BOOK OF THE MONTH
We Are Together Because, Kerry Andrew, Atlantic Books, £16.99, March 7
HOW many strings does any one person need to their bow? Kerry Andrew seems to have enough to form a string quartet. A composer with a PhD from University of York, Andrew has written music for London Sinfonietta and the Ligeti Quartet and had music performed by everyone from the Hilliard Ensemble and Southbank Sinfonia to the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Andrew is also a distinctive alt-folk singer/songwriter under the You Are Wolf moniker. Their last album hare // hunter // moth // ghost saw collaborations with Sam Lee and author and academic Robert Macfarlane and dealt with themes of transformation and metamorphosis inspired by Andrew’s transition to a non-binary identity whilst also dealing with chronic illness.
And did I mention Andrew is a pretty decent writer? March sees the publication of Andrew’s third novel, We Are Together Because. It may be their best book yet.
The sales line goes:“A novel of sex, siblings and the end of the world,” which is a pretty decent summary. It begins, though, as a domestic idyll as four young people are spending the summer at their father’s house in rural France. Luke and Connor don’t really know their dad as he left their mother before Connor was even born. They don’t really know their half-sisters Thea and Violet either. The first half of the novel watches how all four interact under the shadow of the absent father.
Frankly, I would have been happy if this was how the whole novel played out; a sun-dazzled, heat-heavy throb of domesticity, desire and disconnection. But Andrew then pulls a significant gear-change that takes us into a new dystopian reality. It is elegantly done and the threat is beautifully, hazily realised. But what carries through both halves of the novel is the finely drawn characterisation and sense of place and the agility of the writing which sketches out both ideas and emotions with vivid grace. The result is an unsettling page-turner that constantly rattles with tension. Proof that Andrew knows exactly which strings to pull.
Freaks Out! Luke Haines, Nine Eight Books, £22, March 28;
The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White, Omnibus Press, £16.99, out now
What’s the funniest music memoir? Answers on a postcard, but both of these books deserve to be chart entries at the very least. Little Richard’s authorised biography was originally published in the mid-1980s and it’s a wild, libidinous agitation of a book; one that will make you wish you had been around to see Charles Penniman in his pomaded pomp. Told in the first person, Little Richard’s story is one torn between faith and the flesh. It’s fair to say that in this book the flesh tends to win out. It’s an at times shockingly frank account.
But it’s also a book that is charged with the same delirious, fizzing energy as Little Richard himself. A sugar hiccup of a book that is not unaware of the racism and homophobia faced by its author but powers through both because of the strength of Little Richard’s character. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom.
Meanwhile, Luke Haines, sometime front man of The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, brings a bolshy, take-no-prisoners attitude to his new book Freaks Out! A celebration of the outsider in rock ’n’ roll, Freaks Out! Is part memoir, part manifesto, full-on funny rant celebrating the likes of Gene Vincent, Hank Marvin, Billie Eilish and British wrestling in the 1970s while having a go at football, Prince and the myth of male genius. Any book which includes chapter titles like “How the Beatles ruined everything for everyone ever” is not messing about.
This Prince fan in me loved it in all its snarling hilarity.
Barcelona, Mary Costello, Canongate, £16.99, March 7
The short story collection of this month is this gather-up of stories by Irish author Mary Costello. A reminder of the vibrancy of Irish fiction in the 21st century, New Yorker contributor Costello here offers up a collection of quiet domestic horror stories full of fear and love and pain and the unknowability of other people. In The Choc Ice Man a woman accompanies an undertaker carrying the body of her dead brother home from Dublin to Kerry. In the title story a marriage falls apart over a few pages. In The Killing Line the terror of the abattoir is front and centre. These are dark, painful stories told with a great elegance that will haunt you for days after.
The Vinyl Detective: Noise Floor, Andrew Cartmel, Titan Books, £9.99, March 19;
Double Proof, Martin Stewart, Polygon, £9.99, March 7
If ITV or the BBC need a new Sunday-night prime-time crime drama they really should give Andrew Cartmel a call. His Vinyl Detective series seems the perfect vehicle for anyone wanting a 21st-century reboot of Lovejoy or The Beiderbecke Affair. The title character is a record connoisseur who earns a living hunting out rare records - a role that invariably seems to draw him into murder mysteries alongside his girlfriend Nevada, his sex-obsessed mate Tinkler and the object of his lust, cabbie driver Clean Head. Noise Floor, the seventh book in the series, sees our heroes hired to track down a 1990s electronic dance musician. Rave on.
Meanwhile, children’s and YA Scottish novelist Martin Stewart makes his crime fiction debut this month with Double Proof, which, as the title suggests, is set in the world of whisky and takes in gangsters, bent cops, Japanese yakuza and a “psychic crimebuster”. Far-fetched? A little. But it’s a fun ride.
The Book of Wild Flowers, Angie Lewin & Christopher Stocks, Thames & Hudson, £16.99, March 21
The artist Angie Lewin and author Christopher Stocks here follow up The Book of Pebbles with this celebration of British wild flowers. A perfect present for anyone waiting for spring to make its appearance.
Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues, Ross Perlin, Grove Press, £12.99, March 7
At a time when someone as ignorant as Donald Trump can come out and describe non-English languages as “horrible”, this is a welcome reminder of the importance and vibrancy of the crisscross of languages at work in a multicultural city, in this case New York.
Easy Wins: 12 flavour hits, 125 delicious recipes, 365 days of good eating, Anna Jones, Fourth Estate, £28, March 14
In her new book Anna Jones takes 12 key ingredients and explains how they can be used to conjure up “easy wins” when cooking. For those of us who usually score at least three own goals over the hob, that's hard to believe. But here’s hoping.
Mona of the Manor, Armistead Maupin, Doubleday, £20, March 7
And finally, March sees the tenth book in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series, which, like its author, is now resident in the UK.
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