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Chelsea Girls - A Novel of Mary Quant and Swinging London
By Catherine Lloyd
Advance Reader Copy from bookbrowse.com

Chelsea Girls, set against the backdrop of a nation grappling with the aftermath of World War II, spans the period from 1951 through the early 1970s—an unprecedented era of change in the long-established structural hierarchies of British life. Shifts in attitudes, hopes, fears, needs, and wants rattled the English establishment and its inherent, traditional social mores. These were the decades that brought us rock music, teddy boys, mods and rockers, punks, and, of course, a corresponding transformative revolution in women’s fashion, pioneered and led by Mary Quant. Turbulent times indeed, especially in the ‘rag trade.’

Chelsea Girls uses the voices of three fictional characters to tell the story. Chrissie Walker is from a middle-class family and meets Mary as a fellow student at London’s Goldsmiths College of Art in the early 1950s, where they both study art and illustration, and later becomes the manager of ‘Bazaar,’ Mary Quant’s first clothing store on Chelsea’s King's Road, dashing the hopes of her teacher parents that she follow them into that chosen profession. Daphne is the daughter of an upper-class, aristocratic English family, and to her mother’s horror, also worked at Bazaar before later modeling for Mary Quant. Fern, also a model, is the daughter of a working-class family from London’s East End and faces the same level of criticism and disapproval from her parents regarding her chosen profession as does Daphne. All three protagonists are in their late teens when the reader first meets them.

Catherine Lloyd’s compelling storytelling style in this expository, fast-paced, flowing novel aptly mirrors the creation and rapid expansion of the Mary Quant brand on both sides of the Atlantic; all woven with a rollercoaster of personal highs and lows that such precipitous growth often brings. Lloyd’s three fictional characters are far more than just props to support or punctuate a Mary Quant timeline. Each is a fleshed out, well-rounded protagonist dealing with their own life demands and aspirations. As their widely differing family backgrounds emerge, we come to learn about their interactions with each other, their individual hopes, strengths, and vulnerabilities, their work at various Quant ventures, and their respective romantic interests.

Readers familiar with Mary Quant and those mid-century decades will find Chelsea Girls a perfect source for reviving and reliving memories, and maybe even fill in some memory blanks. For those unacquainted with that era and Mary Quant, but intrigued, there could hardly be a better introduction.

Victims of sexual abuse carry the scars for the remainder of their lives, while the disturbing emotional shrapnel emanating from those explosive events impact the perpetrators' unwitting family members; their spouses, their children, their partners, sometimes even into their extended family, upending their lives in perpetuity, both for them and often into the next generation. Such is the dark and dour premise of John Boyne's latest novel, ‘The Elements.’

What may a reader derive from the novel’s four hundred-plus pages on such a doom-laden and emotive premise? Anger and outrage? Indeed, distaste and disgust? Certainly, and many other related reactions. How could there possibly be any pleasure, serenity, or even humor in the telling of such a story without trivializing the underlying premise? Sufficient to say that John Boyne’s flowing, optimally paced narrative delivers the reader such a comprehensive range of emotions. Structured as four novellas, each titled as an element (water, earth, fire, air) and laced with the interconnecting stories of the lives of victims and their families over the span of a generation, John Boyne's profound storytelling serves the reader with drama, introspection, and even, sometimes, humor. In Summary, a compelling, sensitive, and powerful novel.

Eilis (pr. “eye-lish”) Lacy studies bookkeeping at a vocational school in her small hometown of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, where she lives with her mother and her sister, Rose. Set in the years following World War II, however, employment opportunities are scarce, not only in Enniscorthy but throughout Ireland. With help from Father Flood, an Irish priest based in Brooklyn, USA, during a visit to Enniscorthy, and with encouragement from Rose, her older sister, Eilis sails for America, where lodging and a job at a Brooklyn department store await her.

Tóibín’s flowing narrative vividly brings to life Eilis’s life in Ireland and, later, her first impressions of Brooklyn, her work at the department store, her study of American accountancy, and her developing romantic relationship with Tony, whom she meets at a dance, one of four brothers in an Italian immigrant family. Tragic news from Enniscorthy, however, brings Eilis back to Ireland, where complications and contradictions create new challenges that force decisions in her life.

Tóibín delivers well-rounded protagonists, cleverly and authentically blending the predictable and the planned with the doubt and surprise that their young lives encounter, as they navigate their own emotions and perspectives, threading their way, sometimes cautiously, sometimes not, through the many turns their lives throw at them, whether by their own emotions or desires or by the world in which they both move.

This Is Happiness – Niall Williams
At seventeen, Noel Crowe, often known as Noe, is on the cusp of adulthood when he returns to his hometown of Faha to live with his grandparents, known as Ganga and Doady. Christy, a man in his sixties employed by the Irish electric utility company, arrives to arrange property easements for the sighting of utility poles and cables, which will at last bring the long-promised ‘electric’ to the small, remote village of Faha in the west of Ireland, becoming a lodger with Ganga and Doady, and Noe’s roommate.

Noe, in whose voice the story is told, seeks escape from a Dublin seminary and a prior commitment he now regrets, to join the priesthood; while Christy seeks forgiveness from a lover he wronged many years before.

Set in an unexpected, prolonged period of blue skies and sunshine over the usually rain-soaked Faha, Niall Williams' lucid, eloquent prose draws the reader deep into Faha’s community, its people, and their many quirks and foibles. Noe and Christy undergo changes in their respective outlooks towards their lives and the lives of others. While Christy seeks to repair a jilted love, Noe begins to experience for the first time an irrational, often unbounded love. Noe’s emerging penchant for playing the fiddle is encouraged by Christy, and they search for the legendary blind fiddle player, Junior Crahearn, taking the reader into the world of traditional Irish music in the pubs and bars of Faha, where such music could be heard, and brought so vividly to life by Williams' moving and all-encompassing descriptive scenes.

I am not an avid reader or follower of true crime stories, but it surely comes as no surprise that the extensive media coverage of the bizarre complexities of the Murdaugh trial and the events leading to it caught my attention. James Lasdun, an author whose works I have not previously read, offers a detailed, lucid, and highly readable account of the many events leading up to and including the trial where Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.

James Lasdun, a New York City resident of British origin, spent much time in South Carolina's Low Country before, throughout, and after the trial, speaking with friends and adversaries, associates, neighbors, and others with any manner of connection to the Murdaugh family and paints vivid pictures of the life of Alex Murdaugh and his years of deception, embezzlement, opioid addiction prior to his ultimate arrest for the murders.

The core story of perpetrator Murdaugh, his victims, leading up to and including his trial, is followed by Lasdun's own thoughtful and again, well-researched insights into the questions posed. Was the jury's guilty verdict correct, or could Murdaugh, with all his faults, be innocent? Given that Murdaugh was guilty, what psychological pressures and derangements could have been at play, not only concerning the murders, but equally regarding the stolen funds and his severe addiction? Was Murdaugh truly a "family annihilator?"

I thoroughly recommend "The Family Man." Certainly to true crime aficionados, but also to the curious, who, like me, appreciate a thoroughly researched and well-written, logically structured true account of a real-life topic, that Lasdun describes at one point as an "inkblot of murk."

Author Zayed Ayers Dohrn, born in 1977, spent the first few years of his life in the 'Weather Underground' when his parents, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, with help from friends and associates, went underground, travelling between safe houses and other off-the-grid locations, to evade arrest by the FBI.

Dohrn, now in his late 40s, combines his own memories and experiences of the times with those of his parents, and wide-ranging interviews he collected from an extensive network of former revolutionary contacts accumulated over the decades, from organizations such as The Weathermen, The Black Liberation Army, The Black Panthers, and others. The result is an informative, concise, and engaging narrative of revolutionary movements and activists in the United States from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s of the 20th century.

Zayd Dohrn, who, as an adult, chose to become a writer rather than a revolutionary, employs his notable literary skills to produce a compelling, exceptionally readable, and flowing story that brings to life the turmoil of those decades and the lives of individuals and entities. Dohrn continues the timeline into the twenty-first century, updating the reader on the fate of many of the militant activists involved.

He adds his own astute perspective on those past decades, which include two thought-provoking definitions of the word revolution: "a sudden, radical, or complete change; or a progressive motion of a body around an axis so it returns to its initial position."
In summary, an inspiring, informative, highly readable page-turner that examines a significantly unsettled period of American history in some detail.

A Land So Wide by New York Times best-selling author Erin A. Craig is the story of a Scottish settlement of Mistaken on the northeast Canadian coast, surrounded by "Warding Stones" to protect the inhabitants from the shape-shifting, blood-drinking monsters, the Bright-Eyeds. Female protagonist and Mistaken inhabitant, Greer Mackenzie's desire to marry her long-time lover, Ellis Beaufort, is thwarted by her Father, Hessel, who banishes Ellis to an almost certain death beyond the Warding Stones, and Greer sets off in search of her lover.

Erin Craig's world-building provides an engaging account of Mistaken, its inhabitants, and the monsters living in the lands beyond the Warding Stones. A little less than halfway through the story, Greer Mackenzie takes off on her own to search for Ellis, travelling past the Warding Stones and into the lands beyond with all their dangers, both known and unknown. The pace of the story quickly transitions from an interesting intrigue into a dramatic, page-turning frenzy of threats, danger, and unforeseen plot twists.

The world-building in the first 150 pages, while both informative and essential, I found its pace a little slow, the writing carrying less depth and flow than I personally would prefer. As is the author's descriptions of physical reactions to sensory events, which I found unduly repetitive, chewing the inside of one's cheek being among the top scorers in that respect.

Although described as 'Adult' as opposed to 'YA', the genre of Craig's four previous novels, I am sure YA readers of fantasy will certainly enjoy this one. There are but three sexual scenes, so delicate, proper, and in no way explicit, raising perhaps only a giggle or nudge from a few young pubescent teen readers. I certainly recommend A Land So Wide to any reader of fantasy novels, along with all fans of Erin Craig's previous works.

Angelica – For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution

The captivating story of Angelica Schuyler Church, driven by Molly Beer's eloquent, vivid narrative and rooted in her extensive research, illuminates the often-unforgiving exposé of Angelica's extended family and friends, politicians, and nations amid the ever-shifting hopes and fortunes of the time. Changes not only in the colonies of the New World and the War of Independence, but also across the Atlantic, where England, France, and Spain were constantly subject to fluctuating allegiances, alliances, and interests. As the War of Independence dragged on, we hear how the 'factionalism, regionalism, individual ambitions, and contrasting objectives splintered the delicate unity of shared purpose'.

Following the treaty with the English that ended the war, Angelica spent most of the following fourteen years both travelling between and living in England and France. She witnessed the beginnings of the French Revolution and the subsequent demise of the American-French alliance, ultimately resulting in closer and what would become long-lasting ties between England and its former American colonies. Support for freedom, justice, and liberty, not only for men, but for women and the enslaved, as espoused by Angelica and made so lucid in Ms. Beer's writing, continues to this day.