The Twin

The Twin of this novel is Helmer. He's a middle aged bachelor farmer; he lives with a bullying father. Father is finally dying; Helmer's been half-dead most of his life - we're persuaded by Helmer this is because Henk, his twin, drowned as a teenager. I, however, am inclined to believe it's Helmer's repressed homosexuality which causes him to suffer a life of such awful emptiness and masochism every tiny action and interaction is recorded as though it has painstaking significance:
For example:
The donkeys are waiting for me even though I don't go out to them every evening. I've left the light on and it casts a broad track into the yard. My very own crib. They snort when I enter the shed. I give them a couple of winter carrots and a scoop of oats. Their breath billows up out of the trough as a cold cloud. I sit on a bale of hay and wait for them to finish feeding.
I, I, I. Poor bloke. Father sent away the farmhand with whom Helmer was falling in love; now he doesn't even have a dog to cuddle up with in bed.
Although The Twin is a Dutch novel, set on a farm in the waterlands of Holland, the story of gay repressed Helmer has universal appeal: twenty years ago when I was a student our Faculty of Agricultural Science produced a magazine: Ceres was full of wise chat and in jokes; photographs and fun. And a touching and memorable poem about falling in love, written by 'A gay Ag'....

Modesty

Today we shopped for school uniforms. I thought Maud's school dress slightly short, it stopped at her knee, and I worried that after a couple of washes it might shrink shorter. I said:
"This dress is too short for my daughter. Can you please make it longer - mid calf?"
The shopkeeper was shocked. "Mid calf? Are you Muslim?"
I didn't want to hurt his feelings by explaining it was the quality of the fabric I doubted, not my daughter's virtue.
I said: "My husband's Catholic, not Muslim."
He nodded. He understood. "Certainly, Madam," he said.
Maud was less impressed. "I'm going to look like a dork," she said.

Miranda Hobbs

In the beginning she was probably the one I liked least - she was just so abrasive, and tough. I'd have been too frightened to eat breakfast with her, incase she ate me as well. And the clothes she wore were just awful. And the men she dated were worse -ranking only one step above the pond life Charlotte kept meeting who, inspite of blue blood and trust funds, were egotistical sexual perverts.
Then Miranda met Steve. A bit thick and without any prospects, but unlike the hot shot, smart talking law types she ran with, Steve was kind and wore his heart on his sleeve.
Now they're married with Brady, and Miranda has never looked better. Her clothes in Sex and the City 2 were the nicest clothes I've ever seen. She's no longer defensive and angry; she's empathetic and fun.
I care far more for Miranda than Scary Carrie with her strange baby voice, or Silly Charlotte who ices buns with her children while wearing vintage couture, or even my previous favourite Samantha - who has become a caricature of herself.
I might even manage now to eat breakfast with Miranda, should she ever care to invite me.

with my lazy eye

Lucy Bastonme had a privileged 'West Brit' Dublin 4 upbringing. There was a holiday cottage in Connemara, tennis lessons and Mum baking profiteroles when friends came over for dinner... Lucy's dad was a VIP - so respected the family were given seats right at the front when Pope John Paul came to Ireland in 1979.
Yet this is misery memoir - it's angry, directionless; fatalistic. Lucy hates her life. And judging by the way she behaves I'm guessing she hates herself too.
Here she is, not yet twenty:
Abandoned one morning, I balanced in the listing bed - hung-over, make-up smeared, smelling of sex - and felt around for the remote control. I dully flicked through the channels, nothing on: cartoons, Mass, football, Mass. The layout of the church looked familiar. I sat up, tickled when I recognised Alison Hampton and her family sitting in a tidy row and Father Perry preaching from the altar. The cameras panned to the next reader approaching the podium: a woman in a tweed suit and scarf making self-consciously slow progression. Shoulders back, chin slightly raised, she adjusted her microphone, and in an accent more Anglo-Saxon than ever, my mother began reading. I got up and ran myself a bath. What was I doing with my life?

In Cold Blood

Before reading In Cold Blood may I suggest you watch the 2006 movie Infamous? They work so well together, for the movie stops where the book begins - the final scenes in the movie are of Truman Capote at a cramped desk writing...
In the movie: "What starts out as the irreverent journey of the openly gay writer Truman Capote to the middle-class world of 1950's Kansas, where he goes--with his childhood friend Harper Lee--to research the murder of the Clutter family, turns to something altogether darker when Capote forms an intense and complex relationship with one of the murderers...."
Well, I'd never have guessed from the book alone that Capote was a gay man, or that he fell in love with Perry Smith. There's no trace of the author's private life in it. Or his personal feelings. Until I watched the movie I assumed In Cold Blood was kind to the killers because Capote had spent time with them, and got to know them as people; and that the dead Clutter family were harder to write because he never met them...
Now I realise the book is not a disinterested reconstruction of heinous mass murder and 'how the bad boys were caught'; instead it is a love letter and an apology to Perry Smith - for though Capote may have been in love with him, it didn't stop him bleeding Smith dry to get what he wanted for his book.

A Hot Potato

We were flying back to Bahrain. We weighed the suitcases to make sure they were less than 21KG. Just for a laugh I got on. To discover I weigh 7Kg more than a month ago- a month ago I weighed myself when we were packing the suitcases to travel to Ireland...
How did I gain this extra weight?
There's no point pretending I don't know.
For a month I've been induging in potato bread and fried eggs for breakfast, baked potatoes and butter for lunch, fish and chips from the chipper for tea. That's three sets of spuds every day. And it's a sad but true fact that the more spuds you eat, the more like a potato you look...

Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

Since the children quit school for the summer I've been dashing into Bahrain's one bookshop to seek out light-weight, escapist reading. I desire short sentences with no introspection as I cannot settle while the children are bickering and bouncing on beds; they can't go outside to play since it's 45 degrees in the shade. The solution, of course, is to get them reading, too, so I dragged them down to the bookshop and in the children's books section I discovered a curious thing; many internationally successful children's books are written by Irish men - John Boyne, Darren Shan, Derek Landy... and this week splashed all over the shop is Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex.
I'd never read an Artemis Fowl and this is the ninth book about him but I didn't allow that to put me off. I plunged straight in and I'm delighted to tell you The Atlantis Complex is so cleverly written there's no need for back story or explanations..
So, who is Artemis Fowl? He is, to quote himself, 'a child prodigy from Ireland who has dedicated his brilliant mind to criminal activities. His mother says: 'People are afraid of you, Arty. Girls are terrified of you. You're a fifteen year old in bespoke suit and nobody died."
Not a regular boy then? Well, no for 'Arty' is away with the fairies.
In The Atlantis Complex he has summoned the fairies to Iceland to demonstrate his latest invention to save the world from global warming. The Ice Cube shoots out nano wafers -each one 'smart enough to know which way is up when it hits the surface and configures itself to insulate the ice and reflect the sun.'
Sounds great except the fairies find it hard to believe Artemis might care for the environment; the Artemis they know is notorious for extortion and kidnapping. Also he's not himself - he's got galloping paranoia and is obsessed with the number five. Could he be suffering from Atlantis Complex - a mental illness caused by too much magic and a guilty conscience?
Meanwhile, imprisoned deep in Atlantis (second city of Fairyland) disgraced Captain Turnbull Root has been patiently working on a escape plan. Thanks to a gullible prison warden and a brainwashed personal guard his cell is full of sophisticated computer equipment. Root hacks into the command centre of a fairy space shuttle on its way to Mars and the shuttle changes course. It lands in Iceland to kill the fairies who are meeting with Artemis Fowl then dives into the ocean, heading fast and hard to Atlantis.
Captain Holly Short and Foaly a centaur survive the attack, as does Artemis. Under normal circumstances Artemis would now hatch a cunning and ruthless plan to recapture the hijacked shuttle but unfortunately Artemis is not himself - he's suffering phase 2 of Atlantis Complex; an alter ego, Orion, has taken over his consciousness. Orion is a lovely boy, not a bit cunning or ruthless and when appealed to for help he suggests they build a bivouac and wait to be rescued.
I have heard the Artemis Fowl books described as 'Die Hard with Fairies'
but such a description does not do them justice. I have never before been so seduced and convinced by the imaginary world Eoin Colfer creates.
VERDICT: There is nothing lightweight about Artemis Fowl. Prepare to be mesmerised.