab and unsuitable. She notes that Julian has some good features but is not so good looking that women are constantly after him, thereby implying that marriage with him does not interest her. The siblings’ current preoccupation is finding a renter for the rectory’s upstairs apartment. Eventually, here enters the very attractive divorcee Allegra Gray, whom Mildred in one of her witty but acid observations speculates may or may not have been named after Dante’s “natural” child.

Mrs. Gray is a consummate manipulator– very definitely not an excellent woman, and even perhaps one who deliberately sets out to target a man as if she “were going to buy a saucepan or a casserole.” The vicar is enamored, but when the secret engagement is revealed, Mildred and Winifred and other parishioners are thrown into chaos. Eventually the vicar comes to his senses, and the engagement is called off. Quiet parish life goes on.

The book concludes with Mildred acceding to a near jaw dropping presumptuous request as her lot in life, ostensibly because it will be “a nice change of pace.” Some book club members who had admired Mildred’s choice of a quiet, solitary life and her witty observations were quite disappointed in the ending, but overall, most members enjoyed this book and its window into the past.

Fans of Barbara Pym will be pleased to learn that award-winning British film producer Ellie Wood has acquired rights to Excellent Women, with an option to develop other Pym books. She said, “I look forward to creating a “Pymverse” and bringing this iconic author’s uniquely British tales of comic observations and unrequited love not only to her legions of fans but also to a wider TV audience.”

— Sue Martin

The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni is a debut novel by Helene Wecker. The novel is a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy. The two title characters are magical creatures who unexpectedly find themselves living as immigrants in New York City around 1899. Chava is a golem created from clay by a Jewish mistic kabbalist and Ahmad is a jinni, a creature of fire, who has been trapped in a copper flask for centuries by a wizard.

The story opens in the Polish town of Konin. A local man, Otto Rotfeld, is planning to immigrate to the United States and desires to take a wife with him. Rotfeld seeks out a Jewish mistic kabbalist, Yehudah Schaalman, to make him a wife out of clay. Rotfeld asks for a submissive wife, but also request that she be curious as well. Although Schaalman foresees disaster for Rotfeld, he does as Rotfeld requests and makes him a golem for a wife.

On the voyage to the United States, Rotfeld disobeys Schaalman’s instructions and wakes the golem while still at sea. The golem wakes with no knowledge of the world but is able to sense her master’s desires and seeks to carry them out. Soon thereafter, Rotfeld becomes seriously ill and passes away. The newly awakened golem is left masterless and must use her ability to read other’s desires to hide her true nature from the other passengers while the voyage continues.

Upon arrival in New York, the golem escapes the vessel, bypasses immigration, and makes her way to the Jewish quarter. There, the golem is discovered by Rabbi Avram Meyer, who takes the golem in and names her Chava. The rabbi considers destroying Chava, as he knows how dangerous a golem can be, but decides to help Chava lead as close to normal an existence as is possible.

Meanwhile, a Christian Syrian tinsmith, Boutrous Arbeely, takes on the task of reviving an ancient copper flask. During repairs, Arbeely accidentally frees a jinni from the flask. Like the golem, the jinni is soon trying to fit into society and pass as a human, taking the name Ahmad and working at the tin-smithery with Arbeely.

Much of the story focuses on Chava’s and Ahmad’s struggles with passing as human. Both spend the hours of the nighttime awake and alone. Eventually their paths cross and they recognize each other as magical creatures. They soon forge a fraught friendship and explore the city together at night. They have opposing views on the communities that they live with and what each should be seeking in life. Chava wants to be as human as possible and seeks to fill the needs of those around her while Ahmad resents being trapped in human form and seeks a way to escape his imprisonment. The story climaxes with the arrival of an antagonist with ties to both Chava and Ahmad.

Through the novel, Wecker explores aspects of her relationship with her husband. Wecker is of Jewish heritage and her husband is of Arab heritage, which mirrors the origins of the golem Chava and the jinni Ahmad. Wecker has said that elements of the story were inspired by “similarities between our families, the way that certain themes echo between them.”

Further, the story deals with themes on class divide, the immigrant experience, and feminism. Through the fantasy lens of the golem Chava and the jinni Ahmad we experience the difficulties in assimilation to a new culture and what it means to hide one’s true nature.

— Jim Lynch