Gerontius by James Hamilton-Paterson (Faber, £9.99)
This Whitbread-winning novel was originally published in 1989, and it’s well worth getting hold of this reissue if you missed it first time around. Gerontius is inspired by a real-life cruise up the Amazon taken by Edward Elgar in 1923, by which time he felt his creative energies had left him. He was grieving for his late wife and disillusioned by the world emerging from the ashes of the First World War. From this set-up, Hamilton-Paterson weaves a brilliant and believable characterisation of an Elgar who is pompous, bitter and yet, thrust into an unfamiliar situation, capable of great charm. His destination is the town of Manaos, which boasts an opera house and also turns out to be the home of a woman to whom he once proposed. For all Hamilton-Paterson’s artistic licence, Gerontius feels like it’s opening a window on to the personality and very Victorian character of the composer. Furthermore, it’s distinguished by some very elegant prose.
Memoirs Of A Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada (Portobello, £12.99)
Quite what the Japanese/German author is trying to do here isn’t always apparent, but it’s resulted in an immersive, intriguing work of fiction. It’s the story of three generations of polar bears, starting with the unnamed matriarch, who retires from the circus to work in an office and inadvertently writes a best-selling autobiography. Later, her daughter, Tosca, also joins a circus, performing a nightly tango routine with her trainer, Barbara, that famously ends in a kiss. Then, there’s Tosca’s cub, Knut, who is more or less adopted by a human. Interestingly, after opening with a talking, literate polar bear, the book roots itself more solidly in the real world as it approaches the present day (Tosca can only communicate with Barbara through dreams, while Knut can’t talk to humans at all). It’s a haunting device that gets us to consider the different worlds inhabited by succeeding generations while Tawada poses further questions about language, immigration and the relationships between humans and animals.
The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon (Vintage, £8.99)
It’s slightly surprising that the author of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time has taken until now to publish a short story collection, as it’s a form he’s strikingly good at. But be warned: these are dark tales of death, depression, violence and trauma in which the narrators often prefer to keep a detached distance. Nevertheless, a hint of humanity and compassion can’t help creeping in. The title story describes the collapse of Brighton Pier in excruciating detail, and elsewhere two boys find a gun, a man eats himself to death, astronauts are stranded on Mars and a daughter caring for her sick mother finds she’s just making her worse. Sixty pages is given over to “Wodwo”, in which a Christmas family gathering is disrupted by violence. These are bold, eventful, full-blooded stories, intended as an alternative to what Haddon calls the “beige” tendency. But they’re carefully constructed for all that, often borrowing old forms to tell new stories.
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